Buy Crypto- Markets
Futures- Spot
- Copy Trade
- Earn
- More
Trend Research: The "Blockchain Revolution" in Progress, Ethereum Continues to Surge
Original Title: "The Ongoing 'Blockchain Revolution,' Ethereum Continues to Rise"
Original Source: Trend Research
Since the market crash of 1011, the entire crypto market has been lackluster, with market makers and investors suffering heavy losses. Recovery of funds and sentiment will take time. However, what the crypto market lacks the least is new volatility and opportunities. We remain optimistic about the future because the trend of mainstream crypto assets merging with traditional finance into new formats has not changed. Instead, it has rapidly built a moat during the market downturn.
1. Strengthening Wall Street Consensus
On December 3, U.S. SEC Chair Paul Atkins stated in an interview with FOX at the NYSE: "In the next few years, the entire U.S. financial market may migrate to the blockchain."
Atkins stated:
(1) The core advantage of tokenization is that if assets exist on the blockchain, ownership structure and asset attributes will be highly transparent. Currently, listed companies often do not know who their shareholders are specifically, where they are located, or where their shares are.
(2) Tokenization also aims to achieve "T+0" settlement, replacing the current "T+1" transaction settlement cycle. In principle, the on-chain delivery versus payment (DVP) / receipt versus payment (RVP) mechanism can reduce market risk, enhance transparency, and the time difference between current clearing, settlement, and fund delivery is one of the sources of systemic risk.
(3) Tokenization is seen as an inevitable trend in financial services, with major banks and brokerages already moving towards tokenization. It may only take the world less than 10 years... perhaps a few years later it will become a reality. We are actively embracing new technologies to ensure that the United States maintains its leading position in cryptocurrency and other areas.
In fact, Wall Street and Washington have already built a deep capital network deeply integrating into crypto, forming a new narrative chain: U.S. political and economic elites → U.S. Treasury Bonds → Stablecoins / Crypto Custody Companies → Ethereum + RWA + L2
From this chart, you can see the Trump family, traditional bond market makers, the Treasury Department, tech companies, and crypto companies intricately linked together, with the green oval line becoming the backbone:
(1) Stablecoin (USD-backed assets behind USDT, USDC, WLD, etc.)
The majority of reserve assets consist of Short-Term US Treasuries and bank deposits held through brokerages like Cantor.
(2) US Treasuries
Issued and managed by Treasury/Bessent, used by Palantir, Druckenmiller, Tiger Cubs, among others, as a low-risk rate base asset, also sought after by stablecoins/treasury companies for yield.
(3) RWA
From US Treasuries, mortgages, accounts receivable to housing finance, all tokenized through Ethereum L1/L2 protocols.
(4) ETH & ETH L2 Equity
Ethereum serves as the main chain for RWA, stablecoins, DeFi, AI-DeFi, while L2 equity/token represents a claim on future transaction volume and fee cash flow.
This chain expresses:
USD Credit → US Treasuries → Stablecoin Reserves → Various Crypto Treasuries/RWA Protocols → Ultimately settling on ETH/L2.
Looking at RWA's TVL: Compared to other public chains in a downtrend in 1011, ETH is the only one that quickly recovered from the drop and rose, currently at 124 billion in TVL, accounting for 64.5% of the total crypto market cap.
II. Ethereum Value Capture Exploration
The recent Ethereum Fusaka upgrade did not cause much of a market stir, but from the perspective of network structure and economic model evolution, it was a "milestone event." Fusaka not only expanded through EIPs like PeerDAS but also attempted to address the issue of insufficient L1 mainnet value capture since L2 development.
Through EIP-7918, ETH introduced a blob base fee to establish a "dynamic base rate," tying its floor to the L1 execution layer base fee, requiring that blobs pay a DA fee at a unit price of about 1/16 of the L1 base fee; this means Rollups can no longer occupy blob bandwidth almost cost-free in the long term, with corresponding fees flowing back to ETH holders in a burn mechanism.
The Ethereum full upgrade is related to "burning" three times:
(1) London (single-tier): Only burns the execution layer, ETH began experiencing structural burning due to L1 usage.
(2) Dencun (dual-tier + independent blob market): Burns the execution layer + blob, L2 data written to blob also burns ETH, but the blob portion is almost 0 in times of low demand.
(3) Fusaka (dual-tier + blob linked to L1): To use L2 (blob), one must pay a fee of at least a fixed ratio of the L1 base fee and it will be burned, mapping L2 activity to ETH burning more stably.
Currently, the blob fees at 23:00 on 12.11 for 1 hour have reached 569.63 billion times the fees before the Fusaka upgrade, burning 1527 ETH in a day. Blob fees have become the highest contributing part to the burning, up to 98%. As ETH L2 becomes more active, this upgrade is expected to bring ETH back to deflation.
III. Ethereum Technical Strength
During the 1011 drop, ETH's futures leverage positions were thoroughly cleared, ultimately reaching spot leverage positions. Meanwhile, many lacked faith in ETH, causing many ancient OGs to reduce positions and flee. According to Coinbase data, speculative leverage in the crypto sphere has dropped to a historic low of 4%.
In previous ETH short positions, an important part came from traditional Long BTC/Short ETH pair trades, especially when this pair usually performs well in past bear markets. However, an unexpected event occurred this time. The ETH/BTC ratio has maintained a sideways resistance trend since November.
ETH currently has a trading platform stock of 13 million coins, approximately 10% of the total supply, at a historic low. With the Long BTC/Short ETH pair becoming ineffective since November and extreme market panic, there may gradually be "short squeeze" opportunities.
As the 2025–2026 interaction approaches, both the US and China have already sent friendly signals regarding future monetary and fiscal policies:
The US will be proactive in the future, with tax cuts, interest rate reductions, relaxed crypto regulations, while China will appropriately loosen, focusing on financial stability (suppressing volatility).
In the scenario of relatively loose expectations in both the US and China, suppressing asset downside volatility, and with ETH still in a good buying "dip zone" during extreme panic when funds and emotions have not fully recovered, ETH remains in a favorable position.
This article is contributed content and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.
You may also like
1 billion DOTs were minted out of thin air, but the hacker only made 230,000 dollars
After the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, when will the war end?
Before using Musk's "Western WeChat" X Chat, you need to understand these three questions
The X Chat will be available for download on the App Store this Friday. The media has already covered the feature list, including self-destructing messages, screenshot prevention, 481-person group chats, Grok integration, and registration without a phone number, positioning it as the "Western WeChat." However, there are three questions that have hardly been addressed in any reports.
There is a sentence on X's official help page that is still hanging there: "If malicious insiders or X itself cause encrypted conversations to be exposed through legal processes, both the sender and receiver will be completely unaware."
No. The difference lies in where the keys are stored.
In Signal's end-to-end encryption, the keys never leave your device. X, the court, or any external party does not hold your keys. Signal's servers have nothing to decrypt your messages; even if they were subpoenaed, they could only provide registration timestamps and last connection times, as evidenced by past subpoena records.
X Chat uses the Juicebox protocol. This solution divides the key into three parts, each stored on three servers operated by X. When recovering the key with a PIN code, the system retrieves these three shards from X's servers and recombines them. No matter how complex the PIN code is, X is the actual custodian of the key, not the user.
This is the technical background of the "help page sentence": because the key is on X's servers, X has the ability to respond to legal processes without the user's knowledge. Signal does not have this capability, not because of policy, but because it simply does not have the key.
The following illustration compares the security mechanisms of Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and X Chat along six dimensions. X Chat is the only one of the four where the platform holds the key and the only one without Forward Secrecy.
The significance of Forward Secrecy is that even if a key is compromised at a certain point in time, historical messages cannot be decrypted because each message has a unique key. Signal's Double Ratchet protocol automatically updates the key after each message, a mechanism lacking in X Chat.
After analyzing the X Chat architecture in June 2025, Johns Hopkins University cryptology professor Matthew Green commented, "If we judge XChat as an end-to-end encryption scheme, this seems like a pretty game-over type of vulnerability." He later added, "I would not trust this any more than I trust current unencrypted DMs."
From a September 2025 TechCrunch report to being live in April 2026, this architecture saw no changes.
In a February 9, 2026 tweet, Musk pledged to undergo rigorous security tests of X Chat before its launch on X Chat and to open source all the code.
As of the April 17 launch date, no independent third-party audit has been completed, there is no official code repository on GitHub, the App Store's privacy label reveals X Chat collects five or more categories of data including location, contact info, and search history, directly contradicting the marketing claim of "No Ads, No Trackers."
Not continuous monitoring, but a clear access point.
For every message on X Chat, users can long-press and select "Ask Grok." When this button is clicked, the message is delivered to Grok in plaintext, transitioning from encrypted to unencrypted at this stage.
This design is not a vulnerability but a feature. However, X Chat's privacy policy does not state whether this plaintext data will be used for Grok's model training or if Grok will store this conversation content. By actively clicking "Ask Grok," users are voluntarily removing the encryption protection of that message.
There is also a structural issue: How quickly will this button shift from an "optional feature" to a "default habit"? The higher the quality of Grok's replies, the more frequently users will rely on it, leading to an increase in the proportion of messages flowing out of encryption protection. The actual encryption strength of X Chat, in the long run, depends not only on the design of the Juicebox protocol but also on the frequency of user clicks on "Ask Grok."
X Chat's initial release only supports iOS, with the Android version simply stating "coming soon" without a timeline.
In the global smartphone market, Android holds about 73%, while iOS holds about 27% (IDC/Statista, 2025). Of WhatsApp's 3.14 billion monthly active users, 73% are on Android (according to Demand Sage). In India, WhatsApp covers 854 million users, with over 95% Android penetration. In Brazil, there are 148 million users, with 81% on Android, and in Indonesia, there are 112 million users, with 87% on Android.
WhatsApp's dominance in the global communication market is built on Android. Signal, with a monthly active user base of around 85 million, also relies mainly on privacy-conscious users in Android-dominant countries.
X Chat circumvented this battlefield, with two possible interpretations. One is technical debt; X Chat is built with Rust, and achieving cross-platform support is not easy, so prioritizing iOS may be an engineering constraint. The other is a strategic choice; with iOS holding a market share of nearly 55% in the U.S., X's core user base being in the U.S., prioritizing iOS means focusing on their core user base rather than engaging in direct competition with Android-dominated emerging markets and WhatsApp.
These two interpretations are not mutually exclusive, leading to the same result: X Chat's debut saw it willingly forfeit 73% of the global smartphone user base.
This matter has been described by some: X Chat, along with X Money and Grok, forms a trifecta creating a closed-loop data system parallel to the existing infrastructure, similar in concept to the WeChat ecosystem. This assessment is not new, but with X Chat's launch, it's worth revisiting the schematic.
X Chat generates communication metadata, including information on who is talking to whom, for how long, and how frequently. This data flows into X's identity system. Part of the message content goes through the Ask Grok feature and enters Grok's processing chain. Financial transactions are handled by X Money: external public testing was completed in March, opening to the public in April, enabling fiat peer-to-peer transfers via Visa Direct. A senior Fireblocks executive confirmed plans for cryptocurrency payments to go live by the end of the year, holding money transmitter licenses in over 40 U.S. states currently.
Every WeChat feature operates within China's regulatory framework. Musk's system operates within Western regulatory frameworks, but he also serves as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This is not a WeChat replica; it is a reenactment of the same logic under different political conditions.
The difference is that WeChat has never explicitly claimed to be "end-to-end encrypted" on its main interface, whereas X Chat does. "End-to-end encryption" in user perception means that no one, not even the platform, can see your messages. X Chat's architectural design does not meet this user expectation, but it uses this term.
X Chat consolidates the three data lines of "who this person is, who they are talking to, and where their money comes from and goes to" in one company's hands.
The help page sentence has never been just technical instructions.
Parse Noise's newly launched Beta version, how to "on-chain" this heat?
Is Lobster a Thing of the Past? Unpacking the Hermes Agent Tools that Supercharge Your Throughput to 100x
Declare War on AI? The Doomsday Narrative Behind Ultraman's Residence in Flames
Crypto VCs Are Dead? The Market Extinction Cycle Has Begun
Claude's Journey to Foolishness in Diagrams: The Cost of Thriftiness, or How API Bill Increased 100-Fold
Edge Land Regress: A Rehash Around Maritime Power, Energy, and the Dollar
Arthur Hayes Latest Interview: How Should Retail Investors Navigate the Iran Conflict?
Just now, Sam Altman was attacked again, this time by gunfire
Straits Blockade, Stablecoin Recap | Rewire News Morning Edition
From High Expectations to Controversial Turnaround, Genius Airdrop Triggers Community Backlash
The Xiaomi electric vehicle factory in Beijing's Daxing district has become the new Jerusalem for the American elite
Lean Harness, Fat Skill: The Real Source of 100x AI Productivity
Ultraman is not afraid of his mansion being attacked; he has a fortress.
US-Iran Negotiations Collapse, Bitcoin Faces Battle to Defend $70,000 Level
Reflections and Confusions of a Crypto VC
1 billion DOTs were minted out of thin air, but the hacker only made 230,000 dollars
After the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, when will the war end?
Before using Musk's "Western WeChat" X Chat, you need to understand these three questions
The X Chat will be available for download on the App Store this Friday. The media has already covered the feature list, including self-destructing messages, screenshot prevention, 481-person group chats, Grok integration, and registration without a phone number, positioning it as the "Western WeChat." However, there are three questions that have hardly been addressed in any reports.
There is a sentence on X's official help page that is still hanging there: "If malicious insiders or X itself cause encrypted conversations to be exposed through legal processes, both the sender and receiver will be completely unaware."
No. The difference lies in where the keys are stored.
In Signal's end-to-end encryption, the keys never leave your device. X, the court, or any external party does not hold your keys. Signal's servers have nothing to decrypt your messages; even if they were subpoenaed, they could only provide registration timestamps and last connection times, as evidenced by past subpoena records.
X Chat uses the Juicebox protocol. This solution divides the key into three parts, each stored on three servers operated by X. When recovering the key with a PIN code, the system retrieves these three shards from X's servers and recombines them. No matter how complex the PIN code is, X is the actual custodian of the key, not the user.
This is the technical background of the "help page sentence": because the key is on X's servers, X has the ability to respond to legal processes without the user's knowledge. Signal does not have this capability, not because of policy, but because it simply does not have the key.
The following illustration compares the security mechanisms of Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and X Chat along six dimensions. X Chat is the only one of the four where the platform holds the key and the only one without Forward Secrecy.
The significance of Forward Secrecy is that even if a key is compromised at a certain point in time, historical messages cannot be decrypted because each message has a unique key. Signal's Double Ratchet protocol automatically updates the key after each message, a mechanism lacking in X Chat.
After analyzing the X Chat architecture in June 2025, Johns Hopkins University cryptology professor Matthew Green commented, "If we judge XChat as an end-to-end encryption scheme, this seems like a pretty game-over type of vulnerability." He later added, "I would not trust this any more than I trust current unencrypted DMs."
From a September 2025 TechCrunch report to being live in April 2026, this architecture saw no changes.
In a February 9, 2026 tweet, Musk pledged to undergo rigorous security tests of X Chat before its launch on X Chat and to open source all the code.
As of the April 17 launch date, no independent third-party audit has been completed, there is no official code repository on GitHub, the App Store's privacy label reveals X Chat collects five or more categories of data including location, contact info, and search history, directly contradicting the marketing claim of "No Ads, No Trackers."
Not continuous monitoring, but a clear access point.
For every message on X Chat, users can long-press and select "Ask Grok." When this button is clicked, the message is delivered to Grok in plaintext, transitioning from encrypted to unencrypted at this stage.
This design is not a vulnerability but a feature. However, X Chat's privacy policy does not state whether this plaintext data will be used for Grok's model training or if Grok will store this conversation content. By actively clicking "Ask Grok," users are voluntarily removing the encryption protection of that message.
There is also a structural issue: How quickly will this button shift from an "optional feature" to a "default habit"? The higher the quality of Grok's replies, the more frequently users will rely on it, leading to an increase in the proportion of messages flowing out of encryption protection. The actual encryption strength of X Chat, in the long run, depends not only on the design of the Juicebox protocol but also on the frequency of user clicks on "Ask Grok."
X Chat's initial release only supports iOS, with the Android version simply stating "coming soon" without a timeline.
In the global smartphone market, Android holds about 73%, while iOS holds about 27% (IDC/Statista, 2025). Of WhatsApp's 3.14 billion monthly active users, 73% are on Android (according to Demand Sage). In India, WhatsApp covers 854 million users, with over 95% Android penetration. In Brazil, there are 148 million users, with 81% on Android, and in Indonesia, there are 112 million users, with 87% on Android.
WhatsApp's dominance in the global communication market is built on Android. Signal, with a monthly active user base of around 85 million, also relies mainly on privacy-conscious users in Android-dominant countries.
X Chat circumvented this battlefield, with two possible interpretations. One is technical debt; X Chat is built with Rust, and achieving cross-platform support is not easy, so prioritizing iOS may be an engineering constraint. The other is a strategic choice; with iOS holding a market share of nearly 55% in the U.S., X's core user base being in the U.S., prioritizing iOS means focusing on their core user base rather than engaging in direct competition with Android-dominated emerging markets and WhatsApp.
These two interpretations are not mutually exclusive, leading to the same result: X Chat's debut saw it willingly forfeit 73% of the global smartphone user base.
This matter has been described by some: X Chat, along with X Money and Grok, forms a trifecta creating a closed-loop data system parallel to the existing infrastructure, similar in concept to the WeChat ecosystem. This assessment is not new, but with X Chat's launch, it's worth revisiting the schematic.
X Chat generates communication metadata, including information on who is talking to whom, for how long, and how frequently. This data flows into X's identity system. Part of the message content goes through the Ask Grok feature and enters Grok's processing chain. Financial transactions are handled by X Money: external public testing was completed in March, opening to the public in April, enabling fiat peer-to-peer transfers via Visa Direct. A senior Fireblocks executive confirmed plans for cryptocurrency payments to go live by the end of the year, holding money transmitter licenses in over 40 U.S. states currently.
Every WeChat feature operates within China's regulatory framework. Musk's system operates within Western regulatory frameworks, but he also serves as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This is not a WeChat replica; it is a reenactment of the same logic under different political conditions.
The difference is that WeChat has never explicitly claimed to be "end-to-end encrypted" on its main interface, whereas X Chat does. "End-to-end encryption" in user perception means that no one, not even the platform, can see your messages. X Chat's architectural design does not meet this user expectation, but it uses this term.
X Chat consolidates the three data lines of "who this person is, who they are talking to, and where their money comes from and goes to" in one company's hands.
The help page sentence has never been just technical instructions.
App