ChainCatcher news, The ETF Store President Nate Geraci tweeted that in the past 48 hours, several institutions have submitted crypto-related ETF applications, indicating a shift in regulatory sentiment. The specific applications are as follows:VanEck On-Chain Economy ETFCanary Litecoin ETF (19b-4)Oasis Capital Digital Asset Debt Strategy ETFCoinShares Digital Asset ETFProShares Leveraged and Inverse XRP ETFProShares XRP Futures ETFProShares Solana Futures ETF

ChainCatcher message, UXLINK announced the launch of the first chain UXLINK ONE Chain, which is natively focused on Web3 social growth, on the official X platform. The testnet is now live for developers to apply for use.UXLINK ONE is an important part of the Social Growth Layer, built on top of Optimistic Rollup, inheriting its scalability and efficiency, while introducing unique innovative solutions: comprehensive social account abstraction and a native cross-chain framework.UXLINK's mission is to connect Web2 users with the infinite possibilities of Web3, which seamlessly aligns with this transformative concept. UXLINK ONE aims to eliminate these barriers by providing a unified access point, achieving cross-chain interoperability, and allowing dApps to operate seamlessly across multiple blockchain ecosystems.

ChainCatcher news, according to the WeChat public account of the China Financial Forty Forum, Liu Xiaochun, Vice President of the Shanghai Institute of New Finance (SFI), and Xiao Lei, a young researcher at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University China Financial Research Institute and head of investment at Kaitai Vision Fund (Hong Kong), co-authored an article titled "Reconsidering the Modern Monetary System in the Wave of Cryptocurrencies."The article points out that there have been various analyses and expectations regarding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in the current market. The 2024 U.S. election has further brought cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to the forefront. However, for cryptocurrencies to truly replace existing sovereign currencies, they still face institutional realities and challenges. The vast majority of innovative applications of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin essentially belong to financial services.In dealing with cryptocurrencies, a more valuable approach is to explore their more feasible application paths in the financial sector based on the functions and systems of modern money, combined with the technical characteristics of cryptocurrencies. This can mainly be approached from two directions: first, exploring the financial assetization path that is not linked to fiat currencies; second, developing payment and settlement tools that are linked to fiat currencies.

ChainCatcher news, according to Dan Smith's statistics, applications on Solana generated industry-leading revenue of $751 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, followed by Ethereum with $314 million. The data comes from DeFiLlama and does not yet include the revenues of Circle and Tether, with plans to allocate revenue across chains based on their circulating supply distribution.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, the decentralized AI data execution layer Alpha Network, incubated by KEKKAI Labs, announced a strategic partnership with the decentralized GPU cluster network io.net. This collaboration aims to combine Alpha Network's privacy technology with io.net's decentralized GPU network, with the goal of jointly promoting data security, the popularization of AI infrastructure, and industry innovation.Both parties will explore the creation of a compliant and privacy-first AI training environment through io.net's decentralized GPU cluster. With io.net's distributed GPU infrastructure, Alpha Network can securely process sensitive training data without relying on traditional trusted environments.

ChainCatcher news, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin published a long article titled "d/acc: one year later," reflecting on the development of the d/acc (decentralized acceleration) concept proposed last year. The article focuses on three key issues: AI safety regulation, the role of cryptocurrency in d/acc, and public goods financing.Vitalik proposed two major strategies for AI safety: first, establishing accountability by setting reasonable legal responsibilities for AI users, deployers, and developers; second, implementing a global "soft pause" mechanism at the industrial hardware level, which can reduce global computing power by 90-99% if necessary. Vitalik stated that d/acc has three major connections with cryptocurrency: the extension of values, the early adopter community, and technological complementarity. In particular, the contributions of the crypto community in areas such as prediction markets and zero-knowledge proofs. The article also mentions innovative mechanisms including quadratic funding, retroactive public goods funding, and deep funding, emphasizing the importance of decentralized financing in promoting the development of open-source projects. Vitalik believes that despite the current challenges of rapid technological development and reduced global cooperation, new tools such as AI and biotechnology provide humanity with the capability to address these challenges.

ChainCatcher message, DWF Labs posted on X: "Our $20 million AI agent fund is still accepting applications.As we prepare for 2025, we look forward to supporting more projects this year that are building next-generation AI agent solutions. Eligible projects will receive comprehensive support and strategic consulting to accelerate growth."

ChainCatcher news, according to Haseeb, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital, the craze for AI agents will continue into 2025 but will ultimately fade away. He pointed out that existing AI agents are merely chatbots with memecoins, possessing almost no real intelligence aside from posting content on social media. As these tools become ubiquitous, people may grow weary of them.He believes that the real game-changer for the industry will be software engineering agents. With AI cloud computing, entrepreneurs can launch applications with $10,000, significantly reducing software development costs and driving explosive growth in on-chain applications, making self-funded projects like Hyperliquid and Jupiter the norm rather than the exception. Additionally, AI-driven security analysis and monitoring tools will become widespread, enabling everyone to enhance blockchain security more easily.Haseeb also mentioned that the combination of AI and crypto will have a profound impact on payments, decentralized model training, and user experience, especially in the post-AI wallet space, where these wallets will greatly simplify cross-chain operations and optimize user experience.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, Baidu founder Robin Li sent a letter to all employees in the evening stating, "For 25 years, we have always been at the forefront of technology, and we firmly believe that technological innovation is Baidu's core competitiveness."The letter expresses expectations for 2025, "Although super applications have not yet emerged, the actual penetration rate of AI is already not low, and it will continue to experience explosive growth in 2025."

ChainCatcher news, according to data from TokenTerminal, the net deposits of the lending protocol Aave and the liquid staking protocol Lido first broke through $70 billion in December (currently falling back to $67.37 billion). Among them, Aave ranks first with $34.3 billion, followed closely by Lido at $33.1 billion. The two major protocols account for 45.5% of the total deposits of the top 20 DeFi applications.In terms of Total Value Locked (TVL), Lido leads the DeFi ecosystem with $33.8 billion, while Aave ranks second with $20.6 billion. Over the past 30 days, Aave's revenue grew by 27.5% to $12.5 million, and Lido's revenue increased by 24% to $9.6 million. The total locked value in DeFi for 2024 has increased by 107% to $185 billion, briefly surpassing $212 billion on December 16. (CryptoSlate)

ChainCatcher news reports that GraniteShares, an asset management company with over $10 billion in AUM, has submitted a new leveraged ETF application to track the stock prices of crypto-related companies such as Riot Platforms, Marathon Digital, MicroStrategy, and Robinhood. These funds will go long and short simultaneously, with the 2x long ETF generating twice the daily return of the corresponding stocks. For example, when Riot Platform's stock rises by 1%, the GraniteShares 2x Long RIOT ETF will rise by 2%.This year, as the cryptocurrency and stock markets reached all-time highs, these leveraged ETFs have become very popular. Among them, the T-Rex 2x Long MSTR Daily Target fund (ticker symbol MSTU) has attracted over $1.8 billion in managed assets. Similarly, the Defiance Daily Target 2X Long MSTR ETF (ticker symbol MSTX) has accumulated $1.8 billion in assets.These funds have outperformed MicroStrategy over the past three months, during which MicroStrategy's stock price rose by 150%, while MSTU and MSTX rose by 308% and 253%, respectively. However, the risk is that in a bear market, their performance typically lags behind the underlying stocks. MicroStrategy's stock has fallen by 24% in the past 30 days, while MSTU and MSTX have dropped by over 50% during the same period.