"First-ballot hall-of-fame Fed chair"

Find out our latest reports, listed below:

• Bybit x Block Scholes: “2026: It's Different This Time?”

• Tokenised Markets on Bitget UEX: Unlocking Real-World Assets On-Chain for 24/7 Global Access

• DeepBook - “The Backbone of Sui DeFi Liquidity”

• Premia x Block Scholes: Introducing Kyan

Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

Daily Updates:

• BTC continued to extend its rally yesterday, surpassing even $97K last evening as the crypto market continues to recover. ETH maintained its level above $3,300 and year-to-date is up more than 13%. 
• Spot Bitcoin ETFs had another major day of inflows yesterday, purchasing $840.6M of bitcoins. Across Tuesday and Wednesday, Spot ETFs have purchased nearly $1.6B of BTC, the largest inflows since the October 10 liquidation. 
• Spot ETH ETFs also saw their third consecutive day of net inflows, purchasing $175.1M of Ether yesterday.
• Altcoin ETFs are also seeing notable inflows.
• XRP has recorded a consistent inflow streak since 8 January, increasing its total AUM to $1.56B. SOL is also seeing sustained inflows since 12 January, with AUM at $1.23B. 

• A rotation away from large cap tech names and Mag-7 towards small-cap stocks continued into yesterday’s mid-week session on Wall Street. Yesterday the S&P 500 fell 0.53%, marking the index’s first back-to-back loss so far this year. That slide however, was mainly due to a retreat away from larger tech names. All Mag-7 shares closed lower, while more than 300 companies in the index itself actually rose. 
• Over the past five days, the S&P 500 Index is mostly unchanged. The Nasdaq-100 fell more than a full percentage point yesterday and is down close to 0.6% over the week. That compares to a more than 3% gain in the Russell-2000 over the past five days. In fact, the latter index has now outperformed the S&P 500 for a ninth consecutive session — a streak last seen in 1990. 

• The US Supreme Court once more failed to provide a ruling on President Trump’s tariffs yesterday while producer prices in the US picked up slightly in November amidst a rise in the cost of gasoline. 

• The Producer Price Index ‌for final demand rose 0.2% in November (in line with Bloomberg’s median forecast). That meant the index advanced 3.0% in November year-over-year, up from October’s 2.8%. 
• The report also showed that producer goods prices jumped by their largest amount since February 2024 (​0.9%). 80% of that increase however stemmed from a 4.6% gain in energy prices. 
• A separate report from the Commerce Department showed that consumer retail sales rose 0.6% for November, a large increase from the downwardly revised 0.1% decline in October. 

• From last evening and into today, the rally in precious metals has finally taken a slight breather. Silver prices retreated as traders took profits at record highs above $90 per ounce, and as the US administration held off from imposing import tariffs on critical minerals.
• That resulted in a more than 7.3% drop in silver prices following the $93.75 ATH, while gold prices also retreated 0.7%. 
• President Trump said that he would negotiate bilateral agreements with countries to ensure there is an adequate supply of critical minerals into the US. 

• Despite many attacks on the Chairman of the Fed and the Justice Department’s pending criminal investigation into the Chair, President Trump said yesterday that he does not have any plans to fire Jerome Powell. 
• Trump said “I don’t have any plan to do that”, when asked in a Reuters interview whether he would fire Powell. He cautioned, "Right now, we're in a little bit of a holding pattern with him, and we're going to determine what to do. But I can't get into it. It’s too soon. Too early.”
• When asked about Powell’s replacement, Trump said “The two Kevins are very good. You have some other good people too, but I'll be announcing something over the next couple of weeks."

• According to Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, the independence of the Fed is key for maintaining price stability.
• Speaking on National Public Radio, the Chicago President said that the "independence of the Fed couldn't be more important for the long-run inflation rate in this country” and "Any place where ‌you don't have central bank independence, inflation comes roaring ​back."
• Goolsbee added that the Fed has “spent the last five years fighting to get the inflation rate down - and that hasn't been easy - and if you're attacking ‍the independence of the Fed, that makes that problem worse". 
• In defence of his colleague Powell, he said "I consider Chair Powell to be a first-ballot hall-of-fame Fed chair. And ​if we're going to get into a ‍circumstance where the independence - or even the integrity - of Chair Powell is in question, ​we're in a bad spot."

• Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari also came to Powell’s defense, arguing that “The escalation over the course of the past year is really about monetary policy. I thought the chairman explained that accurately.”
• When asked about a rate cut in January, Kashkari responded “I don’t see any impetus to cut in January”. Right now it is “just way too soon”, though he left the door open for cuts later in the year.

• Yesterday, the Fed also released the Beige Book.
• It was noted that wage growth is rising moderately, with multiple contacts stating it has returned to a more “normal” pace.
• Prices are also increasing moderately across most districts, but tariff pressure is the key issue, with firms starting to pass higher costs on to customers as inventories are depleted.
• Looking ahead, forecasts are moderately optimistic, with most expecting slight to moderate growth in the coming months, while price levels are expected to remain elevated due to accumulated costs.

• The Senate Banking Committee has postponed its planned meeting on Jan 14 of a crypto market-structure bill, after momentum behind the package stalled and Coinbase withdrew its support.
• The legislation is designed to clarify jurisdiction between the SEC and CFTC, define when digital assets are securities versus commodities, and introduce new disclosure requirements.
• Chair Tim Scott said stakeholders and lawmakers remain engaged in “good faith” talks, but the process was disrupted after Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego said he could not back the bill at this stage, citing a missed meeting by White House digital assets adviser Patrick Witt, while Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong raised concerns around stablecoin yield, tokenised equities and DeFi.

• Lighter announced that it is now required to stake LIT  in order to deposit into its Lighter Liquidity Pool (LLP) on Wednesday, turning staking into a required utility rather than an optional add-on.
• New users must stake LIT to deposit, with 1 LIT unlocking up to 10 USDC in LLP capacity. Existing LLP depositors can keep their current positions without staking until 28 January 2026, and after that date, they will need to stake LIT to maintain their deposits.
• Lighter says the change aligns LIT holders with liquidity providers and should improve risk-adjusted returns. 

• Societe Generale’s digital asset arm, SG-FORGE, has run a live-style settlement workflow with Swift to issue and settle tokenised bonds using both traditional cash rails and stablecoins - which is a production-like trial designed to mirror real-market processes even if not yeat at full commercial launch.
• The transaction used SG-FORGE’s MiCA-compliant EUR CoinVertible (EURCV) stablecoin, with Swift coordinating the transaction flow execution across blockchain platforms and existing payment systems.

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