The end of 2024 witnessed significant volatility in the cryptocurrency world, especially regarding Bitcoin and altcoins. During the Christmas season, Bitcoin (BTC) attempted to recover the $100,000 mark after falling below $93,000 ahead of the holiday. However, it briefly peaked just above $99,800 before quickly dropping to around $95,000 - a testament to this cryptocurrency's incessant volatility. Currently, Bitcoin is trading at $95,300, down 3.1% in the past 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 index has also decreased by 4.2%, with many other cryptocurrencies losing between 4% and 7%.
In the U.S., the market shows slight losses although oil and gold have seen minor improvements. While Bitcoin has achieved significant profits this year, recent declines may be related to rising long-term interest rates, with the 10-year Treasury yield reaching about 4.63%, nearly 100 basis points higher since the Fed cut rates in September. Macro research expert Jim Bianco suggests that ongoing Fed discussions about cutting rates in 2025 could further increase bond yields, potentially disrupting efforts to control inflation.
In the final months of the year, the Solana staking pool, Jito, generated over $100 million in monthly income from priority fees and tips, peaking at around $210 million in November. According to Kairos Research, revenue from tips for Jito validators has grown 32% month-over-month in 2024, reflecting the growth of the Solana network. This is also the first time Solana validators have earned more MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) than Ethereum, as transaction costs surged. Over 93% of Solana validators use Jito's software to boost their income, and Jito has become the leading DeFi protocol on Solana with nearly $2.75 billion in value locked.
Jito is currently deploying a liquid re-staking token (LRT) named JitoSOL, allowing users to leverage their staked tokens across various protocols. In October, Jito's governance token holders voted to distribute a portion of tips to JitoSOL re-stakers, although validators still retain the majority of the income. Currently, Jito is offering a yield of about 8.6% for JitoSOL re-stakers, while Ethereum's leading re-staking protocol, EigenLayer, holds nearly $15 billion in total value locked.
