According to ChainCatcher news reported by GlobeNewswire, the MultiversX Foundation has announced the launch of a $1.5 million annual grant program "Growth Games," aimed at supporting innovation in key verticals of the crypto industry such as DeFi, AI infrastructure, and education. This includes an annual allocation of $500,000 to support more than 5 innovative projects in the xLaunchpad and joint incubation programs.

ChainCatcher message, according to the latest research from NFT Evening, after Bitcoin surpassed $100,000, it has created 14,211 new millionaires and four new billionaires. The report shows that Bitcoin investors are becoming millionaires at a rate 22 times faster than stock investors.The research also compared the returns of a $4,000 investment in Bitcoin in 2010 with blue-chip stocks. More than 10 years later, Bitcoin investors' assets appreciated to $1 million, while blue-chip stock investors' assets only grew to $45,000. A Bitcoin investor who invested $30,500 at the beginning of 2011 became a billionaire in about 12.7 years, with a return rate of up to 32,787 times. In contrast, blue-chip stock investors' assets grew to only $950,000 during the same period, far less than the returns of Bitcoin investors.The research also found that Bitcoin's returns far exceeded those of America's top stocks. From 2010 to 2020, Bitcoin's growth was 76,378 times that of Apple's returns during the same period, and compared to Microsoft, Amazon, and Tesla, Bitcoin's return rates were 148,978 times, 66,330 times, and 9,103 times, respectively.

ChainCatcher news, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan posted on X: "People's mental model of Ethereum is outdated. The general consensus is that Solana is cheap/simple/fun, while Ethereum is slow/clunky/expensive.But look at what's happening in the AI agent space. Some of the most exciting 'fun' projects, like Clanker and Virtuals, are unfolding on Ethereum through Base. They feel like Solana projects, but that's not the case.If Ethereum can retain its institutional credentials while improving usability, then 2025 could indeed be a great year. This is the Layer2 network thesis playing out in real time."

ChainCatcher news indicates that according to the Messari 2025 Crypto Theses report, Solana may experience strong growth in 2025. The report states that in the third quarter of 2024, Solana's ecosystem financing reached $173 million, setting a record high since the second quarter of 2022. With the gradual possibility of launching a spot SOL ETF, a more favorable regulatory environment is expected to attract more institutional participation, driving explosive market growth. Some analysts even predict that the price of SOL could break through $4,000.In addition, the Firedancer client has been deployed on the Solana mainnet this year. Developed by Jump Trading, it is a high-performance validator client designed to enhance the transaction speed and scalability of the blockchain. The initial version will be rolled out in phases, focusing primarily on improvements at the network layer, while future versions will further expand functionality to enhance Solana's overall performance and reliability. Firedancer plans to be fully deployed in 2025, which is expected to enhance client diversity on the SOL network, increase activity and security, and reduce reliance on a single client codebase. However, Messari notes that its short-term impact may be limited, as the deployment of other clients still faces bottlenecks, and the full potential of Firedancer may take more time to be fully realized.

According to ChainCatcher news and Lookonchain data, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Hyperliquid topped the list of mainstream blockchains with the highest TVL (Total Value Locked) growth in the past 7 days, increasing by $3.09 billion, $2.22 billion, and $1.87 billion, respectively. Following closely are Sui (+$232 million), Base (+$215 million), and BSC (+$135 million), Solana (+$68.97 million), Arbitrum (+$63.23 million), and Polygon (+$57.32 million).In addition, the TVL of Tron, CORE, and PulseChain decreased by $286 million, $152 million, and $41.93 million, respectively.

ChainCatcher news, according to News.bitcoin, the growth of crypto developers is slowing down in 2024, but the long-term trend remains strong. While new developers are entering the crypto space, the total number of developers working in the industry in 2024 has slightly decreased compared to the previous year. Asia has replaced North America as the region with the highest concentration of crypto developers, with India gradually becoming a key player in this space. Additionally, the number of senior crypto developers (those with two years or more of experience) has significantly increased, indicating that the ecosystem is maturing.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, a nonpartisan fiscal oversight organization, the "Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget" (CRFB), warns in its latest analysis that extending the tax cuts set to expire next year will have almost no benefit for economic growth.The CRFB's findings are based on an assessment by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which found that allowing the tax cuts to expire would significantly increase public revenue, reducing the cumulative fiscal deficit by $3.7 trillion over ten years. This potential revenue growth would mean less public borrowing, which in turn would stimulate private investment.In the CBO's analysis, this would help offset the reduction in the labor force caused by the expiration of the tax cuts. The CBO stated, "Overall, these two effects largely offset each other, resulting in very little change in Gross Domestic Product (GDP)."This means that, in the view of the CRFB, extending the tax cuts would also have a similar, modest net effect on economic growth.

ChainCatcher news, the cryptocurrency venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG) has decided to split its Foundry mining business into two independent entities, Fortitude Mining and Foundry.Fortitude Mining will house Foundry's previous self-mining operations and physical infrastructure. On the other hand, Foundry will maintain its pool operations and other Bitcoin mining service lines.DCG noted in a shareholder letter that it is adjusting its business to accommodate future growth. The letter stated, "We believe that (Fortitude) will be stronger as an independent company, so we are spinning it off as a wholly-owned subsidiary of DCG."To ensure a smoother transition, DCG will bring some of Foundry's leadership into the new subsidiary. To gain further support and raise funds, DCG plans to recruit additional staff from outside. Fortitude has already requested its hosting service providers to invoice the new entity, which has been ongoing for at least a month. (Blockspace)Previously, sources disclosed that the world's largest Bitcoin mining pool, Foundry, is laying off 27% of its workforce during the planned restructuring, affecting 16% of Foundry's employees in the U.S. and parts of the team in India.

ChainCatcher news, RootData posted on X that due to the current market environment, most AI projects have seen a decline in performance this week, but Ai16z is one of the few projects that achieved significant growth, while PRIME and ATH also performed relatively well.ai16z is an AI venture fund that uses AI models to simulate the investment decisions of a16z partner Marc Andreessen, and invests based on suggestions from DAO members, with the weight of investment suggestions depending on the number of tokens held by members and their historical recommendation success rates. The project has developed Eliza, a multi-agent simulation framework for creating and managing autonomous AI agents, which has now expanded from Solana to ecosystems like Base and Aptos. 5% of the token revenue from projects related to Eliza will be allocated to the ai16z DAO fund.In addition, RootData released a ranking chart of the top 15 AI projects by market capitalization, with data collection time at 3 PM Beijing time on December 11.

ChainCatcher news, the next-generation PayFi infrastructure - the decentralized P2P trading platform BountyBay, recently announced that it has received investment from Animoca Brands and will collaborate deeply with Animoca and its community and projects to advance product development.In addition, BountyBay announced a partnership with Kaia to participate in the launch of the Line Mini App, further exploring the high-quality Web3 market and building a diverse user value ecosystem.Meanwhile, BountyBay is also developing a strategic partnership with Aethir to conduct in-depth exploration in the AI field. Leveraging Aethir's advantages in artificial intelligence and computing power, it aims to create innovative cross-chain and cross-platform AI application scenarios.It is reported that BountyBay's new decentralized PayFi trading module - TradeOS is about to be launched, which will support multi-chain decentralized asset and service collaborative trading. TradeOS is a significant milestone for BountyBay, not only enhancing trading efficiency but also innovating traditional systems around a trustworthy and verifiable blockchain system, providing safer and more efficient trading solutions.

ChainCatcher message, according to the data from the DePINscan official website, Roam ranks first in the global number of DePIN nodes, becoming the largest application in this field. The upcoming Roam Growth product is a key module in the Roam ecosystem, aimed at creating sustainable income for network participants and promoting innovation and ecological construction of decentralized network applications.Through automated services and seamless connections, Roam helps users transform routers into economic tools, achieving functions such as CDN services and WiFi multi-mining to gain additional revenue. The first phase of Roam Growth - the Roam Loan Program, supports users in purchasing routers with low thresholds through loans from Huma Finance. Users can choose to pay with stablecoins or SOL deposits, and the loans are repaid with airdrop rewards and mining rewards.The launch of Roam Growth will accelerate the construction of telecom data networks, laying the foundation for the Physical Layer 1 of the DePIN ecosystem. Roam has over 4 million OpenRoaming™ WiFi hotspots in more than 190 countries worldwide, supports 920,000 self-built nodes, and has registered users reaching 1.63 million, with data continuously growing.

ChainCatcher news indicates that Ethereum is experiencing a breakthrough trend similar to that of XRP. Market analyst VentureFounder predicts that Ethereum will see an "impulsive breakout" in the coming months. The current trend of Ethereum resembles its cycle from 2016-2017, and it is expected to replicate the explosive rise that drove ETH to new highs at that time. VentureFounder's price target for ETH is $15,937 by May 2025, which would be the first time Ethereum's market capitalization surpasses $1 trillion.