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Dec. 26 is the kind of Friday where the crypto market pretends it is back to business, but the holiday aftertaste is still in the order books and in the timelines. A thin session can make one screenshot look like a disaster, one quote sound like an industry verdict and one meme campaign feel like a policy announcement, even when the bigger market is just trying to close the week without drama.
TL;DR
- Hoskinson swats Canton, name-drops XRP and Midnight, and says you cannot manufacture a real network.
- Brandt calls the $24,111 BTC/USD1 wick a Binance classic, CZ pins it on thin liquidity and fast arbitrage.
- Dogecoin rolls out a "naughty list" to pressure merchants while price is still down 60% in 2025.
"You can't fake Cardano or XRP": Hoskinson calls out new crypto project
Charles Hoskinson went straight at the Canton (CC) narrative and did it like a business rival, not like a neutral commentator.
For him, legacy finance is teaming up with Canton to build what "XRP and Midnight are already doing," claiming those ecosystems operate at a scale "100x beyond their ambitions," and framing the whole effort as people repeating the same mistake because they do not get what makes Web3 work.
His message had one practical core. The prize is the RWA arena, a $10 trillion market and as Hoskinson argues, you do not reach that with partial technology and polite partnerships. In his words, there are no half measures — you need an end-to-end strategy, real partners and communities that can carry adoption when the narrative gets ugly. Then he landed the closer that will keep getting quoted: "You can't fake Cardano or XRP Nation."
Canton is being dragged into the spotlight because it is not small. In the conversation around it, people point to a funding haul in the hundreds of millions, big-name funds and the predictable label, "XRP killer."
That label is mostly shorthand for one thing: any chain that pitches institution-friendly RWAs is going to be compared to XRP’s long-running positioning, and any founder who wants the comparison has to speak up when the market starts repeating it.
$24,111 Bitcoin on Binance: Peter Brandt not surprised
This was yesterday’s headline, but it keeps circulating because Peter Brandt turned it into an exchange reputation story. A TradingView chart for BTC/USD1 on Binance showed Bitcoin at a 24-hour low printed at $24,111.22. The wider market never behaved like BTC collapsed, but the chart is brutal.
Brandt’s opinion is without masks — it has happened before, and "only on Binance does such robbery occur." That framing is why the wick matters. It is not only a weird print, it is a reputational scar that market participants remember when they choose venues and pairs.
CZ answered with the mechanics. The claim was that USD1 is a new, low-liquidity pair, and one large market order can sweep the book and force an extreme last price, arbitrageurs correct it quickly, but no liquidations occurred because this pair is not included in any index.
USD1 is described as a dollar-pegged asset meant to track the U.S. dollar 1:1, launched in April 2025 under World Liberty Financial, with BitGo Trust Company legally managing issuance as a regulated trust entity in South Dakota. That “dollar-like” framing is exactly why the print looked so violent to casual readers.
The business takeaway into the Friday close: in thin conditions, execution quality can matter more than direction. The wrong pair can turn a normal market into a nightmare fill.
Dogecoin (DOGE) to drop "naughty list"
Dogecoin picked a simple year-end hook — shame the nonbelievers. The project teased a “naughty list” for businesses that do not accept DOGE, with the idea that next year’s “good list” will reward the ones that do.
Either this marketing pressure or a holiday comedy, as it is aimed at keeping DOGE in front of mainstream brands.
The names tossed around are big on purpose: McDonald’s, Apple, Ryanair, Volkswagen. The community also pulled Musk back into the frame, pointing out Tesla and SpaceX already sell merchandise for DOGE, and playing up rumors that Dogecoin payments could one day expand, including chatter about payment codes found in a newer Tesla site build.
The reason this campaign exists is the chart with DOGE being down about 60% since the start of 2025, and the downtrend is still the default backdrop.
Merchant adoption is the storyline Dogecoin can push when price is not doing the job, and the darker version is also present: if 2026 turns into a tough year for risk assets, DOGE could revisit levels not seen since August 2024.
Crypto market outlook
Into year-end, the real tell is whether this week’s stories fade the moment deeper liquidity returns, or whether they keep resurfacing because the market is still operating with too many soft spots.
Canton versus the XRP narrative will keep pulling founders into public comparisons, Binance’s wick will keep reminding traders that execution lives inside specific pairs and Dogecoin will keep trying to turn branding into usage while the DOGE chart remains heavy.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team