If you are holding $ASTER then you should read this article quickly
If you are holding $ASTER then you should read this article. In many previous articles, I have shared about anonymity — the core issue that crypto was created to solve, alongside payments and decentralization. Due to stricter regulations, privacy coins are starting to rise, with $ZEC leading the trend. I have also shared a lot about $ZEN and $DASH when they surged thanks to the ability to hide transaction data, protecting users from being traced and having their information exploited. This is even more important in the perpdex market, where revealing positions means losing advantages. Do you remember a few months ago when the market was hunting whales on Hyperliquid? Hyperliquid is too transparent. This is something whales dislike — and that's why we have Aster Exchange
LUNC UST and fantokens grow, every time these coins reach the top gainer, the market will adjust sharply. Be careful, I observe that the structure of BTC and ETH has been broken
Solana Faces Weakened Demand as TVL and DEX Activity Drop
Solana’s SOL token fell 6 percent after being rejected at the 147 dollar level, reflecting growing caution among traders following weak US labor and consumer sentiment data. Market participants worry that SOL may take longer to reclaim 200 dollars, especially after heavy leverage wipes in October and November and continued declines in network activity.
Solana’s total value locked has dropped from 13.3 billion dollars to 10.8 billion dollars over the past two months. Major protocols including Kamino, Jupiter, Jito and Drift all saw deposits fall more than 20 percent. DEX volume also weakened significantly, even as Solana still ranks as the second largest chain by TVL, behind Ethereum’s 73.2 billion dollars. Meanwhile, Ethereum’s layer 2 networks such as Base, Arbitrum and Polygon continue attracting inflows. The recent Fusaka upgrade improved scalability and wallet management on Ethereum, reducing incentives for capital rotation into Solana.
Weekly DEX volume on Solana fell to 19.2 billion dollars, down 40 percent from four weeks earlier. With onchain activity cooling, investors worry that SOL demand will remain weak, reinforcing outflows. At the same time, the new layer 1 Monad recorded 1.2 billion dollars in DEX trading during its first week.
Macro pressure adds to the challenges. US layoffs reached 71,321 in November, near 2008 levels, while scrutiny of Buy Now Pay Later platforms raised concerns about tightening credit. Leverage appetite in SOL perpetuals remains low with annualized funding at only 4 percent. Solana-related ETFs and ETPs have seen no new inflows, while Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP attracted more than 1.06 billion dollars. Spot ETF approvals for XRP, Litecoin and Dogecoin further intensify competition.
SOL’s path back to 200 dollars ultimately depends on macro improvement, though fiscal stimulus remains a potential bullish surprise.
4 Reasons December Could Be the Best Time to Start DCA Into Altcoins
Altcoin market conditions are creating one of the most favorable environments for dollar cost averaging in recent months. The first signal comes from collapsing trading volume. Thirty-day altcoin volume against stablecoins has dropped below the yearly average, a level that has historically aligned with major market bottoms. Analysts note that these quiet phases can stretch for weeks or months, giving investors time to structure DCA entries while sellers exhaust their supply.
A second confirmation comes from rapidly declining social interest. Google Trends data shows searches for crypto, major exchanges and tracking platforms falling more than seventy percent from the September peak. While this reflects a disengaged market, similar periods in past cycles have repeatedly offered strong speculative opportunities. Sentiment data from platforms like X, Reddit and Telegram also shows rising negativity, another pattern that commonly appears near market lows.
The third reason supporting accumulation is technical. Roughly ninety five percent of Binance-listed altcoins now trade below their 200-day simple moving average. Historically, when this metric falls under five percent, broad market reversals tend to follow. These conditions suggest that disciplined accumulators may be positioned for multi-month gains once momentum returns.
Finally, USDT dominance is beginning to pull back from a key six percent resistance level. This shift indicates that stablecoins are slowly rotating back into risk assets. A bearish stochastic RSI cross on the weekly timeframe strengthens this signal. With stablecoin market capitalization rising again in early December, the market appears to be preparing for renewed accumulation.
IMF Raises Red Flag as Stablecoins Overtake Bitcoin and Ethereum in Global Flows
The IMF has issued one of its strongest signals yet that the global crypto landscape is shifting. In its latest departmental paper, the fund reports that stablecoins have exploded past the 300 billion dollar mark, now accounting for roughly 7 percent of the entire crypto market.
USDT and USDC dominate the sector with more than 90 percent market share. On-chain data shows USDT at 185.5 billion dollars in circulation and USDC at 77.6 billion dollars, reflecting unprecedented demand for digital dollars.
But the biggest story is the rise in stablecoin flows. For the first time, cross-border stablecoin transactions have officially surpassed Bitcoin and Ethereum. According to the IMF, trading volume for USDT and USDC hit 23 trillion dollars in 2024, a stunning 90 percent year-over-year surge. This marks a structural shift where stablecoins are no longer just settlement tools but the core rails of global crypto liquidity.
Circulation for the two largest stablecoins has more than tripled in the past two years, accelerating their role in global payments and remittances. However, the IMF warns that their rapid adoption could complicate monetary policy, especially in emerging markets.
Asia now leads global stablecoin usage, while Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East are seeing the fastest growth relative to GDP. The pattern is clear: in economies dealing with inflation or capital controls, consumers increasingly choose digital dollars over local currencies.
Macro analysts at EndGame describe this shift not as hype, but as the early stages of a new global monetary structure. In their words, stablecoins have become “the digital edge of the dollar system.”
Why KITE AI Is Absolutely Outpacing Every “AI x Crypto” Pretender
Let’s be honest. The AI agent meta is full of noise. Every week a new project drops some shiny narrative about “AI on-chain,” slaps together a fancy dashboard and expects everyone to pretend this is the future of autonomous computing. Most of these chains still assume an agent is basically a human with faster clicking skills. They use human wallets, human settlement flows and human safety assumptions. Which is hilarious because agents don’t read screens, don’t store seed phrases and don’t wait 15 seconds for confirmation like normies. This is exactly where #KITE AI leaves the entire field behind. While competitors push marketing, Kite is quietly building the rails for machines that actually operate at machine speed. 1. Agents Are Not Humans And Kite Is the Only One That Gets It Most “agent chains” force bots to act like humans with wallets. This is the crypto equivalent of putting a jet engine on a horse. Kite does the opposite. It gives every agent its own cryptographic identity, its own auth flow and its own permission structure. The chain treats them like actual autonomous entities instead of cosplay humans. Competitors are duct taping AI to EOAs.
Kite is building a real machine-native identity layer. This alone puts them miles ahead.
2. No Private Keys for Agents Because That’s Suicide Here’s where every competitor gets exposed. They let agents sign with private keys or MPC wrappers like it’s no big deal. One compromise and the whole system goes kaboom. @KITE AI doesn’t play that game. Agents never touch private keys. They operate with session keys that are: single-taskcappedtime-limitednarrowly permissioned If something breaks, it only breaks that tiny operation. This is the only model that scales autonomous execution safely. Everyone else? Walking security disasters waiting to happen.
3. Real Audit Trails Instead of “Trust the AI Bro” AI without verifiability is just a magic box that might rug you at 3AM. Kite solves this by giving every action an immutable cryptographic audit trail. Every decision, every constraint, every outcome is mathematically provable. No guessing.
No blind faith.
No “the model said so.” Competitors talk about transparency. Kite actually builds it into the execution layer. In a world where agents will eventually control money and infrastructure, this is the only thing that matters.
4. Designed for Real-Time Coordination Not Human Wait Times Most chains force agents to operate at human settlement speed. Block waits. Manual checks. Slow workflows. It kills the entire point of automation $KITE optimizes for instant coordination between agents. They can authenticate, verify and settle with no human overhead. This is how automated financial flows, logistics networks and machine-to-machine commerce actually have to work. Everyone else is building agent toys. Kite is building agent infrastructure. 5. EVM Compatible Without Being EVM Limited Some competitors try to reinvent the wheel from scratch and end up with jank. Others just deploy on existing L1s and pretend it’s “agent optimized.” Kite hits the sweet spot: fully EVM compatiblefully agent optimized Developers get familiar tooling. Agents get machine-level execution. It's the only blend that makes sense. 6. Governance That Agents Actually Interact With Most projects toss “AI governance” into a pitch deck and call it a day. Kite goes further. Agents can directly participate in governance through their identity and permission systems. The network evolves based on real activity and real constraints, not vibes. It’s not governance theater. It’s actual coordination at scale. Final Take: Kite Isn’t Competing. It’s Front-Running the Entire Sector. Kite is pulling ahead because it’s the only project treating agents like what they are: autonomous economic actors that need cryptographic identity, secure execution and real-time coordination. Competitors still design for humans.
Kite designs for machines.
That’s the difference between hype and infrastructure.
Between a narrative play and a future primitive. Kite isn’t an “AI chain.”
How Are Prediction Markets Different From Traditional Gambling?
The gap goes far beyond payout ratios. Traditional gambling relies on a centralized operator known as the house. It sets the odds, charges fixed fees and holds full control over the platform. In many cases it can adjust rules, freeze accounts or even refuse payouts. Users also face extra friction such as international transfer fees, strict identity verification and sudden account restrictions that can happen without clear explanations.
Prediction markets operate on a peer to peer model similar to a stock exchange for real world events. There is no central operator. Prices are set directly by participants through supply and demand. Every trade is permanently recorded on chain and cannot be altered or removed. Users do not send funds to a third party and do not need complex personal verification. A crypto wallet is enough to access the market from anywhere in the world with near zero cost.
Removing the intermediary and increasing transparency has attracted massive inflows. In 2025, Kalshi reported more than 4.4 billion dollars in trading volume in a single quarter. Top investment funds continue to pour capital into the sector. Kalshi recently closed a 1 billion dollar round at an 11 billion dollar valuation and Polymarket is approaching 15 billion dollars. Major outlets like CNN, Yahoo Finance and Google Finance have integrated data from these platforms as an official forecasting source. Large sports leagues such as the NHL and UFC have also signed direct partnerships.
In traditional models, the house always wins in the long run because it captures the spread. Prediction markets remove the house entirely. Prices are defined purely by market forces and the value created is not a zero sum game. Forecast data can be used by media companies, enterprises, funds and even governments. Transparency gives users complete control of their assets through on chain settlement with no centralized party able to intervene.
Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of roughly 384.9 billion dollars, has just faced one of its sharpest declines in recent months. For more than twenty days, ETH has struggled to trade above 3,200 dollars, reflecting weak sentiment and forcing many investors to operate at discounted levels.
Yet several new signals suggest this downtrend may be close to reversing.
Short liquidations shift momentum
Over the past three days, the market has repeatedly flushed liquidity from short positions. These sweeps often mark major turning points, clearing large liquidity pools that sit around local tops and bottoms.
This time, the aggressive removal of short-side liquidity has opened the path for a potential market rebound, hinting that ETH may be forming a local bottom.
Whales are returning to accumulate
Whale behavior now reinforces this setup. One major whale deployed 10 million dollars in DAI to buy ETH after previously stepping aside, showing renewed confidence in upside potential.
Meanwhile, Machi Big Brother opened a long position worth around 29 million dollars and is sitting on nearly 2 million dollars in unrealized profit. His historical pattern shows he tends to increase exposure when price action strengthens, suggesting further accumulation could follow.
Spot buyers step back in
Spot traders have also re-entered the market. Netflows on spot exchanges now lean decisively bullish, with more than 47 million dollars spent accumulating ETH after several days of selling pressure.
CoinMarketCap’s spot volume heatmap also shows a cooling phase following overheated activity, a structural signal that often precedes recoveries.
Together, these elements create a strong foundation for a potential Ethereum rebound in the near term.
remember that nothing goes down forever and up forever, falling to some point to support like EMA lines will bounce back, I think this is also a pretty good way to trade
Lorenzo Protocol turns passive Bitcoin into yield generating, flexible DeFi capital.
Most people still think of Bitcoin as this heavy, immovable asset. It just sits there, does nothing, refuses to adapt and ignores the entire world of yield, liquidity, and capital efficiency. But every few cycles, a protocol shows up that quietly changes how BTC fits into the broader crypto economy. Lorenzo is that protocol right now. It is giving Bitcoin something it never really had before freedom of movement, composability, yield generation and real DeFi behavior while keeping the underlying asset as pristine and trust minimized as possible. @Lorenzo Protocol does this through a simple but powerful idea. It takes idle BTC, routes it through secure custody infrastructure, and turns it into productive assets without forcing users to leave the Bitcoin standard. No bridges that leak value, no centralized middlemen with black box control. Just a clean path from raw Bitcoin to yield generating Bitcoin inside a transparent on chain vault.
At the center of this system are two key assets stBTC and enzoBTC. stBTC is the straightforward one. You lock Bitcoin into Babylon’s staking layer and earn a native PoS yield. It is the purest form of productive BTC because it plugs directly into Babylon’s economic security model. You’re not wrapping, rehypothecating or gambling. You’re helping validate the network and getting rewarded for it. For Bitcoin purists, stBTC is the first time BTC can earn yield without abandoning the asset’s core principles. enzoBTC is where things get more interesting. It is a wrapped version of BTC designed for flexibility. Instead of being locked directly into Babylon, enzoBTC becomes collateral inside Lorenzo’s Yield Vault. From there, it can be used to stake indirectly into Babylon or be deployed into various DeFi strategies. enzoBTC is essentially Bitcoin with a steering wheel. It maintains its value, stays fully backed, but becomes mobile across different yield paths. For users who want optionality, leverage, or exposure to multiple strategies, enzoBTC is simply the more versatile tool. And this split between stBTC and enzoBTC is what makes Lorenzo different from every “Bitcoin DeFi” narrative we’ve seen before. The protocol isn’t trying to force every user into one path. It recognizes that BTC holders fall into two camps. The conservative ones who want clean staking yield with maximum simplicity. And the degen ones who want their Bitcoin to work harder, jump between strategies, chase yields, and plug into emerging ecosystems. Lorenzo gives both groups exactly what they want without compromising security. Under the hood, Lorenzo’s architecture is surprisingly elegant. Users approve the vault contract, deposit BTC or wrapped assets, and receive LP tokens representing their positions. Off chain trading engines interact with exchanges, generate yield, and regularly report profits and losses back on chain. The vault updates NAVs in real time, and withdrawals are as simple as burning LP tokens to redeem the underlying assets. The workflow feels almost CeFi level smooth but is fully transparent and enforced by smart contracts. What makes Lorenzo feel different is not just the tech but the timing. Bitcoin is undergoing a structural shift. Babylon is pushing BTC beyond being a passive store of value. The market is finally ready for Bitcoin that actually does things. And Layer 2 ecosystems are hungry for collateral that is safe, liquid, and programmable. Lorenzo sits right in the middle of all of this. It is not trying to replace Bitcoin. It’s giving Bitcoin a second life inside a world that demands mobility and capital efficiency. If this all plays out the way it is trending, stBTC could become the “risk free rate” of Bitcoin PoS yield while enzoBTC becomes the degen’s preferred instrument for structured strategies. The vault architecture could evolve into a bridge free liquidity layer for BTC. And Lorenzo could become one of the core systems that transforms Bitcoin from a static asset into an active player in DeFi. Maybe that sounds ambitious, but that’s how every major shift starts. Quietly. #lorenzoprotocol does not scream for attention. It just keeps building tooling that lets Bitcoin move, earn and behave like a real DeFi citizen. And in a market where everything eventually rotates back to BTC, a protocol that makes BTC more useful is a protocol worth paying attention to.
Yesterday in Dubai, Peter Schiff walked on stage holding a gold bar.
CZ asked him one simple question: “Is it real?”
Schiff replied: “I don’t know.”
The London Bullion Market Association later confirmed what gold experts already know. There is only one way to verify gold with 100 percent certainty: melt it.
Verification requires destruction.
Bitcoin does not.
It self-verifies in seconds. No experts. No labs. No trust.
A public ledger secured by math, instantly checkable by 300 million people from anywhere in the world.
For 5,000 years, gold’s monetary premium came from scarcity.
But scarcity means nothing if authenticity cannot be proven.
The numbers most people never mention:
Five to ten percent of the global physical gold market is tied to counterfeit gold.
Every vault, every bar, every transfer relies on trusting someone.
Bitcoin requires trusting no one.
Gold’s market cap of 29 trillion dollars is built on “Trust me.”
Bitcoin’s 1.8 trillion is built on “Verify it yourself.”
This is not a battle between speculation and stability.
It is a full inversion of verification costs in the 21st century.
When the leading voice of the gold camp cannot verify the bar in his own hand, the argument writes itself.
Physical assets that cannot prove themselves will lose their monetary premium to digital assets that can prove themselves every 10 minutes, every block, forever.
The question is no longer “Is Bitcoin real money?”
The real question is: “Was gold ever verifiable money in the first place?”
Michael Burry (Big Short) says Bitcoin at $100,000 is “ridiculous” and he thinks BTC is completely worthless.
He compares Bitcoin to the modern-day tulip bubble and even worse because BTC helps hide a lot of criminal activity. When asked what he is investing in if he thinks stocks are overhyped, AI is a bubble and Bitcoin is worthless, Michael Burry said he has been holding gold since 2005.
PS. Michael Burry has been bearish on stocks for over 10 years and bearish on BTC for the past 4 years and based on his previous information, he only invested in gold last year.
The idea of a predictable four year cycle has misled an entire generation of crypto investors. If you are selling Bitcoin now because you believe a time based bear market must begin after every halving, you are positioning yourself as exit liquidity for institutions. The truth is simple. The halving never created the prior cycles. It only happened to overlap with the real driver behind every major bull market: global liquidity and the macro business cycle.
Look back at every explosive Bitcoin run. In 2013, the Federal Reserve was deep into quantitative easing. In 2017, the ECB, BoJ and China were expanding aggressively at the same time. In 2020 and 2021, global QE reached historic levels in response to the pandemic. Liquidity was surging, PMI bottomed then pushed above 50, and risk assets — led by BTC — moved vertically. The halving fit the narrative. Liquidity did the heavy lifting.
This cycle was different. The last two years delivered quantitative tightening, higher rates and suppressed liquidity. PMI stalled. Under the “four year cycle” model, Bitcoin should have been in a full bull market. Instead, macro conditions said no.
But the setup is shifting. QT is ending. Rate cuts are approaching. A potential Fed leadership change is on the table. The US and global economies are structurally incentivized to expand again due to debt pressure, elections and the AI acceleration.
We have never entered a true crypto bear market while liquidity was expanding. Not once. With spot ETFs, institutional flows and systematic strategies tied to liquidity metrics, this environment is fundamentally different.
If liquidity turns up, the real cycle is just beginning. The halving did not reward you. Liquidity did.
Can Solana and Revolut Challenge Ethereum by 2026?
The year 2025 marks a major turning point for blockchain adoption. Crypto assets are becoming institutionalized and increasingly integrated into real-world use cases, especially payments. With over 30,000 active monthly developers and strong growth in full-time contributors, Layer 1 blockchains are accelerating competition to capture new markets. Ethereum leads with 3,778 full-time developers, followed by Solana at 1,276, yet Solana is rapidly gaining ground.
A major catalyst came from Solana’s new partnership with Revolut, Europe’s leading digital bank with 65 million users and 15 million crypto accounts. The integration allows users to transfer digital assets through the Solana network with lower fees and higher throughput. Strategically, this highlights Solana’s growing relevance in banking and payments, leveraging its speed, low fees, and high TPS capacity. The timing is notable, arriving less than 48 hours after Ethereum completed its Fusaka upgrade.
Despite Ethereum’s Pectra and Fusaka upgrades improving its performance, Solana still processes 47 times more daily non-vote transactions. Ethereum’s seven-day average transactions increased by 180,000 in late November, yet Solana maintains a decisive lead with over 74 million. This strengthens the argument that Revolut’s partnership reflects Solana’s rising dominance rather than coincidence.
However, this performance gap is not fully priced in. The SOL/ETH ratio has fallen 20 percent in 2025, its weakest level since the 2022 bear market. As Solana launches an ETF and expands fintech partnerships, 2026 may become the inflection point. The upcoming Alpenglow upgrade in Q1 2026 could trigger a re-rating cycle that narrows the valuation gap and positions Solana closer to Ethereum’s market leadership.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expects Bitcoin to reach 180,000 dollars by the end of 2026. Speaking at Binance Blockchain Week during a panel on the future of crypto, he did not outline specific valuation models but stressed that regulatory progress in the United States will act as a key catalyst for the entire market. Garlinghouse pointed to the long-stalled CLARITY Act, a proposed market structure bill aimed at defining clear rules for digital assets.
“We have been pushing for regulatory clarity for crypto in general through what is often referred to as the CLARITY Act,” he said. While he does not expect it to pass this year, he believes “the first half of next year will bring meaningful regulatory approvals that help unlock further momentum for the industry.”
Users on Myriad, the prediction market platform from Dastan, share similar skepticism, pricing only a 25 percent chance that the US Senate Banking Committee will approve crypto market structure legislation before 2026.
Other panelists were more cautious. Solana Foundation president Lily Liu expects Bitcoin to trade “above 100,000 dollars” next year, while Binance CEO Richard Teng simply projects prices to be “stronger than today.”
Garlinghouse’s long-term target comes as earlier bold forecasts from Tom Lee and Michael Saylor approach their deadlines. Lee has already revised his 2024 target lower, while Saylor maintains his view that Bitcoin can still hit 150,000 dollars this year and reach 1 million dollars within eight years.
Bitcoin is trading around 92,417 dollars, roughly 27 percent below its all-time high. To reach Garlinghouse’s 180,000-dollar target, BTC would need to rally another 95 percent and firmly break above previous highs.
• Retail is already out of the market • The Fed is gearing up for QE • The crypto market bill is nearing approval • Gold looks topped • U.S. stocks are printing new highs
The plan for $BTC is simple: $80.6K → 7–12 days of accumulation → $130K.
On December 4 (ET), digital asset ETFs showed a clear divergence in capital flows across major cryptocurrencies. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded 195 million dollars in net outflows, with all 12 funds seeing zero inflows, reflecting cautious sentiment after the market's recent volatility.
Spot Ethereum ETFs also posted negative activity, with 41.57 million dollars in net outflows. Among all issuers, only BlackRock’s ETHA attracted new capital, signaling selective confidence in products backed by large institutional managers.
In contrast, alternative asset ETFs saw a more positive trend. The spot XRP ETF recorded 12.84 million dollars in inflows, indicating renewed investor interest. Spot Solana ETFs also brought in 4.59 million dollars, continuing their steady capital inflow despite the broader market challenges.
Bitcoin’s price remains stuck under its established downtrend, signaling uncertainty as traders watch broader market cues for direction. The crypto king’s next move depends heavily on macro conditions.
If conditions worsen, Bitcoin could break below $91,521 and slide through $89,800 to test $86,822. Such a decline would threaten investor confidence and amplify short-term selling pressure, reinforcing the existing downtrend.
If bullish momentum strengthens, Bitcoin’s price could finally breach the downtrend and push past $95,000 toward $98,000. A breakout above these levels would invalidate the bearish thesis and reestablish upward structure.