GeckoPulse: Sei Wallet Preloaded into Xiaomi Devices!

From Xiaomi to Sei-mi

Sei Labs, the firm behind the popular Sei blockchain, has reached a deal with Chinese electronics company Xiaomi to distribute its crypto wallet and discovery app on their smartphones.

The contract allows for Xiaomi to pre-install the app on all Xiaomi smartphones sold globally, other than China and the US.

According to a recent press release, the app includes an MPC wallet and access to popular crypto apps as well as P2P payments.

The arrangement is expected to begin with Europe, Latin America, Africa and the SEA region, along with a $5M program to promote the development of mobile-friendly crypto consumer apps.

Additionally, Xiaomi itself is looking to integrate USDC payments through its retail and online stores, scheduled to be deployed in Hong Kong and Europe first by mid-2026.

Following Sei’s initial announcement on Dec 10, the price of SEI rose by 8.0% to a peak of $0.148, but has since decreased to $0.131.

Coinbase Joins the Prediction Party

Based on a recent Bloomberg report, the Coinbase exchange is expected to announce its foray into tokenized stocks and prediction markets in the coming days.

The platform will be holding a live showcase next Wednesday to demonstrate its new products, but it remains to be seen which products will be included.

However, screenshots featuring these apps have been leaked across the X community in the past weeks, fueling further speculation of Coinbase’s involvement.

The price of COIN is currently up by 0.5% in the pre-markets but has remained throughout the $260-$270 range in December so far.

Madhugiri Goes Live

The Polygon Layer-1 has deployed its latest network upgrade, also known as the Madhugiri hard fork.

The update is targeted at improving network throughput by 33% and reducing block consensus periods to just 1 second.

As such, Polygon can now process ~1,400 transactions per second, with increased gas limits to 60M units.

According to core developer Krishang Shah, Madhugiri will include support for 3 Fusaka EIPs - EIP7823, EIP7825, EIP7883 - and a new transaction format for bridging transactions between Polygon and Ethereum.

Together, these EIPS help the network to run more smoothly and improve transaction efficiency.

Additionally, the update will allow blocktimes to be adjustable from within the chain itself, allowing for future throughput increases without the need for hard forks.

Since the upgrade was deployed, the price of POL has increased slightly by 1.1%.

A New Chapter for Gemini

US crypto exchange Gemini’s affiliate Gemini Titan has received approval from the US CFTC to operate as a Designated Contract Market (DCM).

This would allow Gemini to offer prediction market services to US customers and compete with Kalshi in the lucrative prediction market space.

Gemini first applied for a CFTC license in 2020, finally receiving an approval after 5 long years.

CEO Tyler Winklevoss thanked President Donald Trump for “ending the Biden Administration’s war on crypto” in a press release.

In Other News

YouTube Creators Paid in Paypal USD. Video streaming platform YouTube now lets US creators take earnings in Paypal’s PYUSD stablecoin. May Zabaneh, head of crypto at PayPal confirmed that the feature is now live.

Do Kwon Sentenced 15 Years. Terraform’s founder Do Kwon, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison over the $40B Luna collapse back in 2022.

No More Freebies on Coinbase. Coinbase’s 4% USDC earn program will no longer be available for non-paying customers. Starting on December 15, only Coinbase One subscribers will be eligible to earn interest on their USDC holdings.

Another Day Another Crypto Wallet. Swedish fintech firm Klarna is teaming up with Stripe-owned Privy, to launch a crypto wallet. Klarna also recently announced that they would also be launching KlarnaUSD, their own stablecoin.

Binance Deepening Ties with WLFI’s USD1 Stablecoin. Crypto exchange Binance expands its trading pair offerings with World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin. World Liberty Financial is a digital assets platform with close ties to the Trump family.

Li.Fi Raises $29M. Li.Fi, the API powering Jumper Exchange, has raised an additional $29M in a funding round led by Multicoin & CoinFund. This brings their total funding raised to $52M.

Bhutan Launches Sovereign-backed Tokenized Gold. In a partnership with DK Bank, Bhutan has issued TER, a sovereign-backed gold token on Solana. Bhutan is a nation state known for its crypto adoption, with a treasury of over $536M worth of Bitcoin.

Rates Cut, Market Choppiness Remains. The US Federal Reserve delivered a 0.25% interest rate cut on Wednesday but emphasized a more cautious approach towards further rate cuts. The announcement saw increased volatility in the crypto markets with BTC, ETH, SOL and other majors trading in similar patterns.

“Ethereum Has Bottomed”. Tom Lee’s Ethereum treasury firm BitMine continues to acquire more ETH, adding a further $112M worth to its treasury. When asked about BitMine’s buys on the podcast Farokh Radio, Lee said that “Ethereum's already bottomed”.

Stripe Acquires Crypto Wallet App. Payments giant Stripe announced the acquisition of crypto wallet Valora. This acquisition is in line with Stripe’s further investments and involvement in crypto, having recently launched the testnet of their upcoming stablecoin L1, Tempo.

Meteora Announces $10.6M Buyback. Jupiter-linked Solana DEX Meteora announced a surprise $10.6M buyback of their MET token. The team further announces that discretionary buybacks would continue and that MET staking would soon be live, featuring a points program in the form of “Comets”.

December ICO Season. Octra, an upcoming privacy L1 project, announced the ICO for their upcoming token. The ICO will be held between December 18 and 25, at a FDV of $200M. Octra, alongside many other unrelated crypto projects, is holding an ICO in December, showing a growing trend of crypto projects moving away from token launches through airdrops and opting for ICOs instead.