According to Odaily Planet Daily, following the next Blob parameter hard fork, developers are considering increasing Ethereum's gas limit to 80M, potentially enabling faster transaction speeds in January next year. (Cointelegraph)

According to an outlook report by iCapital, Odaily Planet Daily, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note is expected to trade within the 4.0%-4.5% range in 2026, potentially hitting the upper limit in the second half of the year. The report stated, "While we still expect the 10-year US Treasury yield to fluctuate within this range, at least at the beginning of 2026, it could potentially move to 4.5% if the deficit outlook worsens." The report added that this could put pressure on risk assets and capital market activity. (Jinshi)

Huoxun Finance News, December 18th – According to Techinasia, Standard Chartered Bank has launched a blockchain-based tokenized deposit solution for Ant International, supporting real-time transfers of Hong Kong dollars, offshore RMB, and US dollars. The bank partnered with global fintech company Ant International, deploying the technology on Ant's Whale Exploration platform. This launch is part of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Project Ensemble, which aims to promote the application of distributed ledger technology in the region. Ant International is the first customer to adopt this new solution, enabling 24/7 fund management and liquidity transfer. Both Standard Chartered Bank and Ant International are members of the EnsembleTX Group, which supports the promotion and application of tokenization technology in Hong Kong. Since May 2024, Standard Chartered Bank has been a member of the Project Ensemble community, assisting in the development of industry standards and testing tokenization application scenarios.

Huoxun Finance reported on December 18th that DelphiDigital released its 2026 Infrastructure Outlook report, which points out that stablecoins have become the most important infrastructure focus in the crypto space. This year, the total supply of stablecoins increased by 33%, exceeding $304 billion; adjusted monthly transaction volume has now surpassed Visa and PayPal; stablecoins hold $133 billion in US Treasury bonds, becoming the 19th largest holder of US Treasury bonds. The report notes that ironically, crypto companies are now competing around traditional payment channels. While stablecoin top-up cards circulating through the Visa network are an important step, they haven't yet created a completely new paradigm. Many competitors will eventually be eliminated if they cannot provide solutions for self-control over daily spending and storage. Traditional giants have already recognized this trend. Stripe integrated its USD stablecoin USDB after acquiring Bridge; PayPal launched PYUSD; and Klarna just announced KlarnaUSD. As fintech companies issue stablecoins, the market battle has already begun. The real winners will be those who can fundamentally revolutionize the underlying payment architecture, rather than merely optimizing the interface on top of it.

According to Odaily Planet Daily, if MSCI proceeds with its plan to remove cryptocurrency treasury companies from its indices, these companies could be forced to sell up to $15 billion worth of cryptocurrencies. The group "BitcoinForCorporations," opposing MSCI's proposal, predicts, based on a verified preliminary list of 39 companies, that with a total adjusted circulating market capitalization of $113 billion, these companies would face an outflow of $10 billion to $15 billion. The group added that, according to JPMorgan Chase analysis, if Strategy is removed from the MSCI index, its outflow could reach $2.8 billion. Strategy accounts for 74.5% of the total adjusted circulating market capitalization affected. Analysts calculate that the potential total outflow from all affected companies could reach $11.6 billion. Such a large-scale outflow would put even greater selling pressure on the cryptocurrency market, which has been trending downwards for the past three months. At the time of writing, the petition from "BitcoinForCorporations" has garnered 1,268 signatures. (Cointelegraph)