* SILVER SURPASSES GOOGLE TO BECOME THE 4TH LARGEST ASSET BY MARKET CAP: INFINITYHEDGE

*US NOV. CONSUMER PRICES RISE 2.7% Y/Y; EST. +3.1%

*US NOV. CORE CPI RISES 2.6% Y/Y; EST. +3.0%

*U.S. CORE CPI EASES TO SLOWEST PACE SINCE 2021

Views:
* GS: canceling of the Oct report makes MoM comparisons impossible...Fed will instead focus on the Dec. CPI for more accurate bellwether for inflation.

* Omair Sharif: This is totally inexcusable. BLS just assumed rent/OER were zero for Oct....There is just no world in which this was a good idea... (While he says there may be a good technical reason for doing so, the end result has distorted the data)

BE: One notable takeaway from the October-November CPI report is that inflation in most tariffed-exposed goods categories is peaking or has already peaked. Businesses slashed prices in November amid holiday sales events. Food-price growth slowed sharply in both months.

* Also Remember what Powell said last week. There may be quality issues with these numbers, given gov shutdown. Both inflation & labor market data “may be distorted,” he said. He called out the CPI specifically in saying “we’re going to look at that really carefully and understand that it may be distorted by very technical factors."

“All told this is a positive report, that comes with an asterisk."

BOJ RAISES INTEREST RATES TO 30-YEAR HIGH AS EXPECTED, FIRST HIKE SINCE JANUARY 2025: INFINITYHEDGE

JAPAN 10-YEAR YIELD HITS 2%, HIGHEST SINCE 2006: INFINITYHEDGE

TRUMP: THE ONLY REASON OUR UNEMPLOYMENT TICKED UP TO 4.5% IS BECAUSE WE ARE REDUCING THE GOVERNMENT WORKFORCE BY NUMBERS THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE. 100% OF OUR NEW JOBS ARE IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR! I COULD REDUCE UNEMPLOYMENT TO 2% OVERNIGHT BY JUST HIRING PEOPLE INTO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, EVEN THOUGH THOSE JOBS ARE NOT NECESSARY.

DEBASEMENT TRADE CONTINUES: INFINITYHEDGE

*GOLD HITS RECORD HIGH OF $4,420
*SILVER HITS RECORD HIGH OF $69.4
*COPPER HITS RECORD HIGH OF $11,990
*PLATINUM RISES TO 17-YEAR HIGH
*PALLADIUM HITS 3-YEAR HIGH

The Week Ahead: infinityhedge

Mon: Saylor expected announce another BTC purchase

Tue: U.S. delayed Q3 GDP

Wed: Christmas Eve Markets close early

Thu: Christmas Day Markets closed

Fri: $24B worth of BTC Options Expiry: Max Pain Price $96k; Put/Call 0.37; OTM Calls value: $21B; Call options are clustered at strike prices of $100k and $120k, with heavy put option exposure accumulating at $85k.

ICYMI:
* Trump Orders Blockade of Sanctioned Oil Tankers in Venezuela
* Amount of oil held on tankers has risen to 1.3B barrels of “oil on water” - crude held at sea, That is the largest volume since April 2020, when oil consumption cratered due to COVID-19 lockdowns, and about 30% higher than August levels. This spike in supplies on water is partly due to tightening sanctions on Russia.
* NVIDIA, BlackRock, Microsoft Backed Startup PsiQuantum Founder: so we will have useful quantum computers solving meaningful problems across science and technology you know creating new technologies generating revenue, having serious impact way before Qday (break RSA encryption) happens and so we will be forewarned when you start to see people using quantum computers to solve really genuinely important problems then you can think right well maybe Qday is actually 5 years away maybe 10 years away and that’s when you should start to to worry right.

https://infinityhedge.substack.com/p/the-7-days-118

US TO TAKE TARIFF ACTION ON SEMICONDUCTORS FROM CHINA

U.S. SAYS TARIFF ON CHINA SEMICONDUCTORS ZERO UNTIL JUNE 2027

Context: These new tariffs (0% for now but US will announce new tariff rate in 2027) are in addition to the existing 50% Section 301 tariff that's already in place on semiconductors from China.

* SILVER SURPASSES APPLE TO BECOME THE 3RD LARGEST ASSET BY MARKET CAP: INFINITYHEDGE

S&P 500 HITS RECORD HIGH: INFINITYHEDGE

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays Everyone ☃️ 🎄👻

NVIDIA BUYING AI CHIP STARTUP GROQ FOR ABOUT $20B IN CASH IN ITS LARGEST ACQUISITION ON RECORD: CNBC

Groq was founded by creators of google’s TPU Chip

UPDATE:
Nvidia: We're not acquiring Groq, We're just licensing tech. We will integrate Groq products into future offerings.

Groq entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Nvidia for Groq’s inference technology.

As part of this agreement, Jonathan Ross, Groq’s Founder, Sunny Madra, Groq’s President, and other members of the Groq team will join Nvidia to help advance and scale the licensed technology.

TRUST WALLET EXTENSION MAYBE COMPROMISED ⚠️

ZACHXBT: A number of Trust Wallet users have reported that funds were drained from wallet addresses within the past couple hours. While the exact root cause has not been determined coincidentally the Trust Wallet Chrome extension pushed a new update yesterday.

Trust Wallet: We’ve identified a security incident affecting Trust Wallet Browser Extension version 2.68 only. Users with Browser Extension 2.68 should disable and upgrade to 2.69.

Please note: Mobile-only users and all other browser extension versions are not impacted.

Update from Trust Wallet:

*Confirmed that ~$7M has been impacted and all affected users will get refund.

*For affected users on Browser Extension v2.68, please follow these steps as soon as possible:

Step 1: Do NOT open the Trust Wallet Browser Extension v2.68 on your device.

Step 2: Go to Extensions settings in your browser, Switch the toggle to "Off" below the Trust Wallet if it's still "On".

Step 3: Click "Developer mode" in the upper right corner. And Press the "Update" on the left upper corner.

Step 4. Check the version number: 2.69. This is the latest and secure version.

*CHINA IMPOSES COUNTERMEASURES ON 20 US MILITARY COMPANIES AND 10 EXECUTIVES OVER TAIWAN ARMS SALES: INFINITYHEDGE

*CHINA FREEZES ASSETS AND BANS TRANSACTIONS WITH NORTHROP GRUMMAN, BOEING ST. LOUIS, L3HARRIS AND OTHER DEFENSE CONTRACTORS

*CHINA FREEZES ASSETS AND DENIES VISAS TO ANDURIL FOUNDER PALMER LUKEY, L3HARRIS EXECUTIVES AND OTHER DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY LEADERS INTO CHINA (INCLUDING HONG KONG AND MACAO)

*MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS SAYS MEASURES VIOLATE ONE-CHINA PRINCIPLE AND INTERFERE IN CHINA'S INTERNAL AFFAIRS

CHINA: THIS DECISION SHALL COME INTO FORCE AS OF DECEMBER 26, 2025

CONTEXT: U.S. APPROVED $11 BILLION IN ARMS SALES TO TAIWAN WEEK AGO.

*From BBG: Most of the companies and executives targeted have little or no presence in China, and some were already placed on the Commerce Ministry’s unreliable entity list.

The Week Ahead: infinityhedge

Mon:
*Saylor expected announce another BTC purchase
*Trump expected to meet with Netanyahu in Florida on phase 2 of the Gaza peace process

Tue: FOMC minutes

Wed: New Year's Eve
*ACA subsidies expire in US.

Thu: New Year's Day (Markets Closed)

TBA/Whole Week:
*China-US Tension over Arms Sales To Taiwan;
*China live-fire drills around Taiwan simulating blockade of major ports in response to US Biggest Arms Deal with Taiwan. The areas the Chinese military marked for the Drills are bigger in comparison to past drills.
*China Policy Announcement?;
*Crypto: Lighter Exchange Airdrop?

ICYMI:
* Silver retreated sharply after hitting an all-time peak of $84 an ounce
* Saylor’s Strategy Raises Dollar Reserve, Pauses Bitcoin Purchases

https://infinityhedge.substack.com/p/the-7-days-144

2025 Outlook Review: INFINITYHEDGE

Got Right: ✅
*Stablecoins integrating deeper into TradFi tokenization push,
*No SBR
*China stimulus
*No AGI, GPT-5 disappointing vs hype, AI agent exploits, No AI bubble burst
*DeFi Revenue Sharing Era
*ETHBTC hit 0.043 (called 0.045, close enough)
*Circle IPO; Coinbase & Kraken will not release token
*Russia & others will use crypto for sanctions circumvention
*APT, TON, SUI, SEI face outages
*Crypto Funding will not reach 2021 levels (not even close)
*Bearish:DeSci-Dino-Fan-SoFi-Gaming-AI Tokens, SOL, SEI, L3s, NFTs-Memes-Metaverse, TON-BNB-TRON Eco Tokens (except BNB, TON, TRX tokens)

From Group (infinityhedge Context): (these can be verified when we open the discussion group publicly in 2026 (planned), don't @ us about proof until then):
*Bearish on BTC throughout the year, more heavily incl. Crypto after Oct. 7
*Market Structure Bill will not pass in 2025
*Warned against FOMO'ing into DATs
*Bullish on privacy (always not just 2025)
*Altcoin ETFs will not drive prices higher (sell the news)
*MSTR removal from nasdaq (didn't get removed from nasdaq technically, but the MSCI index removal fear crashed shares 50%, so from a "bearish" perspective we were correct (& we also were bearish on MSTR all year {G})
*UNI buyback: fact-checked the made up numbers claiming hundreds of millions of buyback
*Turn bearish on LINK & PYTH after that "on-chain GDP" news
*Bearish: META (stock), XRP, APT, SUI, KAITO, MON, XPL, MOVE, W, DRIFT, POL, PENGU, WLFI, PUMP, S, BIO, NIL, VVV, LINEA, STABLE, TRUMP, ONDO, IP, INJ, TIA, 2Z, ATH, GRASS, ASTER, etc. (seriously, we were bearish on almost everything mostly)
*Bullish: Google, GOLD, XMR, RAIL, etc....
* Turn Bullish on Apple in Sept after Jim Cramer said "new iPhones are incredible!!" (Seriously)
*so there's way more like thousands of contextual breakdowns/views across tech, macro we made throughout the year so its not possible to list everything & honestly we don't even remember most (we give context/pov on every major headlines in group so)

Key thesis: No altcoin cycle if exchanges keep listing tokens nonstop. We were screaming this all year. Literally stopped posting token listings this year & posted an angry rant about unlimited exchange listings being bullshit. Guess what? Only Crypto is down YTD while everything else is at ATH

"Coinbase: 16M tokens now available to trade" (not enough sir? WE WANT MORE!)

*Quantum: We discussed Google's quantum chip in group before it became a narrative. Don't think it's major risk right now (or even in the next 5 years atleast, listen to what PsiQuantum Founder said, search in channel), but we were ahead of the curve. (We aggregated this from Deloitte - can't remember if any crypto 2025 outlooks mentioned it, apologies if you did)

Mixed Results:
*BTC price action mixed per January outlook, but we were bearish throughout the year {G}
*{G} ZEC: Initially bullish as privacy play, shifted bearish when KOL marketing went apeshit from $100-$200, doubled down on bearishness at $700. It pumped higher than expected, so you can throw this in "Got Wrong" if you want. also btw war of XMR vs ZEC we support XMR

Got Wrong: ❌
*{G} Bullish: ETH, ENA, COW, ARKM, NMR, MORPHO, CRV, AXL, HNT
*Bullish on DePin
*USDT dominance < 50%
*{G} Bearish on HYPE, Tesla
*Kraken IPO
*DOGE ETF did approve (though we were right that ETFs wouldn't move prices & even bearish so half credit?)
*GTA-VI release (😭)
*One or two DeFi projects entering top 10
*ETH staking ETF approve (very surprising it didn't happened)
*{G} Exchanges delist TRUMP (token down 97%, so half credit?)
*Oct. Dec. Fed Cut (really though?)

{G} Our 2025 recommendations were: Just two Gold (mostly) & Google. On defense, we straight up told members to avoid new liquidity traps: ICOs, IEOs, TGEs, DATs, etc.. and all exchange token listings. (More than 85% went straight down hill)

TLDR: We were aggressively bearish on crypto all year while being bullish on Gold & Google. The meta-thesis (no altcoin cycle due to infinite token listings dilution) was completely correct.

Update From Trust Wallet:

So far, their investigation suggests that the Browser Extension v2.68 incident is likely related to the industry-wide Sha1-Hulud incident in November.

* Sha1-Hulud was an industry-wide software supply chain attack that affected companies across multiple sectors, including but not limited to crypto via compromised npm packages. It involved malicious code being introduced and distributed through commonly-used developer tooling. This allowed attackers to gain access through trusted software dependencies rather than directly targeting individual organizations.

* To date, this incident has impacted over ⅓ of the Fortune 100, among hundreds of other organizations.

* From November 25th to December 24th, the infection rate stabilized at a persistent level of approximately 100-200 new compromised repositories every day: Wiz

Important ⚠️ : Security Researchers warn that these type of attacks will get worse: infinityhedge

Read More here: https://www.wiz.io/blog/snipping-the-long-tail-of-shai-hulud-2-0

CHINESE TECH FIRMS ORDER 2 MILLION H200 CHIPS FOR 2026, FAR EXCEEDING NVIDIA'S 700,000-UNIT INVENTORY, SOURCES: INFINITYHEDGE VIA RTRS

TSMC EXPECTED TO START WORK ON EXPANDED H200 OUTPUT IN Q2 2026

NVIDIA SETS H200 PRICE AT $27,000 PER CHIP FOR CHINESE CLIENTS

CHINA YET TO GREENLIGHT H200 SHIPMENTS DESPITE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S RECENT APPROVAL WITH 25% FEE

BYTEDANCE PLANS TO SPEND 100 BILLION YUAN ON NVIDIA CHIPS IN 2026, UP FROM 85 BILLION YUAN IN 2025, IF CHINA ALLOWS H200 SALES

FYI: CHINA MANDATES 50% DOMESTIC EQUIPMENT RULE FOR CHIPMAKERS TO BOOST SELF-SUFFICIENCY, SOURCES SAY

CHINESE CHIPMAKERS FACE REJECTION IF FAILING TO MEET 50% DOMESTIC EQUIPMENT THRESHOLD

EVENTUALLY CHINA AIMING FOR THE PLANTS TO USE 100% DOMESTIC EQUIPMENT

happy new year

and some advice for 2026 from our side:

> follow your instincts
> focus on health

> 2026 will be like going to be year of misinformation, AI slop will be everywhere. We're entering an era where: every image/video/article/post/music, everything you see on internet could be AI generated, LLM slop & already nobody read past headlines anymore so it will get even worse. So Don't be the person spreading fake bullshit. Always verify source, check context (just shoot to any AI, it take little as 60sec to verify anything, the irony)

> Try not consume every info the internet throws at you daily. Limit your info inflow

- infinityhedge

Trump: If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go