Ethereum still sets the baseline.

It leads in app TVL, stablecoins, tokenized funds and stocks, active lending, and protocol GDP, while sitting #2 in daily DEX and stablecoin transfer volume.

Tron keeps holding roughly a quarter of all stablecoin supply, even as new “stablecoin-first” chains keep popping up.

Spinning up a chain is trivial — getting liquidity, users, and habits to stick is the hard part.

Network fees grew 11% QoQ in AKT terms, from 644K to 715K AKT, but only 4% in USD.

The difference came from a ~4% AKT price decline, which masked higher onchain activity. Denoms matter.

Prediction markets stopped being “bets” and started acting like expectation-pricing infrastructure.

Polymarket volume is up 163x since 2024, and the use case keeps widening. Feels less like a trend, more like a layer.

Robinhood looks expensive on multiples — #1 across EV/Revenue, EV/Gross Profit, and EV/Net Income versus peers.

But it’s also posting ~100% YoY revenue growth, second only in the comp set. Same story we’ve seen before: valuation tension driven by growth expectations — HyperLiquid vibes.

Is the last week of 2025 going to be epic? Here’s what the latest insights are showing ↓

General
➖ Cryptorank: Analysis of LBank: Market Quality and Strategic Positioning
➖ Crypto.com: Alpha Navigator: Quest for Alpha [November 2025]
➖ Crypto.com: 2025 Year Review & 2026 Year Ahead
➖ CoinGecko: Major Crypto Narratives Record -77% to +186% Returns in 2025
➖ Binance: Weekly: Is "Bad News Good News" Over? Crypto's Holiday Patterns
➖ Glassnode: Introducing: Taker-Flow-Based Gamma Exposure
➖ Galaxy: 2026 Predictions for the Year Ahead
➖ Galaxy: Weekly Top Stories - 12/19/25

Market
➖ CoinShares: Market update - December 19th, 2025
➖ CoinShares: Digital asset fund flows | December 22nd, 2025

DeFi
➖ DL Research: State of DeFi 2025

Blockchains & networks
➖ The Defiant: Blockchain Fragmentation Could Cost Tokenized Asset Market Billions: RWAio

Tokens & currencies
➖ CoinGecko: 3 Privacy Coins Rank in Top 10 Gainers, Amid Late 2025 Revival
➖ The Defiant: Token Launches With Low FDVs Vastly Outperformed Hyped Debuts in 2025: Memento Research
➖ BlockchainResearchLab: Tokenised Gold Ignites the Paper Gold Powder Keg

Primary issuance rails quietly became one of 2025’s top revenue engines, holding around ~$100M monthly after peaking in late 2024.

Pump.fun still leads, but entrants like Four.Meme, Binance Alpha, and LetsBonk.fun are pushing the sector toward real competition. Dominance remains — just less absolute.

Airbender can prove an average Ethereum block on a single H100 when paired with zkSync OS — ~17s pre-recursion, ~35s end-to-end.

Compared to zkVM demos that rely on large GPU clusters, that’s a meaningfully smaller proving footprint. Direct comparisons still get messy due to different execution and storage assumptions.

Ready (ex-Argent) quietly turned a Starknet wallet into a crypto neobank.

With vIBANs via Due, users can wire fiat from 150+ countries straight into self-custody, then spend it via a Visa/Mastercard debit card settled onchain. Fiat → crypto without touching a CEX is no longer theoretical.

Happy holidays, fam ❤️

sUSDai crossed $290M market cap, with Arbitrum hosting ~78% of activity.

It’s a yield-bearing synthetic dollar backed by loans collateralized with AI infra — mostly GPUs. Capital follows yield, narratives follow later.

For synthetic dollars, solvency is simple: reserves vs circulating supply.

Neutrl kept reserves consistently above NUSD throughout expansion, with the buffer widening as OTC tranches vested and hedges accrued funding. As of Dec 8, 2025, reserves sit ~3.9% above supply — conservative by design, with locked and illiquid assets deliberately undercounted.

$NEXO on-chain activity quietly broke out in 2025.

Transactions are up 91% YoY to 70.1K, with $297M in transfer volume — nearly double any prior year, and December isn’t even done yet. Usage trends tend to show up before narratives do.

Even with access capped at ~1.5K addresses, capital is already bridging into Ethereal.

Perp DEXs remain one of crypto’s strongest product-market fits, and users are voting early — with funds, not tweets.

Aave now captures 85%+ of all on-chain lending revenue.

At this point, it’s less a sector and more a monopoly with composability.

Pudgy Penguins are seeing renewed size on Blur and OpenSea, with multiple 4–5.8 ETH buys hitting back-to-back.

Speculation around a Base memecoin launchpad helps, but brand gravity is doing most of the work. Feels less random than past NFT spikes.

Solana stablecoin supply went from ~$3B two years ago to ~$12B last year, and now sits near ~$16B this December.

At this point, growth looks programmed.

Arbitrum pushed close to a quarter-trillion dollars in DEX volume in 2025.

Liquidity went where execution stayed cheap and deep.

RWA topped 2025 in profitability, averaging ~186% YTD across leading tokens.

Outperformance came mainly from Keeta, Zebec, and Maple Finance — though returns were still only a fraction of 2024’s mania. Narratives cool, cash flows stay.

Fundraising cooled in deal count but not in conviction.

Liquidity fragmented, fewer rounds closed than in 2024, yet VCs still deployed ~$68B in 2025 — mostly into narrative leaders with larger checks.

Around 70% of ETH derivatives positions on Binance are now net long.

Whales keep accumulating as exchange balances hover near cycle lows. Supply pressure is tightening quietly.