Bitcoin

Ethereum

Solana

<h2 id="market-overview">Market Overview 📉</h2>
<h2 id=""></h2>
*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on December 26, 2025.
<a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Bitcoin (BTC)</a> finished the week up 2.37%, while <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Ethereum (ETH)</a> underperformed again, moving up 1.76% in the same period. Total crypto market cap rose 2.39% to close the week at $3T, up from $2.93T in the week before.
Low liquidity and volumes over the holiday week led to a week of low <a href="https://www.coinglass.com/LiquidationData" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">liquidations</a>, with some days seeing less than $150M in liquidations across shorts and longs.<a href="https://www.coinglass.com/FundingRateHeatMap" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Funding rates</a> across the board continued to fall, with most majors hovering just under 5%, signaling a lack of demand for risk in the markets.
📌 Michael Saylor’s Strategy increases their USD Reserve by $748M to $2.19B. - <a href="https://x.com/saylor/status/2003089335722328075" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 ETH treasury company, ETHZilla, has sold 24,291 ETH for $74.5M, using the proceeds to pay off redemption of their senior secured convertible notes. - <a href="https://x.com/ETHZilla_ETHZ/status/2003096385021759668" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Pro-crypto candidate, Michael Selig, has been officially sworn in as the 16th Chairman of the CFTC. - <a href="https://x.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/2003226866916970628" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
Why does it matter?
Crypto markets continue to chop across the week, with reduced volumes across most trading venues due to the holiday period. Even as equities and metals rise to new highs, crypto assets simply are unable to catch a bid. The S&amp;P 500 surged 2.27% this week, cracking a new all-time high for the index, with the Nasdaq outperforming at 2.50% over the same period.
Notable altcoin outperformers this week included <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pippin/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Pippin (PIPPIN)</a>, <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/humanity-protocol/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Humanity (H)</a>, <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monad/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Monad (MON)</a>, <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/canton-network/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Canton (CC)</a>, <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/maple-finance/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Maple Finance (SYRUP)</a>, and <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/sky/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Sky (SKY)</a>.
View <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/gainers-losers/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">CMC Gainers &amp; Losers board</a>
<h2 id="narrative-of-the-week">Narrative of the Week 📰</h2>
Leading lending protocol, Aave, falls into a governance drama as the Aave leadership and community clash over a governance proposal concerning transferring ownership of the brand assets to the Aave DAO.
📌 Aave CEO, Stani, moves the proposal to a Snapshot vote, during the holiday period where participation is traditionally low, sparking outcry over Aave Labs trying to force a failed vote. - <a href="https://x.com/StaniKulechov/status/2002933974969315561" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Former CTO and proposal author, Ernesto, expresses disapproval on moving the proposal to a vote, stating the move goes against his wishes, advocating for voters to abstain. - <a href="https://x.com/eboadom/status/2002987567780676065" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Aave DAO service provider and prominent community voice, Marc Zeller, weighs in, highlighting that Aave assets should be communally owned by the Aave DAO to protect the value of the company. - <a href="https://x.com/Marczeller/status/2003359969798947056" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
Why does it matter?
DAOs continue to prove to be difficult to execute in reality, especially when the stakes are high, such as in the case of Aave, where millions in revenue are generated yearly.
<h2 id="major-project-updates">Major Project Updates 🗓️</h2>
📌 Solana introduces Kora, a standardized solution for fee sponsorship and remote signing, enabling fee-free transactions for end users, custom fee tokens, and more. - <a href="https://x.com/SolanaFndn/status/2003154239854608489" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Trust Wallet identifies a security issue in their browser extension, after more than $6M in funds were drained from users’ wallets. The team will be reaching out to impacted users for further communication. - <a href="https://x.com/TrustWallet/status/2004316503701958786" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Gnosis chain executes a hard fork, recovering lost funds from the recent Balancer exploit in which $9.4M was lost. - <a href="https://x.com/gnosischain/status/2003410653185474630" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Move-based L2, Movement, migrates to an L1, now known as M1. The chain now boasts an alleged 10,000 TPS, up from its original 500. - <a href="https://x.com/movement_xyz/status/2003136768183529794" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
Why does it matter?
With UX being a long standing hurdle for mainstream adoption and onboarding, leading chains, such as Solana, continue to implement new features to reduce friction in onboarding and chain usage.
<h2 id="defi-brief">DeFi Brief 🏦</h2>
Source: <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/chain-ranking/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://coinmarketcap.com/chain-ranking/</a>
*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on December 26, 2025.
📌 Liquid staking platform, Lido Finance, unveils their 2026 roadmap, focusing on stVaults and Lido staking in ETPs, as well as, diversifying revenue streams. - <a href="https://research.lido.fi/t/lido-labs-goose-3-lido-s-next-chapter/10927" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Synthetix introduces Synthetix Perps on Ethereum Mainnet, currently in private beta. The platform is only open to 500 whitelisted traders, with supported pairs including BTC, ETH and SOL. - <a href="https://x.com/synthetix/status/2001828236645544006" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Delta-neutral stablecoin protocol, Resolv, introduces SOL and HYPE as alternative collateral sources, using staking and delta-neutral strategies to generate yield for their stablecoin, USR. - <a href="https://x.com/ResolvLabs/status/2003478031290040378" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
Why does it matter?
Lido Finance’s roadmap for 2026 continues to highlight the focus for major DeFi protocols on institutional adoption, and expansion to diversify revenue streams.
<h2 id="fundraises">Fundraises 💰</h2>
📌 Decentralized broadband project, Dawn, raises $13M in a Series B funding round, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Archetype. - <a href="https://x.com/dawninternet/status/2001676936599273781" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Decentralized compute protocol, Gensyn, raises $16.14M from 7,412 participants via a token sale, closing out at a fully diluted valuation of $473M. - <a href="https://x.com/GensynFND/status/2002407504752345391" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Centralized perpetual exchange for traditional assets, Architect, raises $35M in a Series A funding round led by Miami International Holdings and Tioga Capital, with other investors including Ark Invest, Galaxy, and more. - <a href="https://x.com/BrettHarrison88/status/2003481512667435072" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Stablecoin payment settlement layer, Coinbax, raises $4.2M in a funding round led by BankTech Ventures, with support from Connecticut Innovations, Paxos, SpringTime Ventures, and more. - <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/12/22/3209148/0/en/Coinbax-Raises-4-2M-to-Bring-Institutional-Controls-to-Stablecoin-Payments.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
<h2 id="airdrops-abound">Airdrops Abound 🎁</h2>
📌 Espresso Foundaiton opens registration for their upcoming ESP token airdrop, which will go live in early 2026. - <a href="https://x.com/espressoFNDN/status/2003183253331804650" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
📌 Base App airdrops rewards to over 40,000 eligible Base App accounts as part of their holiday rewards campaign. - <a href="https://x.com/baseapp/status/2003904004498379002" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>
<h2 id="tweet-of-the-week">Tweet of the Week 📝</h2>
Source: @cobie
Happy holidays to whoever is left trading in the orderbooks with us!

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