U.S. Interest Rates, Do Kwon Sentencing: Crypto Week Ahead

The Federal Reserve meets this week to set U.S. interest rates. The Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) is likely to reduce the target rate by 25 basis points to 3.50% to 3.75% when it announces its decision on Dec. 10, according to the CME's Fedwatch tool. Lower rates often tend to encourage investing in riskier, more volatile assets such as cryptocurrencies and equities in the search for higher returns.

Do Kwon, founder of Terraform Labs, is set to be sentenced Dec. 11 after he pleaded guilty to defrauding investors. U.S. prosecutors recommended a 12-year sentence. The crash of Do Kwon's UST algorithmic stablecoin and the associated luna token contributed heavily to the brutal 2022 market downturn often called "crypto winter."

What to Watch

• Crypto
  • Dec. 8: EstateX (ESX) platform goes live for Unicorn Club members (1M ESX required) and NFT holders; first property put up for sale.​
  • Dec. 8 (market open): ProCap Financial Inc. (BRR), formed by the merger of Columbus Circle Capital Corp. I and ProCap BTC, LLC, begins trading on the Nasdaq Global Market.
  • Dec. 8, 11:30 a.m.: Enjin (ENJ) activates the Senotsa upgrade on the mainnet of both Relaychain and Matrixchain.
  • Dec. 8, 1:30 p.m.: Hivemapper (HONEY) AMA on X Spaces.
  • Dec. 9: Twenty One Capital begins trading on NYSE under ticker XXI following business combination with Cantor Equity Partners (CEP).
  • Dec. 10, 6 a.m.: Kaia (KAIA) Korea AMA on X Spaces.
  • Dec. 10: Celo’s Jello hardfork to bring ZK-powered fault proofs to the network.
  • Dec. 11, 11 a.m.: Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, who pleaded guilty in August to U.S. conspiracy and wire fraud charges, faces sentencing in New York by Judge Paul Engelmayer. Prosecutors seek up to 12 years, defense requests five.
  • Dec. 11, 3 p.m.: Chia (XCH) AMA on Zoom.
  • Dec. 12: EstateX (ESX) platform becomes available to everyone; fractional real estate shares are purchasable via PROPX.
  • Dec. 13 (approximate): Bittensor (TAO) first halving event will cut daily TAO emissions from 7,200 to 3,600.
  • Dec. 13, 12 p.m.: Xelis (XELIS) smart contracts go live on the mainnet.
• Macro
  • Dec. 9, 7 a.m.: Mexico Nov. inflation rate. Headline YoY (Prev. 3.57%), MoM (Prev. 0.36%). Core YoY (Prev. 4.28%), MoM (Prev. 0.29%).
  • Dec. 9, 8:15 a.m.: ADP Employment Change Weekly (Prev. -13.5K).
  • Dec. 9, 10 a.m.: The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report. Sept. Job Openings Est. 7.2M, Sept. Job Quits (Prev. 3.091M).
  • Dec. 10, 7 a.m.: Brazil Nov. headline inflation rate YoY (Prev. 4.68%), MoM Est. 0.09%.
  • Dec. 10, 9:45 a.m.: Canada central bank interest-rate decision. Benchmark rate (Prev. 2.25%). 10:30 a.m. press conference
  • Dec. 10, 2 p.m.: Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) rate decision (25-basis-point cut to 3.5%-3.75% expected) and economic projections; 2:30 p.m. press conference (watch live).
  • Dec. 10, 4:30 p.m.: Brazil central bank interest-rate decision. Benchmark rate (Prev. 15%).
  • Dec. 11, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for week ended Dec. 6 (Prev. 191K), U.S. Continuing Jobless Claims for week ended Nov. 29 (Prev. 1939K).
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • Nothing scheduled.

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Celo Public Goods is voting on the December allocation for "Support Streams Season 1," distributing CELO and OP to projects based on stCELO votes. Voting ends Dec. 8.
  • Aave DAO is voting to onboard the Paxos-issued USDG stablecoin to the Aave V3 Core instance. Voting ends Dec. 8.
  • ENS DAO is voting on a "temperature check" to commission an independent retrospective of its operations and spending over the past two years. Voting ends Dec. 9.
  • CoW DAO is voting on CIP-76 to approve a 2026 budget of 13.8 million USDC and a 100 million COW token top-up for its core team's operations and incentives. Voting ends Dec. 9.
  • GnosisDAO is voting on GIP-144 to renew Blockscout's hosting and SLA services for the 2026 calendar year. Voting ends Dec. 9.
  • MoonDAO is voting on MDP-204 to overhaul its project system by switching to quarterly voting and monthly reporting. Voting ends Dec. 10.
  • Arbitrum DAO is voting on a one-year initiative funded by the existing DIP budget to financially reward delegates with over 200k ARB who vote consistently and publish their reasoning. Voting ends Dec. 11.
• Unlocks
  • Dec. 10: LINEA$0.008000 to unlock 6.76% of its circulating supply worth $14.63 million.
  • Dec. 11: APT$1.7707 to unlock 0.96% of its circulating supply worth $21.04 million.
  • Dec. 13: CHEEL$0.5227 to unlock 2.86% of its circulating supply worth $11.02 million.
• Token Launches
  • Dec. 8: Stable (STABLE) mainnet goes live. The token will be listed on MEXC, Bitfinex, Phemex and others.
  • Dec. 9: HumidiFi’s WET token claiming period starts, liquidity pools go live.
  • Dec. 10: LAVA$0.2239 to be listed on Kraken.

Conferences

• Dec. 8-9: Bitcoin MENA 2025 (Abu Dhabi)
• Dec. 8-9: Blockchain Association’s Policy Summit 2025 (Washington)
• Dec. 8-11: Abu Dhabi Finance Week 2025 (Abu Dhabi)
• Dec. 10-11: Indonesia Blockchain Week 2025 (Jakarta)
• Dec. 11-13: Solana Breakpoint 2025 (Abu Dhabi)