The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on December 17 approved a proposed rule to establish an application process for banks seeking to issue stablecoins via subsidiaries, BlockBeats reports. The proposal marks the first formal rulemaking since passage of the GENIUS Act, also known as the United States Stablecoin Innovation Act, and opened a 60-day public comment period.

Coinbase will list MERL (Merlin Chain) perpetual futures on December 18, BlockBeats reports. The MERL-PERP market will open at 9:30 UTC or later in supported regions, subject to liquidity conditions.

Bitcoin climbed above $88,000 on Dec. 16, gaining 1.38% over 24 hours, HTX market data show. BlockBeats reported the milestone based on HTX's market information.

Wall Street Journal reporter Nick Timiraos, often described as a "Fed whisperer", said on Dec. 16 that the latest U.S. labor data show the unemployment rate rose to 4.564% in November, up 12 basis points from 4.440% in September. He noted that Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week the central bank expects its policy stance to keep unemployment broadly stable or "only rise another one or two tenths of a percentage point", and that the new jobs report supports the rate cuts already implemented but on its own is not enough to trigger panic leading to a January cut. After today's U.S. employment and retail sales data, U.S. interest-rate futures are still pricing in two cuts in 2026, while the implied probability of a 25-basis-point Fed rate cut in January next year rose slightly from 24.4% to 31%, BlockBeats reports.

Grayscale transferred approximately 320 BTC, valued at roughly $27.98 million, to Coinbase Prime on December 16, Arkham data show. The transfer occurred within the past half hour, according to on-chain data reported by BlockBeats.

CME Group announced on Dec. 16 that Trading at Settlement (TAS) is now available for SOL, Micro SOL, XRP and Micro XRP futures. TAS is a futures execution method that allows participants to buy or sell contracts at or near the day's closing settlement price. The structure can be used for more precise hedging and managing settlement-related risk in these SOL and XRP futures products, the announcement said.

Bitget opened deposits for its Theoriq (THQ) Launchpool on December 16, allowing users to stake BGB or THQ to earn 2,333,300 THQ in rewards through December 19 at 23:00 (UTC+8), BlockBeats reports. The Launchpool features two pools: a BGB pool offering 2,133,300 THQ with staking caps of 50,000 BGB for VIP users and 5,000 BGB for regular users, and a THQ pool distributing 200,000 THQ with an individual staking limit of 3,333,000 THQ. THQ is now trading in Bitget's Innovation Zone and AI Zone, with withdrawals scheduled to open at 00:00 on December 18 (UTC+8).

PIPPIN on Solana fell approximately 30% in two hours on Dec. 16, trading at $0.372 with a market capitalization of $365 million, GMGN data cited by BlockBeats show. Blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps said insiders control 80% of the token's supply, valued at approximately $380 million. Bubblemaps identified 16 newly appeared wallets showing similar funding sources, receiving comparable amounts of SOL, having no prior transaction history, and executing large PIPPIN withdrawals from centralized exchanges, with activity clustered on Solana and consistent patterns across addresses; another linked set of 11 wallets holds approximately 9% of total supply, with fund flows and time windows highly consistent and suspected to be controlled by the same entity. BlockBeats reminded users that meme coins typically have no real use cases and exhibit significant volatility, advising investors to exercise caution.