PETRO ‘BONUS’: Venezuelan public sector workers, retirees and the military personnel will receive a token gesture this Christmas. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced Friday these citizens will be airdropped half a petro token (said to be worth $30) as a holiday bonus this week. Full story
STELLAR SPAMMED: A plague of bot accounts joined Keybase following Stellar's announcement to airdrop 2 billion XLM airdrop on the encryption app, forcing the crypto startup to cut the program short, Max Krohn, CEO of Keybase, said. Despite the bad actors seeking free money, the drive "definitely achieved the goal of getting more numbers onto Keybase and more people onto Stellar," Krohn said. Full story
MINER ARREST: Yang Zuoxing, CEO of Shenzhen-based bitcoin miner maker MicroBT, has been arrested for the alleged embezzlement of about $15,000. The arrest, noted by the Shenzhen Nanshan District Prosecutor on Dec. 12, comes amid growing competition between mining giant Bitmain and MicroBT for market dominance. Full story
TRADE TRIAL: R3 has closed a trial that saw participation from more than 70 organizations from about 25 countries, making it the largest open finance trial on the Corda platform, according to the firm. Full story
NEXT STOPS: Daniel Gorfine, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chief innovation officer, predicts the decade long crypto-led “cyberspace odyssey” will meet regulatory clarity next year. In an article submitted for CoinDesk’s Year in Review series, the Gattaca Horizons founder takes stock of the biggest trends that will set the crypto agenda in 2020. Full story
WEAKER PROSPECTS: Bitcoin defended a psychological support of $7,000 twice in the last 48 hours and may chart a minor bounce to $7,230-$7,300 before a potential sell-off toward recent lows near $6,500. Full story
REVIVED DEBATE: On today's Markets Daily, CoinDesk's Adam B. Levine and Brad Keoun talk over an odd story from the weekend - an investigator in Canada has requested to exhume the body Gerald Cotten, the deceased CEO of the defunct Quadriga exchange, following the suspicious circumstances of his death - as well as news from China. Listen here
Token gesture