Weekly Editor's Picks (1010-1016)
- Core Viewpoint: This week, both the crypto and AI markets shifted toward a value reassessment: public chains and Perp DEXs entered an elimination round, AI investment returned from technical narratives to ROI arithmetic, and stock tokenization and perpetual contracts became key on-chain incremental entry points.
- Key Elements:
- The founder of Real Vision pointed out that most public chains lack moats, and only independent economies such as Ethereum and Solana, vertically specialized chains, and Layer 2 networks can survive, with token issuance mechanisms being a fatal killer.
- Pump.fun generated $65.63 million in protocol revenue over the past 30 days, close to Hyperliquid's $71.05 million, but its circulating market cap is only about one-eighth of the latter, with buyback spending accounting for approximately 1.27% of market cap.
- StandX ceased operations and canceled its token issuance; 237,000 users failed to save the project, and Perp DEX subsidies raised customer acquisition costs, pushing the sector into an elimination round.
- On-chain stock exposure exceeds $6 billion, with Binance and Robinhood contributing 86% of new holders over the past three months, but tokenized stocks account for only 0.016% of foreign investors' holdings.
- The logic of AI trading has changed; rising capital costs and tightening credit are putting compute infrastructure at risk of delays, and the semiconductor supply chain may face an order cliff in 2027-2028.
- Pearl integrates AI computing with GPU mining through its PoUW mechanism, with PRL surging 3x, but the token has yet to capture AI commercial value, and the closed loop remains to be completed.
The information stream moves too fast, and in-depth analysis articles are easily buried by hot topics. The "Weekly Editor's Picks" column pulls content with judgment value out of the flood of information, helping you filter out the noise, retain insights, and spark inspiration.
Macro Landscape
Today's S&P 500: A Historic High, the Bottom of a Bull Market
The S&P 500 may be near an all-time high while still sitting at a "bottom." Inflation, war, and rate hikes have all failed to stop US stocks from hitting new highs—their resilience is extraordinary.
Most constituents of the S&P 500 have underperformed, which is both proof of a bear market and a signal of a rebound.
From a macro perspective, market demand for holding assets is also at a historic high.
Once conditions are ripe, the S&P 500 is highly likely to usher in a sharp rally, and 2027 will be a year full of major variables.
Investment & Entrepreneurship
Real Vision Founder: Why Are Most Public Chains Destined to Die Out?
Cloud computing, operating systems, the mobile phone sector, public chains—all large platform markets end with only a few survivors. The product of a public chain is block space. Everything else is just marketing packaging. Evaluating an economy, including a public chain, means looking at how much economic activity is actually generated on-chain.
Four paths to survival: becoming an independent economy (like Ethereum or Solana), pursuing a vertical specialization strategy (like Hyperliquid), or serving as a Layer 2 and BNB (essentially a centralized platform token dressed up as an L1). The vast majority of remaining public chains have no moat, and their value will eventually go to zero. At the operational level, what truly kills them is the token launch mechanism.
Three key dimensions to watch: whether single-user economic density holds up when the token price crashes; whether stablecoin balances can continue to grow during a token decline; and continued developer inflow.
Weekly Revenue Surpassing Hyperliquid, $1 Million Daily Buybacks—Is Pump.fun Undervalued?
The Meme market has cooled down, but Pump.fun is still very profitable.
Pump.fun's protocol revenue over the past 30 days was $65.63 million, close to Hyperliquid's $71.05 million. However, relative to revenue scale, PUMP's valuation is significantly lower than HYPE's. Their circulating market caps are approximately $2.325 billion and $18.198 billion respectively, a gap of nearly eight times. Based on a simple annualization of the most recent 30-day protocol revenue, the ratios of circulating market cap to annualized revenue are approximately 3x and 21x respectively.
Pump.fun's buyback spending in a single month equals about 1.27% of its market cap. After the first large-scale unlock, there was no concentrated sell-off, and subsequent selling pressure has clearly weakened.
Following the adjustment of Callout Rewards and the expansion of trading categories, traders are once again bullish on Pump.fun's "money-printing" ability. Pump.fun may evolve into a super app in this cycle.
Even Losing Money Requires a Queue—How Far Can PaperTrade's 1000x Leverage Experiment Go?
PaperTrade supports leverage of up to 1000x. After a trading loss or liquidation, users receive the native token PAPER. PaperTrade users trade directly against the protocol's shared USDC liquidity pool: when users lose, funds go into the pool; when users profit, the pool pays out the profits.
Although the rules are public and there is no pre-allocation, controversies have followed: small users wait longer in line; relying on Hyperliquid for pricing, PaperTrade has suffered from price manipulation. After the first-day frenzy, PaperTrade's open interest has clearly declined.
The USDC lost is certain; whether the PAPER received can cover the cost still depends on subsequent platform dividends and market pricing.
237,000 Users Can't Save StandX—Perp DEXs Enter the Elimination Round
Decentralized perpetual contract platform StandX has announced it is ceasing operations, canceling its previously planned platform token issuance, and plans to distribute a one-time airdrop to users in DUSD.
Perp DEXs remain one of the segments with the most trading demand in the crypto market, but segment growth no longer means all participants get a slice of the pie.
Subsidies have raised Perp DEX customer acquisition costs; airdrops can generate trading volume but not trading demand; Perp DEXs have entered the elimination round.
Further reading: "Exclusive Interview with PaperTrade Founder: The Man Who Created a 1000x Casino Hopes for a World Without Leverage" and "Post-Cooling Review: Who Actually Made Money on Papertrade?".
Also recommended: "2027: The Token Economy Enters the Era of Value Capture"
AI & Storage
The Market Finally Realizes AI's Biggest Bottleneck Is Not Power, Not Chips, but Money
When capital is no longer unlimited and no longer cheap, AI retreats from a technological myth to the most basic arithmetic problem of return on investment (ROI).
Tightening credit and rising capital costs have created delay risks in computing infrastructure construction, and the semiconductor supply chain may face an order cliff in 2027-2028 where demand cannot be converted into actual purchases.
AI Trading Logic Shifts, Global Chip Stocks Plunge
After nearly four years of AI infrastructure investment frenzy, market sentiment is changing: rising interest rates, increased bond market volatility, climbing AI financing costs, and whether massive capital expenditure can be converted into actual returns are all coming under stricter scrutiny.
ChangXin's technological progress may be the direct catalyst for this round of storage stock sell-offs, but the deeper change is that investors are shifting from chasing AI growth to scrutinizing capital returns.
Storage "Deleveraging," Korean Retail Investors Plunge Back into "Liquidation Fear"
The sharp correction in the Korean stock market can be explained as a technical adjustment triggered by profit-taking at highs. However, when the view shifts from this grand capital feast to the micro nodes of the AI industry chain, the pressure facing the market may go beyond short-term capital withdrawal. This includes three layers of concern:
- Whether the continued expansion of AI infrastructure investment can smoothly convert into actual revenue and profit;
- Rising prices for upstream equipment and components are rewriting the investment return expectations for the chip industry chain;
- Whether the high revenue growth of frontier large-model labs can be sustained.
CeFi & DeFi
Behind the Tokenization of Stocks: Who's Making Money, and Who's Doing the Work for Others?
Currently, traders and investors hold over $6 billion in on-chain stock exposure through two paths. The first is tokenization. The second is the synthetic route.
There are two reasons to put stocks on-chain: buying, selling, and holding are cheaper; and you can do other things with them. And while Wall Street is closed on weekends, on-chain stocks never sleep.
Perpetuals are a useful directional signal but a terrible weekend price. Correct, continuous price feeds are the constraint here. The better perpetuals can set weekend prices, the more stock tokens can serve as collateral; the more collateral needs hedging, the larger perpetual trading volume will be.
As of the end of June 2025, foreign investors held $19.86 trillion in US stocks, accounting for 18.3% of total US stock value. Stock tokens currently represent only 0.016% of foreign holdings. The increment must come from stocks already held in brokerage accounts. Robinhood's role in tokenized stocks is like Circle's role in stablecoins in 2018.
Over the past three months, Binance and Robinhood together brought 86% of new holders. BNB Chain added 1.72 million addresses, and Robinhood Chain added 1.55 million. BNB Chain also brought in $517 million in value, more than all other chains combined. Solana and Ethereum together added 518,000 holders.
The ultimate form of shares on-chain is for a company's transfer agent to record the shares themselves on-chain—no offshore issuer, no separate custodian, and no claim on someone else's account. The token is the share. A small group of leaders is currently working on this.
Across the entire chain, the money flows to front-end applications. The least advantageous positions are the chain and the custodian.
Also recommended: "Ripple's Largest DAT Listing: Can XRPN Become the Next MSTR?" and "Behind 30% Annualized Fixed Income: A Brief Analysis of the Opportunities and Risks of Pendle's New Arbitrage Product".
Airdrop Opportunities and Interaction Guides
Hot Interaction Roundup | Catalyst Waitlist Application; RocX Testnet Now Live (October 10)
Bitcoin
PRL Surges 3x—Can Pearl Become the "AI Version of Bitcoin"?
Recently, the overseas community has been enthusiastically embracing GPU mining coin Pearl (PRL). Pearl is an L1 protocol that integrates AI computing with GPU mining. Users' GPUs perform AI training and inference workloads while simultaneously achieving blockchain proof-of-work and producing the token PRL—i.e., Proof of Useful Work (PoUW).
In recent months, the most credibility-enhancing thing Pearl has done is join NVIDIA's AI startup ecosystem. In addition, Pearl is also building an AI privacy trust layer. Applying zero-knowledge proofs to the field of AI privacy protection may also become one of Pearl's core narratives.
PRL mining status: a 4090 generates 50 yuan in daily net income.
Pearl's core is "one computation, two outputs," but currently the PRL token cannot capture any of Pearl's AI commercial value—this may be the loop Pearl needs to close in the future.
Also recommended: "Bitcoin Mining Profit Calculator: Real-Time Calculation of Hashrate Returns, Electricity Costs, and Shutdown Price".
Ethereum and Scaling
Ethereum's Moat Hasn't Disappeared—It's Just No Longer Priced in Trading Volume
The arguments behind "Ethereum is losing its last moat, liquidity" include:
- Tokenized stocks on Ethereum have almost no trading volume, but Ethereum holds the second-largest share of tokenized stock supply. Tokenized stocks sitting on your blockchain can't do anything because they generate no revenue, and it's trading volume that generates revenue. (The author does not believe Ethereum necessarily needs to generate revenue. It already has a monetary premium.)
- Flagship applications are prioritizing growth elsewhere. (The author believes that the growth of Ethereum Layer 2s is a victory for Ethereum. Applications are adding distribution channels, not leaving Ethereum.)
- Ethereum's stablecoin dominance is slowly declining. (The author believes the stablecoin market is not winner-takes-all.)
Multi-Ecosystem
Uniswap v4 Hook Ecosystem Heats Up: 8 Early Projects Race Ahead—Who Can Build a Real Business?
Security
Lamborghinis, NDAs, a Heilongjiang Boss... The Ledger Theft Incident Is Full of Doubts
Hardcore Tutorial: How to Turn Your iPhone into a Secure Cold Wallet
Weekly Hot Topic Crash Course
Policy and Macro Market
US September CPI blows past expectations: BTC tests $80,000, US semiconductor stocks broadly slump;
Motion to withdraw $5 million settlement agreement rejected; judge rules Gemini and CFTC lack sufficient grounds;
MSCI's new rules are set to take effect; Strategy and Metaplanet may face potential removal;
Views and Voices
Dalio warns: the US Treasury bear market is "far from over," and supply-demand imbalance risks continue to accumulate;
Bank of America: A Fed rate hike in October may become the biggest positive for risk assets and US stocks;
Hedge funds dump two years of net buying in a single week; Goldman Sachs warns: deleveraging may have only just begun;
Microsoft CEO: The superintelligence era requires a "controllable" architecture—responsibility cannot be outsourced to AI;
Jensen Huang steps in to "save the market": backing CoreWeave, saying the claim that "
