This is an "informal" column from the Odaily editorial team. The author shares immediate thoughts and different perspectives on industry news, data, hot events, and their nuances; explores investment ideas and opportunity hypotheses that are still being validated—these may not necessarily be direct wealth codes, but could simply be the questions themselves; shares observations gained from interactions with industry practitioners; and those materials that genuinely enhance our understanding, whether from internal or external sources.

The content of this column is based on the real investment and observation experiences of Odaily editorial team members, does not accept any form of commercial advertising, and does not constitute investment advice (after all, we are equally experienced in losing money). Its purpose is merely to expand perspectives and supplement information sources, rather than to create consensus. You are welcome to join the Odaily community (Telegram group, X official account) to exchange ideas, question, and joke around.

Hao Fangzhou

Introduction: I want to go long on the future.

Share: The most worth discussing is how far the prediction market can go, how big it can become, how compelling the narrative is, and ultimately, who it will replace—what topics to list first. Then comes the product form, degree of derivatives, regulatory attitude, and capital power (recommended reading: “Why Prediction Markets Are Not Gambling Platforms”), which together determine its historical significance and scale boundaries.

Let’s try a deductive approach:

(1) First list: Who will be president - polling platform, who will win the game - betting platform, price fluctuations - financial derivatives, entertainment gossip - cultural sentiment echo chamber…

• Listing is for further categorization and benchmarking against existing mature markets.

(2) Then converge: The public domain (e.g., what regional scope, how does the X country election affect people outside X country, the international impact of regional wars), the ethical line of financializing online topics (what can be "bet," and why can't what cannot be bet), the future (what time frame, it can be a distant future), whether the probability of outcomes still needs to strictly conform to a defined classification (to reduce adjudication ambiguity and manipulation)…

• Convergence is to define "what topics are worth listing" and "what topics have operational feasibility for accurate adjudication results and are resistant to manipulation," establishing the current ceiling, rather than confusing future tenses and lacking high standards.

(3) Finally diverge: Casually throw out a direction, predict what humans can decide that is noteworthy, can you predict tsunamis and earthquakes, and develop citizen science DeSci with the funds raised from the opposing side.

• Divergence is to break value isolation and further imagine the ultimate scenario of prediction markets.

Currently, predictions are not scaling up, mostly self-referential within cognitive barriers, because they lack externality—the flow of funds in prediction markets has not spilled over to events, and the influence and capital volume are far from enough to bring external parties in to control outcomes.

The thought branch after "what topics to list" is: who decides what topics to list. This leads to → the necessity and scale of centralized intervention, what balance rules strike between stabilizing trust and flexibility. Currently, in the early stages, the optimal solution = let "aesthetic hegemony" decide first, then iterate in small steps, seeking survival & expansion between the community and regulation.

p.s. There are too many new assets, diluting both buying power and research efforts. 2025 is better than 2024, many "sell immediately" projects, and I don't even know what these projects are about, let alone the desire to "hold."

Bcxiongdi (X: @bcxiongdi)

Introduction: Mainly playing on-chain PvP.

Share: Last week, the liquidity in the meme sector warmed up compared to previous weeks, and some golden dogs appeared on-chain, such as Whitewhale reaching 73m, and the political narrative ignited by Musk's thenickshirley peaking at 9m, along with a tweet interaction between Musk and Toly, etc. Many performances have been quite good. However, currently, the on-chain liquidity is still average, and it's normal for a few golden dogs to pop up occasionally; I personally choose to continue observing.

WLFI recently opened a new vote to accelerate the application of USD1, allowing bets on related targets.

jk (X: @0xHanzo)

Introduction: A long-termist who has been heavily injured this quarter.

Share: 1. New Year’s flag: Ready to learn Vibe coding well, then manually create some useful data tools, like tools for capturing price crashes, to facilitate quick short positions; this idea mainly came from seeing many products made casually with Codex or Cursor on X that have significantly improved work efficiency.

Recently, I came across a saying that resonated with me: Many people say that today’s programmers only use Vibe coding and don’t know how to write C and Java anymore. What to do? But in reality, a long time ago, someone asked a similar question: today's young people only know how to write Java and don’t understand assembly language and computer principles. What to do? The way we instruct machines has always been innovating, from the initial assembly language to programming languages, to now the natural language of Vibe coding; as long as it works, it’s good.

2. This week’s work mainly focused on writing some annual summary articles: Upon careful consideration, 2025 is actually a very important year for institutionalization and the normalization of crypto, calling it the American crypto year is not an exaggeration, but it has not been reflected in price increases at all; including the current price retracement, we are actually experiencing a process where some market caps are rising, but prices are not. This has somewhat shaken my long-term holding perspective.

3. The recent regulatory news in the U.S. is too boring… it’s all about what Trump said, what Musk said, and the anticipated trend of interest rate cuts. As a news person, I somewhat miss last year and the year before, when SBF's trial was full of explosive news, the SEC was suing this exchange today and that exchange tomorrow, with a bunch of highlights and points of contention in the indictments, and Trump hadn’t taken office yet, there was so much to look forward to. Of course, as a retail investor, I hope that year never comes back.

Asher (X: @Asher_0210)

Introduction: Mainly engaging in interaction + finance, occasionally buying memes (buying what I don’t like to sell), a novice in contracts but enjoy participating.

Share: Recently, besides continuing to add popular projects weekly, the focus has been on the prediction market in the BNB Chain ecosystem, trying to earn more points at a low cost, looking forward to a big explosion in the prediction market sector in the first half of 2026.

In terms of spot trading, the cryptocurrency fear and greed index is still in a state of extreme fear, with mainstream altcoins continuing to dollar-cost average into ETH and SOL.

In terms of contracts, PIPPIN saw a "heavenly needle" at $0.76 last week before slowly declining, believing the upward trend has ended, and has opened a short position at $0.50, targeting $0.29 and $0.19.

Moni (@mich73692)

Introduction: Continuing to learn, continuing to strive.

Share: Is there an arbitrage opportunity with USDT? Maybe. The off-exchange trading price of the dollar stablecoin USDT has dropped to about 6.82 RMB, the speed of the decline is astonishing, while the price of the dollar in the foreign exchange market is still at 7.01 RMB, with a negative premium reaching 2.7%, far exceeding the -2% premium rate at the beginning of the month, and the arbitrage opportunity "we dare not say, we dare not ask." Huang Qifan recently released a signal saying that in the next ten years, the RMB to USD exchange rate will gradually appreciate from 7.0 to around 6.0, which can only be savored.

This week, precious metals remain a hot topic, with gold and silver experiencing significant adjustments. Previous analyses suggested that once precious metal prices start to reverse, market funds are likely to flow into Bitcoin and Ethereum, but as of now, this trend has not yet appeared.

Unknowingly, the Coinbase Bitcoin premium index has been in negative premium for 17 consecutive days, this indicator has certain reference significance, indicating that the Bitcoin price in the U.S. market is lower than that in the global market, and there seems to be considerable selling pressure in North America, with many investors likely offloading.

2025 witnessed the wild fluctuations of Bitcoin, the rapid ups and downs are indeed thrilling, and this year is finally coming to an end, I really miss it.

Suzz (X: @uu01194636)

Introduction: Still holding the fort on New Year's Eve.

Share: The "pulling the plug" incident at CME on November 29 led to market analysis pointing to short sellers facing liquidation pressure, causing the exchange to "crash." Although the "conspiracy theory" is hard to discern, I did take a deeper look at the analysis of data center high availability that day, regrettably missing out on this wave of silver's price increase, and I need to improve my sensitivity to linked opportunities in the future.

Currently tracking the IPO process of Zhiyu AI (expected on January 8). Based on Peter Lynch's investment philosophy, I have deeply utilized the GLM4.7 model, and from the perspective of product experience and cost-effectiveness, its actual application capability is outstanding, and considering the current market valuation, it still has potential. I plan to participate deeply when it officially goes public early next year, as a core configuration reserve in the AI sector.

Dingdong (X: @XiaMiPP)

Introduction: Purely a "retail investor."

Share: Recently, I’ve taken a break from trading thoughts and focused more on learning.

This week, the surge in silver prices has been the market focus, with many discussions on X suggesting that China is changing its silver export policy from a quota system to "one order, one review," but it seems to be strengthening audits and managing flows. The real reason for this surge is still the forced liquidation in options.

Recently, I came across trading ideas shared by the former head of commodities at Bridgewater, roughly stating: Now we need to stay calm; in the short term, there are tax sell-offs, dollar rebounds, margin pressures, etc., but I will continue to increase holdings on pullbacks. Although the copper substitution narrative is a bit alarming, calculations show it would take at least four years to replace half of the solar production capacity, and he believes silver still has further upside potential.

Precious metals are alternating in price increases, but the crypto market is still quite quiet. Looking at Bitcoin's daily chart, it feels like it’s nearing a critical point for a trend change; I hope next year's market will be better for us.

Golem (X: @web3_golem)

Introduction: Golem's whimsical ideas.

Content: Recently, leading crypto exchanges have imitated Web2 internet products to provide users with a 2025 annual review. Although this summary itself is just a bit of fun, some data has piqued my curiosity. For example, on Binance, my annual asset peak was $3,363, but I still outperformed 88% of holders. And on OKX, my annual assets exceeded $60,000, surpassing 95% of people.

It sounds shocking because, in my previous understanding, several thousand dollars shouldn't be considered much for people in the crypto space. This total asset amount is something you would only dare to open an exchange with if you were carrying it around with friends; otherwise, you'd be laughed at. Tens of thousands of dollars are certainly considered small money, but they wouldn't make it to the top 5%.

Of course, this data could also be false, as considering the statistical criteria, perhaps the sample includes a large number of long-term inactive accounts, zero balances, and accounts that were only opened but never traded. If we count all these "zeros," everyone's percentile would be pulled up.

However, what if it's true? That would indicate that 2025 is actually a tough year. We have been numbed by a few top influencers on social media who casually make or lose hundreds of thousands of dollars; they create an illusion of wealth in the crypto space, leading individuals to feel that everyone is rich except for them, making them even more reluctant to confront them on social media. Just like the data tells us that less than 20% of accounts on Polymarket are profitable, yet social media is filled with prophets making crazy profits.

Those "eternally profitable influencers" and top accounts on social media are merely "typical user" samples exalted by algorithms and human nature, and do not represent the majority. From an investment perspective, if we measure our investments and decisions against the extreme results of a small number of people, we might make more dangerous choices in the face of market volatility. The pathological mindset of feeling no achievement unless one earns A7 or A8 should have been discarded long ago.

Speaking of prediction markets, in the new year, I plan to open two more Polymarket accounts, mainly to boost trading volume for airdrops. Although there are no transaction fee losses when boosting trading volume on Polymarket, considering the shallow order books in prediction markets, some pools have large buy-sell spreads, making it seem troublesome to achieve a no-loss situation. Therefore, I think adding two more accounts is already enough hassle.

Azuma (X: @azuma_eth)

Introduction: A novice, learning more.

Share: I looked into the recent discussions about the USDT discount and USDC premium issues, specifically that USDT is discounted in the OTC market relative to the official USD/CNY exchange rate; meanwhile, USDC is at a premium relative to USDT.

The first issue is easier to explain; essentially, the demand for USDT along the path to CNY has weakened. The first reason is the weak crypto-native market, leading to a decrease in demand for holding USDT; the second reason is the appreciation trend of CNY, and most Chinese users do not have the capability to execute the USDT-USD-CNY path, relying instead on CEX OTC to sell USDT directly, resulting in the relative discount.

The second issue is temporarily believed to be related to the scenario focus of USDT and USDC. For a long time, everyone has been familiar with the positive premium of USDT over USDC, as USDT is the main medium for market transactions, while USDC is more focused on DeFi and wealth management, making it relatively more stable. In a strong cycle, trading demand is robust, so the demand for USDT naturally rises. However, in the current market environment, most users' mindset is to seek returns greater than government bonds, so it ultimately comes down to market decisions. As for whether the differences in the monetization paths of USDT-USD and USDC-USD have an impact, we are still observing and welcome discussions.

Wenser (@wenser2010)

Introduction: A tea-fetching junior, crypto soy sauce party, media observer.

Share: 1. Personal annual investment summary, with losses around 80%, making it the worst year since entering the space, even worse than when I was playing with NFTs; the main reasons for the losses are high-leverage contracts (Binance account wiped out, OKX down 50%), buying meme coins low but not selling high, and by the time I sold, they had already dropped below cost, leading to either cutting losses or going to zero. Additionally, this year I also engaged in prediction markets and tokenization of U.S. stocks (invitation link: https://msx.com/?code=Wszm85), and overall, it was a break-even situation. The reasons for the losses were always hoping for unexpected reversals and subjective emotions overshadowing objective recognition of betting events; the experience from the October 11 crash was extremely painful, compounded by what was likely an infection of the flu, resulting in a "physical and psychological" double blow. While 2025 is a year of mainstreaming for the crypto industry, for me personally, it has been a very marginal year, with new retail investors/new entrants being few and far between. Those remaining in the market are either engaging in mutual liquidation or being counter-traded, becoming exit liquidity for projects or wild farms. Of course, the biggest lesson remains the need for action. There were many big opportunities this year, but they weren't the kind of opportunities that everyone celebrated under the sun; rather, they required certain preparations (such as capital, speed, KYC, multiple accounts, etc.). I suggest everyone reasonably assess ROI before seeking their own opportunities.

2. The flag for 2026 is as follows: 1) Increase the number of transactions in U.S. stock tokenization, aiming for this portion of capital to double; 2) Deeply participate in prediction markets, especially regarding industry changes. I have written a lot about this before, and I still hold the judgment that in 5-8 years (or even earlier), the market size of prediction markets is expected to reach trillions, which is 8-10 times the current size; 3) Moderate contracts, no longer going all-in, timely stop-loss and take-profit, and try to avoid situations of "buying at the low - not selling at the high - cutting losses to exit"; 4) Mouth trading is very necessary. Apart from the token airdrops given by projects, mouth trading is the best way to expand one's network and influence through quality content, bar none. I still feel I posted too few tweets in 2025, aiming for 200 in 2026.

3. Recently, the news that Manus was acquired by Meta for $2 billion (some reports say $2.5 billion) is a big story in the AI circle. I also shared some thoughts in my social circle, but considering many AI product startup projects on platforms like Jike, I feel that the common dilemma for AI startups and crypto projects is how to ensure that their products/solutions/services can make money (cash flow) from day one. This requires precise targeting of the audience, functional positioning, and pricing, as well as serving real needs. Therefore, I believe crypto payments (PayFi) make sense, combined with the profitability opportunities of DeFi. 2026 will still be a big year for payments, especially with Trip.com, the overseas version of Ctrip, also opening up stablecoin payments, which is a relatively clear signal. I look forward to developments next year.

Here, I also recommend my annual closing piece “2026, Survive: A Survival and Counterattack Manual for Crypto Enthusiasts in a Bear Market”. By the way, it seems I have always been writing survival guides for bear markets; I feel completely lost in bull markets.

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