“The SolarWinds hack was and really is and continues to be one of the biggest espionage campaigns recently discovered,” said Thomas Rid, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Microsoft, Google and several U.S. government agencies were among those compromised by the intrusion.

“What’s unique about this or special about this particular intrusion is that they use the access they got by compromising SolarWinds itself to insert malware into the build process,” said Jacob Williams, founder of Rendition InfoSec. ”This then allowed them to target SolarWinds [and] customers that deployed this back door update.”

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• Moderna is planning to test the safety and immune response from giving a booster shot of its Covid-19 vaccine one year after initial vaccination.

• The duration of protection from Covid-19 vaccines isn’t yet known.

• Its clinical trial sites have already begun outreach to volunteers from earlier trials.

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• Grayscale kicked off last year with $2 billion in assets under management and ended with more than $20.2 billion, driven by demand from institutional investors such as hedge funds, endowments and pension funds.

• Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust became a popular, publicly traded way for investors to get exposure to cryptocurrency without owning the coins themselves.

• “There’s no longer professional risk of investing in the digital currency asset class — there’s probably more career risk in not paying attention to it,” said CEO Michael Sonnenshein.

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• Alibaba-backed Xpeng announced Tuesday it secured a credit line of 12.8 billion yuan ($1.98 billion) from major Chinese financial institutions — including three of the “big five” state-owned banks: Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China.

• These massive state-owned banks also lend to Nio and Tesla.

• Xpeng said the new credit line will help it expand its manufacturing, sales and services and other operations.

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“Testing does not eliminate all risk, but when combined with a period of staying at home and everyday precautions like wearing masks and social distancing, it can make travel safer, healthier, and more responsible by reducing spread on planes, in airports, and at destinations,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in a news release.

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• Chinese electric car start-up Nio released its first sedan, the et7 with self-driving technology features that it claims surpass that of Tesla.

• In its bid to become a leader in electric vehicle technology, China has supported the industry with subsidies, looser restrictions and the building out of charging infrastructure.

• Homegrown electric vehicle makers including Nio, Li Auto and Xpeng said deliveries surged last year but they are still nowhere close to the number of worldwide deliveries Tesla made in 2020.

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• Though the yuan isn’t expected to unseat the dollar anytime soon, its prominence is rising in global reserves and international trade owing to Beijing’s growing economic influence.

• The yuan is said to be the sixth most used currency in international payments and is used to settle about 20% of China’s trade.

• China’s push to internationalize the yuan will be driven by two things — funds flowing into the country and a relaxation of rules that restrict the currency from moving abroad, according to CG Lai, CEO of BNP Paribas China.

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• The Japanese government is set to expand the state of emergency to more areas on Wednesday, according to local media reports.

• Investors will also watch for developments from Washington, with the U.S. House set to push ahead with efforts to remove President Donald Trump from office over his role in sparking last week’s deadly attack on the Capitol.

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• The digital currency has almost quadrupled in value this year amid heightened interest from bigger investors.

• Bitcoin has increasingly seen demand from larger U.S. investors in particular, attracted by its perceived inflation-hedging qualities and potential for quick gains.

• The latest gains took bitcoin’s market capitalization past $518 billion, according to industry website CoinMarketCap.

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• The House of Commons, as expected, voted in favor of the agreement, and the country will emerge from its Brexit transition period with the EU late Thursday.

• The trading rules will be implemented on New Year’s Day.

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• There is “a lot of opportunity” for investors to take advantage of distressed real estate assets, according to one of London’s prime property investors.

• Montague Real Estate’s Thomas Balashev said the current economic downturn had devalued otherwise sound assets.

• Investing opportunities are available across the globe, said Balashev, noting an uptick in interest from investors in Asia.

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• Moderna’s vaccine could be administered to the public as early as next week if it wins emergency use authorization from the FDA.

• The FDA staff endorsement comes two days before the agency’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, a group of outside medical advisors, is scheduled to review it.

• The committee is expected to recommend Moderna’s vaccine for emergency use.

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• The Fed is expected to release a new outlook for the economy, which is expected to be improved in the longer term because of the availability of vaccines.

• The Fed is expected to sound very dovish at the end of its meeting Wednesday afternoon, but the bond market could have a bumpy reaction depending on what the central bank says about its bond buying program.

• Some investors expect the Fed to change the duration of bonds it is buying, but others expect it to just detail guidelines it will use to make changes to the program.

• The Fed will release its statement at 2 p.m., and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell holds a 2:30 p.m. ET briefing.

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• The shots were generally better tolerated by people over 64 who are also among the most vulnerable to the disease than for younger people.

• A handful of people experienced rare side effects like intractable nausea or vomiting and facial swelling, the FDA said.

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• Israeli entrepreneur and Waze co-founder Uri Levine told CNBC the region’s next unicorn is likely to come out of the United Arab Emirates.

• Waze, a traffic and navigation app, was acquired by Google in June 2013 for more than $1.1 billion.

• Levine is visiting Dubai for the first time as leaders in Israeli technology, business and government look for reciprocal growth opportunities following the deal to normalize ties.

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• Mark Zuckerberg threatened to pull investment in the U.K. in a private meeting two years ago.

• The meeting was with Matt Hancock, who was then the U.K. government’s secretary for digital, culture, media and sport.

• Zuckerberg said he supported the U.K.’s decision to regulate the internet but he was “worried about the tone.”

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• The U.K. left the EU in January but it agreed to keep the same standards and regulations until the end of the year, so both would have time to develop new trading arrangements.

• However, this transition period ends in three weeks and there are serious concerns they will not have a new agreement ready by then.

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• Societe Generale expects an extension of the ECB″s bond-buying program until December 2021, with an extra 600 billion euros in total, alongside a new financing program for banks.

• The Bank of International Settlements has advised central banks that doing too much is better than doing too little.

• The ECB also has to get inflation back to its target of close to but below 2%.

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The volatile negotiations come amid the worst days of the coronavirus pandemic so far. More than 200,000 Americans are testing positive for the coronavirus every day on average, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.

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• The FDA said data from Pfizer’s Covid vaccine trials show that side effects are common, though there are “no specific safety concerns identified that would preclude issuance of an” emergency use authorization.

• Trial participants in the Moderna and Pfizer studies told CNBC they developed more significant symptoms following the second dose.

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