Release Date: December 23, 2025
Author: BlockBeats Editorial Department
Over the past 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market has demonstrated strong momentum across multiple dimensions. Mainstream discussions have focused on Coinbase’s formal entry into the prediction market through the acquisition of The Clearing Company, as well as the intense controversy within the AAVE community regarding token incentives and governance rights.
In terms of ecosystem development, Solana launched the innovative Kora fee layer aimed at reducing user transaction costs; meanwhile, competition in the Perp DEX space intensified, with the showdown between Hyperliquid and Lighter sparking widespread community discussion about the future of decentralized derivatives.
I. Mainstream Topics
1. Coinbase Acquires The Clearing Company, Officially Enters Prediction Market
This week, Coinbase announced the acquisition of The Clearing Company, another significant move to deepen its presence in this field following last week’s announcement of launching a prediction market on its platform.
Toni Gemayel, founder of The Clearing Company, and his team will join Coinbase to jointly advance the development of the prediction market business.
Coinbase Product Lead Shan Aggarwal stated that the growth of prediction markets is still in its early stages and predicted that 2026 will be a breakout year for this sector.
The community responded positively, generally believing that Coinbase’s entry will bring significant traffic and compliance advantages to the prediction market. However, this has also sparked discussions about the competitive landscape of the industry.
Rivalry founder Jai Bhavnani commented that for startups, if their product model proves successful, industry giants like Coinbase have every reason to replicate it.
This serves as a reminder to all entrepreneurs in the crypto space that they must build sufficiently deep moats to withstand competitive pressure from giants.
2. Kalshi Launches Kalshi Research and Integrates BSC Network
Regulated prediction market platform Kalshi launched its research division, Kalshi Research, this week, aiming to open its internal data to academia and researchers to promote exploration of topics related to prediction markets.
Its first published research report indicated that Kalshi’s performance in predicting inflation has surpassed traditional models from Wall Street. Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara stated that the power of prediction markets lies in the valuable data they generate, and it is time to better utilize this data.
Simultaneously, Kalshi announced support for BNB Chain (BSC), allowing users to deposit and withdraw BNB and USDT via the BSC network.
This move is seen as a significant step for Kalshi to open its platform to a broader crypto user base, aiming to unlock access to the world’s largest prediction market. Additionally, Kalshi revealed plans to host its first prediction market conference in 2026 to further drive industry exchange and development.
3. AAVE Token Incentive Controversy Continues, Founder and Whale Accumulate Amid Market Downturn
The AAVE community recently engaged in heated debate over an ARFC proposal titled “$AAVE Token Alignment, Phase 1—Ownership Governance.” The proposal aims to transfer ownership and control of the Aave brand from Aave Labs to Aave DAO.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov publicly stated he would vote against the proposal, arguing that it oversimplifies complex legal and operational structures and could slow down the development of core products like Aave V4.
The community’s response has been polarized. Some criticized Stani for adopting a “double standard” in governance and questioned whether his team had misappropriated protocol revenue; others supported his cautious stance, believing that significant governance changes require more thorough discussion.
This controversy highlights the tension between the ideal of DAO governance and the actual power of core development teams in DeFi projects.
Despite governance controversies putting pressure on the AAVE token price, on-chain data shows that Stani Kulechov himself spent millions of dollars to purchase large amounts of AAVE in the past few hours.
Meanwhile, the whale at address 0xDDC4, after being inactive for six months, spent 500 ETH (approximately $1.53 million) to purchase 9,629 AAVE tokens. Data indicates that this whale has accumulated nearly 40,000 AAVE over the past year but remains in an unrealized loss position.
The accumulation actions by the founder and whale during market volatility have been interpreted by some investors as a signal of confidence in AAVE’s long-term value.
4. Popular Articles: DeFi Curators and Ethereum Annual Summary
Among this week’s popular articles, Morpho Labs published “The Curator Explained,” detailing the role of “curators” in DeFi.
The article compares curators to asset managers in traditional finance, who design, deploy, and manage on-chain vaults, providing users with one-click diversified investment portfolios.
Unlike traditional fund managers, DeFi curators execute strategies automatically through non-custodial smart contracts, with users retaining full control over their assets at all times. This article offers a new perspective on understanding the specialization and risk management in the DeFi space.
Another widely circulated article, “Ethereum 2025: From Experiment to World Infrastructure,” provides a comprehensive summary of Ethereum’s development over the past year. The article notes that 2025 was a pivotal year for Ethereum’s transition from an experimental project to a global financial infrastructure. Through the Pectra and Fusaka hard forks, Ethereum achieved account abstraction and significantly reduced transaction costs.
Simultaneously, the SEC’s clarification of Ethereum’s “non-security” status and the launch of tokenized funds on the Ethereum mainnet by traditional financial giants like JPMorgan Chase mark Ethereum’s growing recognition by mainstream institutions. The article argues that whether it’s the continued growth of DeFi, the prosperity of the L2 ecosystem, or integration with the AI field, Ethereum’s vision as a “world computer” is gradually becoming a reality.
II. Mainstream Ecosystem Developments
1. Solana: Launches Kora Fee Layer and propAMM Data Research
The Solana Foundation engineering team launched a fee layer solution called Kora this week.
Kora is a fee relay and signing node designed to provide more flexible transaction fee payment methods for the Solana ecosystem. Through Kora, users will be able to conduct gas-free transactions or choose to pay network fees using any stablecoin or SPL token. This innovation is seen as a significant step in lowering entry barriers for new users and enhancing the usability of the Solana network.
Additionally, an in-depth research report on propAMM (proactive market maker) has garnered community attention. The report, based on data analysis of propAMMs like HumidiFi on Solana, indicates that Solana has reached or even surpassed traditional finance (TradFi) market levels in terms of trade execution quality.
For example, on the SOL-USDC trading pair, HumidiFi can provide highly competitive spreads (0.4-1.6 bps) for large trades, which is already better than the trading slippage for some mid-cap stocks in traditional markets.
The research suggests that propAMM is making the vision of an “internet capital market” a reality, and Solana is becoming the ideal venue for this transformation.
2. Perp DEX: Hyperliquid and Lighter Competition Escalates
Competition in the perpetual contract DEX (Perp DEX) space is heating up.
In its latest official article, Hyperliquid listed emerging competitor Lighter alongside centralized exchanges like Binance, referring to it as a platform using a centralized sequencer. Hyperliquid used this to emphasize its own advantages of “fully on-chain, operated by a validator network, with no hidden state.”
The community widely interpreted this as Hyperliquid’s “declaration of war” against Lighter. The technical path differences between the two platforms have also become a focal point of discussion: Hyperliquid emphasizes extreme on-chain transparency, while Lighter highlights “verifiable execution” through zero-knowledge proofs, offering users a trading experience similar to CLOB (central limit order book).
This debate over the future direction of decentralized derivatives exchanges is expected to reach its peak in 2026.
Meanwhile, discussions about Lighter’s transaction fees have surfaced. Some users pointed out that Lighter charged a fee of up to 81 basis points (0.81%) for a $2 million USD/JPY forex trade, far higher than the near-zero spreads offered by traditional forex brokers.
In response, some perspectives explained that Lighter does not adopt a B-book model where it bets against market makers; its prices are anchored to TradFi markets, and the high fees may be related to current liquidity or incentives for market makers to balance skews. How to provide more competitive spreads for real-world assets (RWA) in the highly volatile crypto market has become a key issue Lighter needs to address in the future.
