FOMC Meeting next week, Fusaka is live & Vanguard and Charles Schwab allowing access to crypto

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This Week’s Top Stories

“Vanguard and Charles Schwab allowing access to Crypto & Bank of America now recommends 1-4 percent crypto allocation.” – This week 

• Vanguard, the world’s second largest asset management firm, will begin listing crypto ETFs and mutual funds, including those for Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and XRP. Vanguard said it will support most crypto ETFs and mutual funds that meet regulatory requirements but will not launch its own crypto products and will continue to exclude funds linked to memecoins.
• Charles Schwab also announced plans to launch spot crypto trading in 2026. The firm intends to offer Bitcoin and Ethereum trading across its platforms after internal testing and a limited pilot phase.
• Bank of America is now recommending a 1 to 4 percent crypto allocation for clients of Merrill and Merrill Edge and will begin CIO coverage of four Bitcoin ETFs starting at the beginning of January. This will allow more than 15’000 advisers to formally include digital assets in client portfolios.

“They bought more! Larry Fink about Sovereign Funds and Bitcoin.” – Thursday, 4 December 2025 

• BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink said this week that different sovereign wealth funds have been buying Bitcoin during the recent correction, stating that “they are buying incrementally as the bitcoin price has fallen from its 126’000 dollar peak” and “I know they bought more in the 80s. And they are establishing a longer position. And you own it over years. This is not a trade. You own it for a purpose.”
• Over the course of 2025, sovereign wealth funds from Abu Dhabi and Liechtenstein have publicly announced buying and owning shares of BlackRock’s IBIT Bitcoin spot ETF.

A Quick Crypto Overview: Bitcoin above $92K

At the time of writing Bitcoin is trading above $92’000, up from $90’000 last week after a visit to $94’000 yesterday. Ethereum is trading just below $3’200 and Solana sits at $140. Bitcoin dominance is more or less flat this week after a spike to the upside on Tuesday and Wednesday, while Ethereum dominance is up more than 6 percent since Monday. 

The week started with a short but brutal downward move on Monday after Japanese stock indices opened the week in the red early Monday morning, but the panic was short lived and most crypto assets are now trading above their weekend highs, with the total crypto market cap up 10 percent from Monday’s low. 

The S&P 500 is trading just shy of $6’900, roughly 1 percent away from a new all-time high, and the US Dollar Index is trading at its lowest level since the end of October, down 1.5 percent over the past two weeks. Gold continues to trade strongly, sitting above $4’200 at the time of writing. 
There was a lot of talk about Strategy (MSTR) over the past few weeks and the negative sentiment seemed to peak early this week, but the stock is currently up 20 percent since Monday. 

Chart of the Week: How has MSTR performed against Bitcoin?

After all this talk about Strategy recently, let us take a look at the MSTR price performance against our beloved Bitcoin. But first, let us revisit what has been going on lately around Michael Saylor and his company Strategy. While Saylor has historically always said that the company will never sell its Bitcoin, Strategy’s CEO Phong Le said on Sunday that there is in fact a scenario where the company would consider selling some of its Bitcoin holdings. A scenario in which the MSTR stock trades below 1x mNAV and the company is simultaneously not able to raise fresh capital. But he also stressed that there is no current plan to sell, reaffirming a long term holding strategy, but it is important to keep in mind that if premiums vanish and funding becomes difficult, limited technical sales may in fact be necessary to protect shareholder value. 

Well, now, how has MSTR been trading against Bitcoin over the past few years? Interestingly, if you bought Strategy shares before 2024, you would still be in profit against Bitcoin today, but the recent MSTR correction since the US election has wiped out all gains since spring 2024 and MSTR is currently down more than 60 percent against BTC from its high one year ago.

What’s Happening Onchain? Fusaka is live, Memecoins are dead & Nasdaq on track to tokenize everything 

Yesterday, the Ethereum Fusaka upgrade finalized and is now live on the mainnet. The upgrade is the second one this year after the Pectra hard fork, which took place in May. Fusaka was more of a half upgrade, as many EIPs were removed and only 12 remained. The upgrade nonetheless introduces a more focused and strategically aligned roadmap for Ethereum as a whole. Ethereum's rollup centric roadmap is evolving to support both Layer 1 and Layer 2 scaling with economic intent, as the prioritization of Layer 1 scaling enhances direct value accrual to ETH holders. For investors, this is arguably the most compelling upgrade in a long time and potentially the beginning of a new era for ETH as a cash flowing, economically sustainable asset. 

In the world of memecoins, onchain degens continue to wait for better times, as memecoin trading has recently accounted for less than 5 percent of the daily volume on Solana DEXs, the lowest level since December 2023. If we compare it to last year, when memecoins made up more than 70 percent of the daily DEX volume on Solana, one might wonder whether this kind of memecoin mania, as in December and January one year ago, will ever return.

In other news, the US Nasdaq stock exchange seems to be on track to offer tokenized stocks in its offering, as they are moving as fast as possible and working closely with the SEC but are still awaiting approval as of today. Nasdaq’s initial proposal, submitted on 8 September, is requesting approval for investors to buy and sell stock tokens on the exchange. In September this year, Galaxy Digital became the first Nasdaq listed company to tokenize its equity on a major blockchain following its launch on Solana. 

Digital Asset Fund Flows: $1 billion in net inflows after four weeks with heavy outflows 

Last week, digital asset investment products saw net inflows of $1 billion, the first positive week after four weeks of large outflows. Bitcoin led the pack with $464 million, followed by Ethereum with $309 million and XRP with $289 million, while Solana disappointed with $4.4 million. The flows were as always largely concentrated in the United States. 

Looking at this week, we are likely in for a negative week with outflows for the Bitcoin spot ETFs, while Ethereum is primed for a second week of net inflows. 

As we mentioned previously, Tether has been buying a lot of gold and is among the largest gold holders worldwide, only outpaced by national banks, in what seems to be a diversification away from US treasury bills in anticipation of falling interest rates throughout next year, as falling interest rates would erode a lot of the firm’s interest income. An interesting dynamic. 

Market Sentiment: Crypto in Fear (29) and Stocks in Fear (40) 

Both the crypto and the stock market have recovered in terms of sentiment but continue to stay in fearful levels, up from extreme fear over the past few weeks. Sentiment metrics have completely reset in November and show levels usually seen after long bear markets, and it remains to be seen whether the markets manage to move out of these fearful levels over the coming weeks or move back down as uncertainty prevails. 

Interestingly, AAII members switched bullish again this week, with a big jump to 44.3 percent bullish members from 32 percent just last week.

Other Relevant News 

• Germany and Switzerland shut down Cryptomixer, a Bitcoin mixing service that laundered over $1.4B since 2016. – Link 

• Kraken has announced the acquisition of tokenized asset platform Backed Finance. – Link  

• Kalshi announced a new multi-year data partnership with CNBC shortly after revealing a similar deal with CNN. – Link 

• Trust Wallet has launched “Predictions,” a built-in prediction market hub starting with Myriad. – Link 

• Strategy Inc. announced a $1.44 billion USD reserve to cover at least 12 months of preferred dividends and interest payments, funded through its at-the-market stock sales. – Link 

• The first spot Chainlink ETF launched this week. – Link 

Looking Ahead: Inching closer to $100k – How far will this bounce go? 

We are inching closer to $100’000, but it remains to be seen how far this bounce will go. The US interest rate decision is coming up next Wednesday, with a 25 bps cut widely priced in, and the press conference could act as a sell the news event if there are no surprises. But the interest rate projections (Dot Plot) could certainly act as a positive or negative catalyst next week, as the Fed members will reveal their projections for the interest rate in the quarterly Dot Plot publication. So, while the cut is priced in, the Dot Plot is definitely something to keep an eye on, as changes to either side could affect prices significantly. 

Below, you can find some of the key data releases and events to watch out for next week. 

Sunday, 7 December 2025 

Japan – GDP 

Tuesday, 9 December 2025 

USA – JOLTS Job Openings (September) 

Wednesday, 10 December 2025 

USA – FOMC Press Conference, Interest Rate Decision and Projections 

Thursday, 11 December 2025 

Switzerland – Interest Rate Decision 

USA – Initial Jobless Claims