Author: Shenchao TechFlow

Market dynamics yesterday

Pump.fun co-founder Alon denies the Christmas airdrop rumors.

In response to community rumors about Pump.fun conducting an airdrop on Christmas, Pump.fun co-founder Alon explicitly stated "False" to deny the news.

The privacy security computing network Nillion announced that its mainnet will go live in February 2025.

The privacy security computing network Nillion tweeted that its mainnet will go live in February 2025. Previously, Nillion completed a $25 million financing round led by Hack VC.

Barclays: Expects the Federal Reserve to pause interest rate cuts after June next year until mid-2026.

Barclays Bank stated that one of the factors keeping U.S. interest rates high is the U.S. (inflation) policy. In December's meeting, some FOMC participants evidently began to reflect expectations regarding tariffs in their inflation forecasts. Additionally, even among those who did not adjust their official predictions, many now believe that the balance of inflation risks leans upward. Although Powell did not explicitly answer to what extent the Federal Reserve is inclined to view price level increases due to tariffs, we believe that, given the expected inflation exacerbated by tariffs in the second half of 2025, particularly in the context of rising inflation rates in recent years, it will be a challenge for the Federal Reserve to continue cutting rates. We expect the Federal Reserve to pause rate cuts after June next year and resume cuts around mid-2026 after the inflationary pressures caused by tariffs dissipate. In our baseline, we expect two rate cuts of 25 basis points in 2026, with a terminal rate of 3.25-3.50%.

Greeks.live: Expect tight funds during the Christmas holiday, with strong risk-averse sentiment in the cryptocurrency market.

Greeks.live macro analyst Adam posted on X platform, stating that this Wednesday is Christmas, and major exchanges in Europe and the U.S. have entered a holiday closure, with cryptocurrency funds usually showing outflows this week. Currently, ETFs are the primary source of external funds for the cryptocurrency market, and the pressure of outflows on the cryptocurrency market is significantly higher than in previous years, with strong risk-averse sentiment. Regarding the outlook for the cryptocurrency market, this bull market has not experienced significant corrections, and with tight funds during the Christmas holiday, a deleveraging situation before Trump's inauguration cannot be ruled out, and the market sentiment is notably risk-averse.

Regarding the cryptocurrency interest rate market, the options market has nearly $12 billion in options expiring, accounting for over 40% of the current total positions. Large holders and market makers are actively adjusting their positions, and paying attention to the market can occasionally yield good bargain opportunities. This week's Christmas volatility expectation is low, with the market more focused on betting on the trends surrounding Trump's inauguration at the end of January. Recently, it remains a good opportunity to buy options.

Tether CEO: The company's net profit for 2024 is expected to exceed $10 billion.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated in an interview with Bloomberg that the company's net profit for 2024 is expected to exceed $10 billion. Data shows that USDT's market capitalization has increased by nearly $50 billion this year, currently surpassing $140 billion.

Tether's main revenue comes from its stablecoin reserve assets invested in U.S. Treasury bonds, gold, and other securities. Ardoino revealed that the company has already invested more than half of its net profit this year, including a $775 million investment in Rumble.

Wormhole DAO will launch in the first quarter of next year.

Cross-chain protocol Wormhole has announced that Wormhole DAO will launch in the first quarter of 2025. To participate in the first vote, W holders need to stake for governance. The Wormhole staking rewards program (SRP) is ongoing across all chains (EVM + Solana), with the initial reward pool allocating at least 50 million W tokens. Previously, Wormhole launched the W token staking program with a minimum reward of 50 million tokens.

Data: Tokens such as MRS, ADA, and ENA will experience large unlocks this week, with MRS unlocking valued at approximately $34.7 million.

Token Unlocks data shows that tokens such as MRS, ADA, and ENA will experience large unlocks this week, including:

Metars Genesis (MRS) will unlock approximately 10 million tokens at 8 AM Beijing time on December 23, with a ratio of 11.87% to the current circulation, valued at approximately $34.7 million;

Cardano (ADA) will unlock approximately 18.53 million tokens at 8 AM Beijing time on December 26, with a ratio of 0.05% to the current circulation, valued at approximately $16.6 million;

Ethena (ENA) will unlock approximately 12.86 million tokens at 3 PM Beijing time on December 25, with a ratio of 0.44% to the current circulation, valued at approximately $13.5 million;

Murasaki (MURA) will unlock approximately 20 million tokens at 8 AM Beijing time on December 23, with a ratio of 34.84% to the current circulation, valued at approximately $12.2 million;

Eigenlayer (EIGEN) will unlock approximately 1.29 million tokens at 3 AM Beijing time on December 25, with a ratio of 0.61% to the current circulation, valued at approximately $4.9 million;

MMX (MMX) will unlock approximately 1.67 million tokens at 8 AM Beijing time on December 24, with a ratio of 1.11% to the current circulation, valued at approximately $1.8 million;

Venom (VENOM) will unlock approximately 33.76 million tokens at 8 AM Beijing time on December 25, with a ratio of 1.77% to the current circulation, valued at approximately $2 million;

The Uniswap L2 network Unichain mainnet will launch in early next year.

Uniswap L2 network Unichain has released a roadmap for its mainnet development, which will officially launch early next year. Since the launch of the Unichain Sepolia testnet in October, the network has deployed 50 million test transactions and over 4 million test contracts. The Sepolia testnet is now public, and infrastructure providers are actively testing the mainnet. After the mainnet launch, it will continue to promote decentralization and performance improvements through new features. These features will first launch on the experimental testnet for stability and performance testing, then transition to Sepolia for broader testing, and finally launch on the mainnet. The first feature to be released on the public experimental testnet is Flashblocks, which will reduce effective block time to 250 milliseconds, allowing transactions to be completed instantly. The Unichain verification network will also launch on the experimental testnet, inviting the community to operate test verification nodes.

CZ: Uncertain how to calculate the $40 billion worth of Bitcoin held by the UAE, the figures are higher than expected.

Binance co-founder CZ previously retweeted data from a media outlet regarding the UAE holding $40 billion worth of Bitcoin, which was later questioned by the community, suggesting that the report appeared to be AI-generated. In response, CZ stated, "I also want to know how they arrived at this exact figure; collecting related data is quite difficult and higher than I expected, but that being said, there are many wealthy people there (in the UAE)."

Analysts: No need to worry about the end of the bull market, the cryptocurrency market still has ample momentum.

New Zealand crypto analyst Lark Davis tweeted that if you are worried the bull market is ending, please pay attention to the following: In December 2020, BTC fell 12%, while it had previously risen 77% from October to November. Subsequently, in the following 23 days, its price rose from $17,000 to $41,000 (an increase of 136%). Similar events are occurring; Bitcoin fell 13% after a significant rise in the fourth quarter. This does not mean that we are at the bottom of the market; there may still be a 10-15% adjustment. However, Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market still have ample momentum.

Market dynamics

Recommended reading

Coinbase 2025 Outlook: New technologies, new patterns, new opportunities, the cryptocurrency market will usher in transformative growth.

This article looks forward to the reforms and development trends of the cryptocurrency market in the next five years. Key content includes:

Changes in the U.S. government and regulatory environment increasingly support the development of the cryptocurrency industry;

Rapid advancements in stablecoins, tokenized financial products, and decentralized finance;

Innovations in foundational blockchain technology and its application, including Layer-2 scaling solutions, the rise of multi-chain ecosystems, and the expansion of artificial intelligence in the cryptocurrency field;

The progress of cryptocurrencies in user experience and privacy protection helps to promote popularization and large-scale adoption.

Hashed's 2025 investment outlook: Focused on Asia, leading the globalization of blockchain applications.

The research team under Hashed predicts that 2025 will mark the starting point for large-scale blockchain applications, with Asia leading this trend to promote a more equitable and transparent implementation of distributed ledger technology globally. The report analyzes data from 2024, exploring advancements in key areas such as blockchain infrastructure construction, the increasing maturity of consumer-facing products, and the integration of traditional finance and blockchain. Additionally, the report delves into Asia's unique advantages in promoting blockchain development and outlines five key development trends for the future.

As a VC, how did I miss the 100x opportunity in Virtuals Protocol?

The article's author, Marco Manoppo, shares his experience of missing the investment opportunity in the startup Virtuals Protocol as a venture capitalist. The author believes this AI intelligent tokenization project presents a highly potential 100x investment opportunity in the cryptocurrency market this year. He analyzes the reasons for missing this opportunity and offers some insights on the future trends of AI and cryptocurrency integration.

Union Square Ventures: A chart overviewing the four potential directions for AI technology in the future.

The future direction of AI development depends on the speed of technological progress and the openness of frontier models. In a closed ecology, a few giants dominate economic value creation through closed models.

In an open ecology, niche models and AI-based applications will gain development opportunities. If true open AI is achieved, inter-agent transactions may become a future trend.

2024 On-chain User Report: Monthly new users reached a peak of 19.4 million, with Base chain contributing nearly 70% of the increment.

In 2024, there will be massive growth in Web3 users, but the vast majority of blockchains are still in the early stages of converting ordinary users into high-value contributors. Chains like Base, Ethereum, and Polygon are performing well, but maintaining this growth momentum and establishing a sustainable ecosystem is the main challenge facing the industry.