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BTC Selloff - A weekend selloff wiped out approximately $290 billion from the total crypto market capitalization, mirroring a broader retreat from risk assets globally.
Stablecoin Licenses - Hong Kong is set to commence granting licenses to stablecoin issuers starting in March.
Crypto Stocks Slide - Bitcoin stabilized near $77,000, rising 1% following a sharp weekend selloff, correlating with a weakening U.S. dollar.
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Messari's protocol reports give you a deep dive on the foundation and state of top crypto protocols, including key metrics and notable events. See the complete list of protocol reports here and get a preview of our latest report below.
Eric Manoukian (@CryptoRick98) · Research Analyst
Chromia continued to position its Layer-1 as infrastructure for data-intensive applications, with Q4 execution focused on strengthening core network participation and expanding its AI and data tooling surface.
Chromia broadened its AI and data infrastructure footprint while bringing AI infrastructure closer to production readiness through three milestones, completing Base and Arbitrum interoperability on Dec. 5, 2025, integrating with Virtuals’ Agent Commerce Protocol on Dec. 11, 2025 to support structured, queryable agent job data on Chromia, and launching a GPU-powered inference demo on testnet on Dec. 23, 2025.
Chromia’s network activity expanded in Q4, with average daily transactions increasing 26.6% QoQ and 71.7% YoY to 642,900, while average daily active addresses increased 3.4% QoQ and 106.6% YoY to 4,128.
Chromia initiated the scheduled phaseout of staking rewards on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain on Dec. 2, 2025, shifting staking incentives toward Chromia mainnet and aligning long-term incentives with native staking ahead of governance activation.
The Chromia team shipped a major redesign of the Chromia Vault in Q4, introducing portfolio-style balance aggregation across application chains, improved application discovery, and improved staking transparency through dynamic fee sharing and estimated APR displays.
Austin Freimuth @oztxn · Research Analyst
VeChain deployed the Hayabusa upgrade on Dec. 2, 2025, which transitioned VeChainThor from Proof of Authority (PoA) to Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS).
StarGate 2.0 replaced the legacy node-based system with a staking NFT model that increases economic security, VTHO rewards, and user participation with the addition of new Node tiers. VeChain also began phasing out the Legacy Node rewards program.
VET’s market capitalization declined 52.1% QoQ to $894.7 million, and VTHO’s market cap fell 51.0% QoQ to $73.0 million amid weakened market conditions.
Network adoption continued to expand with total known addresses increasing 9.4% QoQ to 14.4 million and rising 213.5% YoY.
VeBetter expanded its governance and incentive framework with the launch of the Galaxy GM NFT tier and automated DAO voting.
Jake Koch-Gallup (@immutablejacob) · Research Analyst
USDD’s first year post-2.0 launch is defined by yield as a core product strategy. Through USDD Earn and sUSDD, the protocol emphasizes savings yield as a primary value proposition, offering rates above typical stablecoin market yields.
sUSDD serves as the primary savings vehicle for USDD. The token accrues yield through a rising redemption rate and consolidates incentives into a single, composable product, with over $310 million in TVL on Ethereum as of January 2026.
Issuance design balances yield-driven demand with risk controls. Vault-based minting on TRON introduces rate-sensitive supply backed by over-collateralization, while fixed-rate swapping via the PSM on Ethereum and BNB Chain prioritizes direct par redemption.
USDD relies more on protocol-native mechanisms for peg enforcement than most stablecoins. Minting, redemption, and liquidation rules played a larger role than secondary-market liquidity in anchoring price behavior.
USDD reflects a deliberate tradeoff. The protocol pursued above-market savings yields to drive adoption while using explicit collateral buffers, rate controls, and transparency to manage associated risks.
From Our Sponsor
By: Eric Manoukian (@CryptoRick98)
Since the Oct. 10, 2025, crypto market crash, digital asset prices have trended lower, while equities and commodities have pushed to all-time highs. Against this backdrop, leading perpetual decentralized exchanges (perpDEXs) offer RWA perpetuals across stocks, indices, commodities, FX, ETFs, and pre-IPO equities, allowing traders to access multiple asset classes from a single venue.
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