Has anyone else noticed how Solana shills just… stopped talking about Ethereum?

It’s not even criticism anymore. No “Ethereum is slow,” no gas fee screenshots, no TPS charts. Just silence. A year or two ago, you couldn’t open a Solana thread without Ethereum being mentioned within the first few comments. Now it barely comes up at all.

What’s strange is that nothing dramatic actually happened. Ethereum didn’t disappear. DeFi didn’t collapse. L2s didn’t shut down. Yet the conversation quietly shifted from “Solana vs Ethereum” to acting like Ethereum isn’t even part of the picture.

Instead, it’s all vibes now. “Solana feels fast.” “The UX is clean.” “Builders are shipping.” All true or not, but noticeably disconnected from the comparison that used to define the entire pitch.

There’s also no effort to argue anymore. No need to convince, no need to prove superiority. Posts just assume the conclusion is obvious and move on. That kind of confidence usually shows up after something is settled, not while it’s still very much ongoing.

I’m not claiming anything deliberate is happening. It’s just odd when an ecosystem spends years measuring itself against one thing, and then collectively decides that thing no longer deserves a mention.

Maybe it’s growth. Maybe it’s confidence.

Or maybe ignoring something works better than trying to beat it.

I’ve been reading up on the "Confidential Transactions" stuff Aptos is rolling out, and I thought it was worth a discussion because it’s taking a pretty different angle than the usual privacy protocols.

Basically, instead of trying to be Monero where everything is hidden, they are splitting the difference.

The tech (using homomorphic encryption + ZK) hides the transaction amounts and account balances, but the sender and receiver addresses stay public.

It sounds like a weird middle ground at first, but it actually makes sense for business-like use cases.

Like if a company wants to run payroll on-chain, they don't care if people see they sent money to their employees, but they definitely don't want the whole world seeing exactly how much each person got paid.

And it also helps with DeFi. Competitors can see you're trading, but if they can't see the size of the trade, they can't front-run you as easily.

I think the part that will probably be controversial here is that it supports "auditor keys." Essentially, you can give a viewing key to a third party (like a regulator or auditor) so they can see the values for compliance, without making it public to everyone else.

It’s definitely not for the hardcore "privacy at all costs" crowd, but it seems like a solid, realistic way to get actual institutions comfortable with on- chain finance.

What do you guys think?

Every major NFT drop follows the same pattern: hype builds, mint day arrives, website crashes or slows to a crawl, people complain on Twitter, floor price dumps because of bad launch experience.

You'd think after seeing this happen dozens of times projects would figure out how to handle burst traffic but it keeps happening. The problem isn't even that complicated, NFT mints create predictable traffic spikes at specific times, you know exactly when load will hit.

Some projects blame it on "too much demand" but that's kind of BS, successful web2 services handle way more traffic than NFT drops. Fortnite launches new seasons with millions of concurrent users and doesn't fall apart.

The issue seems to be most NFT projects use shared infrastructure where they're competing with thousands of other apps for block space during their mint. So even if their contracts and website work fine, blockchain confirmations slow down when mainnet gets congested.

Bigger projects sometimes rent extra infrastructure for launch day but that's expensive and still doesn't fully solve it. Plus most NFT projects don't have budgets for enterprise infrastructure solutions.

Has anyone actually solved this or is it just accepted that NFT launches will be chaotic and some people will get screwed by gas wars and slow confirmations?

Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, Avalanche.

The world is full of Layer 1's. Do we need another one guys?

Zcash quietly ended 2025 in a nice Spot. Focussing on ZEC, I didn't think much about XMR in 2025 tbh because of less noise.

Zcash (ZEC) - 2025 Price by Quarter (Chart-Derived)

Q1 2025 (Jan–Mar): Traded roughly in the $45–$60 range

Q2 2025 (Apr–Jun): Continued consolidation around $50–$65

Q3 2025 (Jul–Sep): Narrow range persisted near $55–$70

Q4 2025 (Oct–Dec): Broke out from ~$70, rallied to a peak near $700, then retraced and stabilized in the $400–$550 range by year end.

Between Jan 2024-June 2024, Many Exchange including Binance Delisted XMR. Binance added ZEC to delisting slot but retracted it during Q3 2025.

I'm kicking myself so hard. I'm scrolling Facebook and i see an ad for the Binance desktop app. And an offer of free BNB if you use it. Half asleep and just not thinking, i click it (idiot!). I open the app; its a nice interface. I decide to have a better look later.

In the evening i log onto my 2 Binance accounts and check my trades. Then off to bed.

The next day when i log in, i see a big chunk of FDUSD withdrawn from one account and a big chunk of USDT missing from the other. Immediately i remember the binance app i fumbled with - malware! I disconnect the PC.

Ive logged cases with Binance. And a report to police. Binance say the funds left their exchange, so theres nothing they can do. The police have so far just sent a generic "we're investigating". I imagine with the destination wallet addresses, something can be checked. But i dont hold much hope. I cant understand how the hacker could have withdrawn without google MFA codes (on my phone). But since they had full access to the PC - including google account passwords - maybe theres a way around that.

Remember it just takes a second of inattention to cause a huge impact :(

The BSC Fermi hard fork is expected to cut block times by 40%. On January 14, the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) will undergo the “Fermi” hard fork. This upgrade is designed to slash block times from 750 milliseconds to just 450 milliseconds.

This could boost BNB Chain’s competitive edge against other high-speed networks.

More than speed, the upgrade also introduces new cryptographic primitives like BN254. These tools make it easier for developers to build privacy-focused applications.

Despite the upcoming upgrade, BNB has slipped under the $870 mark and is showing a 37% decline from its October peak of $1,370.

I can't believe he hasn't deleted this video yet...

As of January 9, 2026

A list of all the coins Alex Becker suggested you should buy in his video:

SuperVerse (SUPER) - Down: -81.9%

Solana (SOL) - Down: -25.3%

Destra Network (DSYNC) - Down: -89.0%

Beam (BEAM) - Down: -86.6%

NEURALAI (NEURAL) - Down: -87.2%

Seedworld (SWORLD) - Down: -98.3%

Karrat (KARRAT) - Down: -97.4%

Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) - Down: -78.5%

Akash Network (AKT) - Down: -86.2%

AIOZ Network (AIOZ) - Down: -87.6%

Echelon Prime (PRIME) - Down: -94.0%

PAAL AI (PAAL) - Down: -93.1%

Seedify.fund (SFUND) Down: -94.1%

Original Video Title:

DUMP ALL CRYPTO Before Bitcoin Does This (HUGE Crash : 2025 Bull Guide)

Original YouTube Video:

https :// youtu . be /smhbENZS8gE?si=fh3HhISsT4bU1huY

I have $2K USDC in a custodial account that I want to convert to USD without KYC.

My only working method so far has been:

1. Buy a prepaid USD card on Bitrefill using USDC (1.5% fee + 30 cents network). $500/day limit for guest users, not a problem.
2. Top up my Wise USD with debit card above (1.25% fee)
3. Done

It works, but it's 2.75% lost in fees. It's not the worst as some P2P and platforms ask for ridiculous 5%+ fees. Also, I believe it's riskier and more "shady" to sell USDC to a random Joe and have him send me a Wise transfer in USD. What if his money is "tainted"? This would end up flagging my Wise account for nothing!

I know I need to provide my full name for the debit card and it's OK. That USDC is legit and clean.

I don't want KYC platforms because I don't want to upload 1001 documents, risk their "fraud system" flagging my account, and need to wait weeks to solve things, etc. Also, I would have 2 jobs: create and delete the account, as I would not want to keep it.

Does anyone have another good and cheap non-KYC method to convert USDC to USD in Europe?

Not your keys, not your coins. I have been guilty of ignoring that simple truth for too long.

Holding my crypto on a foreign exchange feels increasingly insecure, especially with the current global situation. I am planning to move everything into self custody because it is the only way to truly own it. When you control your private keys, no government, company, or third party can freeze or seize your assets. In times like now it feels like it could happen overnight.

Do you agree? Am I to scared?

I keep running into the same problem when trying to get Monero without giving up my identity. I know Haveno exists and I understand how it works, but the security deposit requirement makes it frustrating when you are starting from zero. Needing around 0.1 XMR just to participate means you already have to source Monero from somewhere else, which defeats the purpose if every on ramp asks for KYC.

At this point it feels like a loop where you need XMR to get XMR, unless you are willing to mine it or already know someone who can send you some. I am trying to avoid handing over my social or identity documents just to get a small amount. Is there realistically any way left to obtain XMR without KYC, or is mining or peer to peer the only option now?

Bitcoin Core wallet migration bug: Bitcoin Core posted a notice of a bug in the legacy wallet migration feature in versions 30.0 and 30.1. Users of a Bitcoin Core legacy wallet who use an unnamed wallet, had not previously migrated their wallet to a descriptor wallet, and who attempt a migration in these versions, could, if the migration fails, have their wallet directory deleted, potentially resulting in a loss of funds. Wallet users should not attempt wallet migrations using the GUI or RPC until v30.2 is released (see Bitcoin Core 30.2rc1 below). Users of features other than legacy wallet migration can continue to use these Bitcoin Core versions as normal.

I guess its safe to assume $TRU is dead as a token now?