MOODENG surged significantly following a donation from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who adopted Moo Deng, a pygmy hippopotamus, and contributed a substantial amount to support wildlife conservation. 

The S&P 500 dropped 0.04%, halting a potential "Santa Claus rally." It has risen 26% in 2024, with attention now turning to the Fed's 2025 policy and geopolitical risks. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was down by 3.15%, with Bitcoin and Ether dropping by 3.65% and 3.81%, respectively in the past 24 hours.

Today's top performer is ME, which surged 13.9% following the launching of 'Mooz' by Cool Cows on the Magic Eden Launchpad.

Magic Eden (ME), launched in September 2021, is the largest NFT marketplace on the Solana blockchain, allowing users to buy, sell, mint, and manage tokens. Cool Cows announced the launch of "

" on Magic Eden Launchpad on December 27th. They encourage joining their Discord for a chance at WL or OG spots before launch day.

Check Out the Latest Prices, Charts, and Data of 

MOODENG surged significantly following a 

 from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who adopted Moo Deng, a pygmy hippopotamus, and contributed a substantial amount to support wildlife conservation. Despite the explosive price increase, analysts warn that the gains may be temporary due to broader market volatility and overbought conditions. Trading volumes spiked, but technical indicators suggest potential corrections. Overall, market sentiment remains cautious, with predictions of possible price dips before stabilization.

Yesterday, the total flow for BTC Spot ETFs was 418.7 million, with 442.9 million in non-GBTC and a -24.2 million flow in GBTC.

 is scheduled for January, with draft criteria revealed during an AMA. Participants can earn JUP tokens based on their swapping volume, starting at $800 for 50 JUP. Higher volumes can earn up to 20,000 JUP. Additional allocations are available for users of Jupiter's Perps, DCA, Limit Orders, or VA features, as well as JUP stakers and governance participants. These criteria are draft and may change.

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MOODENG Soars After Vitalik Buterin's Wildlife Donation

Ripple USD (RLUSD) is a stablecoin designed to provide efficient, low-cost solutions for cross-border payments and DeFi, backed by U.S. dollar reserves.

 are the key to solving major financial challenges such as cross-border payments, and may soon replace many traditional fiat uses. 

 (RLUSD) aims to play a central role in this shift, offering stability and efficiency for global transactions and 

 (DeFi). This article will dive into what Ripple USD is, how it works, its main features, use cases and its potential impact on the broader stablecoin market.

Ripple USD is a stablecoin from Ripple Network, designed to maintain a 1:1 peg with the U.S. dollar for stability. This stability is achieved through a collateralization mechanism supported by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term government treasuries, and other cash-equivalent assets, offering a secure and reliable digital currency.

Ripple USD is designed to provide a reliable digital currency for everyday use and to solve several challenges in the crypto and financial worlds:

Ripple introduced RLUSD in June 2024 primarily to streamline cross-border transactions for institutional players. The stablecoin has been in beta testing since August on XRP Ledger and the Ethereum blockchain, and achieved a significant milestone in December 2024 when it received approval from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). This regulatory nod highlights RLUSD's commitment to meeting stringent standards, strengthening its credibility and earning trust from users and investors alike.

With the NYDFS approval in place, RLUSD is set to launch on both the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and Ethereum’s blockchain. Ripple will follow up with listings on exchanges including Uphold, Bitstamp, Bitso, MoonPay, Independent Reserve, CoinMENA and Bullish, with plans to expand its presence across other platforms and DeFi protocols in the future. Given Ripple's strong reputation for collaborating with financial institutions, RLUSD is poised to give established stablecoins like 

The Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin is built for efficient and reliable cross-border transactions. Each RLUSD is fully backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. Treasuries and cash equivalents, ensuring it maintains a 1:1 peg to the U.S. dollar. This backing provides the stability users need for secure and predictable transactions.

RLUSD will run on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum blockchains as an 

 token to maximize compatibility with a wide range of wallets and DeFi applications. Transactions are processed via Ripple’s decentralized network, which uses a unique 

 to achieve near-instant settlement times — typically within three to six seconds. Unlike traditional blockchain systems, this process doesn’t rely on energy-intensive mining, making it faster and more eco-friendly.

 integration adds another layer of functionality, enabling RLUSD to power automated financial operations. This opens the door to innovative DeFi products and services, from lending and borrowing to yield farming. Currently in beta testing with enterprise partners, RLUSD is undergoing rigorous testing to meet high standards of security and efficiency before its official launch.

Ripple emphasizes transparency, with third-party audits of RLUSD’s reserve assets and regular progress updates. This commitment positions RLUSD as a trustworthy and versatile player in the growing stablecoin market.

Ripple USD (RLUSD) offers strong liquidity for key trading pairs on select 

 (CEXs). This feature ensures that users can buy and sell RLUSD with ease without causing major price fluctuations, resulting in a smooth and efficient trading experience.

RLUSD is issued on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum blockchain, giving it broad compatibility across multiple ecosystems. This dual issuance ensures that RLUSD can easily be integrated into various platforms and applications, increasing its accessibility and usability across different networks.

With RLUSD, transactions can be settled almost instantly and at minimal cost, no matter where you are in the world. It reduces fees and speeds up cross-border payments and makes the process faster and more cost-effective by cutting out traditional banking intermediaries.

Integrating RLUSD into smart contracts enables automated financial operations, which are more efficient and accessible. This enhanced accessibility empowers users to easily buy, on-ramp, trade and engage in other activities within the DeFi ecosystem. RLUSD thus simplifies financial transaction management to create a more user-friendly DeFi experience.

, a trusted platform for securely managing digital assets, is already widely used by financial institutions and innovators. It combines institutional-grade security with 24/7 real-time execution, ensuring assets are safe while also easily accessible for fast transactions. Ripple Custody’s advanced governance framework streamlines operations, integrates seamlessly into existing technology systems and offers valuable additional services.

Designed for efficiency, Ripple Custody automates manual tasks and simplifies back-office operations, making asset management smoother and faster. The platform also supports flexible deployment options — Software as a service (SaaS), customer-hosted or hybrid models — so organizations can customize it to their needs. Whether for tokenization, stablecoin issuance or overall asset management, Ripple Custody is a key tool for building a strong digital asset strategy.

Ripple Custody plays an essential role in managing the security and integrity of Ripple USD (RLUSD). It ensures the underlying assets — such as U.S. dollar deposits, short-term Treasury bonds and other cash equivalents — are securely held and transparently managed, providing the stability needed for RLUSD to function effectively.

Ripple USD is designed to streamline various financial applications within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Following are some of the key use cases for RLUSD.

Ripple USD has received final approval from NYDFS and is expected to launch soon. Initially planned for a Dec 4, 2024 release, the launch was delayed due to regulatory processes, but is now anticipated to occur before the end of 2024, as 

Ripple USD is a stablecoin designed to offer a reliable, low-cost solution for cross-border payments and DeFi. Backed by U.S. dollar reserves, it ensures stability while offering quick transactions and broad blockchain compatibility. With regulatory approval and strong institutional backing, RLUSD is positioned to challenge established stablecoins. However, its success will depend upon widespread adoption and effective integration into Ripple's ecosystem, making it a promising yet competitive investment.

Intermediate

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Ripple USD (RLUSD): A Stablecoin Built for Payments

In this tutorial, we’ll explore how you can complete a series of tasks in Suilend for Bybit Web3 Airdrop Arcade.

Task: Complete Suilend Bybit Wallet Check-In for Bybit Web3 Airdrop Arcade

button in the top right corner of the page, and connect your 

: Stake at least 10 SUI to deposit sSUI in Suilend, click on 

 to confirm the transaction request in your Bybit Wallet.

: Once the deposit is completed, you’ll receive a confirmation message. 

10 SUI is now staked as sSUI via Suilend. Please navigate back to the Bybit Web3 Airdrop Arcade campaign page to check your completion status and earn your reward.

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How to Complete Suilend Tasks for Bybit Web3 Airdrop Arcade

Smart contract platforms serve as decentralized frameworks that enable self-executing contracts, with terms directly embedded in code

Smart contract platforms serve as decentralized frameworks that enable self-executing contracts, with terms directly embedded in code. This functionality is crucial for the operation of numerous on-chain applications, including 

, facilitating transactions without intermediaries. The landscape is divided into Layer 1 (L1) and Layer 2 (L2) networks.

L1 blockchains, such as Ethereum and Solana, provide the foundational infrastructure for 

 (DApps), while L2 networks like Arbitrum and Optimism enhance the capabilities of L1s by improving scalability and efficiency. 

Heading into 2025, Ethereum remains the dominant L1, holding a 70% share of total TVL within DeFi. However, the market is evolving, with new entrants like 

The competitive L2 space is also transforming, with 

 leading the pack, boasting a market cap exceeding $5 billion. Newcomers such as 

 are reshaping the landscape, demonstrating a trend toward diversification and innovation in blockchain technology.

Several emerging platforms are redefining the smart contract landscape through unique technological innovations and community engagement. 

, derived from Meta's Diem project, utilizes the Move programming language to enhance security and scalability. With over 200 projects in its ecosystem, Aptos has seen a 13.5x increase in TVL, reflecting strong growth.

Sui, which shares a similar heritage, focuses on scalability through its object-centric model and unique consensus mechanism that allow for individual transaction confirmation. This innovative approach has led to a remarkable 14.9x increase in TVL, signaling Sui’s potential as a formidable player in the market.

 introduces a modular blockchain architecture that bridges Move and 

 (EVM) ecosystems, aiming to enhance DeFi 

 and NFTs. Launched in late 2024, Movement emphasizes community building through hackathons and developer engagement, while its unique features appeal to a diverse user base.

 technologies with Telegram's vast user base, and 

, an L1 solution designed for high throughput and low latency. Finally, Berachain introduces a Proof-of-Liquidity consensus mechanism that focuses on aligning liquidity and security within its DeFi-centric ecosystem.

As the landscape of smart contract platforms continues to evolve, several challenges must be addressed. Security vulnerabilities remain a significant concern, as smart contracts are prone to bugs that can be exploited. Continuous auditing and robust security practices are essential to mitigating these risks.

Market saturation poses another challenge, as the influx of new platforms intensifies competition for developers and users. To stand out, new entrants are forming strategic partnerships and focusing on niche markets to differentiate themselves from established players. 

Centralization is also a critical issue, and governance structures and validator reliance must be scrutinized in order to ensure long-term viability.

Looking ahead, the outlook for smart contract platforms remains promising. Innovations in modular architectures and interoperability are improving user experience within web3, while increasing institutional interest could bring additional resources and innovation to the space. As the ecosystem continues to mature, these platforms are likely to play a pivotal role in redefining interactions with digital assets, driving demand within DeFi and beyond.

Advanced

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Smart Contract Platforms Report: Up-and-Coming Challengers to Ethereum and Solana

Bybit Learn

DeFi

Tornado Cash, a popular crypto mixer, has recently made the news for being sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury. Find out what actually happened in this article.

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Numerous crypto projects have become popular before meeting some form of controversy. A large number of them provide investors with a unique “hook” or feature that grabs their attention. In the case of Tornado Cash, this feature involves transaction anonymity by acting as a 

. Despite its advantages, the popular cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash has already stirred up a storm in the crypto world, the details of which are discussed further in this article.

Whenever a user intends to make a deposit with ERC-20 tokens or ETH into the Tornado Cash protocol’s liquidity pools, the protocol first generates a secret hash before admitting both the deposit and the hash. When the individual intends to withdraw their crypto, they simply input the secret hash to prove their ownership over the funds. Since the funds go through the protocol’s liquidity pools first, it becomes impossible to link the deposit to the withdrawal. This provides total asset privacy.

Currently, Tornado Cash is owned in full by its community, to whom ownership was transferred in 2020 when the Tornado Cash team relinquished its control. Since then, Tornado Cash has been a fully decentralized protocol.

A cryptocurrency mixer is a software tool that improves anonymity for some crypto transactions. Once crypto is deposited from one address, it’s mixed with crypto from other transactions and withdrawn from a different address.

The crypto assets must be deposited with a smart contract designed specifically to perform this mixing transaction. Once a set amount of time has passed, users can withdraw their deposited tokens from another address. Every mixer comes with its own distinct mixing process. Various cryptographic techniques (which differ with each protocol) can be used to confirm or verify crypto deposits.

. Storm first became involved in blockchain technology in 2011, later co-founding 

 with Semenov in 2018. He’s also worked with 

, taken part in creating smart contracts, and developed ERC-20 tokens and audited code.

Semenov specialized in quantum statistics and field theory. Prior to co-founding PepperSec, he co-founded 

 and assisted with optimizing eCommerce conversions and funnels. Semenov and Storm used the open-source code from 

 to create Tornado Cash. Even though Zcash operates as a privacy coin, Tornado Cash offers more uses by acting as a 

 mixer service. It's because of this unique value proposition that Tornado Cash quickly became popular after its introduction to the crypto industry in 2019.

Tornado Cash mixes its transactions with 

, which are able to obfuscate all transaction information. Hence, Tornado Cash is considered to be a decentralized service that's operated with the use of smart contracts. This means that centralized parties can't obtain funds from the mixing process.

When a user deposits their funds into Tornado Cash, the protocol generates a completely random hash before the deposit of ERC-20 tokens goes through. In order for the user to withdraw their funds from a different address, they’re required to submit the valid key. Withdrawals can be made with MetaMask or other 

One of the two core components behind Tornado Cash involves zero-knowledge proofs. These are digital protocols which improve privacy by facilitating data sharing between separate parties without providing info about the transactions, which could include passwords.

Since this type of information isn't provided to another party, zero-knowledge proofs greatly improve security and reduce congestion by obviating the need to store information on Layer 1.

Anonymity mining is designed to provide any Tornado Cash user who supports TORN's privacy features with liquidity. Users can obtain cash via a liquidity mining system, which has two stages to ensure user privacy is always maintained. When a user interacts with the Tornado Cash protocol, they receive a certain number of points, which are deposited directly into a shielded account. These can then be converted into TORN tokens, which have a fixed supply.

While Tornado Cash proved to be popular almost immediately after it was launched in 2019, the project itself has since experienced numerous issues, the primary one of which occurred in early August 2022 when 

 by the U.S. Treasury. However, the cause for these sanctions began at an earlier date. In March 2022, Roman Semenov 

 Bloomberg News that enforcing sanctions on decentralized protocols would technically be impossible.

Despite this claim, sanctions were set by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control on August 8, 2022. The reason was Tornado Cash’s ability to grant transactions anonymity as a coin mixer. Coin mixers have regularly been suspected as being a perfect solution for laundering funds.

While money laundering is possible with this service, it's also difficult to prove that it occurs. 

, an Australian computer scientist and businessman who claims he was part of the main team that created Bitcoin, believes that mixing standard transactions with potentially criminal activities ensures that every transaction within a crypto pool is effectively contaminated. Since its inception, the team at Tornado Cash has stated it will impose effective controls designed to limit or stop funds from being laundered by malicious cyber actors.

Despite these promises, the U.S. Treasury Department stated that Tornado Cash never took the necessary steps to prevent illicit activity, such as fraud and 

. It believes that currency mixers such as Tornado Cash pose a threat to national security — which is partially due to Tornado Cash allegedly being used in various crypto heists over the past year. For instance, in March 2022, 

. Another attack occurred on a start-up known as Harmony, which resulted in 

Before August’s sanctions, the TORN token was worth a little more than $30. At the moment, it's worth almost $9, with a market cap of over $9.63 million. TORN’s fully diluted market cap is approximately $87.6 million, with just under 1.1 million TORN tokens currently in circulation. The token’s maximum supply is locked at 10 million.

The Tornado Cash platform is mainly used by crypto investors and holders who want to perform completely anonymous transactions. Users can also access TORN tokens to make 

 proposals, or vote for changes in the protocol. When users obtain enough anonymity points through Tornado Cash, they can convert these points into TORN tokens.

Soon after U.S. sanctions were imposed on Tornado Cash, an arrest was made in Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Dutch authorities 

 a 29-year-old Tornado Cash developer suspected of criminal activities. Many Tornado Cash developers quickly expressed concern over what would happen next.

The authorities believe that the developer they arrested, 

, was involved in money laundering and keeping criminal financial flows hidden by effectively mixing cryptocurrencies. 

The Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service has since stated that more arrests are possible in the coming weeks. At the moment, it's unclear if Pertsev was engaged in criminal activity, or was simply involved with writing code for the Tornado Cash protocol.

The Treasury Department stated that Tornado Cash has been used for the 

 in virtual currency since 2019, which includes a theft of $455 million by what's known as the 

, a North-Korean cybercrime group made up of anonymous individuals from North Korea. As mentioned previously, these sanctions were made after the TORN team allegedly failed to eliminate these issues from its platform.

These sanctions directly prohibit U.S. individuals and businesses from providing any services centered on the Tornado Cash platform. U.S. individuals are also unable to access Ethereum wallet addresses that have been sanctioned by the protocol. Once these sanctions were implemented, TORN’s value dropped by nearly 46%. The sanctions placed on Tornado Cash were the first to be implemented on a DeFi platform.

As a result of these sanctions, any property or crypto assets related to Tornado Cash that a U.S. citizen or entity is in possession of must be reported directly to the Treasury Department. Moreover, any transaction involving these assets is prohibited in the U.S.

All funds that leave Tornado Cash are associated with the imposed sanctions, which means that any cryptocurrency exchanges or businesses that come into contact with these crypto assets will be notified that the assets are tainted. Crypto assets that were mixed through the Tornado Cash platform before the sanctions took place aren't of interest to the Treasury Department, and can be freely withdrawn.

If you hold any Tornado Cash assets that are blocked under these sanctions, a report needs to be filed within 10 business days after the virtual currency is blocked. Additional reports will need to be filed annually until the virtual currency is unblocked.

What This Means for Other Virtual Currency Mixers

The Treasury Department has made it clear that they want to resolve the money laundering issues which they believe are inherent to crypto mixers. Accordingly, other crypto mixers aren't necessarily safe from future sanctions.

Note, however, that according to Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson, the Treasury Department had

 Tornado Cash several times to improve their platform and reduce the possibility of criminal activities, to which they repeatedly failed to do so. Therefore, it could be years before other crypto mixers are sanctioned as well.

For innocent users, the sanctions can be particularly frustrating. Moreover, if you've conducted crypto transactions after a certain date, you could be blocked entirely from withdrawing your Tornado Cash assets. Because these events are so recent, it's difficult to predict what's going to happen next.

Some notable figures find these sanctions troubling, and are inquiring with the Treasury Department as to why they were made. For instance, 

 on his official Twitter page that he sent a letter to the Department on August 23, asking why Tornado Cash had been sanctioned. He believes that these sanctions diverge from precedent, and that the issues are tied to open-source software, as opposed to specific entities or people. A response to his letter has not yet been received.

Tornado Cash is a crypto platform that has proven to be highly popular among investors and crypto holders who want more anonymity with their transactions. However, because the platform’s decentralized nature and crypto-mixing capability can allegedly enable money laundering, the U.S. Treasury Department recently sanctioned Tornado Cash. While these sanctions won't necessarily be in place forever, Tornado Cash’s trajectory will likely remain unclear for the foreseeable future.

Tornado Cash: How It’s Stirring Up a Storm in the Crypto World

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