Release Date: January 12, 2025
Author: BlockBeats Editorial Team

In the past 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market has shown a parallel evolution on multiple levels. Mainstream topics have focused on the repeated tug-of-war over platform rules and compliance boundaries, including the risk exposure of prediction markets and ICO mechanisms, as well as the centralization controversies triggered by stablecoin freezes. In terms of ecological development, Ethereum continues to advance standards and upgrades around AI agents and execution layers, the tokenization of RWA is accelerating, and the Perp DEX track is revealing growth and profitability differentiation amid fierce competition.

I. Mainstream Topics

1. X Platform Tests "Smart Cashtags," Cryptocurrency Community Reacts Differently

On January 11, X product head Nikita Bier announced that the platform is developing a new feature called "Smart Cashtags." This feature allows users to tag precise asset objects (including stocks, cryptocurrencies, or smart contracts) in posts, enabling readers to click on the tags directly from the timeline to view real-time prices, candlestick charts, market data, and all related discussions.

According to reports, this feature supports near real-time updates of on-chain assets through APIs and is expected to be released in February, currently still in the feedback collection phase. Some leaked interface screenshots indicate that future integration of buy and sell buttons is not ruled out, achieving an integrated operation from content to trading.

The Solana community has responded positively, believing this will further strengthen X's position as a source of financial information and a central hub for market narratives—large amounts of capital have already been deployed based on content and sentiment on X. Unlike traditional $cashtags, which can easily lead to ambiguity (such as multi-chain ticker names), Smart Cashtags attempt to resolve information confusion through "asset-level pointing," transforming X into a product form closer to a real-time market command center.

However, community attitudes are clearly divided. On one hand, many project teams and users (such as Solana Daily, Kryll) view it as a significant positive, believing that this feature will help improve information accuracy, accelerate narrative diffusion, reduce application switching costs, and may even push X towards becoming a native trading entry point, enhancing the exposure of on-chain assets.

On the other hand, some users question the timing of the launch: against the backdrop of recent algorithm adjustments that have led to a significant decline in the recommendation of cryptocurrency content, Nikita Bier subsequently deleted the related post, prompting some users to accuse the algorithm of deliberately suppressing CT (Crypto Twitter). Critics worry that this feature may amplify FOMO sentiment, deepen algorithmic opacity, and even bias asset presentation towards specific ecosystems.

Overall, Smart Cashtags are seen as a key step in X's vision of "everything application," but some voices argue that it "comes too late," appearing more like a formal confirmation of existing community behavior. Discussions around transparency, potential trading integration, and its impact on decentralized ecosystems are ongoing.

2. Trove ICO Oversubscription Causes Controversy: Repeated Rule Changes Lead to Heavy Losses for Polymarket Bettors

TroveMarkets (positioned as a perpetual contract DEX for collectibles, RWA, stocks, and other illiquid assets) conducted its ICO from January 8 to 11. The project originally planned to raise $2.5 million but quickly experienced oversubscription, with the final committed amount exceeding $11.5 million, about five times the target.

Trove focuses on providing up to 10x leverage trading for non-traditional assets (such as Birkin bags and Pokémon Charizard cards). Official data shows that its testnet cumulative trading volume has exceeded $1 billion, with approximately 24,000 users. This ICO adopted a 100% TGE unlocking mechanism and prioritized allocation to Trove point holders.

In the early stages, community sentiment was generally optimistic, with several KOLs (such as Lookonchain, Vass) viewing it as a signal of "ICO narrative warming," emphasizing that the project already has a functioning product and considerable data. However, controversy erupted in the later fundraising phase: the team first announced an extension of the fundraising period by 5 days to "ensure a fairer distribution," a decision that directly affected the odds on related prediction markets on Polymarket— the Yes odds for "Does the total committed amount exceed X dollars?" quickly rose from nearly 0% to 80%, leading many bettors to enter heavily. Subsequently, the project team suddenly canceled the extension arrangement, restoring the original plan to end on January 11, sparking strong community criticism of "manipulating expectations and misleading bets."

Multiple users disclosed that they suffered significant losses as a result: one bettor invested about $89,000, ultimately receiving only about $200 in transaction fees back, but lost over $73,000. The Trove team later responded that the decision-making chaos stemmed from "over-listening to a few supporters' opinions" and stated that they would refocus on product delivery.

Community attitudes are similarly divided: some users remain optimistic about the project, believing that the oversubscription itself indicates real demand, with the mainnet expected to launch on February 10; while others criticize it as "still appearing extremely unprofessional in 2026," viewing this incident as a further manifestation of the "Wild West" characteristics of the cryptocurrency market, warning investors to be cautious of the structural risks brought by the overlap of prediction markets and ICO mechanisms.

3. Google Launches Universal Commerce Protocol, Promoting Standardization of "Agent-Based Commerce"

On January 11, at the NRF 2026 conference, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the launch of the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and established partnerships with major retail and e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart.

UCP is an open universal commerce protocol designed to support AI agents in completing the entire shopping process from product discovery, negotiation, payment to after-sales, and is compatible with existing agent protocols such as A2A. In terms of payment, UCP supports various methods including credit cards, stablecoins, and bank transfers, with over 20 payment and technology partners including Adyen, Mastercard, Stripe, and Visa participating.

According to the plan, UCP will first be integrated into the Gemini app for native checkout; at the same time, merchants can also connect their own brand AI business agents in Google Search. Pichai stated that AI agents will become the mainstream shopping entry in the future, and the goal of UCP is to establish foundational standards for this trend.

Overall, the community response has been largely positive, generally viewing this as an important milestone in the deep integration of AI and e-commerce, helping to promote "agent-based commerce" from concept to scale. Retailers and developers especially welcome its open standard attributes, believing this will help reduce system fragmentation and lower cross-platform integration costs. Elon Musk also simply responded with "interesting."

The discussion focus is mainly on two aspects: first, AI-led shopping is expected to reduce shopping cart abandonment rates and improve conversion efficiency; second, potential risks, including increased intermediary levels, algorithmic bias, and privacy and data control issues. Some also see it as a key step for Google in competing with Amazon, Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI, and others, believing that "openness" may instead accelerate mainstream adoption.

In the cryptocurrency community, some discussions extend to the potential space for Bitcoin or stablecoin payments within such protocols. Overall, UCP is seen as a positive development, but its real impact remains to be verified by subsequent implementation pace and global expansion.

II. Mainstream Ecological Dynamics

1. Ethereum

ERC-8004 Standard Released: Establishing an "On-Chain Trust Layer" for AI Agents

The Ethereum Foundation's AI team has released the ERC-8004 "Trustless Agents" standard, aimed at building a public discovery and trust layer for AI agents. This standard addresses the discoverability, identity verification, and reliability issues of agents through three on-chain registries: Identity, Reputation, and Validation, applicable to various scenarios such as DeFi, supply chain management, and on-chain governance.

In terms of technical design, ERC-8004 supports portable identities (existing in the form of ERC-721 NFTs), auditable feedback mechanisms, and third-party verification methods (such as zero-knowledge proofs, TEE, etc.), aiming to reduce the collaboration costs of the agent economy without introducing centralized trust parties and prevent further fragmentation of the ecosystem.

The proposal has quickly sparked discussions. Supporters view it as the starting point of the "agent crypto era," believing its EVM-native, auditable, and composable features are expected to promote the development of on-chain autonomous coordination, such as trading agents, operational agents, and governance agents. Some developers have disclosed that they have tested over 7,400 agent instances and are exploring their potential in cross-chain trust. Meanwhile, there are also voices expressing concern that multiple implementations may coexist in the early landing phase of this standard, which could exacerbate fragmentation risks.

Arbitrum Activates ArbOS Dia Upgrade, Optimizing Execution Stack and User Experience

Arbitrum has officially activated the ArbOS Dia upgrade, making several key updates to its execution stack, including a multi-dimensional gas pricing mechanism to alleviate fee volatility during peak demand, raising the default lower limit of L2 base fees to 0.02 gwei; optimizing state transition functions to lay the foundation for higher throughput; improving block packaging logic to enhance overall execution efficiency; supporting secp256r1 authentication, compatible with passkeys and biometric logins, improving the onboarding experience for new users; integrating Fusaka-related EIPs (such as CLZ opcode, BLS12-381 curve); and adding support for custom chain native gas tokens.

The upgrade has received positive feedback overall. The community generally believes that the smoother fee curve, enhanced throughput, and the introduction of features like biometrics are substantial improvements aimed at real users and developers.

At the same time, some users shared on-chain data as evidence: the current stablecoin supply on Arbitrum has exceeded $8 billion, with RWA TVL around $800 million, further reinforcing its market positioning as a "financial execution layer."

Ondo Global Markets Expands to 200+ Tokenized Assets

Ondo Finance announced the expansion of the Ondo Global Markets platform, adding 98 tokenized stocks and ETFs, covering multiple sectors including AI, technology, metals, finance, healthcare, electric vehicles, energy, and large-cap indices. As a result, the total number of on-chain assets supported by the platform has exceeded 200, currently deployed on Ethereum and BNB Chain, with Solana support coming soon.

The community generally views this expansion as an important milestone in the RWA tokenization process, believing it is providing users with a truly meaningful entry into the "on-chain global market." The discussion focuses on the further integration of TradFi and DeFi, the feasibility of 24/7 trading, and the scale effects brought by cross-chain expansion. Some KOLs also point out that Ondo's current managed asset scale is approaching $2 billion, signaling the acceleration of global capital moving on-chain. Meanwhile, a few voices remain cautious about potential regulatory risks.

2. Perp DEX:

Lighter Set to Launch LIT Staking, Utility Narrative Sparks Division

The head of developer relations at Lighter announced that the platform is about to launch the $LIT staking feature, introducing new use cases for the token. Although the specific mechanism has not been disclosed, the official hinted that this feature will strengthen holder incentives. In the previously disclosed TGE plan, 25% of the $LIT allocation is designated for future point seasons, corresponding to a valuation of approximately $675 million.

This news has sparked a clear division within the community. Some users expressed excitement, viewing it as a signal that $LIT "finally has utility," and are optimistic about the team's continued development and community incentive expansion; others are concerned that staking may lead to higher token emissions or compress buyback space, especially with about 50% of the supply set to unlock next year, with some bluntly stating it could become a "selling pressure tool."

Daily Profit of Only $8,000 Raises Questions About Lighter's Growth Prospects

According to DeFiLlama data, Lighter's daily profit on January 10 (Saturday) was only about $8,000, significantly lower than its competitors. This data quickly sparked discussions. Lighter is positioned as a decentralized perpetual contract trading platform based on ZK circuits, emphasizing low costs and low-latency execution.

The low profit performance has become a focal point for community mockery and comparison. Some users compared it to platforms like Hyperliquid, pointing out that the daily profit gap between the two reached several dozen times, and mocked its valuation corresponding to a P/E ratio of about 170, even describing it as "meme coinification."

Supporters defended it, arguing that the data may not fully reflect the real situation or could simply be normal fluctuations in the early stages, criticizing related comments as FUD. However, overall, market concerns about Lighter's slowing growth pace and intensified competition in the perpetual contract track are rising.

3. Others

Tether Freezes 5 Tron Wallets, Involving $182 Million USDT

Tether has frozen 5 Tron network wallets, totaling approximately $182 million USDT, marking one of the largest single blacklist operations in recent years, surpassing the historical total amount frozen for USDC. There is widespread speculation that this action may be related to cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI, or Secret Service to combat illegal fund flows.

Official data shows that since 2023, Tether has frozen approximately $3.3 billion in assets, highlighting the role of stablecoins in compliance and law enforcement is becoming institutionalized.

This incident has sparked a new round of discussions about centralization and compliance. Some users believe this further proves Tether's close collaboration with regulatory agencies, helping to combat terrorist financing and cross-border crime; others criticize its "non-decentralized" attributes, worrying about the risks of centralized freezing power. Considering that about 84% of illegal stablecoin flows in 2025 involve USDT, this large-scale freeze further amplifies the related controversies.

Tempo Testnet Clearly States No Airdrop, Sparking "Meaningless Interaction" Discussion

The Tempo testnet clearly emphasizes that there are no incentives or airdrops at the current stage, with the core goal being developer learning and technical validation. Its documentation shows that Tempo's TIP-20 standard allows stablecoins (such as USDT, USDC) to be used directly for paying fees without the need for a separate gas token; the AMM mechanism will automatically convert fees into assets preferred by validators, positioning itself as a high-throughput payment network.

The community's attitude towards the testnet is generally cautious. Most users believe the lack of airdrop expectations is more of an "engagement bait," and remind others not to invest time in meaningless interactions. The developer community, however, is relatively positive, viewing it as a "vibe coding" practice opportunity to prepare for future ecological activities. A general consensus is gradually forming: the value of Tempo lies more in the product and architecture itself, rather than short-term speculative opportunities, and participation in the testnet should be learning-oriented rather than "casino-style expectations."

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