Headline: Итоги недели: Ethereum обновляется и институционалы вступают в криптографию Translation: Weekly Summary: Ethereum Updates and Institutions Enter the Crypto Space

The price of Bitcoin has reached a point of stability, while Ethereum has launched the Fusaka hard fork. Vanguard and Bank of America have opened access to cryptocurrency products, and Poland’s president has vetoed a bill aimed at regulating digital assets, among other significant events of the past week.

As December began, the leading cryptocurrency experienced a sharp decline right away. On December 1, the asset plummeted from $92,000 to $85,000. The downturn may have been influenced by broader macroeconomic uncertainty and a cyber attack on the Yearn Finance protocol.

However, by Tuesday, digital gold managed to recover, bouncing back to $94,000. Bitcoin traded within the range of $91,000 to $94,000 until Friday, when the coin broke through the support level at the lower end and fell to $88,000.

By the end of the week, the asset fluctuated, hovering around $89,500 at the time of writing, marking a decline of approximately 2% over the week.

Despite strong on-chain indicators and a rebound in ETF inflows, the leading cryptocurrency still faces significant selling pressure.

In the past week, several early investors and whales became active. For instance, a miner from the Satoshi era resurfaced after 15 years, moving 50 BTC to new addresses. Additionally, 2,000 BTC from the physical Casascius series were put into circulation.

Arab Chain specialists noted that in November, cryptocurrency miners transferred over 220,000 BTC to Binance, up from 186,000 BTC in October.

CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju warned that negative sentiment prevails in the crypto market, suggesting that without an influx of macroeconomic liquidity, the industry risks slipping into a prolonged downturn.

Most cryptocurrencies in the top 10 by market cap, in line with Bitcoin, displayed modest dynamics. The biggest declines were seen in DOGE (-6.7% over the week), XRP (-6.8%), and SOL (-3%).

The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies fell to $3.12 trillion, with Bitcoin dominance at 56.9% and Ethereum at 11.7%.

The popular market sentiment indicator is sitting at 20 points, which signals ‘extreme fear.’

On December 3, Ethereum developers successfully deployed the Fusaka upgrade on the main network, with full implementation completed by December 5.

The hard fork aims to introduce significant enhancements to increase the scalability, efficiency, and security of the second-largest cryptocurrency network.

Fusaka is the second-largest upgrade in volume, incorporating ten improvement proposals. The most significant of these is EIP-7594, which will introduce the PeerDAS protocol to Ethereum. This technology allows validators to verify smaller fragments instead of large BLOB objects, increasing data accessibility across the ecosystem.

This upgrade also includes a more than twofold increase in the gas limit at the first level, which is expected to elevate the blockchain’s throughput to 12,000 transactions per second (TPS).

Among the other changes:

There were also some technical glitches. Shortly after the Fusaka deployment, a failure occurred in the popular consensus client, Prysm, which disabled a portion of Ethereum validators.

At one point, only 75% of nodes were signing up-to-date block headers, and consensus participation dropped to 74.7%. The network was on the brink of a catastrophic failure, but the issue was stabilized.

Ethereum’s price reacted positively to the hard fork, with quotes jumping from $2,700 to $3,200 at one point. The asset has since corrected to around $3,000, showing little price change over the week.

The past week also marked an expansion in the presence of large institutional players. On December 2, Vanguard Group, the second-largest asset management firm in the world, opened access to trade ETFs and mutual funds based on digital assets.

The firm’s basket includes products based on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other altcoins like XRP and Solana.

Although Vanguard had previously criticized cryptocurrencies as an «immature asset class,» the company has changed its tune after former BlackRock executive Salim Ramji took over as CEO.

«Cryptocurrency ETFs and mutual funds have been tested during periods of market volatility, demonstrating expected results while maintaining liquidity. The administrative processes for servicing these instruments have matured, and investor preferences have changed,» stated Andrew Kajeski, head of Vanguard’s brokerage and investment services.

Another major U.S. bank, Bank of America (BoA), announced that it will start recommending its institutional clients allocate between 1% and 4% of their portfolios to digital assets.

This opportunity will be extended to users of the Merrill, Bank of America Private Bank, and Merrill Edge platforms. Starting January 5, 2026, the product lineup will include the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB), the Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund from Fidelity (FBTC), the Bitcoin Mini Trust from Grayscale (BTC), and the iShares Bitcoin Trust from BlackRock (IBIT).

«This update reflects our clients’ growing demand for access to digital assets,» added Nancy Fahmy, head of investment solutions at BoA.

In addition, the Uniswap Labs team announced a partnership with the fintech company Revolut, enabling customers to purchase digital assets directly through the exchange’s web app and wallet.

The service is available to residents in 26 countries across the European Economic Area and supports over 40 tokens.

Using Revolut Pay, users only pay for blockchain gas, with no service charge. Additionally, existing clients of the neobank do not need to undergo further Know Your Customer (KYC) checks.

Earlier in the week, Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced the launch of a «decentralized private computing network» called Cocoon.

The platform is designed for AI operations within the TON network. It «securely connects» GPU owners providing computational resources with applications requiring privacy for running AI models, allowing the «renters» to earn cryptocurrency.

Cocoon comprises three components:

«Anyone with a GPU server can rent it out and make money. Requests and responses remain confidential and known only to the client,» the developers stated.

Durov pointed out that centralized computing resources providers like Amazon and Microsoft act as costly intermediaries who raise prices and lower privacy levels. Cocoon addresses both issues.

«We’re expanding now. In the coming weeks, we’ll attract more GPU suppliers and developers. Telegram users will soon see new AI features that promise 100% privacy,» he noted.

TON prices showed little reaction to the launch, trading at $1.57 at the time of writing.

On December 1, Polish President Karol Nawrocki vetoed the «Crypto Assets Market Bill,» citing concerns that its provisions «threaten the freedoms of Poles, their property, and the stability of the state.»

One of the main reasons for the veto was a clause allowing authorities to block websites related to the crypto market. He also pointed out the bill’s excessive complexity and volume.

«Overregulation is a quick way to push companies to move to the Czech Republic, Lithuania, or Malta, rather than creating conditions for them to operate and pay taxes in Poland,» the President added.

Another source of discontent was the high regulatory fees, which could suppress startup activity and create advantages for foreign corporations and banks.

Not all politicians supported Nawrocki’s actions. Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski and Deputy Prime Minister Radoslaw Sikorski expressed their dissatisfaction with the decision.

Domanski emphasized that about 20% of users currently lose funds due to abuses in the crypto market. According to him, instead of regulation, the president chose chaos.

The Polish Sejm lacked 18 votes to overturn the veto.

The failed attempt to revisit the decision forced the government to restart the adoption process for the document, leaving Poland as the only EU member state without an internal structure for MiCA.

What would happen if leading states suddenly decided to extend large-scale hybrid conflicts to the crypto economy, threatening the integrity of the Bitcoin network? Anatoly Kaplan raised this question and found that it is not as trivial as it may seem at first glance.