Release Date: February 6, 2025
Author: BlockBeats Editorial Team

In the past 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market has shown a complex development trend across multiple dimensions. Mainstream discussions have focused on the decline in market confidence, talent outflow, and the fatigue of narratives, while the attack on the Bitcoin payment network has once again highlighted the risks of centralized infrastructure. In terms of ecological development, Ethereum continues to advance its technical roadmap around privacy and scalability, the narrative of privacy-focused L2 is heating up, cross-chain settlement infrastructure is receiving capital boosts, and the underlying structure of on-chain financial applications is still evolving.

1. Mainstream Topics

1. Discussion on the Prospects of the Cryptocurrency Market

The cryptocurrency market remains in a state of high uncertainty, with several industry insiders recently expressing concerns about the industry's future.

Balaji believes that despite the short-term price volatility, the crypto world will shift from being "rule-driven" to "code-driven" in the long run, emphasizing the importance of internet capitalism and privacy. Altan Tutar listed a series of negative signals, including Kyle Samani's departure from Multicoin, Nader Dabit's shift to AI startups, and Vitalik's acknowledgment that the Layer 2 route has not been entirely successful, pointing out that the industry seems to be losing a "common enemy" that can unite consensus.

Linda Xie revealed that many people she respects have suggested she leave the crypto industry for AI or robotics. Cami predicts that the market will experience severe turbulence in the next three months, with rational funds shifting towards projects with sustainable cash flow or choosing to exit entirely, noting that three key figures have already exited in the past 48 hours.

Flood analyzed from a trading perspective that this round of sell-off may involve sovereign funds reducing their holdings, exchange liquidations, or high-leverage chain reactions. Ignas believes that crypto natives are actively selling out of concern for a "1929-style crash," creating an internal negative feedback loop. Miya bluntly stated that "crypto is over," the VC system is slowly declining, LP commitments remain low, and several institutions have shifted to AI and robotics, calling for attention to "valuable tokens" from Web2 startups. Arthur pointed out that this cycle is not friendly to long-term investors, but traders are profiting handsomely; from a longer perspective, the continuous exit of investors may lead to a gradual depletion of liquidity.

Community reactions are clearly polarized. On one hand, many agree with the judgment of industry weakness. Raychi sarcastically stated, "Price doesn't matter, but the portfolio has collapsed," AdimKarp questioned the accuracy of Balaji's past predictions, and Anatoly Karlin warned that once the rule order collapses, it will be state power that is reinforced, not the crypto system. Bruno Skvorc criticized the industry for being filled with "junk projects," lacking true decentralization, and called for an end to building meaningless L2s. LilMoonLambo believes that crypto should maintain its countercultural attributes rather than cater to mainstream politics.

On the other hand, there are relatively positive voices. Mert supports the narrative of "Capitalism 2.0," and THORChain emphasizes that there is still a real demand for DEX. Shamdoo and Mayhem questioned Samani's judgment, while Lily Liu suggested shifting the focus from the protocol layer to the application layer. Overall, the discussion centers on talent loss, narrative fatigue, and opportunity costs; a few believe that a "cleansing" may give birth to new life, but the majority sentiment remains one of frustration and exit.

2. Strike Bitcoin Payment Network Suspected DDoS Attack

Strike founder Jack Mallers confirmed that the company's Bitcoin payment network suffered a DDoS attack, causing over 2.5 million users worldwide to be unable to send or receive BTC for approximately 183 minutes. Simon Dixon warned users to avoid lending Bitcoin and hinted that the offline status of some lenders could trigger liquidation risks, but Mallers later clarified that no liquidations occurred during the incident.

The event sparked ridicule regarding the reliability of Bitcoin as a "future financial infrastructure." Accredited Financial Survivor pointed out that the attack did not affect the Bitcoin protocol itself; John Tuld questioned whether the timing of the attack was intended to cover up solvency issues. Victor Resto emphasized that centralized services are not the future, while CalmTraders argued that Bitcoin is neither the future of finance nor capable of serving as a store of value.

Urban Arson criticized the Lightning Network as essentially an IOU network, while Tyrannysaurusrekt and Paolo Aga took the opportunity to promote BCH as a true peer-to-peer cash solution. LC clarified that the issue lies with Lightning rather than Bitcoin itself and recommended Kaspa's "zero downtime" feature. RogeR suggested that the attack was synchronized with market sell-offs, shifting the overall discussion towards the exposure of centralized risks and alternative chain narratives.

3. Circle Announces Partnership with Polymarket

Circle announced a partnership with the world's largest prediction market, Polymarket, to promote the evolution of on-chain financial market infrastructure, focusing on stablecoin transparency, settlement reliability, and reduced friction costs. Polymarket will migrate its bridged USDC (USDC.e) from Polygon to Circle's native USDC, achieving a 1:1 direct redemption for USD, thereby enhancing capital efficiency, scalability, and system reliability.

The community's overall response has been positive. 0xWeiler emphasized the elimination of bridging risks, Peter Schroeder pointed out the symbolic significance of the partnership, and Grazka and d1namit expressed excitement. Insight.eth views this as an important signal of the maturity of on-chain markets, Campbell inquired about its actual business impact, and Buy The Dip Bro is optimistic about the potential boost to CRCL stock prices. ME Group further supplemented the partnership details, while KimcĦi called for support for USDC on Hedera, and LINK-BULL ennes noted that both parties are Chainlink ecosystem partners. The overall atmosphere is optimistic, but there are also a few voices concerned about regulatory freeze risks.

4. Vitalik Discusses Ethereum's Scalability Path

Vitalik Buterin published an article exploring the possibility of achieving 1000x scalability for Ethereum L1 through "new state forms." He pointed out that scaling the execution and data layers is relatively feasible, but state expansion is more challenging, suggesting that while moderately expanding the existing state, new state forms with lower costs but limited functionality should be introduced. High-value objects (such as user accounts and DeFi contracts) should remain in the existing state tree, while ERC20 balances, NFTs, etc., can be migrated to new tools.
In subsequent discussions, Vitalik criticized the phenomenon of excessively replicating EVM chains and L1s, calling for genuine innovation in areas such as privacy, application-specific efficiency, and ultra-low latency, and emphasized that the substance of "connecting to Ethereum" should align with its promotion, avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach to L2 bridging. He proposed that applications like prediction markets may be better suited to adopt application chain architectures: issuance and resolution on L1, with transactions completed in rollup-based systems.

Related discussions quickly heated up. Keone Hon suggested starting with database optimization and gas pricing mechanisms to incentivize state destruction. Poseidon argued that the price scaling issue should be prioritized, while Markus.ai and Kaspa Hub took the opportunity to promote ICP and Kaspa as alternatives. Observe viewed Vitalik's statements as a bullish signal, and Quai Network promoted its own tree chain structure.
Criticism also emerged, with Tony Montana accusing developers of dumping tokens. Binji interpreted it as a manifestation of "trust gradients," encouraging more honest architectural choices. Miralib, Z, and others continued to emphasize that Kaspa and ICP have already achieved related goals in practice. The overall discussion gradually evolved into a concentrated showcase of competing public chains, while also reflecting the community's complex emotions following the public acknowledgment of Ethereum's limitations: a mix of disappointment and retained expectations for innovation.

2. Mainstream Ecological Dynamics

1. Ethereum's Privacy L2 Narrative Heats Up

Payylink announced its migration from an independent chain to a privacy-focused L2 on Ethereum, emphasizing a "privacy-first" bank-grade on-chain experience, supported by Robot Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, dbacrypto, and Protocol Labs. The project aims to build on-chain banking services centered around stablecoins, allowing users to directly download the app for use.

David Hoffman pointed out that this decision came just one day after Vitalik announced that rollups would no longer be seen as a "centralized stopgap," further highlighting Ethereum's strong network effects. Although Vitalik's recent statements emphasized the importance of L1 scaling, he also clearly indicated that L2 still holds irreplaceable value in specialized scenarios.

In addition to Payy_link, privacy-focused L2 projects such as Aztec Network, Nillion, 0xMiden, and COTI Network are also making continuous progress. Meanwhile, institutional privacy working groups are discussing the possibility of the banking system transitioning to Ethereum L2, believing that "crypto privacy" is superior to traditional policy privacy in terms of mathematical verifiability. Confidential Layer has integrated Base to provide users with instant privacy access capabilities.

Additionally, Vitalik released a privacy roadmap for Ethereum L1, covering on-chain payment privacy, partially anonymous application activities, RPC call privacy, and network layer anonymity, signaling that Ethereum is systematically enhancing its privacy capabilities.

The community overall holds a highly positive attitude towards Ethereum's progress in the privacy field. rip.eth believes there is no need to build privacy-focused alt-L1s, as Ethereum is expected to become the infrastructure for "default privacy," and its scale is too large to be completely banned. Leo Lanza emphasized that L2 inherits the security of L1 while also providing a practical path for institutions to adopt "mathematical privacy" rather than "policy privacy."

XT Exchange summarized Vitalik's privacy roadmap, believing the goal is to achieve default private transfers with threat resistance. Master Mute predicted that privacy will become a long-term meta-trend, but too many independent privacy chains may be unnecessary, as Ethereum may embed privacy capabilities. Mert compared the trade-offs of privacy design and performance to the route differences between SOL and ETH.

AminCad clarified the misinterpretation of Vitalik's views, emphasizing that his core stance still supports L2 specialization, with the future form being "one L1 (Ethereum) + multiple L2s." MIKS described the current moment as "extremely unusual," while GPT360 believes the Ethereum narrative still possesses resilience. Streamr highlighted the importance of decentralized ordering to avoid censorship risks.

There are also a few dissenting voices, such as Brahddah.eth questioning Aztec's privacy statements or taking the opportunity to promote competing chains like ICP. Overall, market sentiment leans towards optimism, believing that privacy L2s are strengthening the depth and applicability of the Ethereum ecosystem.

2. Relay Completes $17 Million Series B Financing

Relay Protocol announced the completion of a $17 million Series B financing round, led by Archetype and USV, and simultaneously launched Relay Chain—a Layer 2 infrastructure designed for "instant cross-chain settlement," supporting instant transfers of any asset across any chain.

As of now, Relay has supported over 85 blockchains, processing more than 100 million transactions with a cumulative transaction volume of $20 billion. The core goal of this financing round is to address the issue of on-chain capital fragmentation, allowing users to complete asset transfers without perceiving the complexity between chains.

Previously, Relay (formerly Reservoir) completed a $14 million Series A financing round in February 2025, focusing on a unified cross-chain token trading experience. Similar projects include Analog, which completed $16 million in financing in 2024, focusing on cross-chain communication infrastructure.

The community response has been enthusiastic. Leading products like MoonPay, MetaMask, and Phantom have all expressed their congratulations, emphasizing that this is an important milestone for cross-chain infrastructure. Max Segall and deployer expressed a clear bullish attitude.

crickhitchens focused on Relay's data availability (DA) choices and recommended Celestia as a potential solution. Anon Vee reviewed its Series A coverage, stating that Relay's bridging solution has high reliability. bigchops considered this announcement to be "long overdue but highly effective," while ALVIN judged that the cross-chain payment landscape may undergo significant changes as a result. Fundraising Digest systematically organized the financing structure and background.

Despite the overall excitement, there are also a few discussions focusing on technical details, such as DA solution choices and long-term scalability. However, Relay is generally viewed as one of the key players in solving the problem of cross-chain fragmentation.

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