The Golden Weekly is a weekly blockchain industry summary column launched by Golden Finance, covering key news, market and contract data, mining information, project dynamics, technological advancements, and other industry updates over the week. This article is the project weekly, providing an overview of the mainstream projects and star projects' progress this week.
Bitcoin
The U.S. accounts for over 40% of the global Bitcoin hash rate.
TheMinerMag data shows that the U.S. accounts for over 40% of the Bitcoin network's hash rate, with two U.S.-based mining pools, Foundry USA and MARA Pool, accounting for over 38.5% of all mined blocks. According to TheMinerMag, Foundry USA's hash rate grew from 157 EH/s at the beginning of 2024 to about 280 EH/s in December. Foundry is currently the largest single mining pool by hash rate, controlling approximately 36.5% of the total Bitcoin network hash rate.
Dennis Porter: At least 13 states in the U.S. are drafting 'strategic Bitcoin reserve' legislation.
Dennis Porter, co-founder and CEO of Satoshi Action Fund (SAF), stated on the X platform that it can be confirmed that at least 13 states in the U.S. are drafting 'strategic Bitcoin reserve' legislation. January will be a record month for Bitcoin policy.
HC Wainwright: The total market value of Bitcoin mining companies may exceed $100 billion in 2025.
U.S. investment bank HC Wainwright wrote this week that it expects Bitcoin prices to reach $225,000 by the end of 2025, meaning Bitcoin's market cap will reach $4.5 trillion, about 25% of the market value of gold. Additionally, HC Wainwright anticipates that the total market value of Bitcoin mining companies will exceed $100 billion. The investment bank lists MARA, RIOT, and CLSK as 'pure miners' and CORZ, BTDR, WULF, Hut 8, IREN, BTBT, and HIVE as 'mixed miners.'
In December 2024, approximately $613 million worth of dormant Bitcoin was transferred.
As Bitcoin prices hit new highs in December 2024, around 139 long-dormant wallets were activated, resulting in the transfer of approximately $613 million worth of 'sleeping' Bitcoin. Among them: 1. Dormant wallets dating back to 2014 made 26 transactions, transferring 1,077.2151 BTC; 2. Dormant wallets from 2015 made 9 transactions, transferring 383.55 BTC; 3. Dormant wallets from 2016 made 17 transactions, transferring 373.85 BTC; 4. Dormant wallets from 2017 made 47 transactions, transferring 1,076.01010393 BTC.
16th anniversary of the Bitcoin genesis block.
The Bitcoin genesis block was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto on January 3, 2009, at 2:15:05 AM Beijing time, with a block reward of 50 BTC. As of today, it has been 16 years since its creation, and the total Bitcoin block height has reached 877,572.
Ethereum
(Ethereum Weekly News) announced it will cease operations.
Evan Van Ness, founder of the Ethereum Weekly News (WiE), announced on social media that due to a conversation with the leadership of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) earlier this year, he has decided to terminate this newsletter, as communication indicated that they believed continuing the operation of the (Ethereum Weekly News) was of no value. In 2024, WiE received very little funding support from the Ethereum Foundation. Although this support was mostly symbolic, the EF leadership's decision to cut this negligible support clearly indicated it was time to end WiE. (Ethereum Weekly News) had once achieved good results. Over the years, many developers have told me that WiE influenced their Solidity or security careers. They often mentioned that this newsletter prompted them to decide to buy ETH. There was a time when this long-established newsletter was the upstream source for most Ethereum news supporters. But unfortunately, WiE failed to find a sustainable business model. Advertising and sponsorships were difficult to sell because the marketing director did not value developers. I held high standards for content, but completing it in a profitable manner proved to be too time-consuming.
The Ethereum charitable fund Endaoment sold 3,690 ETH, funded by a giant whale from a certain Ethereum ICO.
According to Spot On Chain monitoring, the Ethereum charitable fund Endaoment sold 3,690 ETH through a single transaction 9 hours ago, generating $12.47 million in revenue. This marks their first ETH sale in 10 months and is their largest sale ever. Notably, this ETH came from an Ethereum ICO participant who acquired 100,000 ETH at the genesis block in July 2015. As of now, this participant has sold a total of 14,990 ETH at an average price of $2,409, of which 13,190 ETH were sold through Endaoment. Currently, the participant still holds 85,000 ETH across two wallets, valued at approximately $293.8 million.
10x Research head of research: Ethereum may not be the wisest investment choice in the 2025 bull market.
Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research, stated that Ethereum may not be the wisest investment choice in the 2025 bull market, speculating that it may offer disappointing returns compared to Bitcoin. While we appreciate Ethereum's volatility, we believe it remains a poor mid-term investment, and ETH's performance is expected to lag behind BTC again in 2025. He also mentioned that the Ethereum Duncan upgrade last March (which lowered network gas fees and allowed for more transactions) was 'six months late,' missing the peak of the meme coin surge, leading the market to shift towards 'more cost-effective' Solana alternatives. He expressed skepticism about the upcoming Pectra upgrade scheduled for early 2025, stating, 'Of the 19 upgrades to date, only two had a significant positive impact on ETH prices, and those upgrades occurred during Bitcoin bull markets.' He added, 'The three major catalysts for Ethereum in 2024 have largely failed and overall have not added much value.'
Matrixport: Significant increases in Ethereum prices in 2025 may face considerable resistance.
Matrixport stated that the decline in Ethereum gas fees reflects that the ecosystem's activity remains sluggish after the upgrade in March 2024. Coupled with continuously low trading volumes, achieving a significant increase in ETH prices in 2025 may face considerable resistance. In 2024, Ethereum faced strong competition from alternative protocols like Solana and Sui, which successfully attracted more users, resulting in their tokens outperforming Ethereum throughout the year. Without significant positive news to stimulate interest, Ethereum may continue to struggle in 2025, while competing projects are expected to further expand their advantages.
Vitalik asks the community what characteristics they hope long-term network state nodes will possess.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin initiated a discussion on Warpcast about the characteristics participants would like to see in long-term network state nodes (i.e., permanent communities rather than temporary gatherings) and asked how such a legal system would improve the lives of people residing within these network state nodes.
Other projects
The X platform's payment system 'X Money' may be launching soon or integrating cryptocurrency
The latest code leak from Elon Musk's social platform X suggests that its payment system 'X Money' may be launching soon. Currently, X has obtained money transfer licenses for its payment subsidiary X Payments LLC in 39 states in the U.S., but it has not yet covered all states. X Money will support users in tipping content creators and may integrate cryptocurrency functionalities. Analysts believe Bitcoin and Dogecoin could be among the payment options. X CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed that this feature will be launched in 2025 but did not verify the authenticity of the latest code.
OpenSea CEO: OS2 Beta enters final stage.
OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer stated on the X platform, 'OS2 (OpenSea V2) Beta is entering the final stage and is being rolled out to the last batch of testers. Feedback from testers is making the product better every day. The next few weeks will be very exciting.'
Telegram adds features such as 'convert gifts to NFTs' and 'third-party verification.'
Telegram has released its first update of the year, adding account verification methods supported by third parties, new message search filters, and the ability to convert gifts into NFTs. Accounts verified by third parties will display a unique new badge instead of the traditional blue check. Telegram noted in its blog: 'This decentralized extra verification platform can effectively prevent fraud, reduce misinformation, and set a new security benchmark for social platforms with a unique proactive solution.'
BounceBit has launched RWA trading features supporting tokenized securities.
BounceBit announced the launch of RWA trading features supporting tokenized securities on its BounceClub Quanto platform, with initial assets including MSTR (MicroStrategy), COIN (Coinbase), and BB (BlackBerry). Users can use BB tokens as collateral for up to 200x leveraged trading. Trading hours align with U.S. stock markets, from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM EST, with weekends and U.S. holidays closed. This feature is not available to U.S. users.
Aave founder: The team will release innovative contracts on the Lens Network.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that the team will release innovative contracts on the modular social functionality network Lens Network. This includes social (expanded information streams, groups, charts, username rules), ICO/crowdfunding, ERC20 Newflavour, novel bonding curves, new ERC721 contracts, governance, point systems, and yield plans. All content will be open source for users to use freely.
