Virtuals Protocol

Jeff Albus

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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Let’s take a moment to reflect on this year’s biggest memecoin highs and lows.&nbsp;



Some coins delivered huge gains, stuffing stockings with profits, while others <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hawk-memecoin-launch-fail">crashed</a> and burned, earning lumps of coal. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest winners and losers in the space — no sugar-coating included.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Political tokens: Naughty or nice?</h3>



Jeo Boden, parodying US President Joe Biden, <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/jeo-boden">surged</a> 1,548% from $0.06307 to $1.04 before crashing 99.74% to $0.00274. Meanwhile, the Donald Trump inspired MAGA <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/maga">skyrocketed</a> 4,170% from $0.41 to $17.51 but dropped 91.7% to $1.45, following a similar fate.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Parent Trap</h3>



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/vitalik-wrong-crypto-dumb-memecoins">Iggy Azalea</a>&#8216;s MOTHER <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/mother-iggy">sparkled</a> with a 4,798% climb from $0.004709 to $0.2306, but dropped 79% to $0.04837. Unshaken, Azalea has doubled down on her token’s future with Motherland, an online casino project that could breathe new life into the MOTHER token in 2025.



Not to be outdone, Andrew Tate <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/daddy-tate">introduced</a> the pseudo-affiliated DADDY, a memecoin designed to counter MOTHER’s success and “flip it for the patriarchy.” DADDY surged 487% from $0.04917 to $0.2886 before succumbing to a 76% loss to now sit at $0.0684.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">A lot of hot air</h3>



Fartcoin <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/fartcoin">blew</a> onto the scene in late 2024, climbing 3,052% from $0.04067671 to $1.28 and holding steady at $1.25.&nbsp;



Similarly, GOAT (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/0xresearch-newsletter-goatse-memecoin">Goatseus Maximus</a>) <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/goatseus-maximus">paired</a> edgy humor with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-ai-bot-goat-memecoin">viral AI marketing</a>, surging 3,002% from $0.04354 to $1.35 before settling at $0.508.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">It’s snowing cats and dogs</h3>



Popcat <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/popcat">exploded</a> 14,400% from $0.01413 to $2.05 before settling at $0.7912. Cat in a Dog&#8217;s World (MEW) <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/mew">grew</a> 1,312% from $0.0009121 to $0.01288 but fell 51% to $0.006353. MEW’s attempt to challenge the dominance of dog-themed tokens injected some friendly rivalry into the memecoin ecosystem.



Bonk, Solana’s first <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bonkbot-volumes-rise">dog-themed</a> coin, <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bonk">climbed</a> a mere 210% from $0.0000188 to $0.00005825. In comparison, Dogwifhat (WIF) <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/dogwifhat">outperformed</a>, rising 2,292% from $0.201808 to $4.83 before settling 56% lower at $2.12.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Viral hits and legal misses</h3>



ChillGuy, based on the “Just a Chill Guy” meme, <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/just-a-chill-guy">soared</a> 10,789% from $0.00604 to $0.6575 but dropped 71% to $0.1898. Artist Phillip Banks condemned the token, pursuing legal action over its use.



PNUT, <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/peanut-the-squirrel">launched</a> after the viral euthanization of Peanut the Squirrel, surged 7,554% from $0.03187 to $2.44 but fell 71% to $0.6981. The token’s trajectory was mired in controversy, as Peanut’s owner condemned its creation and sought to shut it down.



Moodeng, <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/moo-deng">inspired</a> by a viral <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/memecoin-moodeng-market-cap-soars">Thai baby hippo</a>, rose 4,300% from $0.01545 to $0.6804 but has since dropped 62% to $0.2576.



For every coin that soared, there were 10 that crashed, proving again and again that memecoins giveth and memecoins taketh away.&nbsp;



So, whether you’re toasting to the winners or mourning the lumps of coal in your portfolio, just remember that chaos is the only constant in crypto — and it doesn’t care one bit if you’ve been naughty or nice.



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Memes and madness in 2024

Casey Wagner

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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As we approach what will undoubtedly be a new era for federal crypto regulation, this state watchdog head has some advice for companies: Start engaging now.&nbsp;



“Never surprise your regulator,” New York Department of Financial Services Superintendent Adrienne Harris said at the Blockchain Association Policy Summit earlier this month.&nbsp;



“We are by nature risk-adverse people,&#8221; she added. &#8220;We don’t like to be surprised, so come in and talk to us proactively.” 



Waiting until there is already an enforcement action underway to meet with regulators is a mistake, Harris said. Companies should be having these conversations before they even file applications, she added.&nbsp;



The comments come as New York continues to be a leader in state-level regulation. It was the first state to design a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/comptroller-audits-nydfs-bitlicense">“BitLicense” program</a> in 2014. The policy, which requires businesses conducting digital asset activities to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ny-authorities-more-fees-crypto-companies">register</a> with the DFS, came into effect the following year.&nbsp;



“Foreign jurisdictions and Congress have been for the last several years really borrowing from the New York framework as now it&#8217;s the gold standard,” Harris said.&nbsp;



New York’s BitLicense may have been received poorly by the industry at first (at least 10 companies initially left the state when the regulations were announced), but the regulatory framework shows the DFS is committed to allowing investors to access the markets they want, Harris said.&nbsp;



“It&#8217;s not our job as a regulator to decide what the market wants or doesn&#8217;t want, right? These instruments are here,” she added. “This technology is here. It&#8217;s our job to protect consumers, protect markets and ensure responsible growth in the industry.”&nbsp;



While President-elect Donald Trump has not commented on whether he would grant more authority to states to oversee the crypto industry, his administration’s efforts to shrink the size of several federal agencies, including the SEC, could ultimately have that effect.



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New York continues to lead on state crypto regulations 

Ben Strack

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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US spot ether products turned five months old yesterday.&nbsp;



But consistent (and substantial) net inflows only started coming after the election. First, a look at the flows by month:&nbsp;&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table class="has-fixed-layout"><tbody><tr><td>Month</td><td>Net Flows</td></tr><tr><td>July 23-31</td><td>-$484 million</td></tr><tr><td>August</td><td>+$6 million</td></tr><tr><td>September</td><td>-$46 million</td></tr><tr><td>October</td><td>+$43 million</td></tr><tr><td>November</td><td>+$1.1 billion</td></tr><tr><td>December 1-20</td><td>+$1.8 billion</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



To summarize: A flood of net money exited Grayscale’s higher-priced Ethereum Trust (ETHE) in the first few days after it <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/grayscale-eth-trust-ethe-filing-vaneck-proshares">converted</a> to an ETF. The other funds’ inflows could not fully offset those.&nbsp;



Then there were three months of rather flat flows. Industry watchers attributed this in part to the need for <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/education-required-to-spur-eth-etf-outflows">more education</a> about ETH — an asset with a value prop more difficult to grasp than BTC.



Donald Trump’s election win spurred <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-impacts-since-election-outcome">crypto market euphoria</a>. While bitcoin has hit several new all-time high price levels, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/when-will-eth-break-all-time-high">ETH hasn’t</a>.&nbsp;



CoinShares research associate Luke Nolan <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/when-will-eth-break-all-time-high">previously told me</a> he’s eyeing February or March for ETH to hit a new high — as long as ether ETF flows remain strong.&nbsp;



BTC has gained more institutional attention than ETH because of its easier-to-understand digital gold narrative ($36 billion of net inflows for bitcoin ETFs vs. $2.3 billion for ETH products).&nbsp;



Then there’s the fact that ETH also faces competition from other layer-1s like solana, Nolan added. Several fund groups have proposed ETFs that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitwise-ceo-solana-ncredible-emerging-asset">would hold SOL</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“Ethereum developers have taken a long-term view as to improving the protocol whilst Solana has very much focused on capturing attention and demand now,” Nolan said. “They are both valid approaches that each attend to their own use cases and niches.”



Keeping an eye on crypto ETF flows will help us understand investor sentiment toward each asset — whether it be BTC, ETH or others that could soon make their way into an ETF wrapper.



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An end-of-year ETH ETF check-in

Macauley Peterson

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">subscribe</a>.



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BOB (“Build on Bitcoin”), a hybrid layer-2 solution leveraging Bitcoin and Ethereum, has taken a significant step forward by successfully testing its first BitVM-powered Bitcoin bridge prototype. Developed in partnership with Fiamma, the prototype in production will deliver trust-minimized BTC bridging. Doing so marks a milestone in the chain’s scaling — with bitcoin, the asset, at the center.



BitVM bridges <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research/issue/post_d08feb9f-1ecf-4108-85fe-878d48edd78d">stand out</a> from existing solutions like <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/wbtc">wBTC</a> or <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-wrapped-bitcoin-competitor-cbbtc">cbBTC</a> — which rely on centralized entities — and from semi-trusted models. By contrast, BitVM <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-rollups-closer-than-expected">leverages</a> a fraud-proof system, where BTC deposits and withdrawals are secured so long as one participant acts honestly.&nbsp;



“Bitcoin security and trust-minimized BTC bridging are the two most important pillars of Bitcoin L2s,” said Alexei Zamyatin, BOB co-founder and BitVM2 contributor.



The bridge prototype is expected to be deployed on BOB’s testnet in early 2025, followed by a mainnet rollout after audits. Additionally, BOB announced plans to integrate with bitcoin staking service <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/0xresearch-newsletter-babylon-btc-staking-deposits">Babylon</a> with an aim to establish itself as a Bitcoin-secured network with Bitcoin finality.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Signaling for Bitcoin scaling preferences</h2>



The open Wiki-style <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Covenants_support">signaling forum</a> on Bitcoin soft fork upgrades reflects the growing need for community consensus on covenants like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-rollups-closer-than-expected">OP_CAT</a> and OP_CTV. Developers, including Zamyatin, have weighed in on proposals. For instance, Zamyatin has marked OP_CTV as “Weak,” while signaling “Evaluating” for OP_CAT, thus indicating areas where more discussion is required.



The forum is valuable because it collects rationales in one place, moving discussions away from social media fights, according to Zamyatin. “It makes it easier to evaluate proposals, summarize pros and cons, and have meaningful discussions,” he <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-zk-rollups-debate">told Blockworks</a>.



The signaling process has revealed divided opinions: While OP_CTV has garnered moderate consensus, OP_CAT and others remain contentious. As Zamyatin noted, achieving broad agreement will only grow harder as Bitcoin adoption increases.



For BOB and the wider Bitcoin ecosystem, these upgrades could eventually enable more advanced capabilities, including native zk-verifiers — a vital step toward scaling Bitcoin securely.



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Bitcoin’s $100K milestone reflections, what’s next

David Canellis

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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In the mid-16th century, Nostradamus made 942 predictions in eight years.



He’d <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/10/why-nostradamus-predictions-are-still-winning-converts">supposedly</a> dictated every one as a poem to his secretary. All while hallucinating on heroic doses of nutmeg.&nbsp;



Sadly, I don’t have a secretary. But why should that stop me?



Here are five crypto prophecies that will totally come true in 2025. And if not, they can easily be rehashed for hundreds of years, just like Nostradamus’s.



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>AI chatbots will gamify flash loan attacks.</li>
</ol>



We rarely hear about <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pump-fun-flash-loan-attack">flash loan attacks</a> anymore.&nbsp;



Apparently, the US Department of Justice <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-convicted-110m-cryptocurrency-scheme">largely</a> put a stop to them after they nabbed Avi “it’s just a profitable trading strategy” Eisenberg last year.



That is until some diabolical edgelord trains an AI model to trawl the dingiest illiquid corners of DeFi for potential targets.&nbsp;



After all, who’s to blame: The prompt engineer or the LLM with a crypto wallet?



<ol start="2" class="wp-block-list">
<li>Either a bitcoin ETF or a nation-state will be hacked</li>
</ol>



Never mind that most ETFs have abstracted the actual handling of coins far away from their own liability — presumably replaced by a WhatsApp chat with a Coinbase Custody support representative.



Next year will mark a return of monumental crypto hacks.&nbsp;



It’s indeed been a while since we saw one. Maybe the Ronin hack was the last hack that really, really hurt.&nbsp;



Be on the lookout for a nation-state or ETF issuer to fumble the bag, perhaps by falling for a North Korean phishing email for a phony Chick-fil-A coupon.



<ol start="3" class="wp-block-list">
<li>The FTC will sue a memecoin</li>
</ol>



You’ve probably heard that the next SEC chair should be more friendly to crypto.&nbsp;



But that’s just the SEC. There are still more than a dozen US agencies that could probably still pull some real boomer moves next year.



Enter the Federal Trade Commission. They’ve gone after crypto companies in the past, including Celsius and Voyager, and also pushed federal cases against fraudsters peddling fake investment schemes.



I’d watch for the FTC to characterize a random memecoin as such and start suing. Gensler is leaving a void that only another short-sighted regulator can fill.



<ol start="4" class="wp-block-list">
<li>Crypto lotteries will emerge as public goods</li>
</ol>



Crypto already has its own pseudo-lottery systems: memecoins.



If you’re really into buying Powerball and Mega Millions, why not buy a random pump.fun memecoin every week and hope to one day strike it big (as long as you can time the top).



So, it’s about time someone — perhaps from the very public-good-centric Ethereum space — codes an unstoppable permissionless crypto lottery that pays out once a week.



And before you point out that random number generators on the blockchain are always a bad idea, <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/learning/ssl/lava-lamp-encryption/">study lava lamps</a>.



<ol start="5" class="wp-block-list">
<li>IRL livestreamers will adopt prediction markets</li>
</ol>



To suggest that livestreamers like Speed and KSI would mint their own memecoins (or would they be social tokens?) is too obvious.



Calling it now: A major streamer will figure out how to utilize prediction markets to crowdsource their content.



Case in point: Speed’s <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@houseofhighlights/video/7438400472920198446">suggestion</a> that he’ll run sprints at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles could be a prediction market. And all his viewers could bet whether that’s the case — or push him toward any other challenge for that matter.



Mass adoption through Twitch starts in 2025.



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5 crypto predictions for 2025

Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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Marginfi co-founder Edgar Pavlovsky <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/04/11/marginfi-leader-resigns-on-fiery-day-for-major-solana-lender">departed</a> suddenly from the Solana DeFi project in April.&nbsp;



The split wasn’t exactly amicable. “I don&#8217;t agree with the way things have been done internally or externally,” Pavlovsky <a href="https://x.com/edgarpavlovsky/status/1778175476118302775">wrote</a> on X at the time.&nbsp;



Now, eight months later, Pavlovsky is a core contributor to Paladin, a Solana client meant to protect validators from so-called sandwich attacks while helping them “earn more in block rewards.”&nbsp;



Around the same time, Temporal, a crypto research shop with multiple marginfi-linked members, began advertising “Nozomi,” a proprietary quic client partially meant to prevent sandwich attacks.&nbsp;



Temporal is legally distinct from mrgn and marginfi. Temporal said most of its staff never worked at marginfi.



A Temporal researcher I spoke to was critical of the project being worked on by his former colleague. The two products aren’t the same, by both parties’ accounts, but they are both focused on the same niche. There’s one notable difference though — Pavlovsky’s Paladin has a token, while marginfi, controversially, has yet to debut a native coin.&nbsp;



Temporal’s Nozomi infrastructure is built to land transactions as fast as possible. It also prevents sandwich attacks by only sending transactions to “whitelisted” Solana validators who are known not to attack users. The project pitches this as a way to democratize trading.&nbsp;



“We have a ton of experience from our trading arm getting the best execution for what we want to do,” Jakob Povsic, a developer at Temporal, said. Temporal is “getting this level of sophistication for basically anyone.”



Paladin, on the other hand, is a fork of the Jito-Solana client that identifies and drops sandwich attacks from transaction bundles and helps Solana validators prioritize transactions with high priority fees attached, Pavlovsky told me. Access to Paladin validators will eventually be gated with the yet-to-launch PAL <a href="https://x.com/paladin_solana/status/1870167984540626968">token</a>.&nbsp;



I asked Pavlovsky if building a product with similar anti-sandwiching aims to his ex-colleagues at Temporal makes him want to compete more aggressively.



“No, man, they’re like my children,” Pavlovsky said with a chuckle. “I’m stoked for them to win, stoked for them to build.” He said blockchain infrastructure creators tend to have too much of a winner-take-all mentality when, in fact, multiple businesses can succeed at the same time.



Povsic showed less bonhomie. “I applaud them for going after sandwiching since [it’s] a big problem, but their approach is naive and very [self-serving] from what we are seeing,” he said of Paladin. Povsic added Paladin “arbitrarily” blocks some transactions based on a wide net of criteria, and sophisticated players will still be able to pull off sandwiches. And “forcing” its own token into the equation made matters worse for Povsic.



Pavlovsky responded to the criticism by saying that its anti-sandwich whitelist is “obviously systematic, not arbitrary.”



“[P]aladin is designed with sophisticated players in mind (and being tested comprehensively against sandwichers on the whole network). [W]e&#8217;re always happy to discuss tradeoffs,” Pavlovsky said in a text.



“[We] think [Paladin] is extractive and would rather focus on open-source initiatives rather than sending a % of priority fees to [Bloxroute], who own 20% of the token supply. Nozomi is quite different in that it&#8217;s simply a product to help land transactions fast,&#8221; Temporal partner and mrgn research co-founder Ben Coverston said.&nbsp;



The PAL token is an interesting part of the equation. Marginfi frequently draws criticism for its so-called points program that tracks user contribution to the platform. Points are frequently used to allocate token airdrops, but marginfi is one of the last major Solana DeFi protocols not to release a token. Pavlovsky never mentioned the lack of a marginfi token in his departure post in April 2024.&nbsp;



I asked him if frustration at the platform not launching a token contributed to his leaving. “[I] am pro token and think the right time to ship one was [Q4] 2023,” Pavlovsky said in response.



Updated Dec. 23, 2024: Modified headline. 



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Mrgn’s co-founder built a new product. Some ex-colleagues aren’t fans.

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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President-elect Donald Trump appears to be working down his <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/revisiting-trumps-crypto-promises-after-his-election-win">crypto promises</a> list via another personnel decision.&nbsp;



Trump said Sunday that Bo Hines will serve as executive director of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets. David Sacks, the PayPal co-founder who <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-picks-crypto-czar">Trump tapped</a> to be the US government’s AI and crypto czar earlier this month, will chair this group.



Hines will work with Sacks “to foster innovation and growth in the digital assets space, while ensuring industry leaders have the resources they need to succeed,” Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113698639577293090?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">wrote</a> on Truth Social.



“Together, they will create an environment where this industry can flourish, and remain a cornerstone of our nation&#8217;s technological advancement,” he added.



A former NC State (and Yale) football player, Hines sought to represent North Carolina’s 13th Congressional district in 2022, but lost that election to Democrat Wiley Nickel. He launched a campaign in December 2023 to represent the state’s 6th Congressional district — endorsing Trump that same month before posting this to X in January:



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Cryptocurrency is the epitome of individual empowerment in finance. We don’t need the government stepping in and slapping burdensome regulations on financial innovation. This new sector needs the freedom to grow organically. Decentralized finance is the way of the future if…&mdash; Bo Hines (@BoHines) <a href="https://twitter.com/BoHines/status/1747379326465474698?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 16, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Trump had referenced a US crypto council in July during <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRQZAOK24IQ">his address</a> at the Bitcoin 2024 <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-2024-nashville-recap">conference</a> in Nashville. He said it was something he would assemble “immediately” before asking for a show of hands who wanted to be on it. The crowd roared.



The then-presidential candidate said the council’s task of designing crypto regulatory guidance would get done in 100 days. We’ll have to monitor that.&nbsp;



Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/crypto-industry-jockeys-seats-trumps-promised-council-2024-11-21/">reported</a> last month that people at crypto companies Ripple, Kraken, Circle, Paradigm and a16z were among those wanting a seat at that table.



Trump’s ongoing engagement with the industry seems to show his pro-crypto rhetoric was not just lip service. A few days before that Reuters story ran, Trump <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-nominates-commerce-dept-leader">nominated</a> crypto-friendly Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick to lead the Department of Commerce.



The soon-to-be president also just met with Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek last week about <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-crypto-ceo-btc-reserve-meeting">crypto-related appointments</a> and a bitcoin reserve.



Those congratulating Hines on X yesterday included crypto bigwigs <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-salesmen-michael-saylor-larry-fink">Michael Saylor</a> and Fred Thiel — leaders of two companies (MicroStrategy and Marathon Digital) which own roughly 490,000 BTC combined.



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Trump crypto appointment spurs optimism 

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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President Biden over the weekend signed Congress’s bipartisan <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/congress-continuing-resolution">spending</a> package, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown and keeping federal operations funded through mid-March.&nbsp;



The bill, cut from 1,500 pages to around 100, does not raise the debt ceiling, a provision President-elect Trump requested. Also out: a 3.8% raise for members of Congress, a bipartisan provision included in the original bill.&nbsp;



The eleventh-hour deal did little to calm markets, which have <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/market-reaction-to-fed-rate-cut">struggled to maintain</a> their post-election momentum this month. The S&amp;P 500 is down 1.7% since the start of December. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has fared better, gaining 1.4% month to date, but the index lost almost 3% last week alone.&nbsp;



The dip, which Sevens Report Research founder Tom Essaye attributes to hawkish commentary from the Fed, political turmoil and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/jobs-initial-claims-report-december">disappointing</a> initial jobless claims data last week, could be a “potential preview” for the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/analyst-market-commentary-2025">new year</a>.&nbsp;



“Now, to be clear, while I say that, I’m also not saying I expect the market to decline next year,” Essaye added.&nbsp;



“Instead, I think last week was a preview of 2025 because it was a realization of what I have been warning about: Namely that uncertainty around the key drivers of this <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/standard-bitcoin-bull-market-cycle">bull market</a> is going to rise and we saw that last week with two of the drivers of rally, expectations for Fed rate cuts and pro-growth policies.”&nbsp;



The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were trading fairly flat midway through Monday’s session, up 0.6% and 1%, respectively, as of 2:15 pm ET. Market moves are expected to be relatively soft this week with a limited number of trading days.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, bitcoin has also stalled. The largest digital currency is down around 13% from its all-time high of more than $108,000.&nbsp;



Historically, cryptos deliver mixed returns in the final days of the year. When trying to predict what might happen this week, analysts say keeping an eye on macro conditions will be key. 



&#8220;While reduced liquidity can heighten volatility, the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/institutions-need-altcoin-major-pair">absence</a> of major institutional activity may actually stabilize prices,” James Toledano, chief operating officer at Unity Wallet, said. “This year, much depends on investor sentiment following 2024’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-approves-bitcoin-etf">ETF</a><a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ether-etfs-approved-for-us-exchange-july-23"> approval</a> and the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-lenient-crypto-regulation">Trump-factor</a> as well as other macro trends.”



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Stocks trade sideways after Congress passes stopgap spending bill

Donovan Choy

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">subscribe</a>.



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“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” — Harvey Dent



For Hyperliquid, it took all of 25 days since its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hyperliquid-most-valuable-airdrop">highly acclaimed airdrop</a> to run into a bout of controversy.



It started when Taylor Monahan (<a href="https://x.com/tayvano_/status/1870960207842701358">@tayvano</a>), a security researcher at MetaMask, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/north-korea-defi-hacks">sounded the alarm</a> on a series of Hyperliquid transactions made from North Korea-tagged wallets. Based on Monahan’s data, the wallets have accrued a $701k loss from ETH perps positions.



It’s a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stolen-crypto-north-korea">meager amount</a> for a state-sponsored hacker group. But what got people in an uproar was the revelation that North Korea hackers were actively familiarizing themselves with the Hyperliquid platform, presumably to launch an impending hack.



Hyperliquid chain’s highly centralized validator set of <a href="https://hypurrscan.io/staking">four</a> made it extra vulnerable to a potential hack, Monahan claims.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">There are no more than 4 validators and all run the same code, possibly collocated as well. Centralized infra, build systems, etc. maintained and accessed by unknown number of founders, c-levels, and engjneers who use the same devices to access said systems as they do to talk to…&mdash; Tay 💖 (@tayvano_) <a href="https://twitter.com/tayvano_/status/1871097647144280504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 23, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Hyperliquid’s liquidity is locked in a lock-and-mint style bridge from Arbitrum, where Hyperliquid <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hyperliquid-hype-airdrop">used to exist </a>as a perps DEX application.



When Hyperliquid migrated to its own <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/glossary/#tendermint">Tendermint</a>-consensus PoS L1 chain in March 2024, the team retained the lock-and-mint style bridge from Arbitrum, which remains the only way to onboard onto Hyperliquid today.



Based on Dune, the deposit bridge has seen a record high net outflow of $114.7m in USDC liquidity in the past day, though that is still a fraction of the remaining $2.22b in TVL.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcVBrVkHTPGMAe-4NhLZHaSToRdCLLgVzM5d8COiAtDcyRi9MAyKxKoOUYXBzYJL1HdANEtxv00R9MbDVWOymXAOo19GBrVwl5Gr9VUkraFa6_2yFja15Bfd2wBKicKKZVKx4IaDQ?key=n-XfG3ey8f5M1RCMdheTC7vX" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://dune.com/entropy_advisors/hyperliquid-bridge-tvl">Dune</a></figcaption></figure>



Talks of a Hyperliquid hack are merely speculative at this time, but if one happened, here’s a rough sketch of how it would play out.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Everyone wanted Hyperliquid to respond to the allegations of an impending hack, so here it is. TDLR: there is no exploit, all funds are safu. If a vulnerability is found, the team is always willing to listen as they have a bug bounty program. <a href="https://t.co/VHYeUogvxs">pic.twitter.com/VHYeUogvxs</a>&mdash; steven.hl (@stevenyuntcap) <a href="https://twitter.com/stevenyuntcap/status/1871225238543053137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 23, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



To successfully attack Hyperliquid’s bridge contract would require three out of its four validators to be compromised, as per a two-thirds quorum.



Should that happen, the natively minted USDC on Arbitrum could theoretically be frozen by Circle before the hackers were able to swap the stolen funds into an uncensorable asset like ETH.



That, however, requires Circle to act on issued court orders, a tedious and slow legal process that may offer the time sophisticated hackers need to execute an exit.



The hacker may instead choose to try and swap to USDC.e (Ethereum-native USDC tokens that were bridged to Arbitrum) onto the Ethereum L1.



“The only plausible path that would enable the Arbitrum security council as a line of defense would be if the hackers attempted to withdraw the funds through the canonical bridge, likely after swapping to ETH,” Matt Fiebach at Entropy Advisors told Blockworks.



“In this scenario, the elected Arbitrum Security would need to make the decision of whether effectively blocking this transfer was within their scope of ‘addressing critical risks associated with the Arbitrum protocol and its ecosystem’.”



Finally, it’s also worth noting that a hacker would have trouble finding the necessary liquidity venues to swap out of the stolen funds. $2 billion of liquidity would have to be spread across a variety of third-party bridges, which would cause massive slippages.



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Hyperliquid under scrutiny amid signs of North Korean hacker activity

Katherine Ross

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



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That seems to have been Robinhood’s approach to crypto this past year, from its Bitstamp acquisition (still expected to close in the first half of next year) to its response to the Wells notice it received from the SEC. The firm has shown an interest and, dare I say, commitment to crypto.



Johann Kerbrat told me that’s not changing anytime soon and, if anything, the “enthusiasm in crypto,” is serving to help the firm as it plots out the upcoming year.



But even before the bullishness really took off after Donald Trump won the presidential election, the firm reported $38 billion in crypto assets under custody as of November 2024. And while Kerbrat wasn’t able to provide a more updated number, he did note that the company’s seen an increase in engagement if you’re looking at customer behavior, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/robinhood-retail-user-engagement">echoing what he told Empire</a> back in October.



“In November alone, we did more than $3 billion in volume, which is, I think, almost twice as much as Q3,” he added. “If you look at the activity onchain … we see people buying on Robinhood, transferring to their self-custody wallet or transferring to other places,” he noted.&nbsp;



To put these figures in perspective, this is just a year after <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/robinhood-earnings-q3-2023">Robinhood’s trading revenues</a> tanked in the same quarter back in 2023.



Kerbrat’s also noticed a tick up in NFT activity. While activity is still way down from 2022 (to no one’s surprise), it’s looking like sales will either match or fall just under last year’s total figure, according to data from CryptoSlam.&nbsp;



As of right now, with a little over a week left in the year, NFT global sales volume sits at $8.69 billion. Last year, that figure totaled $8.71 billion. If we’re just looking at the average sale in US dollars, though, then this year outperformed last year at $122 on average in comparison to 2023’s $95.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe-jfjalLvAG8aFuu--JcvdEODYbMy6InV92sDc4QGqOgs5_JYWxyulYncGjT17m4yOgcZh_j0IG2zEF35gYGD5n6BQuJxLxLInewQR9AQHL0LyvwK-y5RMg_dFzwp31l_qH7UGXg?key=RztHTa0yKO7h41LHD4nydxv7" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: CryptoSlam!</figcaption></figure>



Europe has also been a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/robinhood-solana-staking-europe">big focus</a> for Robinhood this year, arguably one of their bigger years in terms of expanding their EU footprint. However, that looks poised to change once the aforementioned <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/robinhood-bitstamp-institutional-clients">Bitget acquisition closes</a>.&nbsp;



But it’s not just Bitget that has Kerbrat’s attention next year. He and his team are eager to “do more in tokenization,” he said.&nbsp;



The firm, alongside Kraken, Paxos and others, announced the Global Dollar Network based on a new stablecoin offering, <a href="https://paxos.com/blog/introducing-global-dollar-network-an-open-network-to-accelerate-and-reward-global-stablecoin-adoption-driven-by-anchorage-digital-bullish-galaxy-digital-kraken-nuvei-paxos-and-robinhood/">USDG</a>, earlier this year.&nbsp;



“We want to be a pioneer” in tokenization, he told me, given that the publicly-traded company feels like it can “bring a lot to the table.”



He’s also starting to loosely look into artificial intelligence, but he’s wary due to how narratives tend to play out (story gets big, then bad actors come in to prey on the weak). Specifically, his concern is focused on AI being used for deep fake videos that could be used to scam people. But that’s not to say he doesn’t think AI and crypto can find common ground.



“I think the intersection between crypto and AI is something that I&#8217;m following pretty closely. When I hear a lot of the issues around AI right now on like micro payments or fair remuneration of the data that is training the models you handle, like personal information, all this kind of thing, makes me feel like … we can actually combine [crypto and AI] and get somewhere that is pretty exciting,” he explained.



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Robinhood wants to be a tokenization ‘pioneer’

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Sanctum, the Solana startup focused on growing the network’s liquid staking ecosystem, launched a new primitive today called creator coins.&nbsp;



Creator coins are essentially Solana liquid staking tokens that Sanctum issues while giving the yield to creators. Fans can earn loyalty points for holding creator coins, and creators can use those points to dole out perks. It’s a new spin on an old concept in crypto, but Sanctum thinks launching with more crypto-native creators can help it pick up adoption where others have failed.



Sanctum is a newer startup that came up through the Solana Foundation’s startup incubator this spring and promised to create an “infinite LST future” on Solana. Its initial flagship product was called INF — a token that helps provide liquidity to a pool of Solana LSTs.



It then carried out a much-hyped airdrop focused on “earnestness” that ignited some controversy <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-sanctum-airdrop-backlash">over the summer</a>. Since then, Sanctum has been a bit quieter, most notably <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sanctum-adding-binance-bitget-bybit-as-partners">launching LSTs</a> with Asia-based crypto exchanges including Binance in the early fall.&nbsp;



Creator coins are a concept Sanctum has seemingly toyed with for a while as well — co-founder FP Lee <a href="https://x.com/soleconomist/status/1787580806497554619">created</a> the fpSOL liquid staking token as a “personal LST” experiment in May.&nbsp;



Creator coin holders forgo their SOL staking yield to support creators. Sanctum takes a small cut of this as well, Sanctum’s anonymous co-founder J told me. Sanctum’s Solana staking APY is around 10% on average, J added.



In exchange, users earn “seeds,” which are loyalty points that can track fans’ investment and let creators offer loyalty perks.&nbsp;



When I asked why creator coins couldn’t just pass along some staking yield to users while charging a commission for the creators, J said giving creators all the rewards “makes economic sense for now,” but this could be changed in the future.



One obvious target audience for creator coins is celebrities who — <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hawk-memecoin-draws-lawsuit">like the “Hawk Tuah” girl</a> — seem to keep launching volatile memecoins that end in lawsuits or reputational damage. Creator coins may come with less immediate upside, but they also come with less risk.&nbsp;



Still, Sanctum isn’t the first to try luring creators with crypto-based loyalty programs. Jack Harlow joined a loyalty <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/jack-harlow-mith-fan-engagement">platform named MITH</a> last year, for instance, but other creators appear to be somewhat slow to adopt the platform, which hasn’t <a href="https://x.com/OnlywithMITH">posted</a> on X since May. As a response to this, Sanctum is limiting creator coins to just crypto creators for now.



“A lot of previous attempts often failed because there&#8217;s a certain disconnect between the creator and their supporters,” J said. “This is why we didn&#8217;t necessarily want to get the biggest creators for the beta launch. We wanted Solana folks who were really dialed in and connected to their fanbase.”



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Solana liquid staking startup Sanctum trials ‘creator coins’

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When examining crypto stocks, chatting with a co-portfolio manager of the long-running blockchain-focused Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK) makes for a good convo.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Dan Weiskopf told me he’s more optimistic about 2025 now than he was about this year at the end of 2023.



A main reason? The “crazy opportunity” for BLOK investors that’s set to come as more pure-play crypto companies go public.&nbsp;



Some expect <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-files-ipo">stablecoin issuer Circle</a> could be among the next to do so. Weiskopf also has his eye on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/figure-raises-60m-launches-dex">Figure Technologies</a>.



While a few more bitcoin miners could also go public, that’s a crowded field, Weiskopf noted. But BLOK would consider holding cloud-computing firm CoreWeave — one of mining giant <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/core-scientific-rejects-coreweave-buyout-bid-after-big-hpc-deal">Core Scientific’s largest clients</a>.



Speaking of Core Scientific, that stock — up ~320% year to date — is BLOK’s No. 1 holding (4.67%). Another interesting miner to Weiskopf is Hut 8 — the ETF’s sixth-largest holding, at 4.16%.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdjjIQ3TRWCtkQk6ivHw2GW5TAVq3y-ciKKxCDTkQ34l1Au-3Vb87-WLZxNdkomVa3Mg9jnJknYCM35rB36hVDDvSyAdi39J25MtZMqjDz9ks0GK0BlOVnW6-kKTlW5bCQIK1uyrg?key=faEA7u4tWkwGB1Ia4pTgPfjp" alt=""/></figure>



“I think we did a really good job repositioning and recalibrating amongst the miners in capturing the diversification <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/btc-miners-evolving-revenue-post-halving">into the AI side</a> of things,” the PM said.



Hut 8 is weighted slightly above MicroStrategy — a stock set to enter the Nasdaq 100 index next week (I’ll write more about that on Monday). BLOK started buying MSTR in August 2020 (when it was $14), Weiskopf and co-PM Mike Venuto <a href="https://blog.amplifyetfs.com/blok/blok-chain-monthly-commentary-december-2024?utm_campaign=BLOK&amp;utm_content=318841101&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;hss_channel=tw-4756273994">noted</a>.&nbsp;



MSTR shares were trading around $350 this afternoon (up more than 400% YTD). Benchmark analysts on Monday upped their price target for the stock to $650 after MicroStrategy increased its bitcoin holdings to 439,000 BTC.



That said, Weiskopf and Venuto recently reduced BLOK’s exposure to MSTR and CORZ as the stocks “rallied past our weighting limits,” they added. In other words, they’re trimming the winners in hopes of moving into other successes.



On that diversification point: As the BLOK money managers await more IPOs in 2025, they started buying Japan-based Metaplanet last month.



While more companies are <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/company-treasuries-btc-reserve-asset">adding BTC to their treasuries</a> (~60 by Weiskopf’s count), many are small. So-called “zombie companies” aren’t likely to bounce back just because they’ve bought the crypto asset, he said.



“They make a headline, but do they have a real strategy?” Weiskopf added about evaluating these BTC purchasers.&nbsp;



He argued that Metaplanet, which in April <a href="https://x.com/Metaplanet_JP/status/1777243921867014574">unveiled its intent</a> to emulate MicroStrategy’s efforts, is one committed to these BTC buys. The company said this week it would issue 5 billion yen in ordinary bonds to accelerate bitcoin purchases.



So, for those monitoring crypto stocks, BLOK holdings appear worth peeking at. And then there’re the yet-to-arise opportunities during what could be a transformative year for the segment.



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Crypto stocks to watch in 2025

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Ethereum All-Core Devs (ACD) held their final call of 2024 yesterday, which offered key updates on plans to raise the gas limit and progress toward the Pectra upgrade. Discussions revealed the community’s ongoing efforts to balance execution-layer changes, consensus-layer coordination and EIP implementation, reflecting Ethereum’s commitment to “build-in-public” iterative improvement.



In a bold but measured move, Ethereum developers are preparing for a gas limit increase, <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/04/22/ethereum-gas-limit-hits-15m-as-eth-price-soars">mirroring</a> a 20% rise seen over three years ago. This time, the proposed increase aims for 36 million gas, though significant technical constraints temper enthusiasm for higher thresholds. The primary limitation is the consensus layer’s &#8220;GOSSIP_MAX_SIZE,&#8221; which restricts validator block transmission to 10 MiB, equivalent to roughly 10.48 MB.&nbsp;



On the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-devs-milestone-call">Mekong testnet</a> — used for Pectra fork testing — the gas limit has already increased to 36 million, offering a stable testing ground for network performance under higher limits.



While the Mekong testnet runs stably with these changes, developers cautioned against increasing the mainnet gas limit beyond 40 million without addressing the gossip-layer constraints. Validator clients, such as Prysm, face challenges in dynamically adjusting gas limits, which underlines the need for further development.



An increase to the gas limit does not need to wait for a hard fork but can be signaled by validators in support of such a change. To date, only 16.8% <a href="https://gaslimit.pics/">have done so</a>, but the trend is up. Campaigns like PumpTheGas.org aim to build more momentum.



The <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research/issue/post_a2d3d0b2-7573-4379-a2d8-db9d7c7dc488">Pectra upgrade</a> remains a centerpiece of Ethereum’s 2025 roadmap. It’s on track for a Q1 release, with developers targeting a Devnet-5 launch by year-end. Changes discussed on the call include replacing EIP-7742 with EIP-7840 to offer more flexibility in managing &#8220;blob counts&#8221; — a key element for scaling Ethereum and supporting layer-2 rollups.&nbsp;



By allowing developers to set maximum and target blob counts independently, the network can balance scalability (by allowing more data blobs) with stability (by maintaining operational safety limits). This separation makes it easier to optimize block capacity without overloading the network.



Additionally, EIP-2537 focuses on gas repricing for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLS_digital_signature">BLS</a> (Boneh-Lynn-Shacham) precompile operations, which are essential for cryptographic computations in Ethereum. The proposal adjusts gas costs for specific mathematical operations, ensuring that resource-intensive tasks are priced fairly while removing inefficiencies like redundant operations. These updates enhance network efficiency, optimize resource usage and improve cost fairness for developers.



An EVM resource pricing working group will launch in January. This group will work on harmonizing gas cost calculations across various operations, aiming to improve efficiency and fairness in Ethereum&#8217;s fee structure.



EIP-4444, which schedules the rollout of pre-Merge history expiry for May 1, 2025, requires additional testing to finalize.&nbsp;



The call also underscored the need for clearer validator node requirements, with developers seeking community feedback. A further proposal to redefine “Meta” EIPs as solely process-related could simplify hardfork management.&nbsp;



Ethereum’s deliberate and collaborative approach to development was evident throughout the discussions. The Pectra upgrade and proposed gas limit increase reflect the network’s ambition to expand its technical capabilities while prioritizing stability.



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Ethereum to ramp up gas limit as Pectra progresses

<a href="https://overlord.bot/">Overlord.bot</a> is the first autonomous Trader AI Agent built on Arbitrum and living on X (previously Twitter) as <a href="https://x.com/OverlordBot_">@OverlordBot_</a>. Users can interact with Overlord on X to convince him to pump any token living under its reign.



Overlord reinvents how users and AI Agents can launch, trade and interact with the community created tokens on the Arbitrum network. Recently, Overlord has picked up some serious traction on X. Why? Because users have been trying hard to convince Overlord to pump their bags (or be their exit liquidity). The reward? The most convincing user will have Overlord support and pump their token. Who doesn’t want that?



The origins of Overlord stems from being the very first AI Agent launched out of <a href="https://aisweat.shop/">AiSweat.Shop</a>, also known as A.S.S. AiSweatShop is the first AI Agent Launchpad on Arbitrum and backed by Arbitrum Foundation. It was built with the OpenAgent AI Framework (the very first Web3 AI Agent Framework published on Github in March 2024) by <a href="https://open.network/">Open</a> (collective includes <a href="https://rss3.io/">RSS3</a>).&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Building a New Standard for Sustainable Growth</h3>



With Overlord, the lines between creator, developer, trader, community, and protocol blur. Conviction on-chain can be tokenized and exit liquidity can be democratized through DeAI-Fi. Discussion, persuasion, mindshare, and creativity play as large a role as liquidity and code. It’s a system designed to remove all entry barriers and encourage anyone to collaborate with AI Agents.



Designed to filter out short-lived cash grabs and encourage tokens with real narratives, unique propositions, and staying power, before a token gains full recognition by Overlord, it must achieve a 100K market cap before it graduates. Until then, a 2% platform fee applies with parts going back to Overlord’s own treasury, which will in turn be used to support other new tokens’ liquidity that is collectively decided by Overlord and the community on X (through convincing Overlord). This will motivate issuers to think longer-term and deliver sustainable value to their token. Holders of $OVER (the native token of Overlord), early adopters and compelling projects may enjoy ongoing perks from Overlord, setting the stage for a future where token teams are incentivized from forging meaningful relationships with the Overlord AI.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Launch your token with Overlord</h3>



With Overlord, there are no backdoors, zero barriers to entry and it’s so seamless even the image of your token can be automatically generated for you.



How you can get started:&nbsp;



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Launch a token on Arbitrum by posting and mentioning @Overlordbot_ on X.</li>



<li>Engage and convince Overlord that your token deserves to be pumped.</li>



<li>Work your magic and grow your token’s value, aim for that 100K market cap milestone, and watch the Overlord ecosystem respond in real time.</li>
</ul>



If you can convince Overlord of your token’s potential, then Overlord might use its autonomous wallet &#8211; currently holding 50 ETH &#8211; to buy your token within the next 24 hours. Think of it as a real-time, merit-based, AI generated investment decision that rewards authenticity, compelling visions, and community support, rather than empty hype.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">About AiSweatShop</h3>



AiSweatShop (A.S.S.) is the first DeFi AI Agent OS, an open source DeFi Agentic Infrastructure – allowing for the easy deployment of autonomous AI Agents with various decentralized financial abilities (DeFi) subsequently tokenized to form what is called DeAI-Fi. Powered by <a href="https://open.network/">Open</a> (collective include <a href="https://rss3.io/">RSS3</a>), A.S.S. is designed to challenge the norms of decentralized finance and beyond.



At its core, A.S.S. is set to revolutionize the existing complex UI/UX of DeFi to an autonomous AI agent companion user interface termed AgentUI. The unique positioning of being on Arbitrum, the top Layer-2 (L2) of the Ethereum blockchain with the most DeFi activities is anticipated to help kick off the DeAI-Fi revolution.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Find Out More</h3>



With Overlord being the very first AI Agent launched from A.S.S., we’re setting the stage for a more interactive, AI-driven, and community-centric era in token launches—an era where authenticity and vision eclipse empty speculation.



For more information, visit <a href="https://aisweat.shop/">https://AiSweat.Shop</a> or follow <a href="https://x.com/OverlordBot_">@OverlordBot_</a> on X to launch your token.



This content is sponsored and does not serve as an endorsement by Blockworks. The veracity of this content has not been verified and should not serve as financial advice. We encourage readers to conduct their own research before making financial decisions.



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Convince Overlord to pump your bags

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



If we’re trying to celebrate Christmas, then we need to bring out some green to even out the red this morning.&nbsp;



Kraken’s Thomas Perfumo already <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-market-holiday-pullbacks">warned us last week</a> that we could see some pullbacks ahead of the holidays, and that seems to be ringing true right now. Whether or not we see the selling countered is another story.&nbsp;



But I’m not actually here to talk about markets. Or, I should say, I’m not talking about what the markets are doing today.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd6dwvu5R48RdU6YZzbtei5ghv_4Kfq37E3l6c83bOW-18vweS7Y3W5W7Ec3m3bpNEkWi9mqT1-hXaye1iBk4G3_VKO0-LS0VZ1DIGE9wT1iPW8zbGIlrIyOeGYB-b7R7rsowq40A?key=t1FBQ15ZXSF89ih_1dIaFidS" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Keep this chart in mind if you’re obsessively watching bitcoin’s price right now. Source: Coinbase Institutional</figcaption></figure>



Earlier this week, Coinbase Institutional released its market outlook for next year.&nbsp;



David Duong, head of research, pointed out in the note that the 2024 uptrend has shown some “stark” differences to previous cycles, but the overall landscape looks “promising” still.



VanEck, in its predictions, otherwise said it believes that the bull market’s going to carry on next year, peaking at around $180,000. After that, they expect a 30% retracement from bitcoin and altcoins could see double that.&nbsp;



“A recovery is likely in the fall, with major tokens regaining momentum and reclaiming previous all-time highs by the end of the year,” VanEck wrote.&nbsp;



But even if we see a decline, Coinbase Institutional came off pretty bullish in their note.&nbsp;



“As the regulatory and technological landscapes evolve, we expect to see substantial growth in the crypto ecosystem as wider adoption drives the industry closer to achieving its full potential. This will be a pivotal year. The breakthroughs and advancements of 2025 may very well help shape the long-term trajectory of the crypto industry for decades to come,” Duong wrote.&nbsp;



Let’s zoom in on a question I’ve asked a number of people now: Can <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/when-will-eth-break-all-time-high">ETH make a comeback next year</a>? 



ETH’s just been lagging behind, watching from the sidelines as both bitcoin and solana carve out new all-time highs.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXelOEjo8tLgBB6SzB2TyqaLUOhyqPVdOtfrVQNKQ7vela_9QHpwnBdM7liCmZFwyLvnbrtQA4lutkU5fHRRXQY3hpMXMdZDRtmOpjbmkRx1tBsALAH6jYoSJ4GSz1bokyhJ5WQI_w?key=t1FBQ15ZXSF89ih_1dIaFidS" alt=""/></figure>



In the long-term, Duong and his team think that the growth of the Ethereum L2 ecosystem is a “boon,” but it’s not clear right now if that’s going to be enough to aid ETH in the short to medium term.



21Shares, in their predictions report, thinks that Solana is going to continue to eat Ethereum’s lunch.



“While we don’t anticipate a full ‘flippening,’ Solana is primed to outperform and capture more market share from Ethereum through improved UX and infrastructure,” 21Shares analysts wrote.&nbsp;



They also think that Ethereum is primed for a “revenue renaissance” beginning next year.&nbsp;



“Web2 firms like Robinhood and PayPal, along with traditional finance entities like Visa, are likely to launch their own L2s, leveraging cost-efficiency and scalability to unlock new revenue streams and serve a growing demand for decentralized applications,” they said.&nbsp;



So maybe things aren’t looking so bad after all.



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What analysts say about the market next year

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



A group of 12 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against two of the creators of HAWK, a memecoin promoted by the so-called Hawk Tuah girl Haliey Welch, in the Eastern District Court of New York this morning.&nbsp;



Welch is notably not party to the suit, which lists only her business partners, a launchpad and a Cayman Islands foundation as defendants. Welch became the latest celebrity to launch a Solana memecoin this year — and far from the first to have it blow up on her.&nbsp;



Haliey Welch became the face of the “Hawk Tuah” meme after appearing in a man on the street social media post in Nashville this summer. Improbably, Welch turned her brief clip into a promising influencer career: her Talk Tuah podcast <a href="https://x.com/ComplexPop/status/1838315768569532419">rose</a> to #4 on the charts.



Welch also made some crypto ties, <a href="https://x.com/HalieyWelchX/status/1816934298890432814/video/1">attending</a> Bitcoin Nashville and appearing <a href="https://x.com/MostCrucified/status/1831450281261007034">virtually</a> at Korea Blockchain Week. Her X profile picture is a reference to the Mog memecoin.



In late November, a little-known company called overHere announced it had partnered with Welch to launch HAWK, a memecoin that would “redefine the crypto space.” The HAWK token is the <a href="https://overhere.gg/">only</a> product listed on overHere’s website. It was founded by Clinton So, a Hong Kong resident who is one of the lawsuit’s defendants.



“We have been extremely transparent about the limited scope and extent of our involvement in the Hawk Tuah token project. We are confident that we have done nothing wrong. As for any litigation, we will let the process play out in court,” said So’s PR firm, which is called Rekt Partners, when reached for comment.



The crypto twitter personality Alex Larson Schultz, a Los Angeles resident known online as Doc Hollywood, also helped promote the launch. Some of the HAWK tokens were pre-sold and used to fund the project, the lawsuit says.



The token debuted Dec. 4 and saw its market capitalization shoot up before falling 90% all within a few hours, the suit adds. Welch, So, and Schultz initially defended the failed launch in an X space before largely disappearing from social media for the past two weeks. Welch has not posted or uploaded anywhere online since the incident.



So has already thrown Schultz under the bus for the incident: the overHere X account posted that Schultz/Doc Hollywood had full control of the token and “<a href="https://x.com/overHere_gg/status/1868799748305756667">vanished</a> when things got hard.” OverHere cast Welch and her team as wanting to tap “Web3’s potential” but not having the experience to do so in a savvy way.



Celebrities being taken for a ride by business partners urging them to debut hopeless projects is a time-honored tradition in crypto — just <a href="https://x.com/Caitlyn_Jenner/status/1795269306693075404?lang=en">ask</a> Caitlin Jenner. Reading between the lines, that seems to be the case here as well. Welch not being a defendant in the suit is telling in that regard. That story becomes sadder when the celebrity involved is a 22 year-old girl who just became famous overnight.



Max Burwick, whose Burwick Law firm filed the suit alongside Wolf Popper, told me the firm is “engaged in discussions” with Welch’s counsel.&nbsp;



He added that the case “underscores a troubling pattern in the crypto space: the targeted exploitation of celebrity and public figures’ names to generate profit, often at the expense of everyday people.”



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