FOMC Interest Rate Decision and Do Kwon Sentencing: The Week Ahead in Crypto

The Federal Reserve meets this week to set U.S. interest rates. The Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) is expected to cut 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 investing in riskier and more volatile assets such as cryptocurrencies and stocks, in search of higher returns.

Do Kwon, founder of Terraform Labs, is scheduled to 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 algorithmic stablecoin UST and the associated Luna token contributed significantly to the sharp market downturn in 2022, often referred to as the “cryptocurrency winter.”

What to watch

• Cryptocurrency
  • 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), resulting from the merger of Columbus Circle Capital Corp. I and ProCap BTC, LLC, begins trading on the Nasdaq Global Market.
  • December 8, 11:30 a.m.: Enjin (ENJ) activates the Senotsa upgrade on Relaychain and Matrixchain mainnet.
  • December 8, 1:30 p.m.: Hivemapper (HONEY) AMA on X Spaces.
  • December 9: Twenty One Capital begins trading on the NYSE under the symbol XXI following a business combination with Cantor Equity Partners (CEP).
  • December 10, 6:00 a.m.: Kaia (KAIA) Korea AMA on X Spaces.
  • December 10: Celo’s Jello hardfork will bring evidence of ZK-powered outages to the network.
  • December 11, 11 a.m.: Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, 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 in prison, the defense is asking for five.
  • December 11, 3 p.m.: Chia (XCH) AMA on Zoom.
  • December 12: The EstateX (ESX) platform becomes accessible to everyone; fractional real estate shares can be purchased through PROPX.
  • December 13 (approximate): The first Bittensor Halving Event (TAO) will reduce TAO’s daily emissions from 7,200 to 3,600.
  • December 13 at 12 p.m.: Xelis smart contracts (XELIS) ​​go live on the mainnet.
• Macro
  • December 9, 7 a.m.: November inflation rate in Mexico. Title YoY (previous 3.57%), MoM (previous 0.36%). Core YoY (previous 4.28%), MoM (previous 0.29%).
  • December 9, 8:15 a.m.: ADP Employment Change Weekly (previous -13.5K).
  • December 9, 10 a.m.: Report from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). Sept. Job Offers East. 7.2 million, job abandonments in September (previous 3.091 million).
  • December 10, 7 a.m.: Brazil’s headline inflation rate in November year-on-year (previous 4.68%), est. 0.09%.
  • December 10, 9:45 a.m.: decision on interest rates from the central bank of Canada. Reference rate (previous 2.25%). 10:30 a.m. press conference
  • December 10, 2:00 p.m.: Decision on rates from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) (reduction of 25 basis points to 3.5%-3.75% expected) and economic projections; 2:30 p.m. Press conference (watch live).
  • December 10, 4:30 p.m.: decision by the Brazilian central bank on interest rates. Reference rate (previous 15%).
  • December 11, 8:30 a.m.: Initial jobless claims in the United States for the week ended December 6 (previous 191,000), continuing claims in the United States for the week ended November 29 (previous 1939,000).
• Earnings (estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

• Votes and calls on governance
  • Celo Public Goods votes on the December allocation for “Support Streams Season 1,” distributing CELO and OP to projects based on stCELO votes. Voting closes on December 8.
  • Aave DAO votes to integrate the USDG stablecoin issued by Paxos into the Aave V3 Core instance. Voting closes on December 8.
  • The ENS DAO votes for a “temperature check” to commission an independent retrospective of its operations and expenses over the last two years. Voting closes on December 9.
  • CoW DAO votes on CIP-76 to approve a 2026 budget of 13.8 million USDC and an additional 100 million COW tokens for its core team operations and incentives. Voting closes on December 9.
  • GnosisDAO votes on GIP-144 to renew Blockscout’s hosting and SLA services for calendar year 2026. Voting closes on December 9.
  • MoonDAO votes on CDM-204 to overhaul its project system by moving to quarterly voting and monthly reporting. Voting closes on December 10.
  • Arbitrum DAO votes on a one-year initiative funded by the existing DIP budget to financially reward delegates with more than 200,000 ARBs who vote consistently and publish their reasoning. Voting closes on December 11.
• Unlocks
  • December 10: LINEA$0.007990 to unlock 6.76% of its circulating supply worth $14.63 million.
  • December 11: APTE$1.7736 to unlock 0.96% of its circulating supply worth $21.04 million.
  • December 13: CHEEL$0.5227 to unlock 2.86% of its circulating supply worth $11.02 million.
• Token Launches
  • December 8: The stable mainnet (STABLE) goes live. The token will be listed on MEXC, Bitfinex, Phemex and others.
  • December 9: HumidiFi WET token claiming period begins and liquidity pools go live.
  • December 10: WASHED$0.2239 be listed on Kraken.

Conferences