December 15th Weekly Market Recap: “JPMorgan Debuts USCP Token”

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DeFi Analytics 12th December 2025

The weekly addition of the Crypto DeFi Analytics, covering chain fee generation, Beacon Chain Balance, Uniswap V3 and Liquidations.

JPMorgan Debuts USCP Token

Bitcoin perked up to $93.5K late Thursday, moving with the “risk-on” tone in stocks as the S&P 500 hit a fresh record, even while tech and the Nasdaq slipped on weak Oracle earnings. Bitcoin ETFs are still struggling to attract steady demand, flipping back to a $77.5M outflow after only two days of inflows.

Bonds have been jumpy too after a surprise spike in jobless claims pushed the 10-year yield down and then back up to around 4.17%. On the bigger picture, TradFi keeps leaning into crypto rails: the SEC cleared DTCC to run a tokenisation pilot, and JPMorgan helped issue tokenised commercial paper on Solana.

“People see the picture pretty similarly but see the risks quite differently.”

The Fed delivered a third 25 bp cut this year in a split decision, with Powell striking a moderately hawkish tone, stressing the Committee is “well-positioned to wait” and restarting $40B in Treasury bill purchases for reserve management. Equities initially rallied on the decision before futures reversed on weak Oracle earnings, while BTC spiked to an intraday high near $94.5K before retracing.

Structurally, BitMine reportedly added $112M of ETH to its treasury, State Street and Galaxy unveiled the PYUSD-based SWEEP tokenised liquidity fund, Valora’s team agreed to join Stripe as the app returns to cLabs, Gemini secured CFTC approval for its Gemini Titan prediction market, and Solana’s ecosystem advanced with Coinbase’s direct DEX access and Ellipsis Labs’ launch of Phoenix Perpetuals.

Final FOMC Meeting of the Year

Into tonight’s FOMC meeting a 25bp cut is widely assumed, while JOLTS openings printed 7.67M versus 7.12M expected, layoffs rose to 1.85M and hires slipped to 5.15M. Spot risk was muted with the S&P 500 flat and the Nasdaq-100 up 0.2%, but BTC jumped over 5% from 89K to 94.5K and ETH over 6% from 3.1K to 3.4K.

Crypto flows were strong, with BTC spot ETFs seeing $151.9M of inflows and ETH ETFs $177.7M, the best day for both in several weeks. ETH perp funding and short-dated futures have turned positive while 7D BTC and ETH skew remains around -4.4% and -5.3%, and longer term the SEC, OCC and Tempo’s $5B stablecoin L1 point to a more supportive US framework.

Corporates Accumulate Crypto

BTC traded sideways in a tight $89–92K range while US equities slipped 0.35% and the US 10y yield rose 4bp to its highest since September ahead of tomorrow’s FOMC, where markets price a ~90% chance of a cut and two more in 2026. Strategy Inc accumulated $962.7M of BTC at an average $90,615, its largest buy since July, with shares up 2.6% even as its mNAV premium fell from ~3.0 to ~1.1 and it set up a $1.4B cash reserve.

BitMine increased its crypto, cash and “moonshot” assets to $13.2B and lifted ETH holdings to 3.86M as it pushes toward a 5% supply target, while HYPE announced a $30M buyback to boost per-share exposure to its digital-asset treasury. Additional tailwinds came from crypto-market infrastructure, including BlackRock’s staked ETH ETF filing, Circle and Tether’s regulatory wins in Abu Dhabi, and the CFTC’s pilot allowing BTC, ETH and USDC as derivatives collateral.

The Fed's Decision Week

Bitcoin has rebounded from a sideways range around $89K to $92K, while Ether has moved from $3K to just under $3.2K, despite weekly outflows of $87.7M from spot BTC ETFs and $65.4M from spot ETH ETFs. Implied volatility term structures are modestly inverted, with 7D BTC IV at 50% versus 47% for 180D, and 7D ETH IV at 73% versus 70% for longer tenors, while 30D skew sits at -6% for BTC and -4% for ETH, indicating a smaller downside premium for Ether.

In traditional markets, the S&P 500 is up over 17% year to date and sits just below its October all-time high, while BTC is now -2% year to date after the October liquidation. Into Wednesday’s final FOMC meeting of the year, markets are pricing an 87% probability of a 25bp cut, with core PCE at 0.2% MoM and 2.8% YoY, and University of Michigan consumer sentiment ticking up to 53.3 in December from 51 in November.