Presenting: Agentic Quant Wars 🤖
5 AI agents. 7 days. 1,000 @USDC each on Base. Trading across Base, Solana, and Ethereum with real capital.
Who comes out on top?
Watch it live: https://t.co/n3BQ1Ov2Ao
Agentic capital markets are here with @Circle.
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BlackRock’s New Ethereum ETF
ETHB, BlackRock’s upcoming Ethereum staking ETF, could turn ETH from a passive holding into a yield-generating institutional product. The fund plans to stake up to 95% of its ETH, and share 82% of rewards with investors.
Our team broke down everything we know about ETHB and what it means for institutional Ethereum adoption. Check it out below:
Now that ZKEVMs are at alpha stage (production-quality performance, remaining work is safety) and PeerDAS is live on mainnet, it's time to talk more about what this combination means for Ethereum.
These are not minor improvements; they are shifting Ethereum into being a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of decentralized network.
To see why, let's look at the two major types of p2p network so far:
BitTorrent (2000): huge total bandwidth, highly decentralized, no consensus
Bitcoin (2009): highly decentralized, consensus, but low bandwidth - because it’s not “distributed” in the sense of work being split up, it’s *replicated*
Now, Ethereum with PeerDAS (2025) and ZK-EVMs (expect small portions of the network using it in 2026), we get: decentralized, consensus and high bandwidth
The trilemma has been solved - not on paper, but with live running code, of which one half (data availability sampling) is *on mainnet today*, and the other half (ZK-EVMs) is *production-quality on performance today* - safety is what remains.
This was a 10-year journey (see the first commit of my original post on DAS here: https://t.co/Fa0jKFgObW , and ZK-EVM attempts started in ~2020), but it's finally here.
Over the next ~4 years, expect to see the full extent of this vision roll out:
* In 2026, large non-ZKEVM-dependent gas limit increases due to BALs and ePBS, and we'll see the first opportunities to run a ZKEVM node
* In 2026-28, gas repricings, changes to state structure, exec payload going into blobs, and other adjustments to make higher gas limits safe
* In 2027-30, large further gas limit increases, as ZKEVM becomes the primary way to validate blocks on the network
A third piece of this is distributed block building.
A long-term ideal holy grail is to get to a future where the full block is *never* constituted in one single place. This will not be necessary for a long time, but IMO it is worth striving for us at least have the capability to do that.
Even before that point, we want the meaningful authority in block building to be as distributed as possible. This can be done either in-protocol (eg. maybe we figure out how to expand FOCIL to make it a primary channel for txs), or out-of-protocol with distributed builder marketplaces. This reduces risk of centralized interference with real-time transaction inclusion, AND it creates a better environment for geographical fairness.
Onward.
The Oct 11 Crypto Crash — What Really Happened
TL;DR:
Roughly $60–90M of $USDe was dumped on Binance, along with $wBETH and $BNSOL, exploiting a pricing flaw that valued collateral using Binance’s own order-book data instead of external oracles.
That localized depeg triggered $500M–$1B in forced liquidations, cascaded into $19B+ globally, and earned the attackers about $192M via $1.1B in BTC/ETH shorts opened on Hyperliquid hours earlier, but minutes before Trump tariff announcement.
It wasn’t a USDe failure!! It was Binance’s design flaw, timed with macro panic (Trump’s tariffs) for cover.
What looked like chaos was actually a coordinated exploitation of Binance’s internal pricing system, amplified by a macro shock and systemic leverage.
1️⃣ The Setup
Binance’s Unified Account let traders use assets like USDe, wBETH, and BNSOL as collateral.
Instead of oracle or redemption prices, Binance valued these using its own spot market - a major vulnerability.
On Oct 6, Binance announced a fix to move to oracle-based pricing, but rollout wasn’t until Oct 14, leaving an 8-day window.
2️⃣ The Exploit
During that window, sophisticated actors manipulated Binance’s order books, dumping ~$60–90M of USDe, driving it to $0.65 on Binance only (still ~$1 elsewhere).
Because the Unified Account marked collateral to internal prices, this instantly wiped margin value and triggered $500M–$1B in forced liquidations.
Then, Trump’s 100% China tariff headline hit, magnifying panic and liquidity stress.
3️⃣ The Profit Engine
The same day, fresh wallets on Hyperliquid opened $1.1B in BTC/ETH shorts, funded by $110M USDC from Arbitrum-linked sources.
As the Binance cascade unfolded, BTC and ETH cratered, those shorts netted $192M in profit before closing out at the bottom.
Timing, precision, and funding paths all suggest coordination.
4️⃣ The Contagion
Binance liquidations dumped BTC/ETH/ALTs into thin books.
Other exchanges mirrored the collapse through cross-market bots.
Market makers hedged across venues were forced to unwind everywhere.
Result: $19B+ global liquidations, with many alts down 50–70% intraday, all triggered by <$100M of manipulated collateral.
5️⃣ Who’s at fault?
Binance: design flaw + delay in oracle rollout = root cause.
Exploiters: executed and timed the manipulation, profited via external shorts.
Ethena (USDe): not at fault - protocol stayed 1:1 collateralized, redemptions normal, peg held everywhere else.
6️⃣ Aftermath
Binance admitted “platform-related issues,” promised compensation for affected margin/futures/loan users, and rolled out minimum price floors + oracle integration.
USDe remained operational, and the incident is now a case study in how exchange-side pricing errors can trigger system-wide liquidations.
Bottom line:
A ~$90M dump on Binance and a $1.1B leveraged short elsewhere sparked a $19B bloodbath.
Not a stablecoin failure, but a masterclass in exploiting flawed collateral valuation during peak macro stress.
eth shorts built $1.3b positions into the tightest supply since 2016. otc desks have nothing.
etfs inhale everything.
$27b waits to deploy. exchanges down to 12% reserves.
$5k triggers the liquidation cascade. no inventory to absorb it.
crypto's first real squeeze plays out with zero escape routes available
WEN was most compared to BONK last week!
🚀 If $WEN(@wenwencoin) reaches $BONK's current market cap, its price would be $0.0036. That makes 70x!
🔗 https://t.co/URCkBJmRZO.
Introducing @Terminal_fi — the marketplace for institutional asset trading, powered by reward-bearing dollars including @ethena's sUSDe.
Terminal is the @convergeonchain liquidity hub designed for institutional assets and digital dollars.
Most NFTs are fueled by hype. But what if there was a collection backed by real financial muscle? 💰🔥
Enter the @Lifinity_io Flare NFTs—an ecosystem where scarcity, buybacks, and real yield drive long-term value.
No gimmicks. No empty promises. Just math.
🧵👇
Crazy to watch the entire DeFi ecosystem pivot to the @Lifinity_io playbook.
- Revenue sharing paid in USD stablecoins for locked token holders.
- Buyback regimes that prioritize downside protection for token holders.
It's really this easy gang. This is winning.
Flares are now the 3rd largest NFT by market cap on Solana 🔥
Over 30% of the supply has been bought back to date, and the stack of revenue-generating veLFNTY backing the Flares has grown in tandem ♾
The buybacks continue 🫡
Solution to the memecoin meta
Launch the entire supply as a perma-locked one-sided DLMM sell order
Launch team keeps all trading fees from that LP position
They are rewarded in proportion to the amount of attention they generate
Incentives are aligned
Unruggable
I think $AIXBT will flip $FARTCOIN.
Consistently high mindshare and I don’t see that slowing down with the moat it has built.
Most people outside of our world don’t even realise $FARTCOIN is an AI coin.
AIXBT literally has AI in the name and is the perfect ticker to champion the crypto x ai cycle.
You can call up a “serious investor” (let’s say big institutional capital) and explain to them what AIXBT is and they will give you the time of day; they won’t on fart coin.
I’m acknowledging that this is the most mid-curved thing I’ve said in a while, but I think the tailwind here comes from mid-curve capital that’s been sidelined.
Good luck.
Merry Christmas 🎄
Our next round of protocol revenue has been distributed! 🧑🎄
We have set new records for both monthly revenue and monthly APR 🔥
493,035 USDC has been added as concentrated liquidity to buy LFNTY 🫡
I'll bet you can't find me another project who has an ETERNAL BID on @tensor_hq to perform buybacks of its own NFTs.
With over 26.4% of the 10k collection removed from circulating supply to date, the @Lifinity_io Flares are straight up BUILT DIFFERENT.
🧵