The integration will support automated payments and onchain SGD-USD exchange.
XSGD and XUSD have processed more than $18 billion in onchain transactions.
StraitsX operates under MAS regulation and is exploring payments with Grab.
Singapore-based stablecoin issuer StraitsX plans to extend its Singapore dollar-backed XSGD and US dollar-backed XUSD to the Solana blockchain by early 2026.
The move reflects a broader push to place regulated stablecoins at the centre of high-speed blockchain settlement, particularly for payments, digital commerce, and emerging AI-driven use cases.
By tapping into Solana’s low-cost and high-throughput infrastructure, StraitsX aims to make SGD- and USD-denominated transactions more efficient across decentralised finance, institutional flows, and everyday payments.
The expansion also positions the company to meet rising demand for programmable money within interoperable, software-native environments.
Solana integration plans
The rollout was announced in collaboration with the Solana Foundation and detailed in a Tuesday blog post.
Once live, users will be able to settle transactions using XSGD and XUSD directly on Solana, taking advantage of faster settlement times and lower transaction fees.
StraitsX said the integration brings multiple financial functions together on a single blockchain, spanning centralised exchange support, decentralised liquidity pools, lending markets, and consumer payments.
The company views Solana as a suitable base layer to support complex payment flows that require speed and scalability without sacrificing reliability.
Demand from AI and commerce
StraitsX said the expansion is designed to support increasing usage from digital commerce platforms and AI-native applications.
Solana has seen growing adoption for x402-based payments, an interoperability standard that enables automated transactions between software agents.
Both XSGD and XUSD already support the x402 standard natively, and this capability will extend to Solana.
As a result, developers and institutions will be able to deploy automated payment use cases, including onchain foreign exchange between SGD and USD, automated market maker liquidity provisioning, lending protocols, and institutional-grade settlement processes.
Onchain volume and token data
XSGD is already live across multiple blockchains, including Ether, Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Zilliqa, Hedera, and the XRP Ledger.
XUSD is currently available on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain.
XSGD has a market capitalisation of $13 million with a circulating supply of 16.7 million tokens, while XUSD has a market capitalisation of $52 million.
Combined, the two stablecoins have processed more than $18 billion in onchain transaction volume, highlighting their growing role in cross-chain payments and settlement activity.
Regulation and Grab partnership
StraitsX operates as a licensed Major Payment Institution under the Monetary Authority of Singapore stablecoin framework.
Both XSGD and XUSD have been acknowledged by the MAS as compliant with the upcoming stablecoin regulatory framework, according to their white papers.
Separately, the company has moved to explore consumer-facing applications.
Last month, Grab signed an exploratory memorandum of understanding with StraitsX to develop a Web3-enabled settlement layer for Southeast Asia.
Subject to regulatory approval, the initiative would allow Grab users to hold and spend XSGD and XUSD directly within the app, integrating digital wallets, programmable payments, and stablecoin clearing into daily transactions.
Vanguard, the second-largest asset manager in the world, is set to allow its clients to start trading crypto exchange-traded funds and mutual funds on its platform starting Tuesday, reversing its previous stance on digital asset ETFs.
Spurred by persistent retail and institutional demand, Vanguard will permit third-party access to crypto ETFs and mutual funds similar to how the firm treats gold, a Vanguard spokesperson confirmed to Cointelegraph in a statement.
Bloomberg reported that only ETFs that meet regulatory standards will be included, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and Solana (SOL)-related ETFs.
The investment manager told Cointelegraph it has ruled out memecoins as well as creating its own crypto ETFs and mutual funds.
“We serve millions of investors who have diverse needs and risk profiles, and we aim to provide a brokerage trading platform that gives our brokerage clients the ability to invest in products they choose,” the Vanguard spokesperson said.
Vanguard is second only to BlackRock as an asset manager, with over $11 trillion in global assets under management as of January, according to the company’s latest report.
Vanguard had ruled out crypto ETFs due to volatility concerns
Vanguard was previously against offering crypto ETFs on its platform, citing volatility and the speculative nature of the assets.
Its former CEO, Tim Buckley, was also strongly opposed, saying in a May 2024 video that the company doesn’t “believe it belongs, like a Bitcoin ETF belongs in a long-term portfolio of someone saving for their retirement. It’s a speculative asset.”
Buckley announced he was stepping down as CEO in February 2024 and retired at the end of that year.
The company had been against offering crypto ETFs on its platform due to concerns about volatility. Source: Vanguard
Some X users speculate that Vanguard’s policy shift could open the floodgates to new investors and spike crypto prices. Crypto analyst and investor Nilesh Rohilla said he would be surprised if Bitcoin doesn’t jump “5% in this news in the next 24 hrs.”
X user BankXRP said it “is another massive signal that traditional finance is fully stepping into digital assets. The wall of money is lining up.”
Meanwhile, Vivek Sen, the founder of Bitcoin public relations firm Bitgrow Lab, also predicted there are “trillions incoming.”
Cardano is entering a very important phase in its development, as its founding institutions are attempting to deliver the core infrastructure that every major blockchain already treats as standard.
On Nov. 27, a new proposal sought community approval to allocate 70 million ADA tokens (worth about $30 million) to onboard tier-one stablecoins, custody providers, cross-chain bridges, pricing oracles, and institutional analytics.
The effort is backed jointly by Input Output, EMURGO, the Cardano Foundation, Intersect, and the Midnight Foundation, an unusually coordinated coalition for a network often criticized for slow alignment and decentralized drift.
The central message behind this collaboration is unmistakable: Cardano wants to enter 2026 with the economic plumbing it has lacked for years.
Why the Cardano pivot matters
The integrations push arrives at a moment when Cardano’s economic base is still relatively shallow.
For context, DefiLlama data shows that the Charles Hoskinson-led network has about $248 million in TVL and roughly $40 million in stablecoins, as well as a limited pool for lending, liquidity provision, and RWA issuance compared with ecosystems that treat these assets as foundational utilities.
In comparison, Ethereum alone carries more than $170 billion in stablecoins, reflecting the scale gap Cardano is trying to close.
So, without deep stablecoin reserves, liquidity pathways, or institutional tooling, Cardano would continue to struggle to generate the network effects that make a blockchain economically relevant.
While the disruption was resolved quickly, it intensified scrutiny on Cardano’s operational maturity, particularly its limited real-time analytics, monitoring, and other safeguards expected in institutional-grade environments.
The budget set up for the integration aims to systematize the onboarding of top-tier vendors, including milestones, audits, service-level agreements, and transparent delivery tracking.
So, instead of one-off deals or ad hoc negotiations, supporters say the fund would create a formal, accountable pipeline for onboarding the infrastructure Cardano has historically lacked. Tim Harrison, a director at Input Outputs, said:
“This is the kind of unity and focus that will accelerate growth across DeFi, DePIN and RWA.”
Why these integrations might not be sufficient for Cardano
The integrations push comes after Hoskinson had spoken about what truly limits Cardano’s DeFi growth.
Last month, the Cardano founder acknowledged the network’s DeFi gap but pushed back against the notion that landing USDC, USDT, or other fiat-backed stablecoins would “magically” transform adoption.
According to him:
“No one’s ever made the argument and explained how the existence of one of these larger stablecoins is magically going to make Cardano’s entire DeFi problem go away, make the price go up, massively improve our MAUs, our TVL, and all these other things.”
Instead, he points to a behavioral bottleneck by noting that millions of ADA holders participate in staking and governance, but few make the leap into DeFi. He also added that the network faces coordination and accountability challenges.
Hoskinson argued that this creates a classic chicken-and-egg problem, in which the network’s current low liquidity discourages integrations, and the lack of integrations keeps liquidity low.
Considering this, Hoskinson’s roadmap ties the network DeFi growth to Bitcoin interoperability and the Midnight privacy network. He believes these integrations could channel “billions” in volume into Cardano-native stablecoins and lending protocols if executed well.
That framing matters for the new budget.
If the challenge Cardano is facing is organizational, stemming from fragmented efforts, slow vendor onboarding, and the absence of a structured pathway for stablecoins and custody providers, then a community-mandated integrations program could provide the governance mechanism the ecosystem lacks.
However, even with a coordinated onboarding framework, the budget will only shift outcomes if it ultimately mobilizes passive ADA holders into active liquidity and attracts issuers with market makers willing to support real volume.
The 2026 stress test
Next year will test whether Cardano’s governance and new vendor pipeline can translate its integrations budget into measurable economic growth.
So, if even one major fiat-backed stablecoin arrives with market-maker depth, Cardano’s $40 million stablecoin base could plausibly expand into the low-hundreds-of-millions, a range consistent with early adoption phases on other L1s.
Moreover, Cardano’s $248 million DeFi TVL could reach $500 million if the network secures credible custody and analytics platforms. Notably, this is a level at which lending, RWAs, and liquidity routing begin to compound rather than stall.
Without them, liquidity will continue to circulate elsewhere. With them, Cardano enters 2026 with the minimum infrastructure required to compete for regulated DeFi pilots, RWA issuance, and BTC–ADA liquidity flows tied to its Bitcoin interoperability roadmap.
Stablecoin concerns, regulatory pressure, and reduced risk appetite among traders weighed more on Bitcoin than Japan’s bond-market moves.
Reduced confidence in global growth and stress on digital asset reserve companies amplified BTC selling and subsequent stop losses.
Bitcoin (BTC) price dropped sharply on Sunday after failing to overcome $92,000. The slide to $84,000 on Monday wiped out $388 million in bullish leveraged positions, leaving analysts searching for a clear explanation. A mix of factors contributed to the sell-off and pushed traders toward a more cautious stance.
Some analysts quickly tied Bitcoin’s drop to turbulence in the Japanese bond market where yields on 20-year notes climbed to their highest level in 25 years.
Japan 20-year bonds yield (left) vs. Bitcoin/USD (right). Source: TradingView / Cointelegraph
Higher yields generally signal that investors are less willing to buy those bonds at current prices, whether due to concerns about inflation or rising government debt. Although the moves occurred on the same day, drawing a direct link is challenging, especially since the 30-day correlation has fluctuated between positive and negative throughout the year.
Japan’s market stress may also reflect deteriorating global economic expectations. Trader Jim Chanos, famous for predicting the fall of Enron during the dot-com bubble in 1999, highlighted in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance the growing risks tied to GPU-backed debt issued by cloud AI companies.
AI datacenter funding, USD billion. Source: Bofa Global Research
According to Chanos, “a lot of the AI companies […] are just loss-making enterprises right now,” and if this does not change, “there is going to be debt defaults.” The financing trend that uses GPUs as collateral was pioneered by CoreWeave (CRWV US), according to Yahoo Finance, and has been accompanied by Nvidia’s (NVDA US) large investments in the cloud sector.
Regulatory uncertainty adds to crypto market unease
Another source of unease came from the regulatory environment, even if not directly tied to Bitcoin. When traders sense that governments are tightening their stance on cryptocurrencies, many investors become less willing to increase exposure. So, even without direct consequences for Bitcoin itself, overall sentiment can turn negative.
Reuters reported on Saturday that China’s central bank reaffirmed its strict approach toward digital assets, pledging to intensify its crackdown on illegal activity. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) reportedly said that stablecoins “were being used for illegal activities including money laundering, fraud, and unauthorized cross-border fund transfers.”
The 23% Bitcoin price decline over the past 30 days has disrupted how strategic digital-asset reserve companies operate. Until recently, they had strong incentives to issue stock at market prices and use the proceeds to buy Bitcoin, but that approach breaks down once a company trades below its net asset value.
Strategy (MSTR US) CEO Phong Le said in an interview that the company would only consider selling its Bitcoin if mNAV remains depressed and every other funding option has been exhausted. Although fears spread over the weekend, Strategy announced on Monday that it successfully raised $1.44 billion in cash to support dividend payments and service its debt obligations.
Tether (USDT/CNY) vs. US dollar/CNY. Source: OKXt
In parallel, S&P Global Ratings downgraded Tether (USDT) stablecoin reserves to the weakest level possible on Wednesday. USDT soon began trading at a 0.4% discount relative to the official USD/CNY rate in China, signaling moderate selling pressure.
Analysts cited “persistent gaps in disclosure” and “limited information on the creditworthiness of its custodians, counterparties, or bank account providers.” Whether or not the criticism is fully justified, given that Tether does not operate like a traditional bank, the move still hurts cryptocurrency traders’ risk appetite.
Bitcoin’s crash to $84,000 on Monday reflects broader concerns around the stablecoin sector and fading confidence in global economic prospects, rather than any specific issue in Japan’s government bond market.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Top SOL treasury company Forward Industries has appointed Ryan Navi as chief investment officer to oversee the execution of the company’s Solana-focused treasury strategy.
According to Monday’s announcement, Navi will handle sourcing and structuring capital markets opportunities and direct how Forward Industries uses its staking and validator infrastructure to support the accumulation of (SOL), Solana’s native token.
Navi joins Forward Industries after leading digital-asset investments at ParaFi Capital and previously serving as a principal at investment company KKR, where he focused on liquid and distressed credit strategies. He began his career in investment banking at Citi.
Forward Industries, which pivoted from a global design company serving medical and technology companies to launch its treasury strategy in September, is among the companies betting on SOL tokens as part of a crypto treasury strategy.
Top 10 Solana treasury companies. Source: CoinGecko
According to CoinGecko data, Forward currently holds 6,910,568 SOL valued at about $863.5 million, which amounts to slightly more than 1% of the total SOL in circulation.
In October, the company launched its first institutional-grade validator node on the Solana blockchain, expanding its presence in the ecosystem.
Forward authorized in November a $1 billion share repurchase program, allowing the company to buy back shares through open-market purchases, block trades or privately negotiated transactions.
Several Solana-focused treasury companies debuted this year, and some saw their share prices jump sharply following their launch announcements.
In August, shares of Sharps Technology jumped over 96% after the company announced its pivot from a medical device maker to focus on accumulating Solana’s native token.
However, as the price of SOL has fallen by over 30% the past month and is currently trading around $125 per token, many of these companies’ stock prices have reflected the drop.
Solana Co. (HSDT), the second-largest SOL-focused digital asset treasury, declined by nearly 37% over the past 30 days, while shares of DeFi Development Corporation (DFDV) plunged 40% over the same period.
Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin is rapidly expanding on Ethereum rather than the company’s native XRP Ledger (XRPL).
According to CryptoSlate data, RLUSD’s total circulating supply has surged to $1.26 billion within 12 months of its launch. Of this, roughly $1.03 billion, or 82% of the total supply, resides on Ethereum, while the $235 million balance is on XRPL.
Graph showing Ripple RLUSD supply on Ethereum and XRPL from November 2024 to November 2025 (Source: DeFiLlama)
The primary driver of this disparity is the maturity of the underlying financial stack.
On Ethereum, RLUSD entered an environment where dollar liquidity is already entrenched. Data from DeFiLlama confirms that Ethereum continues to lead all chains in total value locked (TVL) and stablecoin supply, providing a turnkey ecosystem for new assets.
So, any new stablecoin that can plug into major DeFi protocols like Aave, Curve, and Uniswap immediately benefits from existing routing engines, collateral frameworks, and risk models.
RLUSD’s presence on Aave and Curve confirms this. The USDC/RLUSD pool on Curve now holds approximately $74 million in liquidity, ranking it among the larger stablecoin pools on the platform.
For institutional treasuries, market makers, and arbitrage desks, this depth is non-negotiable. It ensures low-slippage execution for trades in the tens of millions, facilitating basis trades and yield-farming strategies that drive modern crypto capital markets.
On the other hand, the XRPL is still in the nascent stages of building a DeFi foundation. Its protocol-level automated market maker (AMM) went live only in 2024. So all RLUSD-related pools on the ledger, such as the USD/RLUSD pair created in January 2025, still suffer from shallow depth and limited follow-through.
Moreover, the XRPL AMM design has not yet attracted the liquidity provider density seen in EVM ecosystems.
Critics might argue that RLUSD’s Ethereum supply is merely “vanity metrics,” large sums minted but sitting idle.
However, a deeper analysis of on-chain transfer data refutes this. RLUSD is showing a genuine product-market fit with Ethereum, characterized by high velocity and recurring usage.
According to Token Terminal, weekly RLUSD transfer volume on Ethereum now averages approximately $1.0 billion, a dramatic increase from the $66 million average seen at the start of the year.
Chart showing RLUSD’s trading volume in 2025 (Source: Token Terminal)
The data shows an apparent structural shift of a steady upward trend through the first half of 2025, followed by a “re-basing” to a significantly higher floor in the second half.
Crucially, recent weeks show activity clustering around this elevated level rather than spiking and reverting. In market structure terms, a rising baseline typically signals a transition from a distribution phase to a utility phase.
This implies that the token is being used in ongoing, recurring flows, such as institutional settlement and commercial payments, rather than isolated speculative events.
Transfer counts support this thesis. Weekly transactions on Ethereum now average 7,000, up from 240 in January.
The fact that transfer counts are rising in parallel with volume is a critical health indicator. If volume were rising while counts remained flat, it would suggest a market dominated by a few whales moving massive sums. Instead, the concurrent rise points to broader participation.
Furthermore, the holder data suggest a healthy dispersion of risk. According to data from Etherscan, Ripple’s RLUSD has attracted roughly 6,400 on-chain holders on Ethereum as of late November 2025, up from just 750 at the start of the year.
Graph showing the number of RLUSD holders on Ethereum in 2025 (Source: Token Terminal)
While the supply growth has been driven by “chunky” batch issuances rather than drip minting, the holder count has followed a smooth upward curve.
The friction between RLUSD and XRPL
The structural divergence between the two networks explains why the “permissionless” growth loop has favored Ethereum.
On Ethereum, RLUSD functions as a standard ERC-20 token. Wallets, custodians, accounting middleware, and DeFi aggregators are already optimized for this standard.
Once a protocol like Curve “wires in” a token, it becomes part of the standard dollar-pair universe alongside USDC and USDT, accessible to any address without prior authorization.
On the other hand, XRPL’s design choices, while technically robust, impose significantly higher friction on the user.
To hold RLUSD on the native ledger, users generally must maintain an XRP balance to satisfy reserve requirements and configure a specific trustline to the issuer. If the issuer enables the `RequireAuth` setting, which is a feature designed for strict compliance and granular control, accounts must be explicitly allow-listed before they can receive tokens.
So, while Ripple notes that these features appeal to banks that require explicit control, they act as a brake on organic adoption.
Essentially, the compliance tools that make XRPL attractive to regulated entities are the same features that slow down wallet-to-wallet distribution.
In a market where capital seeks the path of least resistance, the operational burden of trustlines renders XRPL less competitive for the high-frequency, automated flows that define DeFi.
RLUSD’s path to growth
Despite the ledger imbalance, the overall trajectory of RLUSD puts Ripple within striking distance of a major market tier.
Token Terminal has stated that Ripple would cement itself as the third-largest stablecoin issuer globally, behind only the incumbents Tether and Circle, if RLLUSD’s market cap were to grow 10x from current levels.
Considering this, RLUSD’s growth depends heavily on whether Ripple can leverage its Ethereum success to eventually jumpstart its native chain.
A base-case projection for the next six months sees RLUSD’s Ethereum supply climb from roughly $1.0 billion to a range of $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion. This assumes that Curve liquidity remains in the $60 million to $100 million band and that CEX and OTC demand continues to grow.
Under this path, XRPL would likely see its pools accumulate more liquidity over time but remain a small fraction of the aggregate issuance.
Meanwhile, a more aggressive “catch-up” scenario for XRPL would require deliberate market intervention. If Ripple or its partners commit to multi-month AMM reward programs and successfully mask trustline configurations behind single-click wallet interfaces, the native ledger could begin to erode Ethereum’s lead.
With these levers, XRPL liquidity could plausibly reach $500 million and claim up to 25% of the total supply.
However, the downside risk for the native ledger is real. If Ethereum cements its lead and the Curve USDC/RLUSD pool expands beyond $150 million, the network effects may become insurmountable. In that scenario, Ethereum could retain 80% to 90% of the supply indefinitely.
For now, Ripple finds itself in a paradoxical position: to succeed in its ambition to become a top-tier stablecoin issuer, it must rely on the infrastructure of its biggest rival.
If you open your brokerage this year and a “Markets” tab seems to be sprouting unfamiliar yes/no questions (“Will the Fed cut rates in March?”, “Will a major ETF get approved this quarter?”), you wouldn’t necessarily be hallucinating. The recent regulatory green-light for Polymarket via a cleared path under its newest acquisition of an exchange and its clearinghouse means those kinds of event-contracts might soon appear inside mainstream trading apps.
Meanwhile, a court in Nevada has tightened the lines around what counts as “financial trading” vs. “gambling,” complicating the view on sports or athlete-based markets.
Prediction markets plug into brokerage
Polymarket’s comeback doesn’t arrive on the strength of hype or speculation alone. Earlier this year, the firm acquired QCX LLC and QC Clearing, entities already licensed under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). That maneuver laid a firm regulatory foundation for their bold expansion plans.
In September 2025, the CFTC then issued a no-action letter that provided relief to QCX/QC Clearing under certain recordkeeping and reporting exemptions for event contracts. That relief effectively restored a legal avenue for Polymarket to serve US customers under the traditional exchange and clearing framework.
Finally, in late November 2025, Polymarket received an “Amended Order of Designation,” formally permitting it to operate in the US as a regulated exchange. Under this order, brokerages and futures commission merchants (FCMs) can list and clear Polymarket contracts.
That path is critical, as it launches Polymarket from a niche, quasi-black-market website into the orbit of mainstream finance, meaning familiar apps your friends use for stocks or ETFs could theoretically integrate these event-based bets.
Brokers won’t need to build entirely new infrastructure to enable the well-loved and frequently-used prediction markets we know in crypto; they just tap into existing derivatives clearing and custody rails. It slots into what’s already there for everything from user experience to back-office plumbing. For someone casually checking markets, including portfolio values, yield products, and crypto quotes, a binary prediction contract could soon appear as just another instrument.
Betting or hedging? The fine, fine, fine shifting line
That said, not all event markets travel the same regulatory terrain. Federal approval doesn’t equal universal acceptance. A freshly issued ruling from a judge in Nevada has cast a sharp shadow over sports- or athlete-based prediction contracts, even on platforms run by federally regulated exchanges such as Kalshi.
In a November 2025 decision, US District Judge Andrew Gordon found that sports-outcome contracts are not “swaps” under the federal law that governs derivatives (the “Commodity Exchange Act”). That means they fall outside the CFTC’s regulatory domain, exposing them instead to state gambling laws, even if offered through a CFTC-designated exchange.
One consequence of that is that the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) has clearly stated that sports event contracts constitute wagering activity under state law, regardless of whether a platform is federally registered.
That disconnect splits prediction markets into two broad classes: Macro, political, financial-policy bets (rates, CPI, earnings, elections): These retain a good claim to federal oversight and may flow through brokerages generally unimpeded.
Sports, prop bets, athlete outcomes: These run into a patchwork of state gambling regimes. States such as Nevada may block their availability entirely or subject them to licensing requirements that many prediction platforms may not satisfy.
So even as Polymarket readies its relaunch, what appears in your brokerage might depend heavily on your state.
What this means if you trade on your phone
You might soon scroll past “Stocks,” “Crypto,” and “Options,” and find binary yes/no contracts on macroeconomic events (e.g., rate decisions, inflation surprises), earnings beats, or even political outcomes.
These differ from traditional options as payout is all-or-nothing (or fixed fraction), with clearly defined maximum loss (the amount invested), but possibly higher take-rates by the platform. Liquidity could be thin, especially early on, and price swings may feel jumpier than a well-traded stock or even a popular option.
If you live in a state that deems “sports/event contracts = gambling,” such instruments might be geofenced or blocked entirely. Brokerages and FCM partners may need to implement KYC/AML, suitability checks, and state-level compliance.
The outlook: steady bets, fractured states
What could success look like for Polymarket and other event-contract platforms?
If enough brokerages integrate via QCX/QC Clearing rails, and focus remains on macro, policy, or finance events rather than sports or prop bets, the model might flourish. Election cycles, central-bank decisions, regulatory headlines, and macro inflection points naturally generate demand for binary outcome bets. People want to hedge uncertainty or stake conviction, and binary contracts meet that itch cleanly.
Yet the fractured legal landscape remains a wildcard. Nevada’s ruling may embolden other states to assert even more jurisdiction over sports-outcome contracts. That would force platforms to design around state-by-state restrictions, geofence certain event categories, or build compliance, rather than assume universal access.
Meanwhile, traditional bookmakers and sportsbooks might not cede ground easily. From their perspective, prediction markets represent competitive pressure on sports-betting revenue. A regulatory or legal pushback could win favor with incumbent stakeholders.
For casual users, especially those who log into their brokerage app without much fanfare, event contracts could become a new frontier: a hybrid between market speculation and betting. The financial-market rails offer structure, limits, and clearing. The state-by-state overlay imposes hurdles, especially around sports. What emerges might be a narrow but growing corridor, where macro and political wagers are delivered through familiar apps, while more controversial sports or props stay fringe or blocked.
When you tap “Markets” in your brokerage app and see a binary contract on “Will the central bank raise rates next meeting?,” it might no longer be a fringe novelty. It could be part of an expanding offering that’s shaped by federal rulings, strategic acquisitions, and shifting regulatory boundaries.
Bitcoin is facing significant selling at the start of the new week, with some analysts expecting a drop as low as $50,000.
Several altcoins turned down from their overhead resistance and are threatening to dip below their support levels.
Bitcoin (BTC) began December on a weak note, signaling that the bears are not willing to let go of their advantage. Trader Peter Brandit said in a post on X that BTC’s chart shows support in the sub-$70,000 to mid-$40,000 zone.
Another analyst who is cautious in the near term is network economist Timothy Peterson. According to data that Peterson posted on X, BTC’s second half of 2025 is very similar to the second half of 2022. If history repeats, BTC may not see a sharp rally until well into Q1 next year.
Crypto market data daily view. Source: TradingView
A minor positive for the bulls is that crypto exchange-traded products attracted $1.07 billion in inflows last week, breaking their four-week losing streak, according to CoinShares data. That shows demand at lower levels.
Could BTC and the major altcoins hold on to their support levels? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.
S&P 500 Index price prediction
The S&P 500 Index (SPX) rose above the moving averages on Tuesday and extended the recovery above the resistance line on Friday.
The bulls are expected to encounter significant selling at the 6,920 level. If the price turns down from the 6,920 resistance and breaks below the moving averages, it suggests a range formation. The index could then consolidate between 6,550 and 6,920 for some time. Sellers will be back in command if they yank the price below the 6,550 level.
Conversely, a break and close above the 6,920 resistance indicates the resumption of the uptrend. The index could surge to the 7,000 level and later to the 7,300 level.
US Dollar Index price prediction
The US Dollar Index (DXY) turned down from the 100.50 resistance and broke below the 20-day exponential moving average (EMA) (99.57) on Wednesday.
The immediate support on the downside is at the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) (99.05). If the price rebounds off the 50-day SMA, the bulls will again try to pierce the 100.50 resistance. If they succeed, the index could soar toward the 102 level.
Alternatively, a break and close below the 50-day SMA suggests that the bulls are losing their grip. The index could then drop to the 98 level. That points to a possible consolidation between 96.21 and 100.50 for some time.
Bitcoin price prediction
BTC turned down sharply on Monday after failing to rise above the 20-day EMA ($91,999) in the past few days.
If the Bitcoin price closes below $84,000, the BTC/USDT pair could collapse to $80,600. Buyers are expected to aggressively defend the $80,600 to $73,777 zone. On the way up, the bulls will have to push and maintain the price above the 20-day EMA to signal strength. The pair could then rally to the 50-day SMA ($101,438).
Contrary to this assumption, if the $73,777 support gives way, the selling could intensify and the pair risks diving to $54,000.
Ether price prediction
Ether (ETH) turned down from the 20-day EMA ($3,052) on Sunday, indicating that the sentiment remains negative and traders are selling on rallies.
The bears will attempt to sink the Ether price below the $2,623 level, starting the next leg of the downtrend. If they do that, the ETH/USDT pair could plunge to $2,400 and then to the $2,111 level.
The bulls will have to push and maintain the price above the 20-day EMA to signal strength. The pair could then rally to the breakdown level of $3,350, which is a crucial level for the bears to defend.
XRP price prediction
XRP (XRP) turned down from the 20-day EMA ($2.18) on Sunday, indicating that the bulls have given up.
The XRP/USDT pair could drop to the support line of the descending channel pattern, where the buyers are expected to step in. If the XRP price turns up sharply from the support line and breaks above the 20-day EMA, it suggests that the pair may remain inside the channel for a while longer.
On the other hand, a break and close below the support line opens the doors for a fall to the $1.61 support. Buyers are expected to defend the $1.61 level with all their might, as a break below it may sink the pair to $1.25.
BNB price prediction
BNB’s (BNB) recovery fizzled out at the 20-day EMA ($894), signaling that the bears remain active at higher levels.
The sellers are attempting to sink the BNB price below the Nov. 21 low of $790. If they can pull it off, the BNB/USDT pair could resume its downtrend toward the next target objective of $730.
Instead, if the price turns up and breaks above the 20-day EMA, it suggests that the bulls are buying at lower levels. The pair could then rally toward the 50-day SMA ($999), where the bears are expected to renew their selling.
Solana price prediction
Solana (SOL) turned down from the 20-day EMA ($140) on Sunday and is threatening to skid below the $126 support.
If the price sustains below $126, the SOL/USDT pair could descend to $110 and, after that, to the solid support at $95.
This negative view will be invalidated in the near term if the price turns up sharply and breaks above the 20-day EMA. The Solana price could then climb to the 50-day SMA ($163), where the bears are again expected to mount a strong defense. A close above the 50-day SMA signals the start of a new up move.
Sellers are trying to strengthen their position by pulling the Dogecoin price below the $0.13 support. If they manage to do that, the DOGE/USDT pair could tumble toward the Oct. 10 low of $0.10.
Time is running out for the bulls. They will have to swiftly drive the price above the 20-day EMA to signal a comeback. The large range of $0.14 to $0.29 will be back in play after buyers propel the pair above the 50-day SMA ($0.17).
Cardano price prediction
The bears are attempting to start the next leg of the downward move below the $0.38 support in Cardano (ADA).
If the price closes below $0.38, the ADA/USDT pair could plummet to the Oct. 10 low of $0.27. Buyers are expected to fiercely defend the $0.27 level, as a break below it may sink the pair to $0.23.
The 20-day EMA ($0.45) remains the key overhead resistance level to watch out for in the near term. A break and close above the 20-day EMA suggests the selling pressure is reducing. Buyers will have to drive the Cardano price above the 50-day SMA ($0.55) to signal that the downtrend may have ended.
Bitcoin Cash price prediction
Buyers attempted to push Bitcoin Cash (BCH) above the $568 resistance on Sunday, but the bears held their ground.
Repeated failure to clear the overhead resistance increases the risk of a breakdown below the 50-day SMA ($514). If that happens, the BCH/USDT pair could slide to the solid support at $443.
The flattening moving averages and the RSI just below the midpoint suggest a possible consolidation in the short term. Buyers will have to drive the Bitcoin Cash price above the $568 level to retain the advantage. The pair could then rally to $615.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Trading activity in Ether futures has surpassed that of Bitcoin on the Chicago-based CME Group, marking a notable shift in the digital asset derivatives market and fueling speculation that Ether may be entering a long-anticipated “super-cycle” — a sustained, multi-year period of accelerated growth driven by rising adoption.
In a recent CME video, Priyanka Jain, the exchange’s director of equity and crypto products, said Ether (ETH) options are currently exhibiting higher volatility than Bitcoin (BTC) options. Rather than deterring participation, she said, the increased volatility has attracted traders and helped drive growth in Ether futures activity.
“This heightened volatility has served as a powerful magnet for traders, directly accelerating participation in CME Group’s Ether futures,” Jain said. “Is this Ether’s long-awaited super-cycle, or merely a catch-up trade driven by short-term volatility?”
The rotation was especially pronounced in July, when the so-called flippening saw open interest in Ether futures overtake that of Bitcoin futures on the exchange for the first time.
While Bitcoin and Micro Bitcoin futures still account for the largest share of activity when measured by US dollar value, Jain said the broader trend is clear: Market participation in Ether-linked products is expanding rapidly.
Ether, Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market came under renewed selling pressure on Monday, extending a volatile period that has capped a difficult month for the sector. The move appeared to follow a coordinated wave of de-risking at the end of November.
Commenting on the sell-off, market analyst CTO Larsson said traders cut exposure immediately after the monthly close.
“People reduced exposure at exactly 00:00 UTC, because the monthly candle closed bad,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ether treasury companies — corporations that made holding ETH on their balance sheets a core business strategy — have seen the value of their holdings decline sharply. Companies such as SharpLink and Bit Digital are now underwater on their ETH positions, according to data from CoinGecko.
The first thing many Ukrainians check in the morning is not Instagram or email, it is a war map. DeepStateMap.Live, a volunteer-built OSINT project, shows which villages are under occupation, where Ukrainian advances hold, and where the front looks fragile. It’s a survival tool as much as a news product, funded by donations and backed by a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Defense to keep its view of the battlefield accurate.
Now imagine that same map, draped over a glossy 3D globe called PolyGlobe, with little icons marking Polymarket contracts like “Will Russia capture Huliaipole by December 31?” When you hover over the bet, the exact neighborhood lights up. The area where someone’s parents live is the area where someone else has “Yes” odds priced to three decimal places.
That’s the dichotomy this story lives in: a wartime public good on one side, and a crypto prediction platform with real-money wagers on captured towns on the other.
In late November, a Ukrainian tech outlet reported that Pentagon Pizza Watch, the pseudonymous team behind PolyGlobe, had integrated DeepState’s API directly into its war-betting dashboard without permission. The map, the article said, was being pulled into a Polymarket visualization tool so that traders could see shaded control zones, unit icons, and attack arrows directly under their war bets, a “first-of-its-kind OSINT market tracker” built on top of someone else’s wartime infrastructure.
Screengrab of the Polyglobe website showing an interactive world map with live locations for open bets on Polymarket on Nov. 28, 2025 (Source: Poly.globe)
DeepState UA, the group behind the map, reacted within hours. In a public statement relayed through local media and social channels, they said they had never authorized any betting service to plug into DeepStateMap and called the use of their work in war gambling unacceptable, adding that third parties were probably accessing the data through a free API intended for humanitarian and military needs or via scrapers.
Pentagon Pizza Watch apologized and removed the integration, claiming they assumed a public endpoint was fair game. While relatively brief, the issue opened a deeper question that goes well beyond one plugin: what happens to open wartime tools when crypto markets start treating them as raw material for bets, while both Ukrainian and Russian families bury the dead from drone strikes and artillery fire?
When the frontline becomes a futures contract
Polymarket has leaned hard into geopolitical and war markets. According to reporting from dev.ua, in November, there were roughly 100 active contracts tied to the Russia–Ukraine war, from whether Russian troops would capture Pokrovsk or Myrnohrad by year’s end to when a ceasefire might finally hold, with about 97 active war bets and nearly $96.8 million in volume. A trader clicking into these markets finds language that looks more like a rules appendix than a forum about human lives.
In multiple contracts, Polymarket explicitly names the Institute for the Study of War’s interactive Ukraine map as the primary resolution source and DeepStateMap.Live as a backup if ISW becomes unavailable. If both maps go offline, the plan is to fall back to a “consensus of credible reporting.” In other words, the frontline map millions of Ukrainians use to understand whether their village is under occupation is written into the fine print of an on-chain casino as a kind of oracle of record.
Supporters of prediction markets will say this is the point. Their pitch is that you crowdsource probabilities from people willing to put money on the line, the markets digest all available information, including live OSINT feeds, and what comes out is a cleaner read on the future than any political pundit can deliver. For long-term macro questions or election odds, that argument at least fits the usual “wisdom of crowds” story.
But war is a different category. Someone checking Polymarket to see if a ceasefire has a 5% or 10% price this month is consuming a financial product. Someone checking DeepStateMap to see whether Russian artillery is near their town is trying to decide if they can drive their kids to school, just as someone in Kursk or Belgorod is trying to figure out whether Ukrainian drones are going to hit a fuel depot near their apartment.
This is a conflict that has already left tens of thousands of civilians dead. Different sources report different numbers, but the consensus is that there are more than 50,000 recorded civilian casualties in Ukraine alone, and likely well over a million soldiers on both sides killed or wounded. One side of the market is taking risks voluntarily, while the other is exposed to violence forcefully. When the two collapse into the same stack of tools, some of the distance that normally separates speculation from real-world harm disappears.
The PolyGlobe integration pushed that logic to its natural endpoint. The dev.ua report quotes the Pentagon Pizza Watch team saying that geographic war markets “constantly confuse people,” and that draping DeepState’s map over their globe would clear that up by letting users hover over a region and see “the exact area of the transaction where it is being resolved.” No more quibbling over whether a station really counts as “captured,” just zoom in and watch the map repaint in near-real time as troops move. It’s a neat little UX trick for a trader, and a stomach-turning one if that shaded district happens to be where someone you know is serving.
Screengrab of all open Polymarket’s bets on Russia capturing various Ukrainian regions on Nov. 28, 2025 (Source: Polymarket)
To be clear, Polymarket didn’t write the PolyGlobe code and never claimed to be scraping DeepState’s API. Its war markets, though, sit at the center of an orbit of tools and plugins that are, and the platform sets the basic incentive structure that makes those tools profitable.
When a third-party dashboard wraps humanitarian OSINT around Polymarket markets, it’s doing so to increase trading volume, attract more users, and make the gambling smoother for people speculating on the capture of Ukrainian towns or the fall of another Russian-held village.
That’s not an accidental side effect of an innocent tool, just the business model doing exactly what it was designed to do.
When public goods meet private odds
DeepStateMap is a high-traffic, high-stakes information source: by early 2024, the map had been viewed more than a billion times, with daily traffic in the hundreds of thousands, and its team works with the Ukrainian military to cross-check frontline information so civilians and soldiers can see where the fighting actually is.
While most of the focus is on Ukrainian territory, the same war has brought drone and missile attacks to border regions in Russia, Crimea, and the Black Sea, killing and injuring civilians there as well; the UN has documented hundreds of civilian casualties in Western Russia and occupied Crimea linked to this conflict, even without full access to Russian-controlled areas.
It’s funded by a mix of donations and government support, and its API is intentionally oriented toward humanitarian uses, journalists, and civil defense. When DeepState UA says that “systematic attempts at unauthorized use” are forcing them to tighten API access, move to individualized keys, and spend time on intellectual property enforcement, they aren’t only talking about the annoyance of a scrape.
Every hour spent policing degens is an hour not spent improving the map, hardening it against DDoS, or building better overlays for air raid patterns and artillery range on either side of the border. It pushes a volunteer-heavy team into gatekeeping mode, reviewing requests and yanking keys, instead of treating their data as a shared public utility.
The bigger risk here is that, under enough abuse, projects like DeepState conclude that open endpoints are more trouble than they are worth. They can lock the API behind closed partnerships, slow down refresh rates, or degrade granularity in the public version. That might be rational self-defense for the team, but it looks very different if you are an NGO field worker, a local journalist, or a family trying to make route decisions based on where the front appears to be.
Polymarket’s own record doesn’t make this tension easier to swallow. Earlier this year, the platform dealt with a $7 million controversy over a market on whether Donald Trump would secure a mineral deal with Ukraine. The contract settled “Yes” even though no such agreement materialized, after a large holder of UMA governance tokens reportedly used their voting power to push through that outcome. If huge financial stakes can twist a niche geopolitical market about a hypothetical Trump deal, it is not hard to imagine similar games around war contracts that rely on subtle frontline changes.
That doesn’t mean prediction markets have no place in conflict analysis. Academics and policy types have experimented with war-related contracts for years, often inside controlled, low-stakes environments, to gauge expectations about outcomes like peace agreements or sanctions.
The Polymarket version of this is different in at least two ways: the money is big, with almost $100 million traded across Russian–Ukrainian war markets in a single month according to Ukrainian press, and the experience has been tuned for retail gamblers. The result is a hybrid product that borrows the language of “information markets” but feels, to the people whose lives sit under those price charts, like a sportsbook, just with better branding.
There is a more basic question hiding underneath all of this. Whose consent matters when turning a public map of a war into infrastructure for financial bets? The company that made it? Ukrainians? Russians?
DeepState UA built its project to help Ukrainians orient themselves in a conflict that has displaced millions and killed tens of thousands of civilians, while Russians are also losing relatives and friends to a war launched in their name that now sends Ukrainian drones toward their homes. The team has made it very clear that they do not want to be part of a wagering economy around territorial loss.
Polymarket and its satellite tools, by contrast, operate from a crypto culture where everything that can be priced will be, and where “degen” is worn as a badge rather than a slur. For one set of communities, war is an existential reality; for the other, it is a volatility source with an RSS feed.
The episode with PolyGlobe will fade from the news cycle. Pentagon Pizza Watch has already taken down the DeepState integration and promised not to touch the data without explicit permission. Polymarket’s war markets will keep trading, with their references to ISW and DeepState sitting in the rulebooks, and a fresh crop of users will keep discovering that they can bet on the fate of towns they have never heard of.
The real question is what gets left behind when prediction markets move from “Who wins the election” to “Who loses their home this quarter,” while Russia keeps firing cruise missiles at Ukrainian apartment blocks and Ukraine keeps launching drones into Russian cities that were once far from any front line.
If humanitarian mapping projects decide that betting platforms are parasitic, the likely move is to retreat: more friction, more locked-down data, fewer open feeds. That may frustrate degens, but they will find something else to gamble on. The people who cannot route around that withdrawal are the civilians who depend on clean, fast, open intelligence to navigate their days in their war-forsaken towns.
War betting defenders will say that markets only mirror reality, that odds on a ceasefire or a breakthrough in Donbass are just numbers. But those numbers are painted over their real places where real people live, and every bet written against that backdrop feels like one more small cut to the fragile trust that keeps civilians sharing information and volunteers updating maps. The dark side of Polymarket’s war games is the slow corrosion of a digital commons created to help people survive a war, now forced to spend its time protecting itself from those who would turn that war into a game.
