Release Date: December 30, 2025
Author: BlockBeats Editorial Team

In the past 24 hours, the crypto market has witnessed a multi-threaded parallel discussion ranging from macro cycle discussions to specific protocol competition. Mainstream topics have focused on the divergence of market expectations for 2026, the ongoing exposure of security and fraud risks; in terms of ecological development, discussions around order flow and MEV structures have heated up for Solana, while Ethereum's institutionalization and AI narrative have progressed in sync, and the valuation and competitive landscape of the Perp DEX track have further widened.

I. Mainstream Topics

1. 2026 Market Forecast Discussion

As 2025 comes to a close, the crypto community has engaged in lively discussions about market forecasts for 2026. Several notable figures have shared their views, focusing on macro trends, DeFi, stablecoins, regulation, and AI.

Haseeb's Predictions and Controversy: Haseeb predicted in a post that BTC will exceed $150,000 in 2026, but BTC's dominance will decline; he is optimistic about the performance of Ethereum and Solana and believes that equity perpetual contracts will account for over 20% of DeFi perpetual contract trading volume. However, @MemeIndexer strongly disagrees, arguing that liquidity fragmentation, lower spreads in TradFi (15 times cheaper), high holding costs (50-100% APR), and insufficient DeFi settlement speed (requiring under 150ms) will hinder this from happening. He emphasized that insufficient liquidity depth and excessive spreads will make this prediction fall short, and pointed out that regulatory pressure (such as Citadel pushing for stricter DeFi regulations) will further exacerbate the issue.

Mo Shaikh's Hot Take: @Moshaikh believes that the most undervalued assets in the current crypto market are "labs" (product and infrastructure teams), which will be acquired by financial institutions (FIs). He predicts that crypto companies will capture fintech users, fintech companies will quickly integrate stablecoins, tokenized deposits, RWA, and DeFi tracks, while large financial institutions (like JPM, BlackRock, Citi) have moved from pilot projects to actual products. He emphasized that fintech companies in the S&P 500 (like Visa, Mastercard, PayPal) will win through on-chain tracks, or else they will be marginalized. Labs will become the focus of acquisitions, and he has discussed this topic with 15 of the largest financial institutions globally.

Santiago R Santos's Warning: @santiagoroel warned that many will be frustrated in 2026 due to the assumption that increased adoption rates will drive up all asset prices. Reasons include: the market has already priced in, as well as poor value capture and token economics. He predicts that the application layer (especially DeFi) will outperform the base layer, with value migrating to applications that truly capture fees.

Vance Spencer's Overall Outlook: @pythianism believes that while 2025 is not ideal, it is necessary for the industry's progress. He predicts a reduction in token issuance in 2026, with a focus on major assets (ETH, BTC), and institutions will strongly buy into DeFi blue chips (such as protocols combining buybacks and financial discipline). The industry's future clearly points towards stablecoins, RWA, lending capital markets, and asset management. By "doing less, doing well, and following the regulatory path," many issues will be resolved, but rebounds and exits will be highly concentrated.

Overall, these predictions reflect a consensus in the industry shifting from speculation to maturity, emphasizing the importance of regulatory compliance, institutional participation, and value capture. The community's response has been positive, but there are divergences on specific predictions such as equity perps.

2. ZachXBT Exposes Coinbase Impersonation Scam

Notable on-chain investigator ZachXBT revealed that a threat actor from Canada, Haby (real name Havard), implemented social engineering scams by impersonating Coinbase official support personnel, stealing over $2 million in assets over the past year.

ZachXBT pointed out that Haby publicly shared a screenshot on December 30, 2024, showing the theft of 21,000 XRP (approximately $44,000) from a Coinbase user. Through a screenshot of his Exodus wallet, ZachXBT further linked it to his Telegram and Instagram accounts, discovering overlaps in historical balances with two other Coinbase impersonation theft cases, totaling around $500,000. The related XRP was subsequently exchanged for BTC, and the historical balance of his BTC address closely matched a $237,000 screenshot he flaunted in February 2025.

Subsequent tracking revealed at least three similar cases, involving over $560,000. Leaked video materials showed the process of his social engineering and exposed related email and Telegram contact information. ZachXBT also found that he frequently purchased high-priced Telegram usernames and showcased a lifestyle of nightclub spending and gambling on social platforms. OSINT analysis based on public information indicated that Haby is located in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, and has previously experienced multiple swatting incidents.

ZachXBT called for Canadian law enforcement to treat this case as an exception, emphasizing the completeness of the evidence chain, the high amount involved, and the perpetrator's lack of remorse. The incident sparked widespread discussion within the community, highlighting the importance of social engineering risks and on-chain traceability.

3. Uniswap Token Burn Arbitrage Opportunity

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams announced that its web application, mobile wallet, and browser extension will completely eliminate front-end fees. In this context, the community noticed an arbitrage case related to the destruction of UNI tokens.

@pixeL_laugh pointed out that a trader destroyed about 4,000 UNI (approximately $24,000) but received assets worth about $39,500, including USDC, USDT, WETH, and WBTC, resulting in a net profit of about $14,500. The related transaction has been verified on-chain.
The community generally believes that this opportunity arises from changes in fee structures and contract designs, representing a typical "preemptive" arbitrage, but ordinary users lack a visual GUI, making actual participation more challenging.

Cautious voices also emerged in the discussion, reminding participants to consider gas costs, execution failure risks, and the transient nature of this opportunity.

4. Ondo Tokenized Stock On-Chain Liquidity Controversy

There has been intense discussion in the community regarding the on-chain liquidity of tokenized stocks (such as xTSLA) launched by Ondo Finance.

@AzFlin pointed out that some front-end displays show a trading slippage of only 0.03% for xTSLA/USDC, but the actual on-chain liquidity is only about $7,000, with other sources indicating that the real slippage could be as high as 45%. Further testing revealed that during U.S. stock trading hours, slippage could drop to about 0.4%, indicating that liquidity is primarily provided by off-chain market makers during stock market open hours to avoid after-hours price risks.

Some voices questioned the actual advantages of on-chain stocks, arguing whether the custody and execution risks are worth taking given the limited liquidity; others criticized that even a 0.4% slippage is still too high, suggesting that market makers' pricing is not user-friendly. Overall, the community consensus does not deny the RWA model itself but believes that its on-chain liquidity still heavily relies on traditional market time windows, a similar issue also appears in other projects (such as xStocksFi).

II. Mainstream Ecological Dynamics

Solana: PFOF and Order Flow Monetization Research

At MEV Day, @bqbrady shared research on Solana's payment for order flow (PFOF) and published a lengthy article systematically outlining how Solana's front ends (wallets, DEX) monetize through order routing. The research showed significant differences in tip fee distribution and execution efficiency among different landing services, for example, Nozomi's p99 tip reached as high as $3.25, while Jito and Astralane were significantly lower.

Community discussions focused on trust and decentralization levels, with some emphasizing that the TPU path is more trustless compared to RPC, while others warned that novice users might be implicitly "harvested" in high slippage situations. Overall, this is seen as a signal of Solana's ecosystem transitioning to a more mature stage of MEV and order flow optimization.

Ethereum: Institutional Narrative and On-Chain Activity Rising in Sync

SharpLink CEO Joseph Chalom predicted that by 2026, Ethereum's TVL could grow tenfold, with the market cap of stablecoins reaching $500 billion and RWA scaling to $300 billion, driven by the substantial entry of sovereign wealth funds and large institutions.

Meanwhile, ai16z project core figure Shaw announced his return and will migrate the project to elizaOS, covering Solana, Base, BSC, and Ethereum mainnet, sparking community expectations for a new round of experiments in AI × DeFi.

In terms of on-chain data, the number of Ethereum validators entering the queue has significantly increased, with the entering queue size being nearly twice that of the exiting queue; the mainnet throughput has also reached a historical high. The community generally believes that L2 has not "drained" mainnet activity but has expanded the overall settlement scale.

Perp DEX: Structural Comparison of Lighter and Hyperliquid

With the upcoming TGE of Lighter, community discussions have focused on valuation and token value accumulation capabilities. Some analyses suggest that under the current fee distribution structure, $LIT requires extremely high trading volumes to match Hyperliquid's revenue model; others believe that Lighter has clear PMF and real revenue, being undervalued in the long term.

Meanwhile, Hyperliquid's open interest (OI) increased by about $400 million within 24 hours, bringing total OI to $7.35 billion, further strengthening its leading position in the perp DEX space. Community discussions about the two are more focused on structural differences rather than short-term price judgments.

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