The Block

Quick Take Bitcoin options trading volume has hit an all-time high across major crypto derivatives exchanges. On Friday’s options expiry, a record-breaking $7.7 billion worth of bitcoin-linked options will expire on Deribit.

Quick Take zkSync, a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, processed more transactions than the Ethereum mainnet over the past month. zkSync handled 34.7 million transactions in 30 days, surpassing Ethereum’s 34.2 million in the same period.

The approval of a spot bitcoin ETF could be a “sell the news” event, with the BTC price potentially reaching a low of $32,000, CryptoQuant analysts said.

Quick Take Perpetuals-trading protocol Levana suffered an exploit — resulting in a loss of over $1.14 million. The exploit, which lasted 13 days, let an attacker drain 10% of Levana’s liquidity pools.

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest sold another 148,885 Coinbase shares on Wednesday as it continued its December selling spree for COIN.The firm purchased 4,320,928 units of ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), a bitcoin futures-linked ETF product.

Quick Take Singapore launch follows Worldcoin halting verification services in India, Brazil and France. There are currently five verification locations in Singapore.

Quick Take Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed three alternative ways of solving a potential pain point related to Ethereum’s consensus mechanism.

Quick Take Arkham Intelligence said a crypto portfolio it believes to be owned by former President Donald Trump has sold 1,075 ETH, which is worth about $2.4 million.

Quick Take Swell’s liquid staking protocol saw a major increase in inflows, reaching total value locked of 108,000 ether ($245 million). Swell is now the fourth largest liquid staking protocol, behind Lido, Rocket Pool, and Frax.

Bitcoin has retraced below the $43,000 mark, and an analyst anticipates further drawdown in the short term.