The total outstanding U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds reached $30.2 trillion as of November, marking the first time sovereign debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department has exceeded the $30 trillion threshold, according to data released Thursday. This figure has more than doubled since 2018 and represents the primary component of total federal debt, which stood at $38.4 trillion in November including obligations to Social Security trust funds and savings bond holders. The U.S. financed $4.3 trillion through issuance of these three debt categories in 2020 when the fiscal deficit exceeded $3 trillion, according to Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association data. While the deficit has since narrowed to approximately $1.78 trillion for fiscal year 2025, debt interest payments alone reached $1.2 trillion. Citigroup interest rate strategist Jason Williams noted that "the biggest challenge is the interest expense," stating that even if tariff revenues reach $300-400 billion, they would remain far below interest payments on existing debt.

Executives from Citadel Securities, Coinbase, Galaxy and other firms discussed tokenization oversight at the SEC's Investor Advisory Committee meeting on Dec. 5, BlockBeats reports. BlackRock's Samara Cohen, Senior Managing Director and Head of Global Markets Development, said the panel represented "different development paths and perspectives," suggesting "there may be more than one solution." The session followed Citadel Securities' Dec. 4 letter recommending stricter rules for decentralized finance involving tokenized securities, which drew backlash from crypto advocates. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said in prepared remarks: "If we want to drive innovation, investment and job growth in the U.S., we must provide compliant pathways that allow market participants to leverage the unique capabilities of this new technology."

AlphaTON Capital Corp (ATON), a TON token reserve company trading on Nasdaq, filed a $420.69 million shelf registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The proceeds will fund expansion of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing infrastructure to provide computational power for Telegram's Cocoon AI network and support the firm's acquisition strategy targeting revenue-generating companies in the Telegram ecosystem. AlphaTON has identified multiple acquisition targets, including startups focused on payments, content distribution, and blockchain services within The Open Network ecosystem, and will use the capital to build reserves of TON tokens and related digital assets. The company has converted most balance sheet assets into Toncoin and staking positions.

Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 2 network Base introduced a cross-chain bridge connecting to Solana on Dec. 5, according to an official announcement. The infrastructure enables native use of Solana assets on Base and allows Base assets to migrate to Solana, powered by Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) with dual validation from Coinbase and Chainlink nodes. The SOL-USDC liquidity pool on Aerodrome has gone live and trading has commenced.

ETF issuer 21Shares launched a leveraged exchange-traded fund tracking SUI, with the 21Shares 2x Long SUI ETF (ticker: TXXS) approved for trading on Nasdaq on December 5. Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said it is relatively uncommon for the first ETF based on a cryptocurrency to be a leveraged product. TXXS is the 74th cryptocurrency ETF launched this year and the 128th in total, with an estimated 80 more crypto ETFs expected to debut over the next 12 months, Balchunas said.

The cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index rose to 28 on Dec. 5, up from 26 the previous day, Alternative data show. The market remains in "Fear" territory. The index ranges from 0 to 100 and weighs volatility (25%), trading volume (25%), social media sentiment (15%), surveys (15%), Bitcoin dominance (10%), and Google Trends (10%).

JPMorgan analysts lowered their Bitcoin production cost estimate to $90,000 from $94,000, based on electricity pricing of $0.05 per kilowatt-hour, according to a Wednesday report by Managing Director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou and his team. The analysis found high-cost miners face an additional $18,000 in production costs for every $0.01/kWh increase in electricity prices. Downward pressure on Bitcoin prices stems from declining network hashrate and mining difficulty, driven by China's renewed crackdown on private mining and margin compression from lower Bitcoin prices and elevated energy costs forcing high-cost miners outside China to exit. Some high-cost miners have been compelled to sell Bitcoin in recent weeks as elevated electricity prices and lower Bitcoin prices squeeze profitability, with Bitcoin prices continuing to hover below production costs despite the hashrate decline typically benefiting miner revenues.

A BlackRock-linked address received 153.83 BTC worth $14.22 million and 16,930 ETH worth $53.26 million from Coinbase on December 5, Onchain Lens data show. The transfers occurred within a five-hour window, totaling $67.48 million in combined inflows.

A large holder maintains a 20x leveraged long position of 537.83 BTC valued at $49.1 million, currently showing an unrealized loss of $4.49 million after 24 days, Onchain Lens data show. The position's floating loss reached $9.5 million on December 2, but has since narrowed as Bitcoin prices recovered.