Lawmakers continued to react to President-elect Trump’s decision to tap David Sacks to be White House AI & Crypto Czar. House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and Rep. French Hill (R-AR) both tweeted in support of the announcement. Chair McHenry stated that "The era of regulation by enforcement is over," adding that "the future of the digital asset ecosystem in the U.S. is brighter than ever." Rep. Hill noted that he looks forward to working with Sacks and President-elect Trump.

US Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey approved a deal to settle clawback claims by FTX against former Alameda Research executive John Trabucco. Trabucco agreed to hand over two San Francisco apartments purchased in 2021 for $8.7 million and a yacht bought in 2022 for $2.5 million. Under the settlement, Trabucco will also drop his customer claims against FTX for about $70 million, while FTX will drop its clawback claims against Trabucco once it receives title to the residences and yacht.

DOJ announced that Nebraska man Charles Parks III pleaded guilty to wire fraud for operating a large-scale illegal “cryptojacking” operation in which he defrauded two cloud computing services out of $3.5 million of resources in order to mine $1 million in crypto. Prosecutors said Parks operated the scheme against an unnamed company and one of its subsidiaries from January to August 2021. When sentenced, Parks faces up to 20 years in prison.

The SEC filed a memorandum arguing that Binance cannot escape amended claims that it failed to register with the agency, stating that Binance, former CEO Changpeng Zhao, and BAM Trading must face claims that the platform operated as an unregistered securities exchange and offered its own proprietary token BNB as an unregistered security because listing on the secondary trading platform helped to increase the value of the projects and created a way for traders' to realize the gains issuers allegedly promised them.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted in celebration of BTC surpassing $100,000. He wrote, "Bitcoin and crypto have come a very long way since the first transaction: 10,000 bitcoin for two pizzas. To the moon!"

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told reporters that she wants Republicans to hold hearings next year on debanking, focusing on when politically charged businesses like gun manufacturers or crypto firms are denied banking services. Lummis stated that the issue of debanking is "much bigger and more sinister than a lot of us knew," adding that there will have to be hearings in the Senate Banking Committee and discussions with Treasury nominees and people at the Federal Reserve on the topic.

President-elect Trump tapped venture capitalist David Sacks to serve as the “White House AI & Crypto Czar,” a new position that is expected to oversee federal action on crypto deregulation and government AI adoption. Sacks is a South African investor who has close ties to Elon Musk. He has been a vocal supporter of crypto and digital assets for over a decade and is expected to push hard for a deregulatory approach to the sector. Several lawmakers, including Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), and Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), praised the decision in X posts. The position will not require Senate confirmation.

The UK National Crime Agency announced that it has exposed and disrupted Russian crypto money laundering networks supporting organized crime around the world. The NCA investigation, Operation Destabilise, was revealed as the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against businesses linked to TGR. According to the NCA press release, Smart and TGR "helped Russian clients to illegally bypass financial restrictions to invest money in the UK, threatening the integrity of our economy."

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched a public consultation on proposed standards outlining the criteria according to which crypto asset service providers should appoint a central contact point to ensure compliance with local anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism obligations of the host member state. The draft proposal sets out criteria for determining the circumstances in which the appointment of a central contact point is appropriate, as well as the functions of those central contact points. The consultation runs until February 4, 2025.