FOMC Interest Rate Decision, Do Kwon Ruling: Crypto Week Ahead

The Federal Reserve meets this week to set US interest rates. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is likely to reduce the target rate by 25 basis points to between 3.50% and 3.75% when it announces its decision on December 10, according to the CME’s Fedwatch tool. Lower rates often tend to encourage investment in riskier and more volatile assets, such as cryptocurrencies and stocks, in search of higher returns.

Do Kwon, founder of Terraform Labs, will be sentenced on December 11 after pleading guilty to defrauding investors. U.S. prosecutors recommended a 12-year sentence. The crash of Do Kwon’s UST algorithmic stablecoin and associated luna token largely contributed to the brutal market crash of 2022, often called “crypto winter.”

What to watch

• Crypto
  • December 8 – EstateX (ESX) platform goes live for Unicorn Club members (1 million ESX required) and NFT holders; first property put up for sale.​
  • December 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.
  • December 8, 11:30 am: Enjin (ENJ) activates the Senotsa upgrade on the Relaychain and Matrixchain mainnet.
  • December 8, 1:30 pm: Hivemapper (HONEY) AMA at X Spaces.
  • December 9: Twenty One Capital begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol XXI following its business combination with Cantor Equity Partners (CEP).
  • December 10, 6am: Kaia (KAIA) Korea AMA at X Spaces.
  • December 10: Celo’s Jello hardfork to bring ZK-powered failure tests to the network.
  • Dec. 11, 11 a.m.: Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, who pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy and wire fraud charges in the United States, faces sentencing in New York by Judge Paul Engelmayer. Prosecutors are asking for up to 12 years, the defense is asking for five.
  • December 11, 3 pm: Chia (XCH) AMA on Zoom.
  • December 12 – EstateX (ESX) platform is available to everyone; Fractional shares of real estate can be purchased through PROPX.
  • December 13 (approximate): The first Bittensor (TAO) halving event will reduce daily TAO emissions from 7,200 to 3,600.
  • December 13, 12 pm: Xelis (XELIS) ​​smart contracts go live on mainnet.
• Macro
  • December 9, 7 am: November inflation rate in Mexico. Title year-on-year (previous 3.57%), month-on-month (previous 0.36%). Core year-on-year (previous 4.28%), month-on-month (previous 0.29%).
  • December 9, 8:15 am: ADP weekly employment change (previous -13.5K).
  • December 9, 10 am: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report. Sept. Estimated job offers. 7.2 million, job resignations in September (previously 3,091 million).
  • December 10, 7 am: Brazil headline inflation rate for November year-on-year (forecast 4.68%), month-on-month est. 0.09%.
  • December 10, 9:45 am: Canadian central bank interest rate decision. Reference rate (previously 2.25%). 10:30 press conference
  • December 10, 2 pm: Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) rate decision (25 basis point cut expected to 3.5%-3.75%) and economic projections; 2:30 p.m. press conference (watch live).
  • December 10, 4:30 pm: Decision on interest rates from Brazil’s central bank. Reference rate (previously 15%).
  • Dec. 11, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending Dec. 6 (previously 191,000), U.S. Continuing Jobless Claims for the week ending Nov. 29 (previously 1939,000).
• Earnings (estimates based on FactSet data)

symbolic events

• Governance votes and 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 on December 8.
  • Aave DAO is voting to bring the Paxos-issued USDG stablecoin to the Aave V3 Core instance. Voting ends on December 8.
  • ENS DAO will vote on a “temperature check” to commission an independent retrospective of its operations and expenses over the past two years. Voting ends December 9.
  • CoW DAO is voting CIP-76 to approve a 2026 budget of 13.8 million USDC and a top-up of 100 million COW tokens for its core team operations and incentives. Voting ends December 9.
  • GnosisDAO is voting GIP-144 to renew Blockscout’s hosting services and SLA for calendar year 2026. Voting ends on December 9.
  • MoonDAO is voting MDP-204 to overhaul its project system by switching to quarterly voting and monthly reporting. Voting ends December 10.
  • Arbitrum DAO is voting on a one-year initiative funded by the existing DIP budget to financially reward delegates with over 200,000 ARB who vote consistently and publish their reasoning. Voting ends December 11.
• Unlock
  • December 10: LINE$0.008000 to unlock 6.76% of its circulating supply worth $14.63 million.
  • December 11: SUITABLE$1.7672 to unlock 0.96% of its circulating supply worth $21.04 million.
  • December 13: QUEL$0.5227 to unlock 2.86% of its circulating supply worth $11.02 million.
• Token releases
  • December 8: The stable mainnet (STABLE) goes live. The token will be listed on MEXC, Bitfinex, Phemex and others.
  • December 9 – HumidiFi WET token claim period begins and liquidity pools are activated.
  • December 10: LAVA$0.2239 to list on Kraken.

Conferences