Cryptocurrency markets fell for another week as investors awaited the last Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of the year.
Strategy’s $962 million Bitcoin acquisition boosted investor morale, pushing Bitcoin (BTC) to a weekly high of $94,330 on Tuesday, the company’s biggest investment since July 2025.
On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve decided to cut interest rates by a widely expected 25 basis points. Cryptocurrency markets have temporarily recovered as lower interest rates and lower borrowing costs typically increase risk appetite and increase capital inflows into risky assets such as cryptocurrencies.
However, Jeff Ko, principal analyst at CoinExchange, told Cointelegraph that the market’s upside was only temporary as the Fed’s recent rate cut was “widely expected and largely priced in.”
Despite the lack of investor appetite, fundamental developments such as the increasing number of crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the increasing ease of use of on-chain products are creating a potential “Netscape” moment for the crypto industry, analysts told Cointelegraph.
Cryptocurrency approaches ‘Netscape’ moment as industry approaches inflection point
The crypto industry is approaching a “Netscape” moment, with steady advances in blockchain infrastructure and the rise of regulated investment products driving a new wave of institutional adoption, according to Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang.
The crypto sector is “facing a ‘Netscape’ or ‘iPhone’ moment,” Huang wrote in a post on X on Sunday. “It’s working on a larger scale than ever before, and far beyond our wildest dreams. Both the institutional part and the cypherpunk part.”
Netscape launched the first easy-to-use Web browser for mainstream users in 1994, then went public in a successful initial public offering (IPO) in August 1995, becoming the first building block that sparked mass adoption of the Internet.
However, Microsoft saw the massive interest and capitalized on it by bundling Internet Explorer for free as a pre-installed component of the Windows operating system, overtaking Netscape to become the most widely used Internet browser.
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Bubble Map disputes PEPE’s fair launch, claims 30% of Genesis supply is bundled
Blockchain data casts doubt on meme coin Pepe’s ‘for the people’ launch narrative, with new analysis suggesting nearly a third of the initial supply was held by a single entity, contributing to the intense initial selling pressure.
Blockchain data visualization platform Bubble Maps claimed in a post on X on Wednesday that approximately 30% of PEPE token supply was bundled at launch in April 2023, adding that investors were “deceived”.
According to Bubble Map, the same wallet cluster sold $2 million worth of PEPE tokens the day after the launch, adding significant selling pressure and preventing the token from passing the $12 billion milestone.
Genesis’ concentrated supply stands in contrast to Pepe’s original branding of “coins for the people.” According to the project’s website, the token was launched in “stealth” with no pre-sale allocation.
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‘Elite’ traders target dopamine-seeking retailers in prediction markets: 10x Research
Prediction markets are emerging as a new battleground in the crypto economy, with the most informed traders competing against casual retail bettors for profits.
Most users act more like sports bettors than disciplined traders, trading “dopamine and narrative for discipline and edge,” according to a Tuesday report from research firm 10x Research. It added: “Precision and profits are not driven by the crowd, but by an informed elite few who price probabilities, hedge exposures, and extract premiums from retail-driven longshots.”
Increased liquidity and individual participation are prompting professional trading desks to step up predictive market activity and capture the proliferation and “misinformation asymmetry” that arises from this market structure, 10x said.
This report is a worrying sign for casual traders looking to make easy money in prediction markets, as blockchain data suggests that most users lose their initial investment.
According to Dune blockchain data, only about 16.7% of wallets on Polymarket are profitable, while the remaining 83% are in losses.
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Coinbase opens Solana DEX access as CeFi and DeFi merge
Coinbase is moving deeper into the Solana ecosystem, allowing users to trade native Solana tokens through decentralized exchange integration rather than traditional listings.
Coinbase protocol specialist Andrew Allen said in an
“For issuers and builders, having enough liquidity in a token means it can be accessed by Coinbase’s millions of users without having to go public,” Allen said.
This announcement follows Coinbase integrating tokens from the Base blockchain through a similar DEX integration in early August. The announcement states that the exchange plans to “expand DEX support to include additional networks, starting with Solana.”
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Mantra CEO tells OM holders to exit OKX due to ‘inaccurate’ migration plan
Tensions between blockchain platform Mantra and cryptocurrency exchange OKX are rising after Mantra accused the exchange of posting false information about token migration.
In a post on X on Monday, Mantra CEO John Patrick Mullin urged users of centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) OKX to withdraw their Mantra (OM) tokens and break their “addiction” to the platform.
“Users should consider withdrawing their OM tokens from OKX(…). Avoid dependency on the OKX Exchange: Complete your migration without relying on potentially negligent or malicious intermediaries,” Mullin said.
His warning came in response to Friday’s announcement from OKX regarding support for the upcoming OM token migration.
Mullin said OKX’s post contained multiple inaccuracies, including incorrect transition and implementation dates.
OKX said the transition will take place between December 22nd and December 25th. In contrast, Mantra’s governance proposal states that the transition will only occur after the Ethereum-based ERC-20 OM token is decommissioned on January 15th.
Marin also said that while OKX’s post mentions “any date in December 2025,” Mantra has not yet announced an official implementation date.
He claimed that OKX has not been in contact with Mantra since the “events” of April 13, but that Mantra “has been in cooperative contact with all other major exchanges regarding our transition.”
During the upcoming migration, OM tokens will be migrated from Ethereum native ERC-20 tokens to Mantra Chain native tokens.
Cointelegraph reached out to OKX for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
OKX subsequently contacted Mantra and corrected the inaccuracies in the announcement, the exchange wrote in X’s post on Wednesday.
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DeFi market overview
Most of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the red, according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.
The Kaspa (KAS) token has fallen by more than 13%, making it the biggest decliner among the top 100, followed by the Story (IP) token, which has also fallen by 13% over the past week.
Thanks for reading our overview of this week’s most influential DeFi developments. Tune in next Friday for more stories, insights, and education on this dynamically evolving universe.
