BlockBeats will organize the key industry news content of the week (12.2-12.8) in this article, and recommend in-depth articles to help readers better understand the market and learn about industry trends.
Important News Review
Bitcoin breaks through $100,000 for the first time in history, and its market value rises from zero to $1.97 trillion in 16 years
On December 5, Bitcoin broke through $100,000 for the first time in history, and its market value rose from zero to $1.97 trillion in 16 years. On October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" on the P2P foundation website. The Bitcoin network was officially launched on January 5, 2009, and the initial transaction price of Bitcoin was $0.0008. On the same day, Trump posted on social media: "Congratulations to Bitcoin holders!!! $100,000!!! You're welcome!!! Let's work together to make America great again!" Related reading: "Bitcoin that never gives up: $100,000 per coin, from zero to $2 trillion in 16 years"
The total market value of cryptocurrencies exceeded 3.8 trillion US dollars; Bitcoin set a record for the largest monthly increase, closing up $26,115.98 in November;
On December 2, according to market information, Bitcoin closed at $96,407.99 in November, and the price at the beginning of the month was $70,292.01, setting a record high of $26,115.98 in monthly price history. Economist Carl Menger said this is just the "beginning" of Bitcoin's journey. Crypto analyst Aksel Kibar said that "the monthly scale breakthrough has been confirmed." On December 5, the total market value of cryptocurrencies exceeded $3.8 trillion, with a 24-hour increase of 3.8%, setting a record high.
The altcoin market is recovering, with public chains and Defi tokens leading the rise
On December 4, the Altcoin Season indicator soared to a yearly high of 90. According to TradingView data, Bitcoin's market share (BTC.D) fell to 51.4%, down 10.38% from the top of this bull market (61.78% on November 21). In addition, since November 5, the total market value of cryptocurrencies excluding BTC (TOTAL2) has seen a unilateral upward trend, hitting a bottom of $856.1 billion on November 5 and rising by about 98.8%. XRP, BNB, HYPE, SUI, ENA and other tokens all hit record highs or rose sharply this week. Related reading: "New highs in succession, how to understand the logic of ENA and HYPE's pull-up?" , "What is the secret behind the surge in XRP?"
Putin: Bitcoin is better than the US dollar as a reserve currency, and no one can ban Bitcoin
On December 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned the necessity of holding the country's foreign exchange reserves, which can be easily confiscated for political reasons. He said it is more attractive to invest such reserves domestically. Putin said that the current US government's use of the dollar for political purposes has undermined the dollar's role as a reserve currency for the global economy and forced many countries to turn to alternative assets, including cryptocurrencies. Putin firmly stated that Bitcoin and digital assets are unstoppable and will continue to develop.
South Korea's President's "Emergency Martial Law" triggered a sharp fluctuation on South Korea's crypto trading platform. A few hours later, the South Korean National Assembly declared the martial law invalid.
On the evening of December 3, South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol suddenly made a live television speech and announced the implementation of "emergency martial law." Yoon Seok-yeol cited a number of reasons, saying that the opposition party was coercing the National Assembly and disrupting the country, and that he would purge "anti-national forces" in South Korea. This immediately triggered violent fluctuations in the Korean crypto market. The price of Bitcoin on the Upbit platform "plugged" to US$71,814, and the prices of various Altcoin on the platform "flash crashed" at one point. The South Korean National Assembly held an emergency meeting in the early morning of December 4 to vote on "requesting the lifting of the emergency martial law order." 170 members voted in favor, and South Korean National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-sik subsequently announced that the emergency martial law order was invalid. Related reading: "South Korea 312 is coming, mainstream cryptocurrencies flash crash 50% | Real-time update"
South Korea’s virtual asset trading volume has surged, now accounting for 9.05% of the global total
On December 3, according to Korean media reports, in November 2024, the total monthly stablecoin trading volume of South Korea's top five CEXs - Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and GOPAX - was about 16.17 trillion won (US$11.5 billion). This figure includes the total buying and selling volume of stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) and USDC issued by Circle, and it is also a seven-fold increase from the approximately 2 trillion won recorded at the beginning of the year. This is also the first time that South Korea's monthly stablecoin trading volume has exceeded 10 trillion won. In addition, as of Monday, the 24-hour trading volume of South Korea's domestic virtual asset market was 23 trillion won, accounting for 9.05% of the global total of 262 trillion won. Analysis pointed out that the surge in stablecoin transactions may be related to the fact that South Korean cryptocurrency investors are transferring their assets overseas. Related reading: "Martial law hits South Korea's crypto market: $33.3 billion sell-off and native project relocation"
Trump confirms Paul Atkins as SEC chairman
On December 5, Trump confirmed that Paul Atkins was elected as the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Paul Atkins has served as an advisor to the Reserve Protocol in the past few years. Reserve Rights (RSR) is the native functional token of the stablecoin platform Reserve on Ethereum. Related reading: "Paul Atkins was elected as the new chairman of the SEC. Where will the future of encryption go?"
Trump appoints David Sacks as crypto chief
On December 6, Trump appointed PayPal co-founder David Sacks as the "White House Director of Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency Affairs." David will formulate policies for this administration in the fields of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, both of which are critical to the future competitiveness of the United States. David will focus on making the United States a clear global leader in these two fields. David will defend freedom of speech on the Internet and avoid the bias and censorship brought about by big technology companies. David Sacks is a South African-American entrepreneur, writer, and investor in Internet technology companies. He is a general partner of Craft Ventures Venture Capital Fund. Prior to this, Sacks was the COO and product leader of PayPal (acquired by eBay for 1.5 billion yuan in 2002) and the founder and CEO of Yammer (acquired by Microsoft for 1.2 billion yuan in 2012). Related reading: "What projects has Trump's appointed head of cryptocurrency invested in?"
The Financial Times publicly apologizes for its long-standing negative coverage of cryptocurrencies
On December 5, the Financial Times column Alphaville issued an "apology letter" because its reports over the past 14 years may have left readers with the impression that they are skeptical of cryptocurrencies. In the letter, it stated: "If at any time in the past 14 years, you missed the purchase of investment targets whose prices have risen based on our reports, we are deeply sorry. At the same time, we are delighted that your holdings have increased. If you think that our previous cynical attitude towards cryptocurrencies is support for traditional finance, we are also deeply sorry because we hate this behavior too."
Blue chip NFT floor price rebounded, BAYC floor price increased by 35.82% in 7 days
On December 6, according to Blur market data, the floor price of the blue-chip NFT series rebounded, among which: BAYC was temporarily reported at 21.5 ETH, a 7-day increase of 35.82%; PudgyPenguins was temporarily reported at 16.4 ETH, a 7-day increase of 21.95%; Azuki was temporarily reported at 6.15 ETH, a 7-day increase of 21.78%; MAYC was temporarily reported at 3.94 ETH, a 7-day increase of 60.88%.
Pudgy Penguins launches native token PENGU based on Solana network
On December 6, Pudgy Penguins announced the launch of its native token PENGU, with a total supply of 888.8888888880 million, and will be launched on Solana. The token distribution is as follows: current and future teams (1 year lock-up period, 3 years vesting period): 17.8%; expansion: 4%; FTT holders: 0.35%; liquidity: 12.35%; public coordination: 4%; Pudgy community: 25.9%; company (1 year lock-up period, 3 years vesting period): 11.48%; other communities: 24.12%.
Magic Eden airdrop enquiry is now open and will be held on December 10th TGE
On December 5, Magic Eden opened airdrop inquiries. Previously, Magic Eden released the ME token economics, with a total supply of 1 billion tokens, of which 12.5% (125 million tokens) will be immediately unlocked and provided to eligible Magic Eden users for airdrops, and the other 22.5% of the supply (i.e. 225 million ME tokens) will be reserved to incentivize users who use ME Foundation-related protocols and platforms in the future. According to Aevo pre-market trading data, ME is currently quoted at $3.51. Related reading: "Magic Eden Airdrop is online: How to claim it? Can it reignite the NFT market?"
Foundry, the world's largest Bitcoin mining pool operator, laid off 27% of its employees; Circle announced a layoff of nearly 6%
On December 4, it was reported that Foundry, the world's largest Bitcoin mining pool operator, was laying off 27% of its employees in a planned restructuring. The layoffs include 16% of Foundry's US team and part of the Indian team, sources said. Foundry's parent company DCG revealed in a November shareholder letter that it plans to spin off Foundry's self-operated mining business into a separate entity that will remain controlled by DCG. Foundry said in a statement, "We recently made the strategic decision to focus on growing Foundry's core business - operating the world's number one Bitcoin mining pool and expanding our field operations, while supporting the growth of DCG's new subsidiaries, including the spin-off of Foundry's successful self-operated mining business." "As part of this adjustment, we have made the difficult decision to reduce Foundry's headcount, resulting in layoffs across multiple teams," the team said.
On December 5, stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Financial Ltd. said it had laid off employees as part of a regular operational review. A Circle spokesperson said the layoffs accounted for less than 6% of Circle's total employees, and the company will continue to invest in geographic growth, efficiency and productivity driven by artificial intelligence. Circle regularly reviews investments and expenses, which includes investing in teams and operational infrastructure that need to be developed, while slightly reducing expenses and some positions in other business areas.
Ripple: Stablecoin RLUSD is in final approval with the New York Department of Financial Services
On December 5, Ripple posted on social media: "Despite some speculation, RLUSD will not be launched today. We are working with the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) for final approval and will share the latest progress with everyone as soon as possible. The team is fully committed to launching the product under the supervision of NYDFS and adhering to the highest regulatory standards." Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett said that two sources close to the relevant procedures said that today was originally the expected release date, but it was postponed due to some new developments at the last minute.
Cryptocurrency trading volume exceeded $10 trillion for the first time in November, and CEX monthly spot trading volume increased by 128%
On December 5, cryptocurrency trading volumes climbed to an all-time high, with digital asset trading volumes on centralized spot and derivatives exchanges exceeding $10 trillion for the first time. Monthly spot trading volumes on CEXs increased 128% to $3.43 trillion, the second highest level since May 2021. Data from the exchange showed that derivatives trading volumes climbed 89% to $6.99 trillion, exceeding the all-time high in March, excluding trading volumes on DeFi platforms.
This week's hot articles
"Paul Atkins was elected as the new chairman of the SEC. Where will the future of encryption go?"
In the early morning of December 5, Trump announced on Truth Social that Paul Atkins had been selected as the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Paul Atkins, 66, is a former SEC commissioner during the George W. Bush administration. He is known for opposing "heavy fines for companies that violate securities laws" and previously opposed the Dodd-Frank Act, which strengthened federal regulatory powers after the 2008 financial crisis.
"What projects has Trump's appointed cryptocurrency manager invested in?"
On December 6, after Trump announced the appointment of Paul Atkins as SEC Chairman, Trump appointed PayPal co-founder David Sacks as "White House Director of Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency Affairs." Trump introduced David Sacks as follows: "He has been an extremely successful entrepreneur and investor over the past 25 years, and has been involved in building and investing in some of Silicon Valley's most iconic companies. He was the COO of PayPal in its early days and a member of the legendary "PayPal Mafia." In 2017, he founded the venture capital firm Craft Ventures, which has a total of 12 crypto investments, with infrastructure accounting for the majority.
《Exclusive Interview with Xiao Z: CEX Business Tips from a "Coin Listing Expert"｜Dialogue with KOL》
Since October, the listing of coins on CEX has become a new subject. Whether it is ACT, PNUT or MOODNEG, countless people have become rich because of these new coins. Every group of players who ambush these potential listed coins will hold their breath when CEX releases an announcement, hoping that they will be the lucky one. However, in addition to ambushing in advance, there is also a group of players like Xiao Z who focus on studying CEX announcements and form a set of "announcement trading" strategies.
"South Korea 312 is coming, mainstream cryptocurrencies crashed 50%"
On the evening of December 3, affected by the news of the martial law order issued by South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol, the Upbit market, a mainstream cryptocurrency trading platform in South Korea, experienced a flash crash, resulting in a serious negative premium for a large number of trading pairs. Among them, the price of BTC once fell below $70,000, and DOGE flashed down by more than 50%. In addition, "zombie coins" such as XRP, HBAR, and XLM, which have risen rapidly in recent days, also experienced a huge retracement, and once again staged a "regional 312". Affected by the flash crash of Upbit, the crypto market also fell overall. The huge negative premium also brought rare profit opportunities to arbitrage traders, and many traders with Korean KYC entered the battlefield.
This article conducts an in-depth analysis of Solana's recent performance, explores the challenges it may face from multiple perspectives such as supply events, competitive pressure, complacency, and predicts future market trends. The author uses data and market phenomena to reveal Solana's potential concerns in terms of capital flow, ecological competition, and investor behavior. The author believes that Solana may perform weaker than other assets in December (he believes this trend has already begun and will continue).
"Bitcoin Never Gives Up: $100,000 per coin, from zero to $2 trillion in 16 years"
On December 5, 2024, a single Bitcoin will be worth $100,000, a record high, with a market value of $2.1 trillion. It has officially entered the six-digit range. The $100,000 that was once out of reach and even seemed unrealistic is now history. Behind any asset from zero to trillions of dollars in market value must be a magnificent story, and Bitcoin is no exception. We who are in the game, especially, will feel that Bitcoin's journey over the past decade can only be described as magical. The Bitcoin network was officially launched on January 3, 2009, and the initial transaction price of Bitcoin was $0.0008. At a price of $100,000, Bitcoin has increased by more than 125 million times. Let us return to the starting point of the birth of encryption and commemorate the release of the Bitcoin white paper.
On December 6, after hitting a record high of nearly $104,000 yesterday, Bitcoin suddenly fluctuated sharply around 6:30 AM Beijing time on December 6, and quickly plunged to around $91,000 in a few minutes, causing a large-scale market liquidation. Data shows that in the past 24 hours, nearly 210,000 investors have been liquidated, with a total amount of more than $1 billion, mainly long orders. As of press time, the price of BTC has rebounded to more than $97,000. This plunge did not affect other Altcoin.
"How did the "Zombie Coin" suddenly come back to life?"
Didn't we agree that the bull market would focus on "new and not old"? What is XLM? What is HBAR? Why are they all inexplicably pulling up the price recently? Who is buying these "zombie coins"? In short, it is "institutional buying" led by the United States and "retail buying" led by Japan and South Korea. But it is not just antique coins, many legal coins (including XRP, HBAR, and XLM mentioned above) have also started to pull up the price.
"XRP's market value returns to the third place in cryptocurrencies. What is driving its surge?"
Data from December 2 showed that XRP's market value once exceeded $136.2 billion, surpassing USDT to return to the "third largest cryptocurrency by market value", and returned to the level before the SEC/Ripple lawsuit in 2020. Overall, the surge in XRP's market value is mainly due to a number of positive factors at the macro and micro levels. At the macro level, Trump's coming to power is expected to help settle the "XRP vs SEC dispute". At the micro level, 1 billion XRP is locked in custody, and the stablecoin is about to be released.
"XRP is reborn. What are the potential hot memes in the ecosystem?"
This weekend, the market's attention was ignited by the amazing performance of XRP. This "ancient project" founded in 2012 showed unexpected vitality, with a 24-hour increase of more than 30%. Its market value surpassed Solana and jumped to the third place in the cryptocurrency market value ranking. At present, the Ripple ecosystem is still weak in infrastructure areas such as DeFi, and related projects may not be the best choice. In contrast, some interesting opportunities have quietly emerged in the Meme coin in the ecosystem.
"WSJ: Behind the Bitcoin craze, the risks of MicroStrategy stock leverage are gradually emerging"
This article analyzes the leveraged funds launched by Tuttle Capital and Defiance ETFs, which focus on MicroStrategy stock to amplify its returns associated with Bitcoin. These funds use swaps and options to leverage, but face liquidity problems, resulting in performance that is not as good as expected. Investors are disappointed with the funds' skewed performance, and critics warn that these funds have exacerbated the volatility of MicroStrategy's stock price and are risky and may lead to losses.
It’s finally here. On November 29, the decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid announced the creation of its native token HYPE. After the token went online, the price of HYPE has been rising all the way, from the opening price of $2 on November 29 to the highest price of $9.8 on December 1, an increase of nearly 5 times in less than 3 days. In this airdrop, Hyperliquid distributed a total of 310 million tokens. Even if calculated at the opening price of $2, the airdrop scale reached $620 million. It is definitely one of the largest airdrop projects.
"Continuously reaching new highs, how to understand the logic of ENA and HYPE's pull-up?"
HyperLiquid and Ethena have both successfully executed their respective product visions, despite using different financing and token strategies. HyperLiquid focuses on decentralized derivatives, while Ethena has quickly grown into a leading stablecoin protocol. Both have made decisions that are in line with product development by understanding user needs and dynamically adjusting strategies. The key to success is to guide decisions based on a clear vision and belief, rather than a "one size fits all" approach.
"Magic Eden airdrop is online: How to claim it? Can it reignite the NFT market?"
At 3 am on December 5, Magic Eden Foundation launched the ME token airdrop query page. Previously, Magic Eden released the ME token economics, with a total supply of 1 billion tokens, of which 12.5% (125 million tokens) will be immediately unlocked and provided to eligible Magic Eden users for airdrops, and the other 22.5% of the supply (i.e. 225 million ME tokens) will be reserved to incentivize users who use ME Foundation-related protocols and platforms in the future. Learn how to claim airdrops in one article?
《Market recovery, airdrop trend reappears, a list of upcoming TGE projects》
Recently, with the recovery of the crypto market, on-chain liquidity has decreased, and hot money has begun to shift to the secondary market. Many protocols or projects that had previously been on the sidelines have accelerated the mainnet launch and token TGE process, especially DeFi and L1 tracks have become the main force. In order to help readers better understand market dynamics, BlockBeats organizes and lists some projects that are about to/have TGE in the near future.
The main purpose of this article is to explain that market transactions are not completely controlled by "smart money" as some popular trading theories say, but are based on the interaction of market depth and order flow. Large traders avoid additional transaction costs by choosing areas with sufficient liquidity to execute orders. Traders should focus on the actual structure of the market and the movements of participants, rather than over-mystifying market operations.
The rise of AI agent narratives: Can attention drive prices?
Based on the growing popularity of AI agents, this article discusses the increasingly important role of AI agents in DeFi. It analyzes that the attention and market value of AI agents are not always matched, and "intelligent interaction" may better reflect the market potential. The article also introduces new platforms such as injective and modenetwork, emphasizing the importance of innovation, market dominance and cash flow to the success of AI agents.
a16z released a comprehensive list of "big ideas" that technology builders may solve in the coming year, including artificial intelligence, American vitality, bio/health, encryption, enterprise, financial technology, games, infrastructure and other fields. The encryption industry will usher in decentralized application stores to promote the distribution of encryption applications and increase user activity. As infrastructure matures, more industries will tokenize unconventional assets, especially in the fields of medical care and personal data management, opening up new economic opportunities.
"Do you really know how to play Base Golden Shovel Clanker?"
There are two major shovels on Base: one is Virtual, and the other is Clanker. The former is an AI agent platform that has been around for nearly a year. Recently, it has flooded Base. Recently, $VIRTUAL has skyrocketed to over 1.8 B MC. The latter is an AI agent tool on Farcaster that issues coins by posting. It was born in the grassroots and has only been around for 20 days. The leading meme $CLANKER has risen to over 140M. Countless myths of getting rich thousands of times have been born on both platforms.
Everyone underestimated the resilience of the old public chains. After the new public chain craze ended, the carnival of the old public chains came. In addition to directly investing in the mainstream currencies of these old public chains, the Meme coins in their ecosystems may also hide potential opportunities for 100-fold growth. How to find these 100-fold opportunities and keep an eye on these Meme launch platforms is a very good way.
"DeFi mining, "garbage" recycling, what new ways does Solana meme have?"
In the second half of the meme track, in addition to PVP on Sol and internal disk on Base Virtual, meme gameplay has also been updated and more and more varied. Repump began to recycle "junk" memecoins, and Farmer meme attracted users to build pools through high APR. The funds in the meme track gradually overflowed into the services and narratives around the main line of meme.
Infrastructure seems to be an eternal topic in Crypto. Although Infra is not as directly face-to-face with users as DeFi and other applications, it can always get the support of top institutions behind the scenes. The track is stable, the model is identifiable, and you can collect rent without losing money. Believers in technology and resource tycoons do not seem to want to get involved in high-risk Mass Adoption. More and more high-FDV projects are emerging like copied and pasted industrial products. VC coins have become rats crossing the street that everyone shouts and beats overnight. Endless infrastructure has brought the ultimate question to the industry: Do we really need so much infrastructure? With this question, this article selects mainstream projects in the field of Crypto infrastructure as representatives to analyze their operating conditions, giving readers a perspective to judge whether the current market infrastructure should be cleared.
"Nike's well-known NFT project actually failed"
In the past 7 days, the old blue chip NFTs have rebounded collectively. Whether it is CryptoPunks, BAYC, MAYC, Azuki, Doodles, these former top PFPs, or Chromie Squiggle, Fidenza, these top generative art NFTs, they have all rebounded significantly. In the peaceful atmosphere of recovery, Clone X, an old blue chip project with Nike background, announced the suspension of operations at this time, just like announcing that he would no longer eat at the New Year's Eve dinner, which shocked all NFT players.
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