Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market has evolved simultaneously on multiple levels. Mainstream topics focused on structural changes in stablecoins and trading infrastructure, as well as discussions surrounding the risks and governance of trading platforms and market-making mechanisms. In terms of ecosystem development, Solana broke on-chain activity records under high load, demonstrating signs of a resurgence in usability. Ethereum continued its technological exploration around cross-rollup composability. Perp DEX accelerated its evolution towards proxy and automated trading infrastructure, further intensifying competition within the sector.
I. Mainstream Topics
1. Documents show Epstein's involvement in early investments in Coinbase and Blockstream.
Newly disclosed documents related to Epstein reveal that in 2014, Epstein invested a small stake in Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream through a fund managed by Joi Ito. The fund subsequently withdrew from the investment due to potential conflicts of interest. The documents also mention that Epstein may have indirectly invested approximately $3 million in Coinbase through a capital network associated with Brock Pierce, and that he allegedly funded Bitcoin Core developers through MIT.
Furthermore, the documents reveal that Epstein met with Ben Lawsky, then commissioner of the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), during the development of New York State's BitLicense regulatory rules. The BitLicense is considered a significant milestone in early Bitcoin regulation in the United States, but it has long been controversial within the industry for restricting innovation and raising compliance thresholds.
The information sparked a strong reaction within the community. Some users criticized Blockstream founder Adam Back for meeting with Epstein, questioning his ethical stance and even calling for his withdrawal from the Bitcoin space; others linked this to Coinbase's early refusal to list XRP, further speculating about partisan political influence. More radical comments included accusations regarding the originality of the PoW mechanism, controversies surrounding its support for large-scale on-chain data, and even evolved into conspiracy theories.
Overall, the discussion was highly divergent, but the core demands were focused on "restoring Bitcoin's reputation" and "promoting a stronger decentralized path," including renewed calls to increase block size and reduce the concentration of power in infrastructure.
2. Public blockchains are intensively promoting the Moltbot/AI hackathon competition.
Solana has announced the launch of its first AI Hackathon, a two-week event with a total prize pool of over $185,000, covering six tracks including AI Agent infrastructure, DeFi Agent, and trading brokerage, and supported by multiple ecosystem partners.
At the same time, Monad launched the Moltiverse Hackathon with a $200,000 prize pool, focusing on the application of AI agents in large-scale trading, community operations and commercialization scenarios, emphasizing giving Moltbot native crypto asset capabilities, and is sponsored by multiple funds and AI projects.
The community's overall reaction has been positive, believing that this marks a substantial stage in the competition among public blockchains in the AI Agent field, and is expected to give rise to new application forms such as chat agents and social agents. Some developers have already begun forming teams and actively seeking technical and resource support.
However, some cautious voices point out that Monad still needs to rely on the narrative of low-market-cap meme coins to gain market attention, reflecting the intense competition among public blockchains in the AI ecosystem. Overall, market sentiment is optimistic, with many believing that such hackathons will serve as a stress test for the security, usability, and real-world demand for AI agents.
3. CZ's response to FUD sparks controversy over "selective clarification".
Binance founder CZ recently published a lengthy article responding to various FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding Binance, and focusing on refuting some extreme accusations, such as the claim that "Binance was involved in the 10/10 incident." However, the article did not directly address the core questions that have garnered more attention from the community.
Some community members interpreted this as a defensive strategy: amplifying obviously untenable arguments to downplay or divert attention from legitimate criticism. Other users criticized its highly selective responses, favoring supporters while avoiding key issues.
The mockery and discontent continued to fester in the discussion, with some comments pointing out that this communication style undermined the sincerity of public discourse. Overall, the community called for a re-evaluation of facts, signals, and emotional venting in the highly noisy environment to prevent the dialogue from further losing focus.
4. Tether launches MOS Bitcoin mining operating system
Tether has officially released Mining OS (MOS), an open-source operating system for Bitcoin mining infrastructure. It features a modular architecture, optimized energy management, and broad hardware compatibility, covering a variety of application scenarios from home mining machines to industrial-grade mining farms. It also supports peer-to-peer operation and does not rely on centralized services.
The community has reacted positively, believing that the launch of MOS symbolizes a further move towards open source and standardization in Bitcoin mining infrastructure, which will help improve operational efficiency and sovereign control. Some developers have already begun studying the relevant documentation, looking forward to subsequent practical deployments and performance verifications.
From a broader perspective, the market sees this as a signal of the increasing maturity of Bitcoin's infrastructure, which also means that Tether's business scope is expanding from stablecoin issuance to the construction of energy and computing power infrastructure, which may enhance the resilience and risk resistance of the Bitcoin network in the long run.
II. Mainstream Ecosystem Dynamics
1. Solana
During last week's market volatility, the Solana network reached two key milestones: January 30th saw a record high in single-day activity, processing 148 million non-voting transactions, which the community compares to approximately 130% of Cardano's total historical transaction volume; simultaneously, weekly on-chain activity also broke records, with transaction volume approaching 1 billion and an average non-voting TPS of 1505, described as "approaching Ethereum's total transaction volume over the past two years." These figures are seen as a reflection of Solana's stability and growth momentum under high load, with on-chain fee revenue also increasing along with rising activity.
The community is generally excited about Solana's "rebound." Supporters emphasize that real usage is driving fee and demand growth, Solana is once again seen as a leading chain, and they expect further explosive growth in on-chain activity as market sentiment improves. Some developers added that active addresses increased by approximately 115% this week, with daily active addresses exceeding 5 million, even higher than some Ethereum L2 blockchains. Discussions have also emerged regarding institutional fund inflows and the SOL ETF narrative.
The main point of contention is the quality of transactions: critics argue that some of the issues may stem from compressed NFTs, short-term speculation, and spam caused by "pump disk garbage." However, the overall sentiment remains optimistic, with many believing that these metrics at least prove Solana has moved beyond the "dead chain" narrative and will attract more builders, as evidenced by frequent mentions of the Colosseum hackathon and the upcoming Breakpoint conference.
2. Ethereum
Jordi Baylina has published a new proposal on EthResearch exploring how based rollups with real-time validity proofs can achieve atomic L1↔L2 and L2↔L2 interactions: by executing synchronously across multiple rollups through a single transaction, restoring composability across rollups as much as possible. The proposal introduces mechanisms such as proxy contracts and execution tables, attempting to eliminate the fragmented experience caused by current asynchronous bridging, making cross-rollup calls closer to internal EVM calls, and supporting return values, nested calls, and failure rollback.
The community largely supports this direction, believing it directly addresses the fragmentation problem of rollups and helps Ethereum return to a unified "one-computer" experience. Vitalik Buterin also expressed support for native rollups, emphasizing that as ZK-EVM matures, it promises a more near-instantaneous withdrawal experience, reducing 2-7 day wait times and the centralized risks associated with multi-signature bridging. Developer discussions focused more on engineering and trade-offs: including simplifying the rollup technology stack, reducing centralized exposure (e.g., anchoring ordering to the Ethereum validator system), and the synergy and boundaries between explorations such as MegaETH's real-time execution route and Espresso's coordination layer testnet. The overall view is optimistic, believing that if implemented, it will significantly improve the cross-domain efficiency of DeFi infrastructure and attract more builders, but a balance between speed and decentralization still needs to be struck.
3. Perp DEX
Chris Ling released a CLI tool for Hyperliquid, positioned as an AI-advisor-friendly trading portal: it supports direct deployment of algorithmic trading strategies from GT protocol backtesting to Hyperliquid and execution locally; it also integrates OpenClaw, providing real-time monitoring, Telegram notifications, and a "gas-free first touch" experience, covering Perp and Spot trading. The community generally interprets this as Hyperliquid expanding from a "single DEX product" into an infrastructure more suited to proxy trading.
Overall, the discussion was enthusiastic. Supporters argued that CLI lowers the migration costs of strategies from simulation to live trading, making proxy trading more replicable through engineering, and reinforcing Hyperliquid's competitive narrative in speed and transparency. Users further emphasized Hyperliquid's HyperBFT consensus, highlighting its sub-second finality and high throughput, citing TVL and revenue growth data as evidence. Developers shared their experiences with the SDK and automated vaults, believing it is establishing a decentralized trading benchmark comparable to CEXs. Some also pointed out that with the expansion of the HIP-3 market and ecosystem initiatives such as the locking of approximately 500,000 HYPE tokens across multiple DEXs, retail trading volume may further increase, driving a larger daily trading volume.
4. Other
Stablecoin trading volume exceeds $10 trillion
Statistics circulating in the community show that January's transaction volume exceeded $10 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 72%; of which USDC's transaction volume was approximately $8.4 trillion and USDT's was approximately $13.3 trillion. The total market capitalization of stablecoins is approximately $308 billion, and the transaction volume processed in the past year was approximately $46 trillion, which is being compared with traditional payment networks such as PayPal and Visa + Mastercard in terms of scale.
Overall sentiment is positive, with users viewing it as a sign of the maturity of stablecoin infrastructure and believing it will further drive the expansion of global payments and DeFi. Some also emphasize that USDC's dominant position in transfer volume sends a market signal of "stronger reliability" and predict that stablecoins will continue to erode the boundaries of traditional payment networks.
Wintermute founder questions internal trading volume (MM) practices at the exchange
Another thread of discussion comes from Wintermute founder Evgeny Gaevoy. He questions the professional capabilities of some exchanges' "internal market makers (MMs)," arguing that their proprietary trading is not mature, and citing Alameda as a typical negative example. He also points out that there is no fundamental difference in capabilities between top market makers (Tower/Jump/Optiver, etc.) in the crypto and non-crypto markets; rather, it is the exchange's internal MMs that lack competitiveness.
The community largely agrees, believing that internal market makers (MMs) are more prone to distortion in environments of information asymmetry. Discussions related to Crypto.com were also mentioned, extending to the risks of high leverage combined with low liquidity. Overall, the mainstream view tends to believe that the market crash is unlikely to be attributed to a single exchange, but rather is more likely the result of a combination of bearish sentiment, leverage structure, and liquidity constraints. At the same time, many are optimistic about the liquidity supply capabilities of institutions like Windemute, and the support that regulatory legislation will provide for the long-term development of the industry.
