The Golden Weekly is a weekly summary column of the blockchain industry launched by Golden Finance, covering key news, market and contract data, mining information, project dynamics, technological progress, and other industry dynamics from the past week. This article is a project weekly, bringing you an overview of the mainstream projects and star projects of the week.
Bitcoin
The United States 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 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 about 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 the Satoshi Action Fund (SAF), posted on the X platform that it can be confirmed that at least 13 states in America are drafting 'strategic Bitcoin reserve' legislation. January is expected to be a record-breaking month for Bitcoin policy.
HC Wainwright: The total market value of Bitcoin mining companies may exceed $100 billion by 2025.
This week, US investment bank HC Wainwright published an article stating that it expects Bitcoin prices to reach $225,000 by the end of 2025, meaning Bitcoin's market cap will reach $4.5 trillion, approximately 25% of gold's market cap. Additionally, HC Wainwright expects the total market value of Bitcoin mining companies to exceed $100 billion, with the investment bank listing MARA, RIOT, and CLSK as 'pure miners' and CORZ, BTDR, WULF, Hut 8, IREN, BTBT, and HIVE as 'mixed miners'.
Approximately $613 million worth of dormant Bitcoin were transferred in December 2024.
As Bitcoin prices hit a new high in December 2024, about 139 long-dormant wallets were activated, resulting in the transfer of approximately $613 million worth of 'sleeping' Bitcoin, including: 1. Dormant wallets dating back to 2014 had 26 transactions, transferring 1,077.2151 BTC; 2. Dormant wallets dating back to 2015 had 9 transactions, transferring 383.55 BTC; 3. Dormant wallets dating back to 2016 had 17 transactions, transferring 373.85 BTC; 4. Dormant wallets dating back to 2017 had 47 transactions, transferring 1,076.01010393 BTC.
The 16th anniversary of the Bitcoin Genesis Block.
The Bitcoin Genesis Block was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto on January 3, 2009, at 14:15:05 (Beijing time January 4, 2009), with a block reward of 50 BTC. As of today, it has been 16 years, and the total Bitcoin block height has reached 877572.
Ethereum
(Ethereum News Weekly) announced that it will cease operations.
Evan Van Ness, the founder of the Ethereum News Weekly (Week in Ethereum News, abbreviated as WiE), announced on social media that due to a conversation with the leadership of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) earlier this year, he declares that this newsletter will cease operations, as communication indicated that they believe continuing the operation of (Ethereum News Weekly) has no value. In 2024, WiE received very minimal funding support from the Ethereum Foundation. While this support was mostly symbolic, the EF leadership's decision to cut this insignificant support clearly indicated to me that it was time for WiE to end. (Ethereum News Weekly) once had a good track record. Over the years, many developers have told me at conferences that WiE had an impact on their Solidity or security careers. They often mentioned that this newsletter led them to decide to purchase ETH. Once upon a time, this old newsletter was the upstream source of news supporting Ethereum for most. But unfortunately, WiE failed to find a sustainable business model. Advertising and sponsorship are hard to sell because the marketing director does not value developers. I have high standards for content, but completing it in a profitable way is just too time-consuming.
Ethereum charity fund Endaoment sold 3,690 ETH, with funds coming from a certain Ethereum ICO whale.
According to Spot On Chain monitoring, the Ethereum-based charity fund Endaoment sold 3,690 ETH through a single transaction 9 hours ago, generating $12.47 million in revenue. This is the first time they have sold ETH in 10 months and the largest sale in history. Notably, this ETH came from an Ethereum ICO participant who received 100,000 ETH when the Genesis Block was created in July 2015. As of now, this participant has sold 14,990 ETH at an average price of $2,409, of which 13,190 ETH were sold through Endaoment. Currently, this participant still holds 85,000 ETH across two wallets, worth approximately $293.8 million.
10x Research's research director: Ethereum may not be the wisest investment choice in the 2025 bull market.
Markus Thielen, research director at 10x Research, stated that Ethereum may not be the smartest investment choice in the 2025 bull market, speculating that compared to Bitcoin, this asset may yield disappointing returns. 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 in March last year (which reduced gas fees and allowed for more transactions) was 'six months too late', missing the peak of the Meme coin surge, causing the market to 'turn towards' the 'more cost-effective' Solana alternative. He expressed skepticism about the Pectra upgrade slated for early 2025, noting, 'Of the 19 upgrades to date, only two had a significant positive impact on ETH prices, and those occurred during Bitcoin bull markets.' He added, 'The three major catalysts for Ethereum in 2024 have essentially failed, resulting in no overall value.'
Matrixport: Ethereum prices may face significant resistance to achieve a substantial increase in 2025.
Matrixport states that the decline in Ethereum's Gas fees reflects that, since the upgrade in March 2024, its ecosystem's activity remains sluggish. Coupled with continuing low trading volumes, achieving a substantial increase in ETH prices in 2025 may face significant resistance. In 2024, Ethereum faces strong competition from alternative protocols like Solana and Sui, which have successfully attracted more users, leading to their tokens outperforming Ethereum throughout the year. Without significant positive news to stimulate it, Ethereum may continue to be at a disadvantage in 2025, while competing projects are expected to further expand their advantages.
Vitalik asks the community what features they hope long-term network status nodes should possess.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin initiated a discussion on Warpcast about the characteristics that participants hope permanent network status nodes (i.e., permanent communities rather than temporary gatherings) should possess. User millie-x proposed the idea of establishing a sovereign/independent legal system and judiciary, to which Vitalik responded, asking how such a legal system would improve the lives of those living within network status nodes.
Other projects
The X platform's payment system 'X Money' may be launching soon and may integrate cryptocurrency.
The latest code leak from Musk's social platform X suggests that its payment system 'X Money' may be launching soon. Currently, X has obtained money transfer licenses in 39 states for its payment subsidiary X Payments LLC, but has not yet covered all states. X Money will support users in tipping content creators and may integrate cryptocurrency features. Analysts believe Bitcoin and Dogecoin may be among the payment options. X CEO Linda Yaccarino has confirmed that this feature will launch in 2025, but has not verified the authenticity of the latest code.
OpenSea CEO: OS2 Beta enters the final phase.
OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer stated on the X platform that 'OS2 (OpenSea V2) Beta is entering the final phase, rolling out the test version 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 has added features such as 'turning gifts into NFTs' and 'third-party verification'.
Telegram has released its first update of the year, adding third-party supported account verification methods, new message search filters, and the ability to turn gifts into NFTs. Accounts verified by third parties will display a unique new badge instead of the traditional blue checkmark. Telegram noted in its blog, 'This decentralized additional 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 functionality that supports tokenized securities.
BounceBit announced the launch of RWA trading functionality that supports tokenized securities on its BounceClub Quanto platform, with the first batch of listed assets including MSTR (MicroStrategy), COIN (Coinbase), and BB (BlackBerry). Users can use BB tokens as collateral to conduct leveraged trades of up to 200 times. Trading hours align with the US stock market, from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern Time, with weekends and US holidays closed. This feature is not available to US 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 function network Lens Network. This includes social (extended 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 and available for users to use freely.
