| Bitcoin | $20,794 | 7 day: +13% | | Ethereum | $587 | 7 day: +8.4% | | All crypto | $602B | 7 day: +9.5% | | Bitcoin dominance | 64.1% | 7 day: +1.5% | Prices as of 4 p.m. EST
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 Fireworks in Shanghai Bitcoin is back above $20K. Although some news outlets claimed that today is bitcoin's "first ever" moment above $20K, readers of this newsletter are already aware of prior days. In summary, despite various trading pairs throughout exchange history valuing bitcoin above $20K — and months of intermittent peer-to-peer transactions above $20K, especially in African and South American countries where cryptocurrency exchanges were offline — today is a clear, worldwide, indisputable, consistently reported new high for bitcoin. Bloomberg 
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The commodity futures trading commission (CFTC) held a meeting to discuss decentralized finance (DeFi) and related regulatory concerns. - The technology advisory committee (TAC) of the U.S. CFTC called in on a presentation regarding DeFi during a virtual meeting on Dec. 14, to discuss regulatory challenges.
- TAC's Head of Market Structure Richard Gorelick sees DeFi as a class of blockchain-based applications offering various financial services through smart contracts.
- During the meeting's opening remarks, CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton indicated that authorities are yet to find appropriate regulatory measures to end the illicit use of DeFi. Chilton agreed that regulations and risk controls should be wholly principle-based to mitigate the risks of a flash crash.
Decrypt
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Mt. Gox's trustee filed a draft plan for creditors and ex-users' rehabilitation in Tokyo District Court. - On Dec. 15, 2020, attorney Nobuaki Kobayashi, acting as Mt. Gox's rehabilitation trustee, submitted a draft rehabilitation plan in Tokyo District Court.
- The court examiner will review the draft before advancing the proposal, according to a statement on the website of the now-defunct Japanese crypto exchange Mt. Gox.
- The latest announcement, which revealed nothing about the filed draft plan, mentions that the trustee will explain the procedure in detail to the concerned parties at a later date.
- On Mar. 20, 2019, Attorney Kobayashi announced that Mt. Gox held an additional $672M (found in an old wallet) that was spared in a hack of about 850,000 BTC from Mt. Gox's servers.
Coindesk
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European electricity exporter CEZ Group discovered a clandestine bitcoin mining farm in a Bulgarian village that was stealing electricity. - During an inspection, CEZ Group, a European utility conglomerate and electricity exporter assisted by the Interior Ministry of Bulgaria, found an establishment stealing electricity from a Bulgarian village called Herakovo, mining bitcoin.
- Perpetrators are currently undergoing a pre-trial process initiated by the police.
- It was the utility company's largest theft of electricity to date.
- The illegal mining farm employed about 1,000 ASIC miners that cost the company substantial losses, equivalent to the monthly electricity consumption of 4,250 families.
- CEZ group employees worked for several days with the local police to analyze the theft, according to an announcement dated Dec. 12.
CoinTelegraph
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Kentucky steel plant owned by Ukrainian billionaire Ihor Kolomoyskyi, allegedly shuttered, is suspected of mining bitcoin. - Billionaire Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who owned the CC Metals & Alloy steel plant in Calvert City, Kentucky, has been quietly mining bitcoin, according to a report by Radio Liberty dated Dec. 14.
- The local news outlet explained the company and its owners' troubled background. Reporters suspect that due to low U.S. demand for specialty alloys, the shuttered factory could be mining cryptocurrencies illegally.
- The FBI investigated Kolomoyskyi, one of Ukraine's wealthiest and most influential businessmen. The fallout eventually shuttered the plant and forced staff layoffs.
- Various unverified reports by former and existing workers of the Kentucky factory suggest that warehouses were kept full of computer equipment that now mines cryptocurrencies.
- A spokeswoman told Radio Liberty that the plant's management installed a computer center in July 2020 to "diversify" the company's profits.
Coindesk
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SIX Group's SDX Exchange and the Japanese giant SBI Group (8473.T) will launch a tokenized asset and cryptocurrency exchange in Singapore by 2022. - SIX Digital Exchange and SBI Digital Asset Holdings (SBHGF) will establish the exchange after securing approvals from Monetary Authority of Singapore.
- Tim Grant, head of the tokenization arm of SIX Group, said that the exchange will offer trading, issuance, tokenization, and custodial services to Singapore-based clients.
- Zurich-based exchange Six Digital Exchange previously announced plans to make digital assets more accessible to banks in cooperation with Custodigit, a joint venture of Swisscom and Sygnum digital bank.
The Block Crypto
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- Zhou Xiaochuan, former governor of China's central bank, spoke about China's digital currency electronic payment (DCEP) during the Shanghai Financial Forum on Dec. 13, suggesting that it will not replace existing currencies nor "upset" the global monetary system.
- An announcement by the secretary-general of the Estonian finance ministry, Veiko Tali, suggests that the country is prioritizing monitoring licensed virtual currency services providers (VASPs) for regulatory compliance, many of which do not physically reside in Estonia. The ministry withdrew about 1,000 licenses for cryptocurrency companies during 2020.
- London-based Ruffer Investment Company's (LON:RICA) $620M fund now has a 2.5% allocation to bitcoin.
- Privacy-centric cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) has reached a two-year high, even amid record ransom attacks.
- Barry Silbert of Digital Currency Group shared an update to his 2017 tweet; bitcoin market capitalization reached $360B as of Dec. 15, 2020, equal to 3% of total gold circulating worldwide.
- On Dec. 15, a Daily Beast article indicated that President Donald Trump is considering to pardon Ross Ulbricht, operator of the dark web marketplace Silk Road, citing three, unnamed, White House sources.
- Bitcoin mining company Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ:RIOT) is planning an 8MW (megawatt) project in partnership with Enigma digital assets AG and Lancium LLC to evaluate low-cost mining technologies in Texas, according to a press release dated Dec. 14.
- Cardano (ADA) quietly hard-forked, using the same technology from their Shelley update, on Dec. 12. Cardano's transition to "Goguen" was complete by Dec. 16, with newly-enabled token locking.
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 |  | Written and curated by wide-eyed bitcoin watcher since $1, Aaron Wise. Streaming headline junkie, Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, 2017 founder of Cryptocurrency Newsfeed. Temporarily based in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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