On January 26, 2026, against the backdrop of tightening regulations and an overall market correction in the crypto industry, several significant events emerged that serve as indicators: MoonPay partners with X Games, NEO experiences internal power struggles, Coinbase expands to the Solana chain, and Infinex advances token snapshots and migrations. From the disclosed information, the sponsorship collaboration between MoonPay and X Games is valued at tens of millions of dollars, while the on-chain address 0xd4d holds 465,000 HYPE (approximately $10.32 million) in potential selling pressure, alongside an unrealized loss of approximately $15.44 million on a position of 56.12 million ENA. These seemingly disparate news items collectively outline a main thread: on one end, there is a brand offensive accelerating mainstream adoption through channels like sports and trading platforms, while on the other end, there are internal structural pressures reflected in NEO-style governance rifts and significant whale losses. Under Matrixport's reminder to "remain cautious in an overall correction environment," the current opportunities and risks resemble a structural repricing, with bets on mainstream exposure and scrutiny of project governance quality occurring simultaneously.
MoonPay Invests Tens of Millions in Sports Sponsorship
● Sponsorship Framework: According to the briefing, MoonPay has reached a sponsorship collaboration with X Games valued at tens of millions of dollars. While the specific breakdown of the funding scale has not been disclosed, it is clearly a high-intensity brand investment. The collaboration format includes not only logo exposure but also typically involves brand setups at event sites, joint content production, and online interaction portals, meaning MoonPay is directly embedding its payment and crypto purchase services into the event narrative and audience experience within the traditional extreme sports community.
● Brand Diffusion Effect: Major sports events have a broad audience base that spans regions and age groups, and X Games has long been a hot topic among younger demographics. By entering the intersection of sports and subculture, MoonPay can quickly enhance brand favorability and recognition, pushing crypto payment and purchase pathways to a large number of non-crypto users. This kind of "passive reach" from the event and live broadcast scenarios often breaks psychological barriers more effectively than in-industry advertising, laying the groundwork for subsequent conversions.
● Mainstream Signal: In an environment where regulations are tightening in the U.S. and Europe, compliance costs are rising, and user growth is slowing, MoonPay's willingness to make substantial brand investments sends a clear signal: leading service providers are still betting on the long-term prospects of deep integration between crypto and traditional consumer scenarios. Rather than passively waiting for incremental users to spontaneously enter, it is better to actively engage in mature consumer fields like sports and entertainment, accelerating the mainstream narrative of "crypto as a payment tool."
● Timing Mismatch Risk: Matrixport's reminder for investors to "remain cautious in an overall correction environment" indicates that current prices and sentiment are in a downward or volatile phase, and short-term user growth and trading activity may not immediately yield returns from such high-cost marketing. MoonPay's accelerated investment at this time may face a timing mismatch where revenue growth lags behind expense expansion in financial reports and valuations. If other projects in the industry blindly follow suit, they may also experience a chain reaction of pressure on market capitalization and cash flow.
Concerns Over NEO Co-Founder’s Public Pressure
● Event Context: On January 26, the industry discourse highlighted that NEO co-founder publicly called for the resignation of the current leadership. The public statement pointed to dissatisfaction with the strategic direction and execution efficiency of the current management, with the superficial demand being to "restart" the project through leadership changes, attempting to reshape market confidence through a change in leadership. However, the act of public pressure itself has laid internal divisions bare before the public and token holders, breaking the previously relatively calm governance facade.
● Governance Impact: From the perspective of on-chain governance and the foundation's power structure, such public pressure often raises doubts among external developers and potential partners regarding the project's stability. If foundation funding allocations and technical decision-making are perceived as "human governance" or influenced by a few individuals, developers' willingness to build long-term applications on NEO will inevitably decline, weakening the ecological network effect, increasing the risk premium of governance tokens in the secondary market, and creating a negative cycle of valuation discount.
● Historical Comparison: Other public chains have historically experienced management changes and route disputes, some of which have strengthened the brand of "decentralized governance" through community voting, transparent proposals, and gradual power transitions; others have suffered from publicized infighting, resource fragmentation, and fork threats, leading to long-term underperformance in market capitalization compared to similar assets. If NEO's current controversy cannot be resolved with a clear and fair procedural plan, its future development may face long-term valuation discounts, and financing and cooperation may be treated with greater caution.
● Information Gap: Current public information provides little insight into subsequent resolution paths and timelines, with no clear governance proposals, election mechanisms, or transitional arrangements. Investors rushing to bet on a "leadership change benefit" or a singular outcome of "governance turning point" at this stage may overestimate short-term catalysts while neglecting long-term organizational coordination costs and technological iteration uncertainties. A more prudent approach would be to wait for more governance details to be disclosed before reassessing the project's qualitative changes and valuation recovery potential.
Coinbase's Liquidity Reconfiguration After Integrating Solana
● Integration Action: The briefing indicates that Coinbase has begun to support assets and trading on the Solana chain. For ordinary users, this means that on a compliant platform with high regulatory scrutiny, they can directly deposit and trade more assets and application tokens based on Solana. The previous need for cross-chain bridges or non-custodial wallets has been compressed into simple internal deposits and trades on the platform, significantly lowering the barrier to participation in the Solana ecosystem.
● Liquidity Amplification: Solana is known for its high performance and low transaction costs, with previously more active liquidity concentrated in on-chain native DEXs and a few non-U.S. platforms. By entering large compliant exchanges like Coinbase, it not only increases the channels for institutions and compliant funds to directly allocate SOL and Solana-based assets but also provides Solana projects with a broader secondary market outlet, potentially amplifying price discovery efficiency and depth, thereby enhancing the overall ecosystem's attractiveness to developers and project parties.
● Competition and Complementarity: Solana presents a certain level of competition to Ethereum in terms of performance and user experience, especially in high-frequency small transactions and scenarios like gaming and social networking. However, from a larger industry perspective, the coexistence of multiple public chains has become a reality. Through unified entry points like Coinbase, users can flexibly switch between Ethereum, Solana, and other public chain assets. In some scenarios, Solana takes on the role of "high-frequency front end," while Ethereum continues to serve as the security and value settlement layer, with the complementary relationship between the two benefiting the overall expansion of the crypto economy.
● Ethereum's "Centralization": Discussions around "Ethereum in the New World Order" are shifting from a zero-sum narrative of "whether it will be replaced" to "whether it will become the core hub of a multi-chain network." In the context of more compliant platforms integrating chains like Solana, Ethereum is more likely to transition from its previous narrative of "almost monopolistic layer one" to "the hub and standard for cross-chain assets and applications." This means its dominant position will no longer be reflected in the absolute proportion of project numbers but in its centrality in value settlement, foundational security, and governance standard output.
Infinex Token Snapshots and Whale Loss Sentiment
● Snapshot Rules and Background: Infinex is advancing its token migration plan, with the briefing disclosing that its snapshot rule is set at: 1 Patron = 100,000 INX. Such rules are typically designed to map existing rights or memberships to the new token system, ensuring that early supporters can still receive corresponding token allocations after the system upgrade. However, due to the lack of disclosure regarding the specific migration timeline and technical route, there remains some uncertainty in the market regarding the execution progress and airdrop fulfillment rhythm.
● HYPE Holdings and Potential Selling Pressure: On-chain data shows that address 0xd4d received 465,000 HYPE, valued at approximately $10.32 million, representing a typical whale-level holding. If such a concentrated position chooses to sell off a large amount, it could instantly create depth in a market with limited liquidity, leading to a self-reinforcing process of "flash crash—panic—chain selling." The market will closely monitor the recent on-chain behavior of this address to gauge its attitude towards subsequent prices and project expectations.
● ENA Unrealized Loss and Demonstration Effect: The same address also holds 56.12 million ENA, with an unrealized loss of approximately $15.44 million. Such deeply trapped large positions are often seen as "emotional anchors." On one hand, significant unrealized losses may suppress their short-term stop-loss willingness, preferring to passively wait for a rebound; on the other hand, it may lead other small and medium investors to question the risk-reward ratio of ENA and similar assets, fearing that "even whales are deeply trapped," thus preemptively reducing their positions or avoiding similar high-volatility targets.
● Amplified Volatility in Correction Cycles: During overall market correction cycles, token migrations and snapshots are often treated as short-term trading catalysts, attracting speculative funds to bet around the snapshot timing. When such events coincide with concentrated whale holdings and loss sentiment, price elasticity can be further amplified: under positive expectations, upward movements become steeper, while downward movements during unmet expectations or selling pressure releases can be more severe. Investors need to distinguish between the long-term governance and rights restructuring logic represented by snapshots and the short-term price speculation.
The Dislocated Game Between Mainstream Waves and Correction Cycles
● Coexistence of Offense and Contraction: On one side are MoonPay's tens of millions sponsorship of X Games and Coinbase's new support for Solana, representing "offensive mainstreaming" actions aimed at expanding external increments through brand exposure and multi-chain entry; on the other side are NEO's public internal strife and the significant unrealized losses of address 0xd4d in ENA, reflecting a "defensive contraction" in project governance and financial management. The former seeks to enlarge the pie, while the latter fights for discourse power and exit order within the existing pie, with both forces simultaneously impacting the market during the same timeframe.
● Repricing Rhythm of Funds: Matrixport's suggestion to "remain cautious in an overall correction environment" can be understood as funds are re-evaluating valuations and narratives within risk assets. Institutions and large funds are more likely to prioritize allocations to targets with compliant access capabilities, mainstream exposure, and stable cash flow expectations, while applying higher discounts to projects with unclear governance structures and evident internal faction conflicts. The funding path is showing a migration rhythm from "high beta speculation" back to "high certainty fundamentals."
● Amplifying Role of Narrative Platforms: Media and content platforms like Bankless act as amplifiers of narratives between retail and institutional investors through topics like "Ethereum in the New World Order." Once a narrative resonates with actions from compliant platforms (such as Coinbase's chain expansion) and major brand bets (like MoonPay's sponsorship), it can easily drive funds to reallocate risk preferences between Ethereum, public chain tracks, and new projects. However, if this top-down narrative structure detaches from on-chain real data and capital flows, it risks creating phases of excessive optimism or pessimism.
● Caution Against Single Narratives: Current macro data and specific on-chain capital flows have not formed a consensus strong enough to support a singular "big narrative" prevailing. Whether it is "Ethereum as the ultimate hub," "Solana taking over the user application layer," or "well-governed projects will be fully priced," all require more time and data validation. If investors allow a single narrative to dominate their decision-making, neglecting changes in regulation, liquidity, and the project's own execution capabilities, they may find themselves at a structural disadvantage during the next emotional reversal.
From Marketing to Governance: The Selection Criteria for the Next Market Cycle
MoonPay bets on X Games, NEO experiences a governance crisis, Coinbase expands to the Solana chain, and Infinex advances token snapshots. These seemingly disparate events collectively reflect three main lines in the current industry: brand competition, governance differentiation, and liquidity reorganization. On one end, there is a race to capture user mindshare and entry points through sponsorships and multi-chain integration; on the other end, internal power structures, token distribution, and large holdings determine whether projects can navigate through cycles.
During market correction periods, merely looking at "who is on the big stage and who is integrated by major exchanges" is far from sufficient; similarly, focusing solely on price declines or on-chain TVL makes it difficult to fully assess risks. A more reasonable approach is to simultaneously examine a project's mainstream exposure capability and internal governance quality: the former relates to the efficiency of acquiring incremental funds and users, while the latter determines whether existing capital can remain comfortably in the long term, both are indispensable.
For investors, an actionable framework should at least include three main lines: first, pay attention to the project's cash flow and sponsorship expenditure rhythm to discern whether it is truly supported by income for long-term brand building or if it is overextending for short-term hype; second, examine the transparency of on-chain governance and the foundation's power structure to assess whether there are potential internal conflicts and decision-making black boxes akin to NEO; third, track the rhythm of exchange listings and multi-chain integrations, viewing them as external signals of liquidity reorganization and compliance progress, rather than merely price positives. Based on this, repeatedly calibrating between narrative and data will increase the likelihood of being in a relatively advantageous position in the next market cycle.
Join our community to discuss and become stronger together!
Official Telegram community: https://t.me/aicoincn
AiCoin Chinese Twitter: https://x.com/AiCoinzh
OKX benefits group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=l61eM4owQ
Binance benefits group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=ynr7d1P6Z
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。
