Olivia Capozzalo & Squiffs _
January 16, 2026

Happy Friday, Defiers!

Today’s big story:

X is finally taking a stand to address the “AI slop” that has ruled crypto social media since the rise of InfoFi — but is the move too little, too late?

In other news:

Galaxy tokenizes collateral loan obligations
L2 Starknet’s STRK goes live on Solana
Felix, Ondo launch on-chain spot equities
FEATURE: Crypto Twitter’s decline doesn’t tell the whole story
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Inside Stripe’s crypto strategy with Privy CEO

The Defiant’s 2025 in review:

Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.

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Our final ecosystemsode with Avalanche explores how blockchain is finally breaking into mainstream consumer use through fan-driven economies. The episode opens with a real-world ticketing failure at the Champions League final, exposing deeper flaws in today’s ticketing and loyalty systems, opaque infrastructure, counterfeit risk, and zero recourse for fans.

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Watch Ep. 4 Now

We’re back! Here’s what you need to know in web3 today

📈 Markets in the Past 24 Hours

TICKER	VALUE	24H
Bitcoin	$95,093	-1.25 %
Ethereum	$3,284.13	-0.35 %
BNB	$931.21	-0.68 %
XRP	$2.05	-1.45 %
Solana	$143.14	0.34 %

Today’s Big Story

A Year of Slop and What It Means for Crypto Twitter

Both Merriam-Webster and the American Dialect Society dubbed “slop” the Word of the Year for 2025, due to the huge influx of low quality, AI-generated content spammed across all forms of media, fueled by AI’s increased abilities and affordability.

Given crypto’s tendency to hyper-financialize everything, and the revitalization of SocialFi spinoffs this cycle, AI slop content has ruled crypto social media since InfoFi products such as Kaito came around and incentivized such behavior in late 2024.

However, social media platform X has had enough and dropped the hammer on InfoFi incentives yesterday. X’s head of product Nikita Bier said “we will no longer allow apps that reward users for posting on X”, and proceeded to revoke their API access, and ban InfoFi communities, such as the Kaito Yappers community, on X.

The move sent InfoFi tokens tumbling, with KAITO and COOKIE dropping by nearly 20% almost immediately.

KAITO 24-hour price chart. Source: CoinGecko

It appears teams involved in the space have been in contact with X over the issues, leaving them time to prepare responses and pivots. After Bier’s announcement yesterday, Cookie DAO immediately shut down its Snaps Platform, and Kaito announced the sunset of its “Yaps” program, introducing a pivot to a new feature they’re calling Kaito Studio.

The X product update is broadly welcomed by Crypto Twitter (CT) veterans and real users, but the solution could unfortunately be a case of too little too late.

While third-party rewards for posting are now banned on X, the platform itself still rewards users that get more engagement. Whether or not InfoFi formally exists as a sector, in order to get more engagement, an account needs more followers, and the easiest way to do that is still by posting and replying to more posts, which can still be automated.

Is Just CT Dead?

Furthermore, crypto social media is a shell of its former self. Most veterans will say they enjoyed X more during the bear market than they do now, and tons of crypto accounts are littered with inactive followers who quit crypto or lost it all, and never logged into X again.

The issue expands beyond just X too. Crypto YouTubers who stuck around and created content throughout all of 2022 and 2023 are reporting a huge drop off in views compared to the previous bull run, or even the bear market, depending on the creator. Data from Into the Cryptoverse confirms their reports.

New YouTube subscribers for crypto-related channels. Source: Into The Cryptoverse

While InfoFi certainly didn’t help the situation, there’s a broader issue at hand than just AI slop.

This is certainly not a one shot situation, and rebuilding the atmosphere of crypto culture on X is a tall task — especially in 2026, as so much of the life has been sucked out of the industry over the last two years.

Regardless, the move highlights the X product team’s alignment with its users and communities, especially one as polarizing as CT. Only time will tell whether or not this is a step in the right direction, or if it will just highlight how few “real” accounts there actually are posting about crypto.

Squiffs, resident degen at The Defiant

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🎬WATCH

How Stablecoins Are Rewiring Global Payments | Borderless CPO Alex Garn

In this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Chris Storaker sits down with Alex Garn, chief product officer at Borderless, to unpack how stablecoins are quietly transforming cross-border payments — and what it actually takes to move money at scale across jurisdictions.

We explore why stablecoins are moving beyond trading and DeFi collateral into real-world enterprise payments, where they already outperform legacy rails on settlement speed, transparency, and custody — especially across emerging market corridors like Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Top News in the Past 24 Hours

Galaxy Tokenizes First CLO on Avalanche With $50M Grove Allocation Galaxy has issued its first collateralized loan obligation (CLO) and tokenized the deal on Avalanche, a Layer 1 blockchain with a total value locked of over $1.2 billion. Why it matters: Private credit remains the largest category in tokenized RWAs, with about $19.1 billion in on-chain value.
Starknet Partners with NEAR to Bring STRK to SolanaEthereum Layer 2 Starknet’s token STRK is now natively accessible on Solana, with cross-chain interoperability enabled by NEAR Intents.Why it matters: The partnership bypasses the need for the traditional bridging process, with the aim of making STRK easily accessible across Solana DeFi.
Felix Protocol to Launch Spot Equities on HyperEVM DeFi platform and HIP-3 provider Felix Protocol is collaborating with Ondo Finance to bring spot equities to the Hyperliquid ecosystem. Why it matters: The move comes amid the rise of tokenized equity perpetuals, with stock perps on TradeXYZ seeing the most on-chain volume.