BC Card completed a stablecoin payment pilot on Dec. 23, enabling foreign users to pay local merchants, BlockBeats reports. The pilot, run with Wavebridge, Aaron Group and Global Money Express, allows users to convert stablecoins from overseas wallets into BC Card digital prepaid cards.

Vitalik said on Dec. 23 that Ethereum maintains a contract size cap to mitigate DoS risk, BlockBeats reports. He noted the EIP-7864 unified binary tree upgrade could remove size limits, but per-byte creation costs now impose an effective cap of around 82KB, with gas and mechanism concerns for very large contracts.

The Bank of Russia is drafting crypto regulations to allow non-qualified investors to purchase digital assets, Bloomberg reported on Dec. 23. On Nov. 26, Ivan Chebeskov said the Finance Ministry and central bank planned a tiered access model. Current rules limit access to "highly qualified" investors only.

Wintermute said in a Dec. 23 market report that Bitcoin's market dominance has moved higher as market structure tightened ahead of the holidays. Internal flow data show major cryptocurrencies are seeing stronger buying interest than selling, with BTC displaying a longer and more stable period of buyer advantage and ETH showing increased year-end buying activity. Institutional flows have been a consistent source of net buying since summer, while retail traders have started rotating out of altcoins and back into major tokens, aligning with the view that BTC tends to lead gains before a subsequent move into altcoins.

Bitcoin traded below $90,000 on Dec. 23 as thin Christmas holiday liquidity, a rally in precious metals and an upcoming record options expiry weighed on the market, BlockBeats reports. Around 300,000 BTC options contracts worth about $23.7B—representing more than half of Deribit's total bitcoin open interest—are set to expire Friday. Deribit Chief Commercial Officer Jean-David Pequignot said the combined BTC and ETH options expiry will reach $28.5B, describing it as record-breaking and roughly double last year's size, with analysts warning the expiry could amplify price swings.

Franklin Templeton announced on Dec. 23 that its XRP spot ETF held 101,552,283.62 XRP as of Dec. 22, marking the first time holdings exceeded 100 million, BlockBeats reports. The holdings were valued at $192,683,271.89. The ETF's total net assets stood at 1.8341 亿美元, with 8,900,000 份 shares outstanding.

U.S.-listed AI data center company Hyperscale Data increased its Bitcoin treasury allocation to approximately $76 million on Dec. 23, PR Newswire reports. Its wholly owned subsidiary Sentinum holds 514.9655 BTC, and the company will deploy an additional $30.5 million to purchase Bitcoin on the open market, targeting a treasury value of $100 million.

Chinese crypto traders are divided over Bitcoin's near-term direction, with some concerned the $90,000 resistance will prove difficult to breach and the market could enter a bear-phase correction, Greeks.live researcher Adam wrote on social media on Dec. 23, BlockBeats reports. Traders are monitoring downside pressure from pre-Christmas liquidity depletion, while persistent squeezing of leveraged long positions is adding to market swings. Overall volatility has dropped to historically low levels.

Binance Alpha will open a new round of airdrop claims at 21:00 Beijing time on Dec. 23 for users holding at least 225 Binance Alpha points, BlockBeats reports citing an official announcement. Claims will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis until the airdrop pool is fully distributed or the campaign ends.