The Daily Degen - December 26th, 2025
All of today's news/data/alerts...
Happy Friday good frogs! Christmas is over and its time to get after it!
Let’s dive in!
As always… stats/alerts/etc at top and tweets/news/links/videos/etc at bottom… and all tweets are hyperlinked so just click on them to pull them up on Twitter/X!
Market Update
Crypto (from @CryptoBubbles)
Total Crypto Market Cap: $3.03T
QQQ (Nasdaq 100): $624.28
Gold: $4,527.00
Oil (WTI): $56.73
US 10Y Treasury: 4.134%
Crypto Fear & Greed Index (from coinmarketcap(dot)com): 27
Altcoin Season Index (from coinglass(dot)com): 35
Biggest Price Movers
(From @coingecko top 1000, by 24 hour change)
Spotlight
Take note friends! @Mantle_Official had an absolutely MASSIVE 2025!
The bullish developments were legion, including:
- Huge defi ecosystem growth
- Huge @mETHProtocol success
- Token outperformance and massive treasury with which to fuel future growth
- Significant RWA + institutional expansion
- MI4 Fund + Anchorage Digital partnership + FunctionBTC
- Massive expansion into the fintech space, via @UR_global + more
- And serious initiatives in a host of other areas that would be far too numerous to mention!
Learn more in the recent Mantle ‘State Of Mind’ update by clicking here, and in the recent ‘Year In Review’ video scroll QT’d by @emilyRioFreeman below!
And as always, make sure to follow Mantle on Twitter for more updates, and stay tuned as we continue highlighting their success as 2026 unfolds!
Biggest TVL Movers + Other Interesting Data
Chains are mixed today. Ink (#14), Provenance (#17), and Monad (#20) are all up at least 50% on the monthly.
Protocols are mixed today. Top-performing top 50 protocol on the monthly is Circle USYC (#34) at +31.27%.
Here’s The Top 12 Fastest-Growing Chains By TVL On The Weekly With At Least $100M TVL (from @DefiLlama):
Here’s The Top 12 Fastest-Growing Protocols By TVL On The Weekly With At Least $100M TVL (from @DefiLlama):
Here’s The Top 12 Entities By 7 Day Fee Generation (from @DefiLlama):
New Projects
(note: this includes new projects we find through combing Twitter each day and going through newly launched protocols added by @DefiLlama, limited primarily to new projects that have at least some TVL or are followed by at least some of our mutuals… Disclaimer: these are not pre-vetted by us so make sure to DYOR!)
-New project called @yusandotfi has been added to @DefiLlama, categorized as a multichain lending protocol. Twitter bio states “Cross-chain lending protocol. Deposit BTC natively on Bitcoin, and borrow USDC on Base.” Followed by 1 of our mutuals.
Top Stablecoin Yields
(note: these are the top Stablecoin Yields, sourced from @DefiLlama (single-exposure, no yield tokens, $25M+ TVL only) - note: these lists are just raw data, make sure to always DYOR before interacting with any/all protocols)
Important News And Analysis
-Lots of focus and speculation regarding the upcoming @Lighter_XYZ airdrop, h/t example below from @Route2FI:
-The Aave saga continues, new article from @Marczeller below (and of course check Stani’s TL for his perspective too if you are interested in all of this):
-Euler has gone live on HyperEVM and GMX has gone live on ETH Mainnet, h/t @TheDeFinvestor:
-Brevis has unveiled their tokenomics and Trust Wallet was exploited for $7M, with CZ announcing they will “cover” it (ie reimburse those affected?), h/t @layerggofficial:
-Interesting crypto-adjacent note re: Gmail and allowing users to update their email addresses, h/t @Pirat_Nation:
-Lots of discussion of options trading in wake of famous options trader having massive $50M loss over the last couple days, h/t @izebel_eth:
-“I’ve never felt this behind as a programmer” - interesting thoughts on AI from Andrej Karpathy:
-Good thread of 2026 predictions from @JasonYanowitz (sample below):
-Interesting airdrop thoughts from @tippan0:
-“Crypto is too early for users to know what they want. They don't know until you show them. It's time we go back to building stuff because it's fun again.” - good hot take from Trader Joe co-founder @cryptofishx:
-Will 2026 be the start of a new bull market? h/t @gammichan:
-New macro interview with @justdeauit from @pahueg:
-New interview with macro gigabrain @WarrenPies:
-New video recapping 2025 from @thebellcurvepod:
-New video of 2026 predictions from @theempirepod:
-New @Unchained_pod roundtable:
-New Digital Assets News livestream (aired yesterday):
-New @Bankless video of 2026 predictions:
-“Crypto gives us weekly opportunities, which is insane when you zoom out... Respect it. Protect it. Build skills. That’s how you actually beat the odds ahead of the curve.” - parting wisdom from @greenytrades:
Conclusion
Happy Friday and stay alert out there friends!
And please RT/subscribe/etc if you found this valuable!
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Note
One of the coolest new crypto projects to pop up in 2025 has been @RockSolidHQ - which just launched a couple months ago!
RockSolid is a vault protocol, and their inaugural RocketPool $rETH vault (the first and official rETH vault with Rocket Pool) helps $rETH holders increase their returns via various professionally curated (and resolutely gigabrained) defi strategies!
They just crossed 6,000 $rETH in deposits in it and they continue to generate all sorts of excitement within the world of EVM defi!
If you want a great introduction to RockSolid, make sure to check out:
1) RockSolid co-founder Steve Pack aka @paladin_eth’s appearance on the ETHStaker panel at Devconnect a few weeks ago - embedded and time-stamped below (just click on the video to watch!)
2) Steve and RockSolid co-founder Ben Ward aka @wardy_ben’s dual appearance on the Rocket Fuel podcast (also embedded below!)
Dive into both to learn all about what RockSolid is doing, and deposit into their $rETH vault now by clicking here!
Also make sure to follow RockSolid on Twitter for more updates, follow Ben and Steve as well, and stay tuned as we continue shining a light on everything they are doing going into 2026!
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***Note On Material: The ‘Spotlight’ and ‘Note’ sections are the only parts of The Daily Degen that are sponsored/promotional. Everything else is chosen 100% organically based on what info/stories/etc seem likely to be the most newsworthy/important/valuable to readers.