Source: Talk Li Talk Outside
Today, let's briefly discuss a few interesting events that have happened in the past two days.
1. Controversy over the launch of Sony Soneium mainnet
In an article last year, we mentioned that Sony's subsidiary Sony Block Solution Labs announced the launch of the Ethereum Layer 2 network Soneium, which is built on the Optimism Rollup technology and uses the OP Stack of the Optimism blockchain ecosystem. As shown in the image below.
And just yesterday (January 14), Sony officially announced that the Soneium mainnet has officially gone live and is fully operational. As shown in the image below.
According to on-chain data, the network has attracted over 15.6 million active wallets and processed over 50 million transactions after more than four months of testing. As shown in the image below.
Sota Watanabe, the director of Sony BSL, also stated in an interview that Soneium is suitable for everyone and is a public Blockchain open to all.
But in less than a day, there have been some controversial discussions about Soneium on the network:
The trigger was that someone discovered that Soneium will censor early tokens at the RPC stage, and if they cannot pass the review, they will receive a "Forbidden" prompt.
The process is that someone first published a MemeCoin on the Soneium network, but some of the MemeCoin were blacklisted and restricted by Soneium on the grounds of alleged intellectual property infringement. If users try to query these MemeCoin through the Soneium block explorer, they will receive a forbidden warning.
But Soneium's approach (freezing contracts) seems to be at odds with the decentralized spirit of Blockchain. As the anonymous founder of Pump Fun also criticized Soneium, it further angered more people. As shown in the image below.
As the incident escalated, a dramatic turn of events occurred, as some netizens discovered that they could bypass Soneium's Sequencer (an important component in Layer2 Rollup, responsible for receiving unordered transactions and generating ordered transaction batches) and forcibly trade (purchase) the tokens banned by Soneium through Layer1. As shown in the image below.
This seems to directly prove the power of the OP Stack: it can bypass the L2 Sequencer and forcibly conduct transactions through L1 to achieve the anti-censorship system of L2. In plain language, the design of the OP Stack allows each L2 to inherit the security of Ethereum L1, and although L2 can censor at the RPC level (centralization), they cannot prevent users from forcibly conducting transactions through L1 (anti-censorship).
Of course, the above are just some views and discussions of everyone on Soneium. Additionally, regarding the issue of Blockchain censorship, different people may have different opinions. Some may think that the censorship system is actually an advantage of L2 over L1, as it can filter out some junk information.
If you are also interested in the Soneium topic, you can follow the relevant developments on your own through X or Google. For a new thing, some people like to watch the fun from the perspective of gossip, some people prefer to turn a blind eye, and some people like to explore some potential opportunities behind it. It's up to you to choose.
2. The concept of Memes on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) has sparked a craze
Yesterday, Xiaohongshu suddenly became popular, and I guess everyone has seen it. The reason is that there was news that Tiktok might be banned in the US on January 19, and a large number of US users flocked to Xiaohongshu, which also directly topped the download ranking in the US app store. As shown in the image below.
This event also led to a rare rise in the A-share related sectors (some listed companies associated with Xiaohongshu). However, compared to the rigor of the A-share market, the crypto market is much more lively. Soon, many MemeCoin projects riding on the Xiaohongshu concept started to emerge, and some of them successfully caught this trend and saw a rapid speculative price increase.
In the past two days, I've also seen some Chinese KOLs start to shill actively. For this kind of hype, I still suggest everyone to stay calm. Things that rise quickly will also fall faster. If you can't resist the urge to take a risk, it's best to use the position (capital) you can afford to lose.
As for how long this Xiaohongshu craze can last, I don't know. But as a domestic social media app in China, theoretically, it is "not allowed" to be flooded by a large number of freedom-loving foreigners, otherwise it will be difficult to effectively control various "you know" statements. What's the point of spending so much money on the Great Firewall then?
Although Tiktok "belongs" to Douyin, it is extremely cautious about preventing Chinese people from using it, like a thief. Even if you use magic to surf the Internet, you cannot directly use it unless you remove your domestic SIM card and make some special settings on your phone. If Xiaohongshu just lets countless foreigners enjoy freedom of speech on our turf, it's like playing with fire.
3. Will the XRP ETF be approved soon?
Today I found that some partners in the group are discussing XRP, as its rebound has been relatively strong compared to other Altcoins in the past two days, which seems to be a typical coin that you don't care about in a bear market but can't afford in a bull market.
The main expectations for XRP recently should be the layout of RWA and the spot ETF.
Last week (January 7), Ripple announced a partnership with Chainlink, hoping to further increase the use of RLUSD in the DeFi market. This RLUSD is a stablecoin launched by Ripple last month (December 2024), mainly targeting the future RWA market. It seems that Ripple hopes to become a bridge between cryptocurrencies and the modern financial system.
And just a few days ago, Ripple's CEO Monica Long revealed in an interview that the XRP spot ETF is about to be approved, and it will become the third spot ETF after BTC and ETH. The incoming Trump administration's supportive policy on virtual assets will accelerate the approval of the XRP spot ETF.
In fact, news about the XRP spot ETF has already appeared on the internet at the end of last year (2024), such as:
In October 2024, Canary Capital (a crypto investment firm in the US) and Bitwise filed an S-1 form for a XRP spot ETF application with the SEC.
In November 2024, 21Shares filed an application for a XRP spot ETF with the SEC. WisdomTree (an ETF issuer) registered an XRP entity in Delaware.
In December 2024, WisdomTree became the fourth institution in the US to submit a XRP (XRP) spot ETF application to the SEC.
The currently popular spot ETFs mainly include XRP, SOL, DOGE, etc. As for who will become the third largest ETF after BTC and ETH, it seems that the answer will be revealed this year, and it now appears to be just a matter of time.
Regarding ETFs, even JPMorgan's analysts are optimistic, as they stated in a recent report that a potential XRP ETF could bring in $4 billion to $8 billion in inflows within 6 to 12 months. As shown in the image below.
In terms of capital flows, last week XRP saw inflows of $41 million, as shown in the image below. This estimate is mainly driven by political and legal factors (the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the SEC to file its opening brief on the Ripple Labs appeal by January 15, 2025).
In addition, XRP has relatively strong advantages in cross-border payments, as they have established an ecosystem integrated with many partners (including banks and payment institutions), where partner banks can allow their customers to access crypto products through Ripple's custody services, including Citi, HSBC, BNP Paribas, and others.
If Ripple continues with this approach (strategy), we can speculate that the aforementioned RLUSD is likely just their first attempt, and they may soon provide tokenization services to banks, expanding the assets that can be tokenized onto the chain (which makes their collaboration with Chainlink more understandable).
If Ripple can complete this grand plan, theoretically they could become the tokenization support center for their partner banks (globally), which would further expand the practical scenarios for XRP in the future.
Of course, this speculation is merely fantasy, and the realization of this may not be as simple as imagined here, and it may not ultimately be achieved by Ripple. We are just sharing our views, not encouraging you to blindly buy XRP tokens, as any Altcoin could potentially cause you to lose all your principal. Before making any decisions, you must be responsible for your own wallet. But further considering this, the narrative of RWA does seem to have quite a lot of imagination space. It remains to be seen what policies will emerge after Trump takes office, and if the restrictions can be relaxed or allowed, this narrative may become one of the important narratives of 2025.
4. Finally, let's take a quick look at a few other notable events in the past few days:
- Bitcoin mining difficulty reaches a new all-time high
According to on-chain data, Bitcoin's mining difficulty has now reached 110.45 T, setting a new record high. As shown in the image below.
Generally speaking, the increase in difficulty and computing power will further consolidate the market's value expectations for BTC. We can also reference the current mainstream machine shutdown price, as shown in the image below.
- Tether and its subsidiaries to relocate to El Salvador
According to Tether's (USDT) announcement a few days ago (January 13), they will complete all the procedures to relocate to El Salvador. A giant market cap company choosing to leave the U.S. and European markets and settle in El Salvador, do you think this is a good or bad thing?
- Will Trump issue an executive order related to crypto policy on his first day in office?
There are reports that Trump is expected to sign an executive order next week after taking office to repeal crypto banking and repeal bank accounting policies that allow banks holding crypto assets to list them as liabilities. As shown in the image below. Whether this information is true or not, we'll know after Trump takes office next week.
- The U.S. will release the December CPI year-over-year rate today (21:30 Beijing time)
The market expects the overall inflation year-over-year rate to be recorded at 2.9%, higher than 2.7% in November last year. As shown in the image below.
In addition, based on observation tools, the likelihood of the Fed keeping interest rates unchanged (i.e. not cutting rates) on January 29 has risen to 97%. As shown in the image below.
That's all we'll discuss today~
