The Daily Degen - December 28th, 2025
All of today's news/data/alerts...
Happy Sunday friends! 2025 is almost over!
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: $3.06T
QQQ (Nasdaq 100): $623.89
Gold: $4,533.00
Oil (WTI): $56.74
US 10Y Treasury: 4.13%
Crypto Fear & Greed Index (from coinmarketcap(dot)com): 29
Altcoin Season Index (from coinglass(dot)com): 41
Biggest Price Movers
(From @coingecko top 1000, by 24 hour change)
Spotlight
One of the coolest new crypto projects to pop up in 2025 has been @RockSolidHQ - who 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!
Our editor @rektdiomedes is an advisor to RockSolid, and wrote out some long-form thoughts about why he is so bullish on them that you can read here!
In addition, if you want a great introduction to RockSolid, we would recommend:
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!
Biggest TVL Movers + Other Interesting Data
Chains are mostly green today. Fastest-growing chains on the weekly with at least $1M TVL are VeChain, Mayachain, and HAQQ.
Protocols are also mostly green today. Fastest-growing protocols on the weekly with at least $1M TVL are Mosaic, Capricorn, and Accountable.
Here’s The Top 12 Chains By TVL (from @DefiLlama):
Here’s The Top 12 Protocols By TVL (from @DefiLlama):
Here’s The Top 10 Dex’s By 7 Day Volume (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!)
-Something new called @reflectmoney. Twitter bio states “Stablecoins that work for you, backed by @a16zcrypto.” Followed by 102 of our mutuals. h/t @brave_raf:
-Something new called @CipherOwl. Twitter bio states “Building the onchain intelligence layer for 🤖 + 🏦 - ex-Coinbase/Cruise/AWS - no token issued, only known facts. Try now - 🦉🔎”. Followed by 41 of our mutuals. h/t @brave_raf:
Top Stablecoin Yields
(note: these are the top Stablecoin Yields, sourced from @DefiLlama (all types, $10M+ TVL only) - note: these lists are just raw data, make sure to always DYOR before interacting with any/all protocols)
Important News And Analysis
-The AAVE saga and gold + silver surging through ATH’s have been the dominant topics over the last two weeks, h/t @thedefivillain:
-Speculation continues regarding when Lighter will do their TGE/airdrop, h/t this and other headlines from @TheDeFinvestor:
-Controversy around @flow_blockchain doing a rollback after apparently being exploited, h/t DeBridge co-founder @AlexSmirnov below QT’ing the official Flow account (click both to learn more):
-Plasma/$XPL down 90% in the last three months as alts continue to suffer, h/t @CryptoKoryo:
-$ZEC continues to be a standout in terms of performance and sentiments, h/t @redphonecrypto:
-Relatively quiet week in macro, and stock market will be closed Thursday for January 1st, h/t @KobeissiLetter:
-Very interesting that while sentiments on CT are in the gutter, the aforementioned @KobeissiLetter thinks “Crypto should soon rejoin the asset owner party” and is bullish for the year ahead:
-Top 5 raises of the last week were Erebor, @Architect_Fi, @CoinbaxHQ, @easydotfunX, and @userocket_app:
-Interesting takeaways from Breakpoint from @KyleSamani after watching all the videos from it for this year, including the explosion of RWA’s, perps platforms, and vault managers:
-Cycle wisdom from @warren_muppets:
-Very interesting info on ERC-7540 tech stuff, h/t @leviathan_news and @MeshClans (highly recommend following both accounts and reading the QT’d tweet in full):
-New edition of @Lightspeedpodhq:
-New macro-focused @coinbureau video:
-New weekly macro overview from Joseph Wang:
-The new Rick Rubin x Brian Armstrong interview that’s generating alot of attention:
-“Life is a video game.
You can choose to build your own character and max out the stats that you want.
Find love for this process and there are doors that will unlock that you never could have even imagined.” - parting wisdom from @Stoiiic:
Conclusion
Have a great Sunday and stay alert out there friends!
And please RT/subscribe/etc if you found this valuable!
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Note
Take note! @maplefinance has been doing some massive buybacks!
From a recent tweet:
“In 2025 Maple bought back 7.95M SYRUP as part of the buyback program.
Buybacks are completed once a month and are funded by up to 25% of monthly protocol revenue. This ensures continuous value accrual while maintaining flexibility around building the balance sheet…”
In addition, Maple just posted an awesome year in review video!
You can check it out below via the quote-tweet from @Ryanos_eth!
And make sure to follow Maple on Twitter for more updates, and stay tuned as we continue bringing attention to everything the team is doing!
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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.