Stablecoin Market Cap Reaches $200 Billion
The total market cap of stablecoins increased to $204 billion, up 3% from last week. Coinbase attributes this growth to a sharp increase in on-chain lending rates.
The bulk of the market is still concentrated in USDT, which accounts for 67.8% of the total volume with a capitalization of $138.45 billion. USDC accounts for 19.9%, equivalent to $40.69 billion. In addition, Coinbase analysts noted that the volume of USDC deposits has doubled over the past month.
Developers Choose Solana
Solana was the most attractive blockchain for new developers in 2024, according to a report from Electric Capital. Of the 39,148 new developers, 7,625 chose Solana, marking the first time since 2016 that its ecosystem has grown faster than Ethereum.
Ethereum maintains its lead in terms of developer numbers globally, with Solana in second place. The distribution of popularity by region is as follows:
- Asia and South America — Polygon,
- North America — Base,
- Africa — ICP,
- Europe — Polkadot.
The total number of developers in the crypto industry has decreased by 7%, but the share of specialists with more than two years of experience has increased to 27%. These developers create 70% of all code.
109 Million Wallets Store USDT
As of the start of Q4 2024, USDT had 109 million owners, more than double the number of Bitcoin owners and close to Ethereum’s 128 million, according to Tether. This makes USDT one of the most popular digital assets.
The analysis used Chainalysis data for Ethereum, TRON, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, and Avalanche, as well as Artemis data for Solana, Base, and TON. In October, Tether reported that 330 million wallets and on-chain accounts were using USDT as of the end of Q3. This data does not include the tens of millions of users who use USDT on CEX, suggesting that the asset is even more widely used.
Avalanche Raises $250 Million Ahead of Avalanche9000 Launch
The Avalanche team announced that they have raised $250 million in a private token sale ahead of the Avalanche9000 upgrade. More than 40 investment firms participated in the round, including Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly, and ParaFi Capital.
As the developers explained, the capital raising follows the launch of the Avalanche9000 testnet, which took place on November 25. This upgrade, according to them, is critical, as it reduces the cost of deploying Avalanche L1 client blockchains by 99.9% and reduces the cost of transactions on the C-Chain, a network for Ethereum-compatible smart contracts, by 25 times.
A retroactive grant program for ecosystem developers with a budget of $40 million was announced along with the testnet launch. The Avalanche9000 mainnet is expected to launch on December 16.
Dogecoin User Takes Down 69% of Nodes
On December 12, Andreas Kohl, co-founder of the Bitcoin sidechain Sequentia, reported that he had managed to disable 69% of the Dogecoin network nodes by exploiting a previously discovered vulnerability.
According to him, he used a bug that was previously reported by researcher Tobias Rook. The vulnerability, dubbed DogeReaper, allows any node in the network to be remotely disabled by knowing its ID. These IDs are publicly available, making the exploit especially dangerous for arbitrary nodes and can threaten the stability of the entire protocol. However, the vulnerability does not pose a threat to user funds.
After exploiting the vulnerability, the number of active nodes in the network was reduced from 647 to 258. At the time of writing, 438 nodes are operating in the Dogecoin network.
Hackers Attack Cardano Foundation's X Account
On December 8, the Cardano Foundation's X social media account was hacked, causing false messages to be posted on behalf of the organization. Charles Hoskinson, the founder of the network, confirmed the incident.
The attackers used the account to promote the ADAsol token, allegedly issued by Cardano developers on the Solana blockchain. The manipulation generated trading volume of about $500,000.
The compromised account later posted a fake message about a lawsuit allegedly filed against Cardano by the SEC. The project team assured that the attack only affected the X account, and the organization's other channels and systems remained secure.
