Today's news highlights:
A trader has made nearly $6 million through ai16z, ZEREBRO, DegenAI, and ALCH.
AI agent projects in the Binance Alpha section have surged, with COOKIE, AVA, ZEREBRO, and others rising over 30%.
Lightspeed predicts that in 2025, the X platform will launch Solana's native token.
Binance will add observation labels for STMX and TROY, and remove observation labels for CVX and SUN.
Elon Musk's X account has reverted to its original avatar and nickname, causing related concept coins to plummet.
Lumoz released its roadmap for 2025 to 2026: Q1 2025 will support the application of SVM and TVM on the RaaS platform, among other developments.
Bithumb will launch PEAQ and VANA in the Korean won market.
Dennis Porter: A U.S. state will begin purchasing Bitcoin in four months.
Regulation/Macro
The cryptocurrency custody platform Garanti BBVA Kripto will offer cryptocurrency trading services to the public.
According to CoinDesk, Garanti BBVA's cryptocurrency custody platform, Garanti BBVA Kripto, under Turkey's fifth-largest bank, will offer cryptocurrency trading services to the public. This service is executed by the Spanish cryptocurrency exchange Bit2Me and marks an important step for European banks accelerating their entry into the crypto space. The Spanish banking group BBVA holds an 86% stake in Garanti BBVA. BBVA previously piloted this service in Turkey, seizing the initiative due to the relatively loose regulatory environment. The EU's (MiCA) regulatory framework for the crypto asset market will come into full effect on December 30, 2024, providing clear guidelines for financial institutions such as banks. According to Bit2Me's sales director Abel Peña, more European banks are expected to launch cryptocurrency spot trading services in the first quarter of 2025.
Dennis Porter: A U.S. state will begin purchasing Bitcoin in four months.
Dennis Porter, co-founder and CEO of the Satoshi Action Fund (SAF), stated on the X platform that a certain U.S. state is almost 100% certain to start purchasing Bitcoin within the next four months. He also mentioned that his team is actively pushing for the passage of related legislation, indicating that this is not merely a prediction but an ongoing reality.
In 2024, the total net worth of the world's top 500 wealthiest individuals surpassed $10 trillion, with CZ's wealth increasing by 60% to $55 billion.
According to Bloomberg, the total wealth of the world's 500 richest individuals exceeded $10 trillion in 2024, with significant growth in the wealth of tech billionaires. Tech leaders like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jensen Huang topped the list, collectively increasing by $903 billion. The article mentioned that Trump's victory triggered a historic surge in digital assets, with Bitcoin breaking the $100,000 mark for the first time. This wave of growth significantly boosted the wealth of billionaires in the cryptocurrency sector: Binance founder CZ's wealth increased by 60%, reaching $55 billion; Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong's wealth increased by over 50%, reaching $11.1 billion.
Coinbase's Vice President of Legal: The amount of unpaid fines by the SEC has reached as high as $10 billion, and it is more important to focus on the amount returned to affected investors.
Coinbase's Vice President of Legal, Ryan VanGrack, pointed out that more than 50% of the record fines imposed by the SEC in a year come from a single case (the Terraform case, amounting to $4.4 billion), but this fine is unlikely to be recoverable. He further criticized that focusing on enforcement statistics might lead to misaligned incentives and misunderstandings. In contrast, attention should be paid to the amount returned to affected investors, as the historical record in this area was set in 2019 ($1.2 billion). Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that the SEC faces significant challenges in collecting unpaid fines, with the total amount reaching $10 billion. The report noted that although the SEC has raised fines in response to political pressure, the actual funds recovered are far lower than the amounts indicated in the cases. One typical case is that of former corporate raider Paul Bilzerian, who was ordered to pay $62 million for securities fraud, but the SEC has not been able to successfully recover this amount for 31 years. During this time, Bilzerian has filed for bankruptcy twice and moved to Saint Kitts and Nevis to evade payment. This fine, along with interest, has now grown to $180 million. The article also highlighted that this issue of unpaid fines underscores the SEC's limitations in enforcement and fund recovery, raising questions about its effectiveness.
Project dynamics
Binance will add observation labels for STMX and TROY, and remove observation labels for CVX and SUN.
Binance announced adjustments to monitoring labels and seed labels for some tokens on January 2, 2025. The specifics are as follows: New monitoring labels: StormX (STMX), TROY (TROY); Removed monitoring labels: Convex Finance (CVX), Sun (SUN); Removed seed labels: Arkham (ARKM), Blur (BLUR), Jito (JTO), Celestia (TIA).
Nimble Network announced its Q1 plan: it will complete the token launch and launch the Agent Launchpad.
The composable AI protocol Nimble Network announced its roadmap for the first quarter of 2025, which mainly includes the launch of the Agent Launchpad, focusing on the development of Agents, and completing the token launch. Previously, Binance Labs announced the list of 13 selected teams for Season 7 of the MVB Accelerator Program, including the composable AI protocol Nimble.
Elon Musk's X account has reverted to its original avatar and nickname, causing related concept coins to plummet.
In the early hours of today, Elon Musk's X account's frog avatar and the nickname 'Kekius Maximus' have been changed back to his original form (Elon Musk), causing related concept coins to plummet. Coingecko data shows that the KM (Kekius Maximus) on the Solana chain has fallen about 85% in the past 24 hours, while KEKIUS (Kekius Maximus) on Ethereum has dropped about 48% in the past 24 hours.
Lumoz released its roadmap for 2025 to 2026: Q1 2025 will support the application of SVM and TVM on the RaaS platform, among other developments.
The decentralized ZK-RaaS network Lumoz has released a review covering Q4 2024, as well as its development roadmap for 2025 to 2026. It conducted its TGE in Q4 2024, launched the zkVerifier node network, and initiated community airdrops and staking systems. In the first half of 2025, it will support the application of SVM (Solana Virtual Machine) and TVM (Ton Virtual Machine) on the RaaS platform, while introducing more quality L1/L2 chains, including UXLINK, CARV, DuckChain, Matr1x, and Ultiverse. Additionally, it will launch the Lumoz chain, zkProver network, and ZK-POW mining pool. In the second half of 2025, Lumoz will establish a modular computing network to provide computing power support for AI agents and ZK-ML model training, and expand support for the MOVE stack chain, fully supporting RaaS applications of Op Stack and ZK Fraud Proof, while integrating more data availability (DA) and execution layers. By 2026 and beyond, Lumoz plans to achieve seamless integration of zkProver and zkVerifier layers for ZK&AI applications, supporting more Rollup solutions based on Lumoz RaaS. Furthermore, it will launch a visual one-click deployment ZK&AI RaaS platform. Previously, Lumoz announced the MOZ token economics, with 66% allocated to the community, ecosystem, nodes, and miners.
Bithumb will launch PEAQ and VANA in the Korean won market.
According to a Bithumb announcement, today PEAQ and VANA will be launched in the Korean won market. PEAQ trading information: supports the PEAQ network, benchmark price 853 won, trading will begin on January 2, 2025, at 4 PM (Korean time); VANA trading information: supports the VANA network, benchmark price 23,730 won, trading will begin on January 2, 2025, at 4 PM (Korean time). The deposit function will be opened within 3 hours after the announcement, and investors are advised to confirm the network information before proceeding.
Sonic Labs: The $S token will be launched on over 12 centralized exchanges in January.
According to an official announcement from Sonic Labs, the $S token will be launched on over 12 centralized exchanges (CEX) in January 2025 as a substitute for the FTM token. The list includes several well-known exchanges such as Binance and Bybit, supporting token automatic upgrades and Sonic network integration. More information regarding launch dates will be announced soon.
Opinion
Lightspeed predicts that in 2025, the X platform will launch Solana's native token.
According to Lightspeed's prediction, the five major development trends for Solana in 2025 are as follows: 1. Elon Musk's X platform will launch Solana's native token: Musk is expected to introduce the Solana token in conjunction with the X Premium subscription service, utilizing Solana's high throughput and low fees to enable e-commerce functions within the platform. 2. The market value of stablecoins will quadruple: The market value of stablecoins on the Solana chain is expected to grow from the current $5 billion to $20 billion, mainly driven by startups like Perena and Lulo, as well as the participation of stablecoin issuers like PayPal and Sky. 3. Solana ETF will be approved but will underperform compared to ETH: Although the Solana ETF may be approved under the new SEC leadership, market demand might not match that for BTC and ETH. The primary users of the ETF still prefer to invest directly in SOL through other channels. 4. Pump.fun may lose its leading position: Although Pump.fun achieved $330 million in revenue in 2024, it is predicted that it may be replaced by newer, more innovative applications (such as AI-related platforms) in 2025. 5. There will be no significant network outages in 2025: With the release of the Firedancer client and the ongoing optimization by the development team, Solana's outage frequency has significantly decreased over the past two years, and it is expected to maintain stable operation in 2025.
Dragonfly partner: Existing AI agents are just meme-based chatbots, software engineering agents will bring prosperity.
According to Haseeb, managing partner of Dragonfly Capital, the AI agent boom will continue in 2025 but will ultimately fade. He noted that existing AI agents are merely chatbots with memecoins, lacking true intelligence beyond posting content on social media. As these tools become ubiquitous, people may grow tired of them. He believes that the true industry changers will be software engineering agents. Through AI cloud computing, entrepreneurs can launch applications with $10,000, significantly lowering software development costs and driving explosive growth in on-chain applications, making self-funded projects like Hyperliquid and Jupiter the norm rather than the exception. In addition, AI-driven security analysis and monitoring tools will become common, making it easier for everyone to enhance blockchain security. Haseeb also mentioned that the combination of AI and crypto will have far-reaching impacts in payments, decentralized model training, and user experience, especially in the post-AI wallet space, where these wallets will greatly simplify cross-chain operations and optimize the user experience.
Important data
A trader has made nearly $6 million through ai16z, ZEREBRO, DegenAI, and ALCH.
According to Lookonchain data, a trader has recently made nearly $6 million across multiple projects, showing outstanding performance. The specific transactions and profit conditions are as follows: ai16z: Spent $707,000 to purchase 2.07 million ai16z tokens, sold 700,000 for a profit of $1.66 million, currently holds 1.37 million ai16z tokens worth $3.27 million, total profit $4.23 million (+598%); ZEREBRO: Spent 4,425 SOL ($936,000) to purchase 2.58 million ZEREBRO, sold all for a profit of 9,284 SOL ($1.9 million), profit $969,000 (+103%); DegenAI: Spent 340 SOL ($84,000) to purchase 7.03 million DegenAI, sold all for a profit of 3,023 SOL ($598,000), profit $514,000 (+611%); ALCH: Spent 1,629 SOL ($353,000) to purchase 3.88 million ALCH, sold all for a profit of 2,696 SOL ($511,000), profit $158,000 (+45%).
AI agent projects in the Binance Alpha section have surged, with COOKIE, AVA, ZEREBRO, and others rising over 30%.
According to the latest data from Coingecko, AI agent projects in the Binance Alpha Spotlight section have seen a widespread surge, with some projects rising over 30% in 24 hours. Among them, the top ten projects ranked by growth are Cookie DAO (COOKIE) up 138.1% in 24 hours, now at $0.6108; Ava AI (AVA) up 77.7% in 24 hours, now at $0.09345; Zerebro (ZEREBRO) up 32.7% in 24 hours, now at $0.7705; Rifampicin (RIF) up 31.4% in 24 hours, now at $0.06095; tokenbot (CLANKER) up 30.4% in 24 hours, now at $88.22; Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) up 28.5% in 24 hours, now at $1.29; Urolithin A (URO) up 28.2% in 24 hours, now at $0.06932; ai16z (AI16Z) up 24.9% in 24 hours, now at $2.42; Odos (ODOS) up 15.3% in 24 hours, now at $0.0423; GRIFFAIN up 15.8% in 24 hours, now at $0.4337. Previously, Binance Alpha announced a new batch of projects: ZEREBRO, COOKIE, WHALES, and ORDER.
A whale who purchased 4.25 million VIRTUAL tokens for $10 million 19 days ago has now realized a profit of $11.5 million.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, a whale spent $10 million USDC 19 days ago to purchase 4.25 million $VIRTUAL tokens, which are now worth $21.5 million, realizing a profit of $11.5 million.
In December 2024, losses from cryptocurrency attacks dropped to the lowest point of the year, totaling only $29 million.
According to Cointelegraph, losses caused by cryptocurrency hacks, exploits, and scams in December 2024 fell to the lowest point of the year, totaling only $29 million, a significant decrease from $63.8 million in November and $115.8 million in October. Major incidents included a $2.1 million theft from the GemPad platform exploit, a $1 million theft from the FEG cross-chain bridge exploit, and $12.3 million in crypto assets stolen from LastPass users due to data breaches. According to CertiK and PeckShield, the total losses from related attacks in December decreased by 71% month-over-month. The total losses for the year reached $2.3 billion, reflecting a 40% increase from 2023 but lower than the $3.78 billion in 2022, primarily due to increased access control vulnerabilities in centralized exchanges and custody platforms.
The whale 'rektdolphin.eth', who sold PEPE to buy KEKIUS, is currently facing an unrealized loss of $880,000.
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, a whale named 'rektdolphin.eth' sold 620 billion $PEPE tokens (worth $1.23 million) yesterday, in exchange for 4.22 million $KEKIUS tokens. Currently, the market value of this batch of $KEKIUS is only $353,000, resulting in the whale facing an unrealized loss of about $880,000.
