Weekly Editor's Picks (0117-0123)
- Core View: This week's selected articles reveal the current core narrative conflicts and structural shifts in the crypto market, including a shift in institutional capital preferences, key regulatory battlegrounds, a financialization inflection point for Ethereum staking, and the vulnerability of projects' reliance on centralized platforms.
- Key Elements:
- Market analysis suggests the next wave of capital will come from institutions favoring "dividend-like" tokens with clear product-market fit and regulatory clarity, not retail investors.
- U.S. banks, through the CLARITY Act, are attempting a comprehensive ban on interest-bearing stablecoins, with the core concern being that stablecoins will erode bank net interest margins and fee income.
- Grayscale's Ethereum Staking ETF distributing yields to holders marks the entry of ETH staking rewards into mainstream finance's view as an asset generating cash flow.
- Algorithm changes on the X platform have impacted the InfoFi ecosystem, exposing the structural risk of Web3 projects' over-reliance on centralized platforms.
- Solana plans an aggressive technical upgrade cycle through 2026, aiming to make its on-chain order book competitive in performance with centralized exchanges.
- Contrarian investment signals emerge in the market, with institutions like Vanguard buying MicroStrategy stock amid widespread bearish sentiment.
- Potential crypto policy actions following a Trump administration include establishing a BTC strategic reserve, pushing for crypto bill legislation, and pardoning CZ.
"Weekly Editor's Picks" is a functional column by Odaily. While Odaily covers a vast amount of real-time news each week, it also publishes many high-quality in-depth analyses. However, these might get lost in the information feed and hot topics, passing you by.
Therefore, our editorial team will select some worthwhile, high-quality articles from the past 7 days every Saturday, worthy of your time to savor and bookmark. From perspectives like data analysis, industry judgment, and opinion sharing, we aim to bring new inspiration to you in the crypto world.
Now, let's read together:
Investment & Entrepreneurship
People live in a state of 'pervasive economic anxiety.' Too many still view BTC as a risky asset, believing it only rises when the macro environment is stable and the Nasdaq surges. It is precisely this narrative conflict that is suppressing prices. Crypto is a prisoner of the macro bubble. The next wave of capital will likely come from institutions. They will buy tokens with 'dividend-like' attributes (fee switches, real yield), projects with clear PMF (stablecoin issuers, prediction markets), and assets with clear regulatory status.
Quantum risk is real. Prediction markets are just beginning. Airdrops and Memes still have opportunities. Tokenization/RWA will dominate crypto growth. Institutions urgently need privacy. The 4-year cycle is no longer applicable.
Vanguard Enters with $700 Million, Has MSTR Hit Bottom?
Over the past few months, MicroStrategy's stock price has continuously retreated from its high of $457, falling nearly 200%. Doubts surrounding MicroStrategy have also intensified. From high leverage and refinancing capability to the transmission mechanism between Bitcoin price volatility and stock price, almost all negative narratives have been revisited. Especially after mNAV fell below 1, bearish voices on MSTR have been incessant.
When almost everyone is extremely bearish and the news is all negative, Vanguard, the pension fund Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System (LASERS), active managers, and several asset managers have been gradually buying in.
While the institutions and individuals choosing to go long on MSTR may not necessarily be correct, their very existence is worth serious observation. Because the structural bottom of a market is often not born after sentiment improves, but at the moment when sentiment remains extreme, yet some have already chosen to act contrarily.
'Lucky Dumb Whales' Hunting Quant Bots
Trader "a4385" meticulously orchestrated a hunt against quant bots, raking in $280,000 within 48 hours. The article details this "money-printing operation" and calculates the associated costs.
X's New Algorithm Exposed: Likes Are Almost Worthless, This Action's Value Soars 150x
Algorithm logic shift: from manual definition to AI-driven judgment.
For creators, this means two things: First, past tricks like "optimal posting time" or "golden hashtags" have diminished reference value. Because the model no longer looks at these fixed features; it looks at each user's personal preferences. Second, whether your content gets pushed increasingly depends on "how people who see your content will react." This reaction is quantified into 15 types of behavioral predictions. Positive behaviors: such as liking, replying, retweeting, quote-tweeting, clicking the post, clicking the author's profile, watching over half the video, expanding an image, sharing, staying beyond a certain duration, following the author. Negative behaviors: such as clicking "Not interested," blocking the author, muting the author, reporting. Each behavior corresponds to a predicted probability. The algorithm weights them into a score.
The algorithm doesn't care about the quality of the post itself; it only cares about your behavior.
Actionable advice for creators: reply to comments, avoid getting blocked, put external links in comments, don't spam, and there's no more "best time to post."
What Exactly Is the 'New Media' a16z Talks About? New Media Is a Power Migration
Media has transformed from an institutional asset into personal capital.
The end goal of new media is not page views, but agency. Agency means others are willing to act with you, trust your judgment, and pay for your concepts.
New media solves "distribution rights," ICM solves "pricing rights."
Also recommended: "The 2026 Disruptive Script: Four Tech Billionaires Predict Copper Soaring, Oil Crashing, and New Crypto Assets Rising".
Policy & Stablecoins
Why Must Banks Ban Stablecoin Yields?
The biggest point of contention surrounding the CLARITY Act has focused on "yield-bearing stablecoins." Specifically, the GENIUS Act passed last year, to gain banking industry support, explicitly prohibited yield-bearing stablecoins. However, the Act only prohibited stablecoin issuers from paying holders "any form of interest or yield," but did not restrict third parties from providing yield or rewards. The banking industry is very dissatisfied with this "workaround" and is attempting to overturn it in the CLARITY Act, banning all types of yield-bearing pathways. This has met strong opposition from parts of the crypto community, represented by Coinbase.
The banking industry's real concern about stablecoins lies in — stablecoins as a new transaction medium, whose use cases directly compete with transactional deposits, will reshape deposit structures — while funds may remain within the banking system, bank costs will significantly increase (interest margins compressed), and revenue from transaction fees will also substantially shrink.
Report Card of the 'Crypto President' Trump: One Year In, How Many Promises Has He Kept?
Unprecedented: a President also launches a Meme coin;
"A new broom sweeps clean": layoffs, appointments, eliminating dissent;
"Making history with decrees": establishing a BTC strategic reserve, pushing for three major crypto bills;
Wielding the tariff stick, causing market volatility, crypto markets become a stage for insider trading;
Family wealth skyrockets, pardoning Binance founder CZ.
Airdrop Opportunities & Interaction Guides
Ultimate 2026 Project Interaction Checklist (Including 182 Projects with Strategies)
Popular Interaction Collection | New Moonbirds Badge Quest; Konnex Launches Points Task (Jan 22)
Interaction Tutorial | Perle Labs, Funded $17.5M, Launches Season 1 Points Campaign
How to Find Gold in a Sluggish Market? Complete Guide to Wash Trading on Perp DEX Dual Platforms
Ethereum & Scaling
Earlier this month, Grayscale announced that its Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF (ETHE) had distributed to existing shareholders the staking rewards earned by the fund from October 6, 2025, to December 31, 2025. This also marks the first U.S. spot crypto asset exchange-traded product distributing staking rewards to holders.
The ETF distributing rewards is not an isolated event but the first step for Ethereum Staking to enter the broader capital view. It will drive the de facto implementation and popularization of institutional Ethereum staking and reward distribution, also marking that Ethereum ETFs are no longer just shadow assets following price fluctuations, but genuine financial products with cash flow generation capabilities.
Multi-Ecosystem
Delphi Digital: Solana to Undergo Its Most Aggressive Technical Upgrade Cycle in History
Solana's roadmap aims to transform it into an exchange-grade environment, enabling native on-chain central limit order books (CLOBs) to compete with centralized exchanges (CEXs) in terms of latency, liquidity depth, and fairness.
The 2026 roadmap may be the most aggressive upgrade cycle in the network's history, undergoing a comprehensive overhaul from consensus mechanisms to infrastructure to become the decentralized Nasdaq.
The article further details the following upgrades: Alpenglow, Firedancer, DoubleZero, BAM & Harmonic, Raiku.
CeFi & DeFi
The Rise and Future of Perp DEX: A Structural Revolution in On-Chain Derivatives
SocialFi
Tiger Research: If I Were Kaito's Founder, How Would I Decide Facing InfoFi's Upheaval?
X platform's policy adjustments destroyed the InfoFi ecosystem within just three days, thoroughly exposing the structural fragility of Web3 projects' over-reliance on centralized platforms.
InfoFi projects currently face five choices: complete shutdown, pivot to a bounty funding platform, adopt a Korean-style sponsorship model, multi-platform expansion, or evolve into an MCN-style KOL management model.
The future model will be more refined and controllable, shifting from "permissionless scaling" to "curated high-quality collaboration."
Establishing a fair incentive compensation system and re-proving the intrinsic value of tokens remain chasms the industry must cross.
Weekly Hot Topics Recap
In the past week, NYSE plans to launch 24/7 stock tokenized trading (Analysis of bullish and bearish implications for crypto business);
Furthermore, regarding policy and macro markets, The Fed Chair race sees sudden changes: Hassett hints at dropping out, Warsh's odds surge; Trump's crypto advisors urge swift passage of market structure bill: "Compromises must be made"; Hong Kong Securities and Futures Professionals Association: Hong Kong has completed preliminary virtual asset regulatory infrastructure;
Regarding opinions and voices, Tiger Research: Policy catalysts and liquidity expansion, Bitcoin Q1 2026 valuation locked at $185,500; Analysis: Wall Street bets on Trump TACO trade again, prediction markets show only 17% probability of tariffs on Europe; Vitalik Buterin: We need more, better DAOs, not just treasuries controlled by token voting;
Regarding institutions, large companies, and leading projects, Pump.fun announces it will launch investment arm Pump Fund, committing $3 million to invest in 12 new tokens launched via its platform; Genius releases new points rules (interpretation); Solana Mobile launches ecosystem-native asset SKR (interpretation); Bubblemaps: SKR token average airdrop amount $1,400, 60k addresses have claimed;
In terms of data, Bitcoin fell to $91.9k, crypto market sees Monday morning "flash crash"; On January 21, BTC broke below 88,000 USDT; Spot gold rose above $4,950/oz, hitting another all-time high... Well, another rollercoaster week.
Link to the "Weekly Editor's Picks" series.
See you next time~
