Release Date: December 22, 2025
Author: BlockBeats Editorial Department

Over the past 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market has shown parallel evolution across multiple dimensions. Mainstream discussions have focused on the tension between DeFi governance and privacy compliance: ongoing community debates revolve around the boundaries of power and practical constraints, including controversies over Aave’s revenue distribution and the wallet blacklisting risks triggered by Tornado Cash. In terms of ecosystem development, Solana’s annual revenue has surpassed Ethereum’s for the first time, highlighting its advantages in high-frequency usage and productization; in the Perp DEX sector, price volatility in Hyperliquid has drawn attention to the resilience of the perpetual contract ecosystem.

I. Mainstream Topics

1. Aave Revenue Distribution and Governance Boundary Dispute

The Aave community has recently engaged in intense debate over its revenue distribution mechanism and brand ownership.

Stani Kulechov explicitly stated that he will vote against the proposal titled [ARFC] $AAVE Token Alignment, Phase 1 – Ownership Governance.

In his post, Stani emphasized that this is not a “veto stance,” but rather an effort to initiate a more open discussion to recalibrate Aave’s shared mission. He recalled that Aave Labs has consistently advanced the original vision of ETHLend over the past eight years, aiming to position Aave as a key component of future multi-trillion-dollar global asset infrastructure. He also acknowledged that the community’s concerns regarding brand ownership and the relationship between the protocol and the DAO are not unfounded, and that previous communication has been insufficient, with plans to improve in the future.

However, on specific stances, Stani believes the proposal’s direction has fundamental issues: it oversimplifies complex legal, brand, and operational structures, potentially slowing the progress of core products such as Aave V4, Aave App, and Horizon, ultimately harming the protocol itself, the DAO, and AAVE token holders. He advocates that such topics should be advanced gradually through multiple rounds of temperature checks (Temp Checks) and more actionable solutions, rather than a one-time institutional adjustment.

Community reactions are notably divided. Some members criticize Stani for having a “double standard” in governance, citing his less cautious approach in the CowSwap revenue distribution issue and even accusing him of “appropriating protocol revenue”; others support his call for a slower decision-making pace, believing that multiple rounds of discussion contribute to long-term ecosystem health.

Overall, this controversy once again exposes a long-standing structural tension in DeFi projects: the boundary between the ideal of DAO governance and the practical power of core developers/founders still lacks clear consensus.

2. “Crypto Existentialism”: Revisiting the Empowerment Narrative

Vitalik Buterin recently posted, revisiting the “core philosophy of cryptocurrency” from a more abstract perspective. He quoted a user’s view: “Crypto has always been built toward human empowerment.”

Vitalik pointed out that “empowerment” is not a concept unique to cryptocurrency; before Bitcoin and Ethereum, the German Pirate Party had already made information freedom, privacy protection, and decentralization core political ideals. He included an image showing the Pirate Party’s “Pirate Wheel” model, where values such as “empowerment, transparency, privacy” form a mutually supportive system.

Community replies further extended the discussion. Some emphasized that true empowerment must be irreversible; otherwise, it is merely a superficial commitment. Others traced crypto back to cyberpunk and early privacy movements, arguing that blockchain’s significance lies in providing sustainable incentive mechanisms and global execution tools for these ideals for the first time. Meanwhile, there were more technical or emotional responses, from BlockDAG and privacy tools to meme-style “Dino powerment,” continuously broadening the discussion boundaries.

This topic did not reach a unified conclusion but clearly reflects a fact: regarding privacy, decentralization, and individual freedom, the crypto community continues to question its own “existential meaning,” and this philosophical uncertainty is persistently influencing specific technological and institutional choices.

3. Tornado Cash Blacklisting Effect: The Real Cost of Privacy

The risks of using Tornado Cash have once again drawn attention. User milian warned that once an interaction with Tornado Cash occurs, a wallet address may be flagged by hundreds of applications and protocols, potentially excluding it from the mainstream on-chain economic system.

His shared blacklist screenshot even includes popular platforms like Hyperliquid. This means that while Tornado Cash’s anonymity holds technically, in practical environments, it easily triggers compliance and risk control mechanisms.

Community reactions are sharply divided. Some criticize these “decentralized applications” for effectively acting as regulators, questioning the authenticity of decentralization narratives; others propose compromise solutions, such as using zero-knowledge proofs (e.g., on 0xbow.io) to demonstrate that funds are not linked to sanctioned entities like North Korea (DPRK), or simply switching to more thorough privacy coins like Monero.

The discussion quickly escalated to more fundamental questions: Is blockchain’s high transparency a bug or its most important feature? If even dusting attacks can trigger blacklisting, are ordinary users inadvertently bearing compliance risks?

This controversy highlights the long-standing conflict between privacy and compliance, making the widespread impact of “blacklisting mechanisms” in the on-chain economy more concrete, driving community calls for more refined, anti-false-positive privacy infrastructure (such as solutions like Arcium).

4. Robinhood Accelerates Tokenization: TradFi Officially Enters L2

Robinhood has been discovered to have newly deployed approximately 500 tokenized stocks on Arbitrum, bringing its total on-chain stocks to 1,993. This move is seen as a signal of significantly accelerated integration between TradFi and DeFi.

Relevant Dune dashboard data shows that the speed of expansion from 1,000 to 2,000 stocks is notably faster than in previous stages. In community discussions, some pointed out that with the U.S. stock market’s daily trading volume exceeding $500 billion, even a partial migration to on-chain could bring substantial fee revenue and ETH burn effects to the Ethereum ecosystem.

Overall sentiment leans optimistic. Some view this as an early form of the “DeFi / TradFi singularity,” believing blockchain’s composability and immutability are gradually attracting traditional institutions; others emphasize that stock tokenization and 24/7 trading mechanisms could significantly enhance liquidity and inject new use cases into the Arbitrum ecosystem.

From a broader perspective, this development is not an isolated event but a continuation of the tokenization trend: traditional assets are entering the financial infrastructure network formed by Ethereum and its L2s at an accelerating pace.

II. Mainstream Ecosystem Dynamics

1. Solana Annual Revenue Surpasses Ethereum for the First Time

Solana has achieved annual revenue surpassing Ethereum for the first time in 2025, seen as a significant milestone marking its ecosystem’s entry into a mature stage.

Data charts circulating in the community show that Solana’s protocol revenue year-to-date (YTD) for 2025 is approximately $250 million, while Ethereum’s is about $140 million. Over a longer time frame, Solana’s revenue grew from around $28 million in 2021 to $480 million in 2024; during the same period, Ethereum’s declined from about $510 million in 2021 to $142 million in 2024.

Related discussions generally interpret this change as Solana’s阶段性胜出 in user adoption, on-chain activity, and DeFi usage frequency. Community sentiment is notably bullish, with many views suggesting Solana is now positioned to accommodate the next wave of “normie onboarding (mass user entry)” and is regarded as the preferred high-performance public chain.

Overall, this data shift strengthens the competitive narrative around Solana’s fee generation capability and actual network activity, potentially further attracting developers and capital to its ecosystem.

2. “Creator ETF”: New Financial Product Imagination on Solana

The Solana community recently discussed “Creator ETFs.” This concept refers to researchers or influencers constructing asset baskets (e.g., SOL, BTC, ZEC, etc.) and making them available to followers in tokenized form, with creators charging management fees based on AUM.

Related posts cite Akshay BD’s perspective, suggesting this could be a more sustainable evolution path for “creator coins”—no longer relying solely on narratives or sentiment but building trust through verifiable investment portfolio performance. For example, a hypothetical “mert ETF” could hold assets like SOL, BTC, ZEC, HYPE simultaneously, allowing users to test its asset allocation capabilities by purchasing shares.

Mechanistically, such ETFs could be implemented via protocols (e.g., Symmetry.fi) for share minting, portfolio transparency, and on-chain settlement, seen as a new tool balancing friend-based investment advice with globally verifiable funds.

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Overall community feedback is positive: some view it as a natural extension of the creator economy into DeFi, while others see it as a new GTM (go-to-market) strategy. Although discussions on cross-chain and asset coverage persist, consensus holds that Solana’s low costs and high throughput provide fertile ground for such financial experiments.

3. Perp DEX: HYPE Falls Below Assistance Fund Cost Price

In the perpetual contract sector, Hyperliquid’s native token $HYPE has shown a key price signal. Its price has fallen below the average purchase cost of the Assistance Fund (approximately $13.24) for the first time in eight months, currently dipping into the $20 range.

Many discussions compare this situation to the “jelly incident” in April this year: at that time, $HYPE briefly fell below a key cost level before rapidly rebounding and reaching new highs in the following two months. Based on this historical precedent, the community generally views the current range as a potential long-term accumulation window, with some users publicly stating they are increasing positions.

Overall, this pullback has not significantly weakened market confidence in the Perp DEX sector; instead, it highlights the psychological role of the assistance fund mechanism in stabilizing expectations. Related discussions suggest that if macro and liquidity conditions align, the perpetual contract ecosystem could still attract renewed capital inflows.

4. Other: Bitcoin “Wrench Attack” Transitions from Warning to Norm

On security issues, Bitcoin security researcher Jameson Lopp announced that he will gradually reduce maintenance efforts for the “Bitcoin Wrench Attack” archive. This archive has long documented real-world violent incidents against Bitcoin holders (commonly referred to as “$5 wrench attack”).

Lopp stated that such incidents have evolved from early “extreme cases” to “a real-world problem occurring almost every few days,” making continued item-by-item maintenance no longer newsworthy. He has transferred maintenance permissions to @beausecurity and called for community collaboration in updates, with relevant materials still available on GitHub.

Community responses are generally rational. On one hand, they acknowledge the archive’s long-term educational value; on the other, they discuss the distribution of attacks across different countries and the importance of personal protection, privacy management, and real-world security.

This change is seen as a signal: physical security risks for Bitcoin holders are becoming normalized, with community focus shifting from “warning” to systematic development of “response and protection tools.”