PANews

Buyback and burn tokens, while M&A burns competitors.
In traditional finance, buybacks are a defensive retirement option that giants resort to "due to their inability to grow further."
The point of this article is: why might startup projects miss out on a moat in the illusion of buybacks? Why is expansion more important than buybacks in Web3?
Buybacks are not suitable for Web3 (at least not now).
By 2025, the "buyback narrative" will dominate — it is an obvious and straightforward price support method, but it has long-term structural issues.
It's understandable why this idea has quickly gained popularity in Web3 — it precisely leverages Web3's core element: speculation.
When a mechanism can continuously buy tokens and create a "sustainable buy volume," this design is highly tempting. It is very easy to explain and also very easy to sell.

Today's News Highlights:
1. Caixin: Overseas U-card advertisements attract users to pay with USDT for ChatGPT and others, but domestic applications face legal risks.
2. Ethereum will undergo Glamsterdam and Hegota forks in 2026, with the Gas limit expected to increase to 200 million.
3. Trust Wallet browser extension security incident resulted in user funds being stolen, exceeding $6 million.
4. Uniswap protocol fee switch proposal UNIfication was approved with an overwhelming majority.
5. Aave brand asset ownership proposal was rejected, with over 55% voting against and 41% abstaining.
6. Performance of Launchpad over the past year: Binance Wallet led with a 12.69x ROI, ATH ROI of 78.01x.
Macro
Caixin: Overseas U-card advertisements attract users to pay with USDT for Chat

Author: Eric, Foresight News
At the end of 2022, I took stock of the bizarre events that occurred that year. After three years, I am once again summarizing Web3 in 2025 in the same way.
Time has passed, and Web3 in 2025 has undergone a complete transformation compared to three years ago. Basic mistakes like sending to the wrong address or setting incorrect parameters are now rare. Although the events this year are not as "funny" as back then, their absurdity is no less, only to say that human nature, the greatest playwright, continues to exert its influence.
Mystery team manipulates presidential concept Meme coin, harvesting over $100 million
Event details
At the beginning of the year, the incident of the new US President Trump issuing the Meme coin TRUMP was widely known. Subsequently, Melania Trump, the wife of Trump, and Argentine President Milaire also...

In Mainland China, Web3 entrepreneurs should be aware of legal red lines and avoid issuing tokens, trading cryptocurrencies, fundraising, and transactions. They can focus on four areas: technical infrastructure, de-financialized digital asset applications, compliance services, and overseas business expansion to ensure their business models meet regulatory requirements and reduce risks.

Daily Market Highlights and Trend Analysis, produced by PANews.
1. Market Observation
Under the influence of the Christmas holiday, liquidity in major global financial markets has significantly contracted. U.S. stocks, U.S. bonds, and various futures contracts are closed, and stock markets in multiple European countries are also shut, but the pricing of key assets has not stagnated. Regarding exchange rates, the RMB has accelerated its appreciation since August, and on December 25, the offshore RMB briefly broke through the 7.0 level for the first time in over a year. Industrial Securities pointed out that this round of appreciation is not solely driven by a weakening dollar but reflects endogenous momentum from capital inflows and increased foreign exchange settlement demand. Under the combined influence of the "dollar easing push" and the "capital inflow pull," the RMB's appreciation may still be at its starting point and could boost risk appetite in the equity markets. Additionally, the precious metals market continues to be strong, with silver leading the way, breaking through $75/oz and rising for the fifth consecutive trading day, with an annual increase of nearly 161%. Gold also briefly broke through 4

Highlights of this Issue
The weekly coverage period for this issue spans from December 19, 2025, to December 26, 2025. This week, the total on-chain RWA market capitalization steadily increased to $19.04 billion, with the number of holders surpassing 590,000, indicating sustained growth momentum; meanwhile, the total market cap of stablecoins, after approaching $300 billion, has nearly stagnated, further highlighting the contraction in active user base expansion and on-chain activity.
Global regulatory frameworks continue to advance: the United States is considering providing a tax safe harbor for stablecoins, Japan plans to promote the on-chain issuance of local government bonds, and countries like China, South Korea, and Ghana are accelerating their deployment in digital currencies and stablecoins. Domestic institutions' overseas branches are gradually exploring applications such as digital renminbi and stablecoin top-ups and payments: ICBC's Singapore branch is piloting digital renminbi overseas wallet top-ups, and Ctrip's overseas version has integrated stablecoin payments, demonstrating accelerated adoption of stablecoins in cross-border settlement and travel consumption scenarios.
Meanwhile, Ethereum DAT company E

ETHGas, by introducing block space futures and pre-confirmation mechanisms, makes Ethereum's block space a manageable economic resource, solving the issues of transaction costs and time uncertainty. This marks Ethereum's transition towards a more stable and predictable financial infrastructure, enabling it to better serve high-frequency financial activities and demonstrating Ethereum's maturity and its central role in economic management.

Author: Zhou, ChainCatcher
Recently, the name Lighter has been trending nonstop in the community. Whether it's valuation discussions, points farm yield calculations, TGE timing guesses, or pre-market price fluctuations, the sentiment is exceptionally intense.
Binance, OKX, and other exchanges have announced the launch of pre-market trading for the LIT token. Polymarket's prediction market shows a greater than 50% chance that its valuation will exceed $3 billion after TGE. On-chain transfer signals of 250 million LIT tokens have further ignited FOMO sentiment, making everything seem logical. Lighter is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated projects in the crypto market at the end of the year.
However, while everyone is calculating how many LIT they can exchange points for or how much it will rise after TGE, the more fundamental question is being overlooked: this airdrop frenzy

Author: Joe Zhou, Foresight News
Ctrip's overseas version Trip.com is quietly entering the stablecoin payment track.
As of December 25, 2025, Foresight News has learned that Ctrip's overseas version Trip.com has launched stablecoin payment functionality for global users, currently supporting

In the past six months, I have gone from being a bystander in Web3 to immersing myself in the payments industry. And now, I have decided to stop and no longer pursue Web3 payments.
This is not a retreat after failure, but a strategic adjustment made after truly getting involved. During these six months, I visited Yiwu, Shui Bei, Putian, and even Mexico, observing the most bustling areas in reports to see how payments are actually made. I also got hands-on experience, building an MVP for Web3 payments, managing accounts, creating Web3 payment tools, and trying to run the envisioned process from the first step to the last.
But the more I delved into it, the clearer I became about one thing: this is not an industry where "making a good product equals winning." Payments are not about features; they depend on banking relationships, licenses, capital efficiency, and long-term risk management capabilities.
Many payment businesses that seem to be "profitable" fundamentally do not earn from their capabilities.

Editor's note: This article is adapted from the Bankless episode "12 Big Crypto Predictions for 2026," hosted by Ryan Adams and David Hoffman. In this episode, the hosts do not provide a single "predictive answer," but instead attempt to outline the overall landscape of the crypto industry in 2026 through a comparative analysis of predictions from top institutions such as Bitwise, Coinbase Institutional, Galaxy, Grayscale, CoinShares, a16z, and others.
Ryan: Merry Christmas, Bankless

Author: Prathik Desai
Compiled by: Chopper, Foresight News
As a steadfast bullish investor in ETH, I have developed a frustrating habit this year. Every day, I open the ETH price chart and silently calculate how much my investment portfolio has lost. After the calculation, I close the market page, hoping that I won't have to wait too long to turn losses into gains.
As the year comes to an end, I believe most investors who bought ETH at the beginning of the year are probably feeling disappointed. However, over the past 12 months, despite ETH's price performance and wealth appreciation not being ideal, the Ethereum blockchain has stood out among its competitors.
If "making money" is the standard, 2025 is undoubtedly a terrible year. But from a perspective beyond token returns, holding ETH in 2025 has become

Author: imToken
If you often cross between Base, Arbitrum, or Optimism, you must have felt a subtle "disconnect."
Although individual L2 transactions are almost instant, when you try to transfer assets from chain A to chain B, you often have to wait several minutes or even longer. This is not because L2 itself is slow, but because in traditional processes, a transaction involving cross-layer and cross-chain operations must go through a lengthy and rigorous process:
L2 sequencer ordering → Submission to L1 → L1 reaching consensus and finality. In short, under the current Ethereum architecture, finality on L1 usually takes two Epochs (about 13

Curve's funding proposal was not approved, reflecting conflicts of interest within the governance structure and the need for transparency in fund utilization. The community wants to strengthen oversight of fund usage, while large voting power holders are concerned about their interests being diluted. The current governance model faces challenges, and in the future, it may evolve toward "governance capitalism," with major capital dominating governance.

Original Title: Why the DeFi Lending Moat Is Bigger Than You Think
Original Author: Silvio, Cryptocurrency Researcher
Original Compilation: Dingdang, Odaily Planet Daily
As the market share of vaults and curators in the DeFi world continues to grow, the market begins to question: Are lending protocols gradually squeezing profit margins? Is lending no longer a good business?
But if we shift our perspective back to the entire on-chain credit value chain, the conclusion is quite the opposite. Lending protocols still hold the strongest moat in this value chain. We can quantify this with data.
In Aave and

Today's News Highlights:
Two major Russian exchanges plan to launch compliant crypto trading by 2026
Bitcoin mining difficulty slightly increased by 0.04% to 148.26 T
Most profitable crypto narratives in 2025: RWA and Layer1 lead, AI and Meme see significant pullback, GameFi and DePIN decline sharply
Offshore RMB breaks the 7 threshold for the first time in 2024, onshore RMB hits a new high in over a year
Silver fund premium attracts attention; Guotou Silver LOF will suspend trading from market open on December 26 until 10:30 AM on the same day
Bitcoin spot ETF saw a net outflow of $175 million yesterday, marking five consecutive days of net outflows
Suspected Multicoin OTC purchase of 60 million WLD from the Worldcoin team
Macro
Central Bank: Supports provinces along the Western Land-Sea New Corridor to participate in the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge project
The People's Central

Author: Amin Ayan & Vanessa Perdomo
Editor: Tim, PANews
The world's most expensive Pokémon card will once again go on the auction block.
Social media influencer and WWE star Logan Paul recently announced that he will sell his collection of rare Pokémon cards. He explained that the current Pokémon collectibles market is very hot, which will provide a good "appreciation opportunity" for this collection.
Logan Paul has been active on social media for a long time and has publicly expressed a strong interest in rare Pokémon cards multiple times. His status as a collector is well known. He and his brother Jake Paul rose to fame early on through Vine and YouTube platforms, and later ventured into boxing, wrestling, and entertainment. Notably, Jake

Writing by: Changan, Amelia, Biteye Content Team
Meme is receding, and the prediction market is taking over. This is not speculation; it is a major capital migration happening right now.
When Polymarket obtained full US licensing and received a $2 billion investment from the NYSE parent company, you should understand: the Meme era of trading cats and dogs is over, and the era of trading "truth" has officially begun.
This article will guide you:
- Understand why the prediction market suddenly exploded;
- Highlight promising black horse projects on the BNB chain;
- Teach you step-by-step how to position early and reap the initial dividends.
1. Why did the prediction market suddenly become popular?
The moment market sentiment truly shifts is often not during a crash, but when it becomes numb.
You will find: the grassroots still post, but you are too lazy to click; the narratives are still flying, but in your mind, only one sentence remains: Anyway, in the end, everything will

In fact, the act of "empowering" humanity is being done by both Crypto and AI, but the ways and depths of their empowerment are completely different. Consider the following:
1) Crypto empowerment emphasizes the so-called "decentralized financial sovereignty," allowing individuals to manage their assets and conduct value exchanges without relying on traditional centralized institutions like banks. This form of empowerment is "defensive" in nature, meaning that there is no better alternative, and as long as decentralized empowerment is maintained, the Crypto industry will never be disproven;
2) AI empowerment, on the other hand, focuses on "exponentially amplifying productivity," enabling people to do things that were previously impossible. This is why internet giants continue to invest heavily in AI, driving the continuous growth of AI-related stocks. This form of empowerment is "offensive," meaning that the growth of the AI industry has already followed a trajectory similar to a "Moore's Law" industry growth curve.