CoinW Research Institute Weekly Report (December 22, 2025 - December 28, 2025)

Key points

The global cryptocurrency market capitalization totaled $3.06 trillion, down approximately 0.97% from $3.09 trillion last week. As of press time, the US Bitcoin spot ETF saw a cumulative net inflow of approximately $56.62 billion, with a net outflow of $782 million this week; the US Ethereum spot ETF saw a cumulative net inflow of approximately $12.34 billion, with a net outflow of $102 million this week.

The total market capitalization of stablecoins reached $313 billion, a 1.66% increase from $307.9 billion last week. USDT accounted for $186.7 billion, or 59.65% of the total stablecoin market capitalization; followed by USDC at $76.36 billion, representing 24.4%; and DAI at $5.36 billion, accounting for 1.71%.

According to DeFiLlama data, the total TVL of DeFi this week was $118.2 billion, a decrease of approximately 1.17% from $119.6 billion last week. Breaking it down by public blockchain, the three blockchains with the highest TVL were Ethereum (68.33%), Solana (8.23%), and Bitcoin (6.69%).

This week, overall transaction costs for public blockchains remained stable, with adjustments primarily occurring at the user and funding levels. In terms of daily trading volume on on-chain DEXs, Sui saw the largest increase, rising by approximately 56.6%; BNB Chain experienced the largest decrease, declining by approximately 38.6%; Ethereum and Solana rose by approximately 18.8% and 25.8% respectively; Ton and Aptos saw slight increases. Regarding transaction fees, gas levels for all public blockchains remained largely unchanged from last week. In terms of daily active addresses, Aptos saw the largest change, increasing by approximately 48.7%; Ton decreased by approximately 7.5%; Ethereum and Solana increased by approximately 16.6% and 5.6% respectively; BNB Chain saw a slight decline; and Sui showed a slight increase. Regarding TVL (TVL), Ton saw the most significant increase, at approximately 9.8%; Ethereum decreased by approximately 1.4%, while the TVL of other public blockchains fluctuated relatively little overall.

New projects to watch: Railnet is positioned as an open yield layer infrastructure for asset managers, with the core goal of unifying and integrating various yield sources in a multi-chain, multi-protocol environment, enabling professional institutions and strategy managers to build complex yield strategies in a modular and composable manner; Predictir is a decentralized prediction market platform, and its Predictir Quests is one of the three core new features to be launched soon, aiming to reshape the way prediction markets are participated in through a task-based mechanism; Yusan is a cross-chain lending protocol, with its core positioning being to bridge the liquidity isolation problem between the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems.

Key points

I. Market Overview

1. Total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies / Bitcoin market capitalization ratio

2. Fear Index

3. ETF Inflow and Outflow Data

4. ETH/BTC and ETH/USD exchange rates

5.Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

6. On-chain data

7. Stablecoin Market Cap and Issuance Status

II. Hot Money Flows This Week

1. The top five gainers this week: VC coin and Meme coin

2. New Project Insights

III. New Industry Trends

1. Major Industry Events This Week

2. Major events that will happen next week

3. Key Investment and Financing Activities Last Week

IV. Reference Links

I. Market Overview

1. Total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies / Bitcoin market capitalization ratio

The global cryptocurrency market capitalization is $3.06 trillion, down from $3.09 trillion last week, representing a decrease of approximately 0.97% this week.

Data source: Cryptorank, https://cryptorank.io/charts/btc-dominance

Data as of December 28, 2025

As of press time, Bitcoin 's market capitalization was $1.75 trillion, accounting for 57.27% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization. Meanwhile, stablecoins had a market capitalization of $313 billion, representing 10.22% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization.

Data source: Coingeck, https://www.coingecko.com/en/charts

Data as of December 28, 2025

2. Fear Index

The cryptocurrency fear index is 25, indicating a state of fear.

Data source: Coinglass, https://www.coinglass.com/pro/i/FearGreedIndex

Data as of December 28, 2025

3. ETF Inflow and Outflow Data

As of press time, the total net inflow into US Bitcoin spot ETFs was approximately $56.62 billion, with a net outflow of $782 million this week; the total net inflow into US Ethereum spot ETFs was approximately $12.34 billion, with a net outflow of $102 million this week.

Data source: Sosovalue, https://sosovalue.com/zh/assets/etf

Data as of December 28, 2025

4. ETH/BTC and ETH/USD exchange rates

ETHUSD: Current price $2,972, all-time high $4,946.05, down approximately 39.99% from the high.

ETHBTC: Currently at 0.033652, with an all-time high of 0.1238.

Data source: Ratiogang, https://ratiogang.com/

Data as of December 28, 2025

5.Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

According to DeFiLlama data, the total TVL of DeFi this week was $118.2 billion, down about 1.17% from $119.6 billion last week.

Data source: Defillama, https://defillama.com

Data as of December 28, 2025

Based on public blockchains, the three public blockchains with the highest TVL are Ethereum (68.33%), Solana (8.23%), and Bitcoin (6.69%).

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, Defillama, https://defillama.com

Data as of December 28, 2025

6. On-chain data

Layer 1 related data

The analysis primarily focuses on daily trading volume, daily active addresses, and transaction fees of on-chain DEXs, currently covering Layer 1 cryptocurrencies including ETH, SOL, BNB, TON, SUI, and APT.

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, Defillama, https://defillama.com

Data as of December 28, 2025

On-chain DEX Daily Trading Volume and Transaction Fees : On-chain DEX daily trading volume and transaction fees are core metrics for measuring public chain activity and user experience. In terms of daily trading volume, Sui saw the largest increase, rising by approximately 56.6%; BNB Chain experienced the largest decrease, falling by approximately 38.6%; Ethereum and Solana rose by approximately 18.8% and 25.8% respectively; Ton and Aptos saw slight increases. Regarding transaction fees, the gas levels of all public chains remained largely unchanged from the previous week.

Daily Active Addresses (DAU) and TVL : DAU reflects a public chain's ecosystem participation and user stickiness, while TVL reflects users' trust in the platform. In terms of DAU, Aptos saw the largest change, increasing by approximately 48.7%; Ton decreased by approximately 7.5%; Ethereum and Solana increased by approximately 16.6% and 5.6% respectively; BNB Chain saw a slight decline; and Sui showed a slight increase. Regarding TVL, Ton saw the most significant increase, at approximately 9.8%; Ethereum decreased by approximately 1.4%, while the TVL of other public chains generally fluctuated less.

Layer 2 related data

According to L2Beat data, the total TVL of Ethereum Layer 2 is $35.82 billion, down about 0.72% from $36.24 billion last week.

Data source: L2Beat, https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvs

Data as of December 28, 2025

Base and Arbitrum hold the top positions with market shares of 36.85% and 34.77% respectively. This week, Base ranked first in the TVL of Ethereum Layer 2.

Data source: Footprint, https://www.footprint.network/public/research/chain/chain-ecosystem/layer-2-overview

Data as of December 28, 2025

7. Stablecoin Market Cap and Issuance Status

According to Coinglass data, the total market capitalization of stablecoins is $313 billion, up 1.66% from $307.9 billion last week. USDT's market capitalization is $186.7 billion, accounting for 59.65% of the total stablecoin market capitalization; followed by USDC with $76.36 billion, accounting for 24.4%; and DAI with $5.36 billion, accounting for 1.71%.

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, Coinglass, https://www.coinglass.com/pro/stablecoin

Data as of December 28, 2025

According to data from Whale Alert, the USDC Treasury issued a total of 2.008 billion USDC this week, while the Tether Treasury did not issue any USDT. The total issuance of stablecoins this week was 2.008 billion, an increase of approximately 99.4% compared to the 1.007 billion stablecoins issued last week.

Data source: Whale Alert, https://x.com/whale_alert

Data as of December 28, 2025

II. Hot Money Flows This Week

1. The top five gainers this week: VC coin and Meme coin

The top five performing VC coins in the past week

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, Coinmarketcap, https://coinmarketcap.com/

Data as of December 28, 2025

The top five gainers in the past week: Meme coins

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, Coinmarketcap, https://coinmarketcap.com/

Data as of December 28, 2025

2. New Project Insights

Railnet is positioned as an open yield layer infrastructure for asset managers. Its core objective is to unify and integrate various yield sources in a multi-chain, multi-protocol environment, enabling professional institutions and strategy managers to build complex yield strategies in a modular and composable manner. Through standardized yield abstractions and strategy interfaces, Railnet supports the packaging, reuse, and distribution of strategies from different yield sources such as DeFi, RWA, and on-chain interest rate markets. These strategies can be flexibly deployed to wallets, front-end applications, institutional platforms, or other distribution channels, thereby lowering the barriers to development and distribution of yield strategies and driving on-chain asset management towards a more open, composable, and scalable direction.

Predictir is a decentralized prediction market platform, and its upcoming Predictir Quests is one of three core new features designed to reshape how prediction markets are participated in through a task-based mechanism. This feature combines users' real trading behavior with a challenge system, allowing users to earn XP points by participating in prediction trading and completing designated tasks. These XP points can then be converted into real-value rewards, effectively incentivizing high-quality and sustainable market participation.

Yusan is a cross-chain lending protocol whose core purpose is to bridge the liquidity gap between the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems. It allows users to deposit BTC on the Bitcoin mainnet and use it as collateral to borrow USDC on the Base network, thereby improving cross-chain efficiency without packaging or bridging BTC assets.

III. New Industry Trends

1. Major Industry Events This Week

Zama, a cryptography company specializing in OG NFTs, announced that OG NFT claimers can participate in a public token sale for $0.005, with a FDV of $55 million. A maximum of 40,000 OG NFTs can be purchased, representing 2% of the total 5,500 available tokens. Furthermore, at the end of the public auction, anyone holding a Zama OG NFT will receive a 5% reward on the transaction amount.

Sonic has updated its S token airdrop model, with the remaining 92.2 million tokens to be used for long-term incentives and burning. Sonic distributed approximately 89,500,000 S tokens in Q1, approximately 6,000,000 S tokens in Q2, and approximately 2,800,000 S tokens through the Kaito Campaign. Currently, Sonic Labs still has approximately 92.2 million S tokens in its vault, which will continue to be used for airdrop incentive programs in 2026 and 2027. However, due to changes in the industry landscape, Sonic will abandon the one-size-fits-all airdrop model and instead adopt a targeted growth strategy. It is important to clarify that there will be no further airdrops; the remaining tokens will be used for airdrops, rewards, or burning.

ZK's smart verifiable computing platform, Brevis, announced the BREV token economics. The total supply of BREV is 1 billion, with 37% allocated to ecosystem development, 32.2% to community incentives (validators, stakers, and community contributors), 20% to the team, and 10.8% to investors. The team and investor allocations will be locked for one year, followed by a linear unlocking over 24 months.

The Espresso Foundation, the blockchain infrastructure provider, has opened the ESP token registration portal. Users can now connect their wallets to check their eligibility for the Espresso airdrop; the token claim page will open in early 2026.

Web3 bot company XMAQUINA announced a partnership with Virtuals Protocol for a community sale of DEUS. DEUS will be swappable with both USDC and VIRTUAL tokens. VIRTUAL contributions will be used to launch a DEUS/VIRTUAL liquidity pool upon the DEUS token issuance, with an initial total locked value exceeding $1 million. Specifically, the auction will begin on January 8th, with a FDV of $60 million (DEUS price $0.06). At TGE, 33% will be liquid assets, and 67% will vest linearly within 12 months.

2. Major events that will happen next week

HeyElsa, a crypto AI agent protocol, has processed over $300 million in on-chain transactions and plans to conduct a Trading Entity (TGE) in January 2026, distributing ELSA tokens to the community. A points eligibility checker is expected to launch in early January, and an anti-Symania check will be performed before final eligibility is confirmed. Following the TGE, HeyElsa plans to launch incentive programs such as a trading arena, a new points system that allows users to earn points through usage, and a Base network arena. HeyElsa previously completed a $3 million funding round in June 2025, led by M31 Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, MH Ventures, Absoluta Digital, and Levitate Labs.

The deadline for claiming the ZEROBASE Q1 token airdrop (ZBT) is December 31, 2025. The airdrop will be open for claiming from October 17, 2025, and is open to various groups including early adopters of ZEROBASE, participants in Galxe events, and users of the Binance Wallet Booster program. The airdrop period will last for about two and a half months.

Solstice stated that it has updated the token public offering terms, and the public offering tokens will be 100% unlocked at TGE; users who are shaken by the short-term fluctuations of USX can apply for a full refund within a 14-day window after the public offering ends; the SLX issuance is still proceeding as planned without delay and is scheduled for TGE in the first quarter of 2026.

Cross-chain DeFi aggregation platform Infinex has updated details of its token sale on Echo's Sonar platform. The sale will offer 5% of the token supply, reducing the total fundraising amount from $15 million to $5 million, and the FDV from $300 million to $99.99 million. User registration opened on December 27th, and the sale will begin on January 3rd. Additionally, an extra 2% of the tokens will be sold to Uniswap CCA.

Huma Finance has announced that the second part of its Q2 airdrop is now live, with the claim window closing on January 26. Eligible wallets that missed the first part can claim their share in this phase. Additionally, liquidity providers (LPs) who transfer or withdraw locked PST and mPST will receive a reduced allocation in the second part.

3. Key Investment and Financing Activities Last Week

Coinbax has completed a seed funding round of approximately $4.2 million. Investors include Paxos, a leading institution in the stablecoin and compliance infrastructure field, and Connecticut Innovations, BankTech Ventures, and SpringTime Ventures, all with local financial and banking technology resources. Coinbax positions itself as a stablecoin payment infrastructure provider, offering secure and reliable stablecoin and tokenized deposit payment channels for banks, fintech companies, and enterprise clients by introducing programmable risk control rules and automated clearing and settlement logic. It focuses on addressing the core pain points of institutional-grade stablecoin payments in terms of compliance, controllability, and settlement efficiency. (December 22, 2025)

Architect has completed a $35 million Series A funding round, with investors including crypto-native funds and traditional financial institutions such as Coinbase Ventures, VanEck, Galaxy Ventures, Tioga Capital, CMT Digital, ARK Invest, Miami International Holdings, and Geneva Trading. Architect is a digital asset trading software provider for professional traders and institutional investors. Its core objective is to bridge centralized exchanges and decentralized markets through highly customizable trading infrastructure, providing institutional funds with a unified, efficient, and scalable global digital asset trading access solution. (December 24, 2025)

easy.fun has completed its seed round of financing, raising $2 million, led by Mirana Ventures. easy.fun positions itself as an open on-chain trading platform built on Hyperliquid, combining on-chain trading with competitive mechanisms to create a trading scenario where users compete for rankings, rewards, and recognition. (December 24, 2025)