PA Daily News | Silver's market capitalization jumps to third place among global assets; Flow suffers $3.9 million loss due to hacker attack.

Today's top news highlights:

1. Macroeconomic Outlook for Next Week: Fed Minutes to Focus Amid Low Liquidity

2. Silver's market capitalization surpasses Apple's, ranking third among global assets.

3. Analyst: Historically, Bitcoin's correlation with US stocks and gold has deviated, and the last time this occurred, the price of BTC increased tenfold.

4. Flow suffered a $3.9 million loss due to a hacker attack; user deposits were unaffected.

510 million UNI tokens, worth $596 million, have been burned from the Uniswap treasury.

6. Bitmine staked 343,000 ETH within two days, worth $1 billion.

Macro

Macroeconomic Outlook for Next Week: Fed Minutes to Focus Amid Low Liquidity

Despite the Christmas holidays in overseas markets, gold, silver, and platinum prices all surged to record highs, extending the historic year-end rally in precious metals. Looking ahead to next week, with New Year's Day approaching and no major macroeconomic data releases expected, global financial markets will remain in a state of extremely low liquidity, with trading volumes anticipated to be significantly lower than normal. The real start to 2026's rally may not arrive until the second week of January. Here are the key points the market will be focusing on in the coming week:

The Federal Reserve will release the minutes of its monetary policy meeting at 3:00 AM on Tuesday.

At 21:30 on Wednesday, the number of initial jobless claims in the United States for the week ending December 27 will be released.

The final reading of the US S&P Global Manufacturing PMI for December will be released at 22:45 on Friday.

With Christmas and New Year's Day approaching, no Federal Reserve officials will speak next week, as will other major central banks. The most anticipated event will be the release of the Fed's December meeting minutes. These minutes will be closely watched by investors hoping to glean any clues about the timing of the Fed's next rate cut and the extent of inflation concerns among policymakers who voted to keep rates unchanged. Choosing someone who can reach a consensus within the deeply divided Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is crucial. However, regardless of who Trump chooses, the new Fed chair will almost certainly be more dovish than Powell, thus the announcement may pose less risk to the market.

Silver's market capitalization surpasses Apple's, ranking it third among global assets.

According to data from 8marketcap, silver's market capitalization has surpassed that of Apple, making it the third largest asset in the world by market value.

Instagram influencer Andrew Tate is suspected of involvement in cryptocurrency money laundering activities, having deposited $30 million into Railgun over the past two years.

On-chain analyst Specter published an article on the X platform stating that crypto KOL and Instagram influencer Andrew Tate may be involved in crypto money laundering activities, with his associated wallet depositing $30 million into Railgun over the past two years. Specter obtained Andrew Tate's wallet address through a screenshot of a private message he posted on June 9, 2024, and traced it to a Texas "pig butchering" scam case. Although Andrew Tate was not named as a defendant in the case, the fund flows in the associated wallet were highly suspicious, exhibiting common money laundering techniques, including small and large transfers through nested services and high-risk exchanges.

Opinion

Analysis: Strategy's fundraising will prioritize paying dividends and debt interest rather than purchasing more BTC, indicating a strategic shift towards a defensive approach.

Recent analysis indicates that Strategy&'s stock price remains low, and the Bitcoin premium is declining. The crucial decision regarding whether Strategy& will be removed from the MSCI index in January is fast approaching. Against this backdrop, Strategy& is adopting a "defensive mode," having recently built a cash buffer of approximately $2.2 billion to withstand the test of Bitcoin betting. This funding is expected to be used to pay preferred stock dividends and debt interest rather than to purchase more Bitcoin.

Coinbase CEO: The Genius Act will not be amended; this is Coinbase's red line.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong posted on the X platform that banks are lobbying Congress to amend the Genius Act. Coinbase will not allow anyone to amend the act; this is Coinbase's red line, and they will continue to protect the interests of their customers and the cryptocurrency industry. Armstrong added that he personally predicts that in a few years, once banks realize the enormous business opportunities presented by stablecoins, they will change their stance and lobby Congress to allow stablecoins to pay interest and yields. Therefore, what they are doing now is completely futile (and unethical), and the innovator's dilemma remains constant.

It is understood that the current Genius Act requires stablecoin issuers not to offer stablecoin rewards, but trading intermediary platforms such as Gemini, Coinbase, and Kraken can, and this has already been incorporated into the existing legislation. If traditional bankers amend the law to prohibit such behavior, it will stifle stablecoin innovation.

Analysis: The cryptocurrency and precious metals markets are exhibiting a rare "divergent trend," which may not be solely driven by risk aversion.

According to Forbes, since hitting its all-time high in October, Bitcoin and crypto assets as a whole have seen a significant decline. Bitcoin's price is currently hovering around $90,000 per coin, a drop from its all-time high of $126,000. Meanwhile, gold, silver, and US stocks have accelerated their upward trend towards the end of the year, creating a rare "split" market. This situation is not simply driven by risk aversion, but more likely a "strategic response" by institutions and funds to the global monetary system. Ramnivas Mundada, Head of Economic and Corporate Research at GlobalData, predicts that with global central banks continuously adjusting their reserve structures and reducing their reliance on dollar assets, the de-dollarization process will accelerate. He anticipates that gold could rise further by 8%-15% in 2026, while silver could rise by 20%-35%.

Analysts: Historically, Bitcoin's correlation with US stocks and gold has deviated, and the last time this occurred, the price of BTC increased tenfold.

Crypto analyst Plan B wrote on the X platform that Bitcoin's price correlation with US stocks and gold has deviated. This has happened before in history, when Bitcoin was below $1,000 but then its price rose tenfold. Although price correlation is not absolute and the current market situation may be different, time will tell.

In response, another analyst, Willy Woo, stated that the Mt. Gox theft at the end of 2013 put pressure on Bitcoin prices, and the block size debate in 2014 triggered a sell-off by whales. The question now is whether investors will view quantum computing as an obstacle on par with the "block size debate."

Coinbase report: The crypto market is shifting towards structural drivers; three sectors will dominate the crypto market.

A recent report from Coinbase Institutional indicates that the crypto market is shifting from traditional boom-bust cycles to a model driven by structural forces, with activity increasingly concentrated in a few key areas. These areas will dominate the crypto market in 2026 and shape the industry's long-term future. Coinbase predicts the three dominant areas to be: perpetual futures, prediction markets, and stablecoins and payments.

Project Updates

SlowMist Cosine: Debot-related users' private keys were stolen; hackers have currently profited $255,000 and are continuing to steal.

Yu Xian, founder of SlowMist, posted on the X platform that he is following up on the DeBot incident and monitoring the on-chain situation. He stated that private keys belonging to Debot users have been stolen, and the hackers have currently profited $255,000 and are continuing their thefts. If you are using Debot and your private key is distributed by Debot, then that private key is at risk.

Flow suffered a $3.9 million loss due to a hacker attack, but user deposits were unaffected.

The Flow Foundation announced that on December 27, attackers exploited a vulnerability in the Flow execution layer to transfer approximately $3.9 million in assets off-network before validators could execute a coordination stop operation. This attack did not affect existing users' balances; all users' deposits remain intact.

The protocol fix has been developed and released, and node operators are coordinating the deployment of this upgrade. The network will roll back to the checkpoint before the exploit to remove unauthorized transactions.

100 million UNI tokens, worth $596 million, have been burned from the Uniswap treasury.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin, after Uniswap's fee burning proposal was passed the day before yesterday, 100 million UNI (US$596 million) were burned from the Uniswap treasury at 4:30 AM today. According to the proposal, subsequent fees collected by Uniswap will also be used for UNI burning.

The protocol fix proposed by the Flow Foundation has been unanimously agreed upon by validators and successfully deployed.

Flow announced that the protocol fix (Mainnet-28) proposed by the Flow Foundation has been unanimously agreed upon by network validators and successfully deployed. Current network status: The network is online and producing blocks, but is in "idle/read-only" mode; regular transaction commits (ingestions) remain suspended.

Trust Wallet CEO: We have received over 2,630 claims and are expediting their processing.

Trust Wallet CEO Eowync.eth posted an update on the browser extension incident: the forensic investigation is still ongoing, and Google has responded that it has escalated the support ticket. He hopes to receive the Chrome Web Store review logs soon. Furthermore, the remote worker's device is en route to the security team for further examination.

The extension will now alert affected users when it detects a compromised wallet on their device, urging them to immediately migrate and abandon the old wallet to prevent further losses. Therefore, if you see this banner alert in the extension, please take immediate action. If you do not see the banner alert, your device is functioning normally and no action is required.

Trust Wallet's primary mission is to ensure that compensation is distributed to the right people. Verifying ownership while filtering out fraudsters and hackers is highly complex, thus processing requests takes longer than affected users anticipate. They are improving their tools and processes and developing new extended features to enhance accuracy.

Trust Wallet has received over 2,630 claims and expense reports, more than ten times its usual volume. Claims range from $1.05 million to $3.5 million. Its customer support team is currently experiencing a workload far exceeding previous levels, but is making every effort to process claims as quickly as possible and is actively seeking more support staff.

Important data

Bitmine staked 343,000 ETH in two days, worth $1 billion.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, Bitmine continues to move ETH into staking, and in the past two days, Bitmine has staked 342,560 ETH (US$1 billion).

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a net outflow of $276 million in a single day, marking the sixth consecutive day of net outflows.

According to SoSoValue data, on December 26th (Eastern Time), Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net outflow of $276 million.

The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest net outflow on December 26 was BlackRock ETF IBIT, with a single-day net outflow of $193 million. Currently, IBIT's total historical net inflow has reached $62.056 billion.

The second largest outflow was from the Fidelity ETF FBTC, which saw a net outflow of $74.3756 million in a single day. The total historical net inflow for FBTC is currently $12.098 billion.

As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $113.53 billion, with an ETF net asset ratio (market capitalization as a percentage of Bitcoin's total market capitalization) of 6.49%, and a historical cumulative net inflow of $56.625 billion.

Ethereum spot ETFs saw a net outflow of $38.6989 million in a single day, marking the third consecutive day of net outflows.

According to SoSoValue data, on December 26th (Eastern Time), the Ethereum spot ETF saw a total net outflow of $38.6989 million.

The Ethereum spot ETF with the largest net outflow on December 26 was the BlackRock ETF ETHA, with a single-day net outflow of $22.122 million. The total historical net inflow for ETHA is currently $12.602 billion.

The second largest outflow was from the Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHE), which saw a net outflow of $16.5769 million in a single day. ETHE's total historical net outflow has now reached $5.099 billion.

As of press time, the Ethereum spot ETF has a total net asset value of $17.726 billion, an ETF net asset ratio (market capitalization as a percentage of Ethereum's total market capitalization) of 5.01%, and a historical cumulative net inflow of $12.342 billion.

A whale made over $23.4 million from three swing trades of UNI.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi, 100 million UNI tokens have been burned, and the price has once again climbed above $6. A "whale" who profited $21.54 million from three UNI trades since September 2020 sold 662,605 UNI tokens five months ago at a cost of $5.99 and a selling price of $8.82. Although they didn't sell at the peak of around $12, they still made a profit of $1.875 million. This means that the three UNI trades since September 2020 have yielded a total profit of $23.415 million, a 100% success rate.