Preliminary Korea Customs Service data show South Korea’s exports rose 6.8% year-on-year during Dec 1–20, with semiconductor shipments up 41.8% and contributing over a quarter of total outbound goods. A late-October tariff deal with the United States capped duties at 15%, including autos retroactive to Nov 1, yet exporters still face currency and inflation pressures.

Uniswap governance has approved the UNIfication proposal after surpassing 40 million votes, paving the way to activate protocol fee switches and launch the upgrade this week. The plan will burn about 100 million UNI from the Foundation’s treasury, reducing circulating supply from 629 million to 529 million and introducing new fee parameters for v2 and v3 pools while aligning Uniswap Labs, the Uniswap Foundation, and on-chain governance.

On December 22, 2025, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson warned that rushing post-quantum cryptography could slow blockchain networks and increase costs. He said the necessary tools exist but are inefficient today, urging developers to track benchmarks including NIST's 2024 standards and DARPA's 2033 decision point.

On December 22, 2025, Michael Saylor signaled that Strategy may be preparing another sizable Bitcoin acquisition, reinforcing the firm's aggressive BTC treasury approach even as its stock faces pressure and index removal risk. The signal appeared while Bitcoin traded near the key $90,000 resistance level, where clustered liquidity and institutional positioning are shaping short-term market behavior. Despite recent volatility and ETF outflows, institutional demand, ETF holdings, and corporate treasuries continue to support Bitcoin around major liquidity zones.

As of December 19, 2025, total crypto market capitalization fell to $2.93 trillion, an eight‑month low that erased 2025 gains. Fear gauges hit "extreme" levels, with Bitcoin swinging between $90,200 and $84,800 and some analysts flagging possible downside toward $10,000.

Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of IOHK and the Cardano blockchain, criticized several of US President Donald Trump's crypto initiatives, including a meme coin and the World Liberty Financial project. He argued these moves risked turning previously bipartisan efforts on US digital asset regulation into a partisan issue and damaging the industry's image in Washington. Hoskinson also claimed many crypto founders stayed silent after being warned that speaking out could jeopardize their access to lawmakers and the legislative process.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined a push for radical simplification of the Ethereum protocol to maintain genuine trustlessness and prevent excessive reliance on a small group of developers. He argues that features such as stateless clients, lightweight nodes, data compression and upgrades like Verkle Trees should reduce hardware demands, support decentralization and align with the previously published Trustless Manifesto.

On December 18, 2025, Ava Labs CBO John Nahas said the network’s future lies in sovereign, purpose‑built chains rather than monolithic block space. He noted nearly 80 Avalanche layer‑one chains are live and more than 100 are in testing, with deployments by Toyota, FIFA, and SMBC aimed at finance, identity, and enterprise workflows.

Bitfinex has removed all trading fees across its exchange, covering spot, margin, derivatives, tokenized securities, and OTC products with immediate effect. The company expects the zero‑fee model to boost liquidity, support financial inclusion, and make it one of the most cost‑effective venues for BTC and other digital assets. At the same time, Solana‑based wallet Phantom has rolled out Phantom Prediction Markets, a Kalshi‑powered feature that lets users trade tokenized positions on real‑world events directly in the app.