Current mainstream CEX, DEX funding rates showing market slightly returning to neutral

### USD1 Market Cap Tops $3B on Dec 25 On December 25, USD1’s market capitalization crossed $3 billion, hitting $3.011 billion—up 7.68% in 24 hours. ### Earlier: Binance Launches USD1 Flexible Savings (Up to 20% APY) Binance has rolled out a flexible savings product for USD1, offering an annualized interest rate (APY) of up to 20%. Note: The rewrite uses American English conventions (concise phrasing, "$" instead of "US Dollars," "APY" [Annual Percentage Yield]—a common financial abbreviation in the U.S.) and structures the updates like typical crypto/finance news briefs.

December 25th, per Cointelegraph, next year will be a critical period for Ethereum’s scalability. By 2026, Ethereum will undergo the Glamsterdam fork, which will bring near-perfect parallel processing to its mainnet and boost the gas limit significantly—from the current 60 million to 200 million. A large number of validators will shift from re-executing transactions to verifying zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs. This shift will put Ethereum Layer 1 on a path to scale to 10,000+ transactions per second (TPS), though the goal won’t be hit by 2026. Meanwhile, data blocks will grow (each block could reach 72 or more), enabling Layer 2s to process hundreds of thousands of TPS. Layer 2s are also becoming more user-friendly: ZKsync’s recent Atlas upgrade lets users keep funds on the mainnet while transacting in the ZKsync rollup’s fast execution environment. A planned Ethereum interoperability layer will facilitate seamless cross-chain operations between Layer 2s, with a focus on privacy.

In a Dec. 25 BlockBeats report, Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said: “These so-called crypto builders and KOLs in their 30s who claim to be ‘exiting crypto’ are in fact scammers.” He noted the group never actually got into the crypto space—they didn’t even give crypto a real shot. “They aren’t exiting; they never started. This is just attention-grabbing,” he added.

**Binance Alpha’s Second-Round KGeN (KGEN) Airdrop Goes Live Dec 25** (Official sources confirm the Binance Alpha second-round KGeN (KGEN) airdrop rewards are available starting December 25.) - **Eligibility**: Users with at least 240 Binance Alpha points can claim 180 TAKE tokens (first-come, first-served). - **Threshold Adjustment**: If the reward pool isn’t fully claimed, the points requirement drops by 5 every 5 minutes (automatic). - **Claim Rules**: Claiming costs 15 Binance Alpha points; users must confirm on the Alpha event page and complete the process within 24 hours—unclaimed rewards are forfeited. This rewrite uses concise, conversational American English (e.g., "goes live" for "has been launched," bullet points for readability) while preserving all key details.

On December 25, per Onchain Lens monitoring, a newly created crypto wallet withdrew 329,400 LINK from Binance, valued at $4.01 million.

Dec. 25 – CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. noted in a post that Bitcoin has dropped 20% over the past three months, with its annual return turning negative—signaling a notable market pullback. The key metric to watch is the monthly RSI trend: currently at 56.5, it’s just ~2 points below the 4-year average of 58.7. Historically, this level has acted as a bull-bear dividing line. The next 1-2 months (i.e., Q1 2026) will be a critical observation window: if RSI holds above the 55-58 range, rebound potential remains intact; if it falls below 55, the risk of a deeper decline rises.