Grayscale Research has updated its top 20 altcoin list for the first quarter of 2025, adding six new digital assets.

The list highlights cryptocurrencies the company believes demonstrate strong potential for the upcoming quarter.

The Six Tokens

According to the December 30 report, this update emphasizes tokens linked to three primary market themes: the U.S. election and its potential regulatory implications for decentralized finance (DeFi) and staking, breakthroughs in decentralized AI techno

Long-term holding trends in the crypto market have taken an intriguing turn this year as Ethereum surpassed Bitcoin in retaining such investors.

Despite Bitcoin’s 122% surge compared to Ethereum’s 48% growth in the past year, the increase in the long-term holders of the latter highlighted rising market confidence as 2025 approaches.

Ethereum Shows Stronger Long-Term Holder Retention

According to IntoTheBlock data, the percentage of long-term Ether (ETH) holders has steadily surpassed that of

The bull market in the cryptocurrency market is in serious jeopardy as BTC’s price has slumped by over $16,000 since its all-time high registered on December 17.

Interestingly, there has been an ongoing negative trend following the latest acquisition streak related to MicroStrategy, as the firm continues to announce new purchases every Monday.

BTC Dumps to Monthly Lows

It was less than two weeks ago when the landscape around the primary cryptocurrency seemed highly bullish. It kept charting c

TL;DR

Pi Network extended the KYC deadline to January 31, 2025, with 14 million users verified (out of the requested 15 million target).

Despite the delays and confusion regarding the launch of open mainnet, the project’s app surpassed 100 million downloads. Pi Network has built a particularly solid community base in Asia, with South Korea, China, Vietnam, Singapore, India, Japan, and more turning into strongholds.

Pi Network’s Developments This Year

The Pi Network community witnessed multip

The world’s biggest corporate holder of bitcoin continues with its accumulation phase by allocating another $209 million to purchase 2,136 BTC.

With this eight consecutive Monday purchase, the company’s stash has skyrocketed to over 446,000 BTC.

MicroStrategy has acquired 2,138 BTC for ~$209 million at ~$97,837 per bitcoin and has achieved BTC Yield of 47.8% QTD and 74.1% YTD. As of 12/29/2024, we hodl 446,400 $BTC acquired for ~$27.9 billion at ~$62,428 per bitcoin. $MSTR https://t.co/58aXM7g

Ethereum recently found stability at the $3K support region after facing substantial selling pressure, leading to a consolidation phase.

A golden cross on the daily chart further signals the potential for a mid-term bullish rebound, suggesting optimism in the market’s outlook.

Technical Analysis

By Shayan

The Daily Chart

Ethereum’s price action has been marked by increased volatility, particularly after its rejection at the $4K resistance level. This decline pushed the asset below the cruci

TL;DR

Shytoshi Kusama plans a 44-episode podcast to further engage the Shiba Inu community.

Despite the announcement, SHIB’s price remains in decline, down 20% over two weeks, amid broader market correction.

The Upcoming Development

Shiba Inu’s leading developer who uses the X moniker Shytoshi Kusama recently said they will introduce a podcast in 2025. It will consist of 44 episodes and touch upon different aspects of the entire ecosystem of the meme coin.

Kusama explained that every Monday

Foundry USA Pool – the largest Bitcoin mining pool by hash rate – recently took action to return an 8.18 BTC transaction fee, which is roughly worth $777,000, that had been accidentally overpaid.

The error occurred on December 19 during the mining of block 875475, which included a transaction with a fee 91,127 times higher than what was needed.

Foundry Refunds Large Overpaid Bitcoin Fee

After recognizing the mistake, Foundry reached out to the sender and refunded the excess fee after assessme

The highly-anticipated Santa Claus rally is nowhere to be seen as bitcoin continues to lose value by dropping below $94,000.

The altcoins are also mostly in the red, with XRP dumping by 6% and XLM following suit.

BTC Fails at Recovery

It hasn’t been a particularly hopeful end of 2024 on a micro-scale. The asset began its painful decline on December 17 when its price stood above $108,000. In just a matter of three days, it had lost around $16,000 and dumped to $92,000.

The bulls intercepted t

TL;DR

Bitcoin peaked at over $108,000 in mid-December but has since dropped to around $93,500 after Federal Reserve policy updates.

Despite the recent downturn, prominent figures like the former basketball player Scottie Pippen predict significant future gains, with targets as high as $1 million.

Is It Still Early?

Bitcoin (BTC) has experienced a substantial rally throughout 2024, with the real bull run starting shortly after Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections. On Novemb

TL:DR;

Although most cryptocurrencies have turned red once again amid another market-wide retracement, XRP’s price has dropped by a bigger percentage than most and is shaky at $2.

Analysts are speculating about the asset’s potential during this cycle and have outlined an important support level that needs hold; otherwise, XRP could plummet toward $1.

XRPUSD. Source: TradingView

XRP rode the Trump-induced rally like very few altcoins did, going from $0.6 to a multi-year peak of almost $3 wit

The incoming second Donald Trump administration has extensive plans to cement US leadership in developing blockchain cryptocurrencies and delivering their products to markets.

Meanwhile, Russia is using Bitcoin to conduct commerce outside the traditional finance channels in the face of international sanctions.

While these developments certainly bear strategic adversarial overtones, the way Bitcoin changes the equation shows great promise. Cryptocurrency provides the world powers with a peacefu

The real-world asset (RWA) sector has experienced meteoric growth over the past three years, soaring 58 times its previous valuation.

Recent data from DeFiLlama revealed that its total value locked (TVL) now stands at an all-time high of $8.217 billion, with a $1 billion spike coming within the last seven days alone.

Major Players Fueling Growth

Market leaders such as stablecoin issuer Usual and decentralized finance (DeFi) investment management platform Hashnote are at the forefront of this

A new crypto scam appears to be flipping the script on thieves. By publicly sharing seed phrases, scammers set up bait wallets that entangle opportunists in a deceptive scheme designed to exploit their attempts to steal funds.

According to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky’s latest findings, scammers post crypto wallet seed phrases on YouTube comments using newly created accounts.

Initial Bait

The scheme begins with a comment under a finance-related video from someone claiming to need help transfe

Access control vulnerabilities have emerged as the leading cause of crypto hack losses in 2024, accounting for a whopping 75% of total damages across decentralized finance (DeFi), centralized finance (CeFi), and gaming/metaverse sectors, excluding phishing attacks.

According to Hacken, this marks a significant increase from 50% in 2023, with losses tied to unauthorized access and private key theft surging to $1.7 billion, up from less than $1 billion the previous year. In contrast, exploits tar

Bitcoin’s price has failed to continue its upward momentum, since dropping below the $100K resistance level. This has led to a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future price action.

Technical Analysis

By Edris Derakhshi (TradingRage)

The Daily Chart

On the daily chart, the price has been consolidating below $100K, after briefly breaking it to the upside a couple of weeks ago and recording a new all-time high. A few days ago, the market failed to break the $100K level and was rejected to the

Ripple is currently experiencing a phase of low volatility, with its price fluctuating within the pivotal $2-$3 range. This consolidation period suggests market indecision, with a breakout likely to define XRP’s next mid-term trend.

XRP Price Analysis

By Shayan

The Daily Chart

Ripple’s price has recently been confined within the $2-$3 range, characterized by low volatility and muted trading activity. This consolidation reflects a cautious market state as participants await a definitive break

South Korea has experienced a dramatic surge in cryptocurrency adoption. In fact, a new report suggests that more than 15.5 million citizens now hold digital assets which represents roughly 30% of the country’s population.

By November 2024, the number of crypto investors had increased by 610,000 compared to October amidst a broader trend of growing market participation.

South Korea’s Crypto Market Doubles in Value

This surge is closely tied to heightened market activity following US President

In 4 out of every 5 Christmas holidays going back to 1950, US stocks have pumped as investors pile some extra savings into capital markets. But financial markets don’t get this tailwind every year.

This year, the Nasdaq Composite and Bitcoin’s price rallied on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but a Grinch of a pullback in the latter half of the week threatens to steal the Santa rally.

Santa Claus No Show For Stocks, Crypto

Bitcoin’s price was down over 2% for the 7-day period by lunchtime on

The father of a young girl battling a rare brain tumor has pledged $1 million to fund research into her condition after an unexpected cryptocurrency windfall.

Siqi Chen, CEO of startup finance platform Runway, announced the donation after the charity meme coin, named after his daughter Mira, soared to an all-time high market capitalization of $80 million.

Chen’s Pledge

The girl’s diagnosis inspired Chen to post a plea on X earlier in the week, asking for donations to support the Hankinson Lab