The cryptocurrency market is buzzing with significant developments, from institutional players expanding their services to notable on-chain activities and a major security breach. SBI VC Trade, a subsidiary of the financial giant SBI Holdings and a massive institutional partner of Ripple, has announced a new recruitment round for its 'Rent Coin' (lending) service. This highly anticipated recruitment period is set to begin tonight, December 18, 2025, at 20:00 (JST). The exchange's 'Rent Coin' program supports lending for a diverse range of 34 assets, including prominent cryptocurrencies like XRP and Bitcoin (BTC), and even popular meme coin Dogecoin (DOGE). This service offers users a valuable opportunity to earn returns on otherwise idle crypto holdings, distinguishing itself from standard wallet storage which typically generates no yield. Applications are processed on a first-come, first-served basis, and popular coins like XRP and DOT are known to reach capacity quickly, often leading to waitlists. SBI VC Trade initially launched this cryptocurrency lending service in November 2020, at which point it exclusively supported Bitcoin (BTC) with a minimum loan of 0.1 BTC and a 1% usage fee.

In other significant on-chain news, a Coinbase-linked Shiba Inu whale has resurfaced after a year-long silence, executing a substantial transfer. The whale, identified by the wallet address "0x1b1," received precisely 53,591,805,991 SHIB from a Coinbase hot wallet approximately 20 hours ago. This transfer was valued at around $415,000 at the time. This activity is particularly noteworthy given the wallet's history; a year prior, it had sent 43.6 billion SHIB and 9.1 billion SHIB back to Coinbase deposit addresses before entering a period of complete inactivity until this latest movement. Furthermore, the same address had multiple interactions with Coinbase deposits three years ago, moving large blocks of SHIB ranging from 1.8 billion to 109.4 billion during earlier market cycles. This resurgence comes at a time when the Shiba Inu coin has been experiencing a prolonged drawdown throughout 2025, opening the year above $0.00002 and subsequently selling off aggressively to the $0.000012-$0.000015 range by spring.

A major security incident has also shaken the Ethereum ecosystem, with an Ethereum whale's multisig wallet being drained of approximately $27.3 million due to a private key compromise. According to alerts from PeckShieldAlert, the attacker has already managed to funnel about $12.6 million, equivalent to around 4,100 ETH, through the privacy-enhancing protocol Tornado Cash. An additional $2 million in liquid assets remains under the attacker's control. Etherscan traces linked to the address "0x1fCf1" reveal a pattern of repeatedly sending 100 ETH chunks to Tornado Cash, suggesting a calculated laundering schedule rather than a panicked move. The attacker appears to have gained control over the victim's multisig, which, as per the Aave interface, still holds a leveraged ETH long position. This position involves approximately $25 million in Ethereum supplied against about $12.3 million in DAI borrowed, with a health factor displayed around 1.68. This indicates the wallet is still active but in a precarious state should ETH prices decline further. The wallet overview on Etherscan shows holdings of 100.3184 ETH (approximately $284,640) and an additional $1.37 million spread across 201 different tokens. Key holdings include 303.44 WETH (around $860,973), 2,216.36 OKB (approximately $234,802), 4,928.74 LEO ($36,374), and 151,990.97 FET ($30,870).