The crypto market requires traders to balance past experience with adaptability, as demonstrated by the contrast between 2017-era traders who developed skeptical habits from choppy markets and newer traders who navigated 2021 with ease. While adopting a simpler trading approach may help adapt to new conditions, the ideal strategy combines first-cycle traders' willingness to capture upside with multi-cycle traders' risk management. Success requires both the ability to update trading frameworks and recognize market shifts.
The cypherpunks were a visionary group of hackers, cryptographers, and activists who built tools to defend privacy, freedom, and decentralization. Laying the foundation for Bitcoin and Ethereum, their contributions, like PGP encryption and zero-knowledge proofs, and their fight for code as free speech have deeply influenced the digital and financial landscapes, inspiring privacy and freedom-focused technologies still shaping the world today.
2025.01.08·links.tldrnewsletter.com·11 min read·TLDR Crypto AI agent infrastructure is surging similarly to the L1 blockchain boom of the previous cycle. Major frameworks are emerging with distinct advantages: Eliza leads plugin integrations and multi-chain support, RIG focuses on high-performance applications, GAME excels in gaming and social environments, and ZerePy specializes in onchain autonomy.
Binance Futures is launching USDS-margined perpetual contracts for COOKIEUSDT, ALCHUSDT, and SWARMSUSDT with up to 75x leverage, settled in USDT and available for 24/7 trading.
Backpack Exchange, founded by former FTX and Alameda employees, has acquired FTX EU after regulatory approval.
2025.01.08·links.tldrnewsletter.com·2 min read·TLDR Crypto Gearbox Protocol, known for leveraged farming, is evolving into a wallet-native credit layer, allowing users to borrow, farm, and trade directly from their wallets while keeping assets liquid.
Sponsored
Agriculture is facing critical challenges: from land suitability to deforestation and disease management. Dimitra [5] is solving these problems at the intersection of AI and web3 — helping farmers optimize yields and build resilience against climate change.
Crypto investment products like ETFs reached $44.2 billion in net inflows in 2024, nearly quadrupling 2021's record of $10.5 billion. This increase was driven largely by US spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF launches. Bitcoin products boasted $38 billion in inflows, while Ethereum products saw late-year momentum pushing them to $4.8 billion.
2025.01.07·links.tldrnewsletter.com·2 min read·TLDR Crypto While most crypto sectors gained value in 2024, gaming and Layer 2 indices posted notable losses of 16% and 30% respectively, despite the broader market gaining 90%. The gaming index's decline notably excludes TON's 100% gain from Telegram-based gaming growth, while Layer 2 losses were driven by Polygon and Arbitrum. The L2 sector could see renewed momentum early in 2025 with the launch of new chains like Uniswap's Unichain, MegaETH, and Abstract.
2025.01.07·links.tldrnewsletter.com·2 min read·TLDR Crypto Coinbase is exploring the tokenization of COIN shares on its Base Layer 2 for US users. The initiative could help tap into the estimated $30 trillion tokenized asset market, though regulatory uncertainty remains an obstacle. The announcement comes as COIN trades near $300, its highest since 2021, amid expectations of a more crypto-friendly regulatory environment in the upcoming administration.
The 2025 Crypto Data Engineering Guide focuses on efficiently managing Ethereum (EVM) data pipelines, offering strategies and tools to tackle the rising costs of raw data storage, front/backfills, and transformations as blockchains scale. It emphasizes trade-offs between post-execution and re-execution transforms, enabling advanced data extraction and customization to support scalable, cost-effective pipelines for crypto apps and analytics.
2025.01.07·read.cryptodatabytes.com·18 min read·TLDR Crypto The 2024 State of DePIN report dives into the rapid evolution of Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN), examining trends like AI integration, decentralized wireless, and energy networks. Packed with insights, it highlights the sector's growth, ongoing "Chain Wars," and the $350M raised to tackle global infrastructure challenges.
Bittensor's TAO, one of the original AI crypto coins, has not benefited from the recent AI agent rally. Despite this, it holds strong upside potential with the introduction of dynamic TAO (dTAO). By enhancing emissions models, creating new speculative markets, and adding EVM compatibility, TAO is poised to capitalize on network growth, liquidity expansion, and the evolving agent ecosystem in Q1/Q2 2025.
Solayer's InfiniSVM is a groundbreaking hardware-accelerated SVM blockchain designed for infinite scalability and 100 Gbps throughput via SDN and RDMA. It features a hybrid Proof-of-Authority-and-Stake consensus and innovative hardware offloading. Solayer aims to redefine decentralized transaction processing, enabling seamless scalability for real-world applications.
Byte is an AI agent that enables people to use crypto to order food.
Crypto AI agents can be categorized into four types: infrastructure projects (launchpads and software kits), influencers (content creators), investment DAOs (managing deposits), and utility agents (business functions).
Sekoia, founded by investor Anand Iyer, is an AI-driven crypto investment platform that analyzes project pitches from the Virtuals ecosystem and invests in high-potential early-stage projects.
A new USDC world map on Base highlights demand hotspots to drive local adoption and onboard businesses.
Starting this year, the IRS will require account-by-account tracking for crypto held on exchanges.
Stacks faces challenges in its ecosystem and narrative.
Bitcoin's network activity doubled in 2024 as it processed $19 trillion in transactions compared to 2023's $8.7 trillion. The network also achieved a record hashrate of 1,000 EH/s in early 2025, with US-based mining pools controlling 40% of the global hashrate. Chinese pools maintain majority control.
Tether's market capitalization has dropped to $137 billion, its largest decline since the FTX crash, as the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations took full effect on December 30. The decline coincides with European exchanges delisting USDT due to compliance concerns, though other factors like broader market dynamics likely played a role in the market cap drop. Despite controlling 68% of global stablecoin volume, Tether faces scrutiny under MiCA, which requires stablecoin issuers to maintain adequate reserves and meet strict transparency requirements.
Anon.World is an anonymous social network with a Reddit-like UX. It is based on AnonCast, a protocol for ZK-enabled private posting, and adds in additional capabilities like communities and replies. Users can get credentials proving information about their wallet, like how many ANON tokens they hold. The native app will be launching in a few weeks.
Ethena's ENA token surged 34% following the release of its 2025 roadmap, which includes plans to launch iUSDe, a TradFi-focused stablecoin with a 10% yield, and integrate staked USDe (sUSDe) into Telegram's 900 million-user platform for payments and savings. These moves aim to connect decentralized and centralized finance with traditional markets, targeting both fixed-income investors and everyday consumers.
This guide to decentralized Autonomous General Intelligence (dAGI) emphasizes Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) for ensuring secure, private, and verifiable AI operations across the entire stack. It also explains novel concepts like AI swarms, where agents autonomously create and manage tokens while operating within TEE-secured environments. Phala's framework uses a decentralized GPU network for training, monetized data collection mechanisms, and confidential AI inference capabilities.
Preconfirmations, a new Ethereum feature aimed at improving transaction speed and reliability, allows users to pay extra for instant confirmations backed by economic guarantees from gateways and validators. Future wallet integrations could offer subscription models for faster transactions, better slippage control, and gas sponsorship, signaling a leap forward in Ethereum's user experience.
The IRS has released a new ruleset for DeFi trading platforms that clarifies how the traditional broker rules apply. It states that there are three layers in the DeFi stack: the user interface, the application layer that executes transactions, and the blockchain settlement layer. The interface layer, like the Uniswap webapp, will be treated as brokers and required to collect KYC information, track transactions, and report to the IRS and customers starting in 2027.
a16z's 2025 "Big Ideas" list highlights exciting trends in crypto, from stablecoin adoption by enterprises and onchain government bonds to legal frameworks for DAOs and crypto-specific app stores. The focus on intuitive user experiences and reusing infrastructure aims to bring crypto closer to mainstream adoption.
As the AI agent narrative continues to explode, we must remember that these projects are incredibly early, and the vast majority are extremely overvalued GPT wrappers.
Wayfinder is a platform set to launch with features like $PROMPT tokens for early access users and collateralized paths to earn USD.
A Foundry deployment script led one developer to uncover a blockchain scam involving dust ether, blacklisted tokens, and naive victims.
Jack Kubinec's latest thread polls founders to get their opinion on a variety of topics, including the enduring shadow of FTX, the growing respect for Solana's innovations, and the untapped potential in payments and AI agent infrastructure.
A stablecoin bank could disrupt Visa and Mastercard's duopoly by offering lower fees and new incentives for merchants and consumers, paving the way for a more integrated, cost-effective payment system.
Pump.fun, a Solana-based memecoin launchpad, has deposited over 1.56M SOL (~$317M) to Kraken, with recent activity marking a decline from its November 2024 peak. Onchain metrics show decreasing trading volume, revenue, and Solana's economic value, reflecting a cooling period for the platform after significant earlier activity.
2025.01.03·links.tldrnewsletter.com·2 min read·TLDR Crypto Coinbase co-founder Fred Wilson shared 13 predictions for the tech industry in 2025. Notably, he foresees a decentralized clinical trial gaining lots of attention and FDA approval, hinting at strong growth in the DeSci space. Other predictions include NFT Art making a comeback with museum purchases, TikTok turning all videos into memecoins, and bitcoin mining partnering with renewable energy sources to create a new form of sustainable infrastructure.
2025.01.03·links.tldrnewsletter.com·2 min read·TLDR Crypto Draiftking is a crypto AI agent powered by Bittensor that uses next-generation computer vision models to find and profit off inefficiencies in sports gambling markets. Score, the team behind the agent, is building machine learning models capable of understanding exact player positioning on a sports field in real-time. Draiftking leverages these insights to make asymmetric bets, and its TAO subnet ensures the ML costs are 10-100x lower than the competition.
SyncSwap V3 introduces "Range Pools," offering unprecedented capital efficiency and customizable liquidity management alongside existing pool models like Stable and Aqua Pools, cementing SyncSwap's position as a versatile DEX on ZKsync. With the upcoming ZKsync Ignite campaign and significant rewards, this launch sets the stage for deeper liquidity and higher APRs in 2025.
This post describes the makeup of the Eliza framework by @ai16zdao. It enables creating agents with unique personalities and functions using a character config file, database, LLM, plugins, and clients (like Twitter or Discord). Its modular architecture includes runtime logic for coordination, plugin integration for actions (e.g., blockchain tasks), and client modules for interactions across supported platforms.
The Ethereum Pectra upgrade introduces 11 major changes to improve blockchain scalability, validator efficiency, and wallet functionality. Key features include smart wallet capabilities, faster zk-tech, improved staking processes, historical data storage, and doubling blob throughput, setting the stage for better performance, lower fees, and a more user-friendly ecosystem.
The ERC-4337 ecosystem saw exponential growth in 2024, with over 103M+ User Operations (UserOps) executed, a 10x increase from 2023, mainly driven by innovative applications in gaming and decentralized social apps. Base emerged as a leader in multi-use accounts, while platforms like Blocklords, OpenSocial, and SuperChamps demonstrate the growing utility of smart accounts, with significant contributions from bundlers like Coinbase and Alchemy and widespread adoption of paymaster-enabled gas fee management.
Elliptic curve bilinear pairings allow for advanced cryptography by mapping points from two elliptic curves to a scalar value while preserving specific mathematical properties. This article explains how the pairings are constructed, with a particular focus on the curves using interesting optimization techniques, like BLS12-381 and BN254. While traditionally considered complex “moon math,” the outcome is efficient signature aggregation, multi-party key exchanges, and zk-SNARK polynomial commitments.
Ethereum's 10th year is set to be monumental, with ETH predicted to reach $15k, ETF inflows exceeding $50 billion, and staked ETH ETFs gaining approval.
Key assets like $SOL ($300) and $MNT ($1.5) will hit new highs, while emerging players like Ethena's $USDe will reach an $8B market cap.
In the past year, DeSci, AI, and TEEs have been the fastest-growing narratives in terms of dominating conversation on X.
Every major crypto innovation has seen a step-function exponential increase in utility that catalyzes innovation, followed by a lull period, then another step-function moment, as seen in blockchains, smart contracts, and now with AI.
Bullish, CoinDesk's parent company, has fired three senior editorial leaders including Editor-in-Chief Kevin Reynolds following controversy over a retracted article about Justin Sun. Sun's team demanded the article's removal, which led CoinDesk staff to send a letter to executives challenging the company's increasing control over editorial decisions. To further complicate matters, Sun's cryptocurrency Tron is a major sponsor of CoinDesk's upcoming Consensus conference.
2024.12.23·links.tldrnewsletter.com·5 min read·TLDR Crypto Bitcoin's social sentiment has dropped to its lowest point in 2024, signaling potential for a recovery above $100K, as historical patterns would suggest an end to the current correction. Analysts remain optimistic about Bitcoin's trajectory, predicting a strong recovery by 2025, potentially reaching $160K amid improving macroeconomic conditions.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has launched Giggle Academy, a free AI-enabled education platform that uses gamification and blockchain to make education addictive and fun. It is targeted at underserved populations globally and focuses on practical, job-ready skills rather than traditional academic lessons. It uses Soulbound tokens for verifiable credentials and a gamified learning system to target the 781 million illiterate adults and 500 million children without access to schooling.