- The Beluga Brief
- Posts
- đł Daily Edition: BTC Slides to $84k as Coinbase Officially Enters the Prediction Market Game
đł Daily Edition: BTC Slides to $84k as Coinbase Officially Enters the Prediction Market Game
Coinbase is aiming to level up in a big way with upcoming expansions into virtually every vertical in crypto, including leading the first $1T of tokenized assets onchain
Beluga & Will McKinnon
December 17, 2025
With just 2 weeks left in the year and most of us getting ready to head out of office for the holidays, most of the crypto market is in hibernation as Bitcoin continues to range between $85k and $93k. Despite this, Coinbaseâs year-end System Update event today garnered over a million live viewers as they announced a series of major upgrades and products including stock trading, full Solana DEX integration, a new white-glove tokenization platform, and custom âbrandedâ stablecoins. Tokenization in theory is a no-brainer to ensure instantaneous, secure and transparent settlement of even assets that are traditionally illiquid. The main problems so far have been integrating blockchain solutions with the legacy infrastructure these assets currently exist on in a way that isnât superficial, and the level of expertise required to actually tokenize an asset. If Coinbase can meaningfully address these pain points, we could very well see them usher in the first $1T worth of tokenized assets.
24 Hour Heatmap, Source: CoinMarketCap
In the spirit of ending the year with some positivity especially in light of recent price action, here are just a few achievements of the crypto industry this year that I think everyone should keep in mind. Bitcoin, the digital gold, broke through $100k for the first time in history and lead the crypto market as a whole to rise above a $4T market cap. While we were all playing with memecoins, institutional adoption skyrocketed with an estimated 86% of institutional investors either already holding digital assets or planning to in the near future. Further institutionalizing our industry, Coinbase became the first crypto company to join the S&P 500 in May. Breakthroughs in UX have allowed wallet onboarding processes to go from several minutes to just a few seconds, leading to an estimated increase of 10 million crypto users since last year. And of course, how could we forget the wildly pro-crypto Trump administration, which has now signed 4 executive orders in a bid to position the US as the âcrypto capital of the world.â It may not feel like it, but our space has made a mountain of progress this year. Donât let short term price action get in the way of seeing that!
The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!
The Majors
Alt Coins and Stocks
New Launches
Interesting Reads
Beluga is excited to offer a new Starter Pack from our partners at DataHaven, a decentralized storage protocol built by industry veterans. Head to the Beluga Starter Pack page to claim points and more!
Toku is an excellent choice for crypto-native companies looking to offer the perk of getting paid in crypto. You can even pay international employees, contractors, and vendors directly in tokens. Offering seamless integration with traditional payroll providers like Workday and Gusto as well as instant settlement in USDC, Paxos USDG, and Ripple USD.*
Refer one subscriber to the Beluga Brief to receive a report on the outlook for crypto in 2026 from Tom Leeâs Fundstrat!