⬆️Weekly Recap: Ethereum and Altcoins Rebound
Happy weekend Defiers!
While Bitcoin consolidated above $90,000, Ethereum and altcoins outperformed this week. The market dominance of Bitcoin fell from 57.9% to 54.5% as ETH gained 10.7%, XRP rallied 22%, and Cardano surged 21.5%.
Memecoins continued to capture the attention of traders, with meme tokens driving record monthly DEX volume. Decentralized exchanges hosted more than $362 billion worth of trades in November, spurred by unprecedented on Solana, Base, and Arbitrum.
AI agents are proliferating on Base. Clanker, an agent that creates tokens in response to text prompts on Farcaster, is raking in seven-figure daily revenue just three weeks after launching. The market cap of Virtuals Protocol’s VIRTUAL token crossed $1 billion, spurred by its adoption of a vehicle for new token launches.
The crypto community celebrated a U.S. Federal Appeals court knocking back the Treasury Department’s sanctions targeting Tornado Cash. The court found that the Treasury Department overstepped its statutory authority as Tornado Cash’s smart contracts do not comprise property.
However, the news followed a Dutch court extending the detention of Alexey Pertsev, a Tornado contributor, while the developer waits to appeal his sentence.
The incoming Trump administration is reportedly planning to extend the jurisdiction of the CFTC over crypto, indicating digital assets will be regulated as commodities. In other Trump news, the company behind Truth Social filed a trademark application for a crypto payment processor, and Justin Sun invested $30 million into World Liberty Financial.
XRP enjoyed a bullish week, buoyed by the news of a tokenized money market fund coming to XRP Ledger.
Cardano is also rallying, inspiring investors to withdraw ADA from exchanges in droves. Charles Hoskinson, Cardano’s founder, is also tipping that government adoption could drive the price of Bitcoin to $500,000 within two years.
A renewed airdrop season appears to be on the horizon, with SynFutures and Solv Protocol announcing token generation events, the Jupiter community voting on a potential drop, and Hyperliquid distributing its token to early adopters.
Competition to bring crypto exchange-traded products to market is heating up. Bitwise filed to convert its fund tracking the top 10 cryptocurrencies into an ETF, while Hashdex wants to launch an index ETF tracking BTC, ETH, AVAX, LINK, and LTC.
Plus, the market cap of Ethena’s USDe soars, Binance launches BFUSD stablecoin, CryptoPunk collateralizes $2.75 million loan, and ex-pro gamer gambles away memecoin rug-pull lootings.
Also, don’t forget to check out our podcast with Justin Drake, an Ethereum Foundation researcher, to learn about his vision for the Ethereum Beam Chain.
Enjoy!
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Just this week, we caught:
- ARMY on Ripple at 2M (ATH 42M - 21x)
- VAIN at 240K (ATH 6M - 25x)
- SITCOM at 1.6M (ATH 10M - 8.5x)
Previous wins:
- KACY at 10M (ATH 85M - 8.5x)
- LESTER at 4M (ATH 150M - 35x)
- PNUT at 5M (ATH 2.2B - 440x)
- ZEREBRO at 600K (ATH 600M - 1000x)
- LUCE at 7M (ATH 300M - 42x)
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PODCAST & INTERVIEWS
Deep Dive into Ethereum's Beam Chain: Exclusive Insights with Researcher Justin Drake
In this week’s podcast, Cami Russo was joined by Justin Drake, an Ethereum Foundation researcher who recently proposed overhauling Ethereum’s consensus layer with his Beam Chain roadmap.
Justin explains how the Beam Chain would incorporate key innovations like SNARK proofs, quantum security, and single-slot finality to boost decentralization, security, and scalability. He also discusses incremental upgrades like staking caps and pre-confirmations, which aim to improve Ethereum’s performance and user experience in the near term.
The conversation also explores Ethereum’s competition with Solana and Bitcoin, highlighting how Ethereum’s long-term focus on robustness and scalability positions it to thrive as the foundational layer for the decentralized internet.
How Light Clients Will Transform Ethereum: Insights from Pier Two’s Patrick McNabb
The Defiant sat down with Patrick McNabb, the co-founder and CEO of Pier Two, an Australian-based institutional staking provider providing non-custodial staking services to enterprises in the APAC region.
McNabb discussed Pier Two's development of "Lantern," a peer-to-peer light client for Ethereum which aims to reduce reliance on RPCs and lower costs for wallets and applications. McNabb noted the growing staking industry, anticipating further innovations with Ethereum’s protocol upgrades and the introduction of slashing mechanisms to reshape risk-reward dynamics. He also praised the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) for its global network and value in connecting with traditional industries exploring blockchain.
How Gateway.fm Empowers Enterprises with Blockchain | Igor Mandrigin & Pradeep Singh
The Defiant spoke to Igor Mandrigin and Pradeep Singh from Gateway.fm to learn about their role as a blockchain infrastructure provider focusing on building Layer 2 solutions tailored for enterprise adoption.
The pair emphasize their expertise in scalability, cost-efficiency, privacy, and security, addressing challenges such as rapid technological evolution and data sovereignty. They note Gateway.fm’s contributions to Polygon's CDK and efforts to package open-source technology into enterprise-ready solutions. Mandrigin and Singh also express optimism regarding the growing adoption of blockchain by enterprises.
Friday
- Bitcoin Nears $100,000 as Whales Snap Up $1.5 Billion Google search interest for "Bitcoin" stands at 54, far below its peak of 100 in December 2017 during the historic bull run.
- Curve Launches ‘Lite’ Protocol Targeting Ethereum’s Layer 2 Ecosystem Rollups leverage popular Layer 2 tech stacks can permissionlessly deploy Curve-Lite.
- Solv Protocol Teases Token Generation Event Solv Protocol’s total value locked has surged 2,500% since April.
- Fortnite Player Gambles Away $3.5M From Memecoin Rug-Pulls The former pro gamer, Serpent, allegedly used compromised social media accounts of public figures to promote rug-pulls.
Thursday
- Hyperliquid to Launch HYPE Token Imminently The project will be airdropping 31% of the HYPE supply to early adopters on Nov. 29.
- Bitcoin Dominance Slips as Ethereum Rallies On Wednesday, spot Bitcoin ETFs collectively recorded $103 million in inflows.
- Memecoin Mania Drives Record Monthly DEX Volume DEX volumes on Solana and Ethereum Layer 2s are at all-time highs.
- SEC Receives Filing For Bitwise 10 Crypto Index ETF Crypto asset managers are racing to bring new ETPs to market.
- Rare CryptoPunk Used as Collateral for $2.75 Million Loan The loan, facilitated by GondiXYZ, is the largest ever on-chain loan against a single NFT.
- Clanker Gives Rise To AI Memecoin Boom On Base The Clanker AI agent creates tokens in response to text-based instructions from Farcaster users.
Wednesday
- Schuman Financial Rolls Out EURØP MiCa-Compliant Stablecoin The stablecoin’s reserves are stored in government-supervised European banks, such as Société Générale.
- Virtuals AI Agent Protocol Soars as Base Activity Hits All-time High Activity on Coinbase’s Layer 2 continues to surge as AI Agent mania spreads.
- Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Says BTC Will Reach $500k in Two Years Hoskinson predicted growing government interest will drive BTC to new heights.
- Binance Launches Yield-Bearing BFUSD for Futures Trading The company promises the asset’s APY will “never fall below zero.”
- Crypto Markets Rebound After Two-day Decline The Crypto Fear & Greed Index dipped to 73.
- Pump Science Warns Against Fraudulent Tokens After Private Key Compromise The project mistakenly published the private key for its developer wallet.
- BTC-Backed USDa Soars To $230M Market Cap In Two Weeks USDa’s growth has contributed to BitLayer’s TVL doubling over the past month.
- Ripple Introduces Tokenized Money Market Fund on XRP Ledger in RWA Push Ripple plans to allocate $5 million to purchase tokens representing shares in the fund.
- Trump Administration Reportedly Plans to Empower CFTC Oversight of Crypto The move signals digital assets will increasingly be regulated as commodities under Trump.
- U.S. Appeals Court Reverses Tornado Cash Sanctions The court found that Tornado’s Cash’s smart contracts do not comprise property and thus cannot be sanctioned.
Tuesday
- Hashdex Applies for Crypto Index ETF, Could Include LINK, AVAX, and LTC The asset management firm filed its S-1 amendment with the SEC.
- SynFutures to Launch a Foundation and Native Token SynFutures unveils ambitious plans to strengthen its decentralized derivatives ecosystem.
- Cardano Investors Withdraw Millions, Signaling Potential Price Rally Cardano’s on-activity is also rising.
- Voting on Jupiter’s Next Proposed Airdrop is Live 1.4 million JUP tokens could be airdropped to community members if the vote passes.
- Bitcoin Falls Below $93,000 as Market Cools Off Analysts are unsurprised by the dip following Bitcoin’s recent meteoric rally.
- Arbitrum and Alchemy Team Up On Grants Promoting Orbit Chain Development Orbit chains make up two of the top five chains in the Ethereum ecosystem by daily throughput.
- Starknet Becomes First Rollup To Deploy Native Staking Staking rewards will adjust dynamically based on staking participation.
- Justin Sun Invests $30 Million In World Liberty Financial Token Sale The WLFI token sale has now raised $52.5 million.
- Crypto Assets Record All-time High Weekly Inflows Bitcoin and Solana are the best performers as weekly inflows to crypto exchange-traded products soared to a record high of $3.13 billion.
- DeSci Momentum Picks Up Investors are placing bets on the burgeoning decentralized science (DeSci) sector.
Monday
- SUI Blockchain’s Largest Memecoin fudSUI Becomes a Liquid Staking Token The LST was created by the team behind Fudthepug, a dog-themed meme project on SUI.
- Trump’s Media Company Files Crypto Payments Trademark Trump Media and Technology Group recently filed a trademark application for a crypto payment solution.
- Bitcoin Trades Flat Amid $500 Million of Crypto Liquidations Most major altcoins posted gains, with Ethereum and Ripple up 4% and 8%, respectively.
- Tornado Cash Developer Alexey Pertsev’s Detention Prolonged Alexey Pertsev is waiting to appeal a five-year prison sentence.
- Pump.fun Halts Live Streams As Users Go to Dangerous Extremes to Launch Coins The platform faces mounting pressure to clean up its act or risk regulatory intervention.
- Base’s Daily Throughput Exceeds 100 Transactions Per Second Base is now the top Layer 2 network by DeFi TVL, decentralized exchange volume, and throughput.
- Market Cap of Ethena's USDe Stablecoin Surged 60% In Six Weeks USDe’s yields and adoption are surging amid the latest leg of the crypto bull market.
TRENDING
- SEC Receives Filing For Bitwise 10 Crypto Index ETF
- Clanker Gives Rise To AI Memecoin Boom On Base
- Schuman Financial Rolls Out EURØP MiCa-Compliant Stablecoin
- Virtuals AI Agent Protocol Soars as Base Activity Hits All-time High
- Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Says BTC Will Reach $500k in Two Years
- Crypto Markets Rebound After Two-day Decline