Release Date: January 9, 2025
Author: BlockBeats Editorial Team

In the past 24 hours, the crypto market has shown a parallel evolution across multiple dimensions. Mainstream topics focus on the core divergence in Ethereum's scaling path, structural adjustments within the ZCash team, and the continuous entry signals released by traditional financial institutions. In terms of ecological development, the Solana prediction market and application distribution are accelerating, Ethereum is advancing in institutional-level DeFi and financial inclusion scenarios, while Perp DEX has exposed short-term volatility and structural risks due to large holders reducing their positions.

I. Mainstream Topics

ZCash Team's Structural Differentiation

The former CEO of the original core developer of ZCash, Electric Coin Company (ECC), Josh Swihart, announced the establishment of a new startup, CashZ.org, focusing on ZCash wallet development and commercialization, aiming to push ZCash towards "a scale of billions of users" through a sustainable profit model. He stated that non-profit organizations face structural constraints in product iteration and market expansion.

The new company plans to launch a brand new ZCash wallet and open early access. Meanwhile, adjustments at the board level are seen as a proactive dismantling of potential legal risks, clearing obstacles for core developers to shift towards privatization and faster feature rollouts.

Haseeb Qureshi compared ZCash to BitTorrent, claiming it retains "cyberpunk integrity"; Chainyoda summarized this change as a medium to long-term positive for $ZEC.

The overall sentiment in the community is noticeably positive, with frequent expressions like "LFG," "Viva Zcash," and "renaissance begins," with many viewing it as a "reboot" of the privacy coin sector. Optimists even set high price expectations for $ZEC; however, there are also skeptical voices focusing on ZCash's historical burdens, whether a new coin should be launched directly, and comparisons with projects like Monero and Chia. Overall, the community tends to understand it as a constructive split: a path adjustment, but the mission remains unchanged.

Vitalik Discusses Ethereum's Scaling Path Again: Bandwidth Over Latency

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin reiterated that prioritizing bandwidth over extreme latency is a safer and more decentralized approach to scaling. Through PeerDAS and ZKPs, Ethereum can achieve thousands of times scalability without sacrificing node verifiability; latency is constrained by the speed of light and the geographical distribution of nodes, with a practical range of 2–4 seconds.

Vitalik positions Ethereum as "the heartbeat of the world," rather than a game server, suggesting that high-frequency applications should be handled by L2. Ryan Sean Adams described Ethereum as Vitalik's "prompt engineering product"; Tetranode agreed that a 2–4 second latency is sufficient for L1 to become a national-level trust layer.

Opposing views are equally sharp: Max Resnick criticized this route as overly conservative, arguing that Solana has proven that low latency and high bandwidth can coexist, bluntly stating that the L2 route "has not delivered on its promises," and calling for a compression of slots to 6 seconds.

Disagreements are highly concentrated. Supporters emphasize the logic of modularity, decentralization, and L2 division of labor; critics argue that Ethereum is avoiding direct competition with Solana, and the complexity of L2 is leading to user and market share loss. Some view Vitalik as a "benevolent AI" guiding the ecosystem, but complaints about being "slow and expensive" persist. The discussion consistently revolves around the core trade-off of latency vs. bandwidth.

SharpLink Deploys Institutional-Level ETH Yield Strategy on Linea

Publicly traded company SharpLink ($SBET) announced the deployment of approximately $170 million in ETH on Ethereum L2 Linea, integrating native staking, EigenLayer re-staking, Linea, and ether.fi incentives, and providing institutional-grade custody through Anchorage, aiming to achieve "the most efficient institutional ETH holding solution."
Joseph Chalom referred to 2026 as the starting point of Ethereum's "productivity era," believing that DeFi yields are being officially introduced to the public market. Meanwhile, the Optimism Foundation proposed using 50% of Superchain revenue for monthly OP buybacks, further binding token value to network growth.

Market reactions are highly positive, seen as "a milestone event for institutional DeFi," with many referring to it as the "SharpLink edge" or "turning point." Discussions focus on actual annualized yield, Linea ecosystem increments, and the valuation logic of $SBET, with overall sentiment revolving around "ETH is transitioning from a narrative asset to a productive asset."

Bank of America Upgrades Coinbase to "Buy"

Bank of America has upgraded Coinbase (COIN) to "Buy," with a target price of $340 (implying about 38% upside). Reasons include product line expansion (stocks, ETFs, prediction markets), the infrastructure value of Base L2, and the potential of Coinbase Tokenize in real asset tokenization.
Despite the stock price falling about 40% from its July peak, BofA believes momentum is improving in the second half of the year and sees Coinbase as a long-term core player in crypto infrastructure by 2026.

This is generally interpreted as another signal of the "maturation" of the crypto industry, with keywords focusing on "infrastructure" and "platform play." Most opinions suggest that Coinbase is no longer just an exchange but a diversified fintech platform; a minority remain cautious about the motives behind the investment, but overall sentiment is clearly bullish.

Morgan Stanley May Launch Crypto Wallet

Morgan Stanley plans to launch its own crypto wallet in 2026 (in the second half) and will introduce crypto trading services through E*Trade in the first half, aiming to integrate digital assets, tokenized assets, and traditional wealth management workflows. Meanwhile, its deepening collaboration with Carta and acquisition of EquityZen are also seen as important moves to enhance efficiency in the private market and serve multi-generational wealth management.

Sentiment is excited, viewing this as a clear signal of deep integration between TradFi and DeFi, with "ticker is $ETH" becoming a frequent joke. Some interpretations link it to improvements in the regulatory environment, but mainstream views still focus on: institutional adoption is transitioning from "testing the waters" to "systematic integration."

II. Mainstream Ecological Dynamics

Solana: Concurrent Experiments in Prediction Markets and Token Mechanisms

DFlow announced that its prediction market API, launched in collaboration with Kalshi, has significantly boosted trading activity in Solana's front-end applications within just two weeks of public release. Various products, including Pieverse, Solprice, O1 Exchange, Synthesis Trade, Pocket Wallet, Human Plane, Duel Trade, Stand Trade, Mira, Trade Onsight, Raptor, Kairos Trade, Sharpe Terminal, Simmer Markets, and Cobot, have achieved scaled access to prediction markets on Solana for the first time.
This round of diffusion is seen as validating DFlow's advantages in low latency, high precision, and composability, also showcasing the potential of prediction markets as a new application distribution layer for Solana.

At the same time, Avici and MetaDAO are viewed as two attempts to address the "failure of crypto token design": the former focuses on privacy and usability, exploring neo-banking paths; the latter reconstructs the ICO mechanism through futarchy (prediction market governance), attempting to reduce VC dominance and early sell pressure, achieving fairer value discovery and distribution.

Discussions around DFlow are highly enthusiastic, being referred to as "the true revival of Solana's prediction markets" and "a milestone moment for AI × trading," with many users directly linking it to the medium to long-term revaluation of $SOL.

The debate around Avici and MetaDAO is more structural: supporters see it as "the future of neobanks" and "the rescue plan for ICOs," emphasizing mechanism innovation and execution; skeptics focus on regulatory risks and complexity. Overall, the community views it as a frontier experiment in ownership, distribution, and governance mechanisms on Solana, calling for broader participation in discussions.

Ethereum: Resilient Narrative, Cultural Conflicts, and Institutional Implementation Coexist

Vitalik Buterin reiterated that Ethereum's core goal is not extreme efficiency or convenience, but to provide a sovereign financial infrastructure that minimizes systemic failure risk, is politically neutral, and globally accessible. He likened Ethereum to a "financial amplifier" of BitTorrent and Linux, emphasizing that L1 should become a long-term home for autonomous finance while accommodating enterprise needs without sacrificing decentralization.

This concept has again sparked cultural backlash. Threadguy criticized Vitalik for publicly denying ETH meme culture in 2021 and selling tokens gifted to him by projects like Shiba Inu (which were later donated to an Indian Covid fund), arguing that this "destroys narrative and community momentum," contrasting it with Solana founder Toly, who would not intervene in such a manner.

On the execution front, SharpLink ($SBET) deploying $170 million in ETH on Linea, integrating staking, EigenLayer re-staking, protocol incentives, and Anchorage custody, is seen as a key case in ETH's transition to "institutional-grade productive assets."

Additionally, the ADI Chain Foundation's collaboration with M-Pesa Africa aims to expand institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure to 8 African countries, reaching approximately 60 million users, directly targeting the 42% unbanked population in sub-Saharan Africa.

Vitalik's statements have elicited polarized reactions: supporters view it as "the last bastion of trust minimization," while critics argue that it is overly conservative and ignores efficiency competition with high-performance chains like Solana.

Threadguy's video further amplifies the camp division between ETH and Solana: ETH supporters emphasize the legitimacy of Vitalik's "clearing scams," while the Solana camp mocks him for "personally stifling culture."

In contrast, the landing cases of SharpLink and ADI received more consistent praise, seen as a "signal of DeFi maturity" and "the realization of Ethereum's productivity," but inquiries into the yield structure and execution details continue.

Perp DEX: Large Holder's Position Reduction Triggers Emotional Shock

On-chain data shows that large holder Loracle sold approximately 277,000 $HYPE (about $7.1 million) within a few hours, while still holding a net $HYPE position of about $6.8 million on HyperEVM (with $11.6 million in HYPE collateral, borrowing about $4.8 million in USDC). If this is for debt repayment, he may further sell about 270,000 $HYPE, and trading behavior indicates he is in a continuous reduction state.

Market sentiment has noticeably weakened, with some accusing him of "verbal long-termism while actually selling," calling for a boycott; others believe this is a typical profit-taking or risk management operation. Overall, this event is seen as a reminder of the vulnerabilities in the perp DEX ecosystem under high leverage and liquidity structures, exerting pressure on short-term prices.

Others

Delphi Digital and Polymarket have partnered to launch a prediction market data platform, providing real-time market data, event tracking, and analysis tools, aiming to upgrade prediction markets to an "information layer that can be systematically utilized." The Delphi × Polymarket collaboration is referred to as an "upgrade of the prediction market intelligence layer," with some users viewing it as an important data source for AI training and decision-making.

Wintermute Ventures released a summary of its 2025 deal flow: reviewing about 600 companies throughout the year, with 20% entering due diligence, and ultimately about 4% receiving investment, focusing on financial infrastructure, underlying platforms, and AI/DePIN, while emphasizing a mixed structure of equity + token warrants and reflecting on the need to improve responsiveness to founders. The Wintermute report is generally regarded as a "rare transparent disclosure," sparking discussions on VC funnel efficiency and sector preferences.

The Sui development team released the Seal white paper, introducing programmable data access control based on Move contracts, allowing precise on-chain definition of decryption permissions, timing, and conditions, exploring a new paradigm for privacy data sharing. The Seal white paper has sparked heated discussions in the Sui community, seen as a "differentiated breakthrough in data privacy direction," especially in gaming and wallet integration scenarios, though there are also concerns about governance issues related to key and execution layer permissions.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。