ZCash Team Split, Bank of America Upgrades Coinbase Rating, What's the Overseas Crypto Community Talking About Today?

Publication Date: January 9, 2025
Author: BlockBeats Editorial Team

Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market has demonstrated parallel evolution across multiple dimensions. The main topics have focused on the core divergence of Ethereum's scaling path, the structural adjustment of the ZCash team, and the ongoing entry signals from traditional financial institutions; in terms of ecosystem development, the Solana prediction market and application distribution have accelerated, Ethereum has advanced in institutional DeFi and financial inclusion scenarios, and Perp DEX has exposed short-term volatility and structural risks due to large holders reducing their positions.

I. Main Topics

ZCash Team Structural Divergence

ZCash's original core development team, Electric Coin Company (ECC), former CEO Josh Swihart announced the establishment of a new startup, CashZ.org, focusing on ZCash wallet development and commercialization, aiming to propel ZCash to a "billion-user scale" through a sustainable profit model. He openly stated that non-profit organizations face structural constraints in product iteration and market expansion.

The new company plans to launch a brand-new ZCash wallet and offer early access. Meanwhile, the board-level adjustments are also seen as a proactive dismantling of potential legal risks, clearing obstacles for core developers to privatize and expedite feature launches.

Haseeb Qureshi likened ZCash to BitTorrent, stating that it retains "cyberpunk-style integrity"; Chainyoda summarized this change as a long-term positive for $ZEC.

The overall community sentiment is noticeably positive, with statements like "LFG," "Viva Zcash," and "renaissance begins" appearing frequently, with many viewing it as a "reboot" for privacy coins. Optimists even have very high price expectations for $ZEC; however, there are also questioning voices focusing on ZCash's historical baggage, whether a new coin should be launched directly, and comparisons with projects like Monero and Chia. Generally, the community is more inclined to understand this as a constructive split: a path adjustment, but with an unchanged mission.

Vitalik Revisits Ethereum's Scaling Path: Bandwidth Over Latency

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin reiterated that, compared to extreme latency reduction, prioritizing bandwidth is a more secure and decentralized scaling direction. Through PeerDAS and ZKPs, Ethereum can achieve scalability by orders of magnitude without sacrificing node verifiability; whereas latency is constrained by the speed of light and node geographic distribution, with a practical range of 2–4 seconds.

Vitalik positions Ethereum as the "heartbeat of the world," not a game server, with high-frequency applications to be handled by Layer 2. Ryan Sean Adams describes Ethereum as Vitalik's "hint engineering product"; Tetranode agrees that a 2–4 second delay is sufficient to make L1 a national trust layer.

Opposing views are equally sharp: Max Resnick criticizes this approach as too conservative, arguing that Solana has already proven that low latency and high bandwidth are not mutually exclusive, stating outright that the L2 roadmap has "not delivered on its promises," and calling for slot compression to 6 seconds as soon as possible.

The disagreement is highly polarized. Supporters emphasize modularity, decentralization, and L2 division of labor logic; critics believe that Ethereum is avoiding direct competition with Solana, with L2 complexity leading to user and market share loss. Some see Vitalik as an "benevolent AI" like ecosystem guide, but criticism of "slow, expensive" still persists. The discussion always revolves around the core trade-off between latency and bandwidth.

SharpLink Deploys Institutional-Grade ETH Yield Strategy on Linea

Publicly traded company SharpLink ($SBET) has announced the deployment of approximately $170 million ETH on the Ethereum L2 Linea, integrating native staking, EigenLayer deep staking, Linea and ether.fi incentives, and providing institutional-grade custody through Anchorage, aiming to achieve the "most efficient institutional-grade ETH holding solution."
Joseph Chalom referred to 2026 as the starting point of Ethereum's "productivity era," believing that DeFi returns are being formally introduced to the public market. Meanwhile, the Optimism Foundation proposed that 50% of Superchain revenue be used for monthly OP buybacks, further aligning token value with network growth.

The market reaction has been highly positive, seen as a "milestone event for institutional DeFi," with many calling it the "SharpLink edge" or a "turning point." Discussions focus on actual annualized returns, Linea ecosystem growth, and the valuation logic of $SBET, with overall sentiment revolving around "ETH transitioning from a narrative asset to a productive asset."

Bank of America Upgrades Coinbase to "Buy"

Bank of America has upgraded Coinbase (COIN) to a "buy" rating with a target price of $340 (implying about 38% upside). Reasons include product line expansion (stocks, ETFs, prediction markets), the infrastructure value of Base L2, and the potential of Coinbase Tokenize in real asset tokenization.
Despite a 40% pullback from the July high, BoA believes momentum is improving in the second half of the year and sees Coinbase as a long-term core player in the 2026 encrypted infrastructure.

Commonly interpreted as another signal of the crypto industry's "maturation," with key words focusing on "infrastructure" and "platform play." Most opinions believe that Coinbase is no longer just an exchange, but a diversified fintech platform; a few remain cautious about investment bank motives, but overall sentiment is clearly bullish.

Morgan Stanley May Launch Cryptocurrency Wallet

Morgan Stanley plans to launch its own cryptocurrency wallet in 2026 (H2) and introduce cryptocurrency trading through E*Trade in H1, aiming to bridge digital assets, tokenized assets, and traditional wealth management workflows. Meanwhile, its deepened partnership with Carta and the acquisition of EquityZen are also seen as important moves to enhance private market efficiency and serve multi-generational wealth management.

Sentiment is predominantly excited, seeing this as a clear signal of TradFi's deep integration with DeFi, with "ticker is $ETH" becoming a common joke. Some interpretations link this to an improvement in the regulatory environment, but the mainstream view still focuses on: institutional adoption shifting from "testing the waters" to "systemic integration."

II. Mainstream Ecosystem Updates

Solana: Prediction Market and Tokenomics Experimentation Advance

DFlow announced that its prediction market API launched in partnership with Kalshi has significantly boosted transaction activity on the Solana ecosystem's frontend applications within just two weeks of public release. Various products, including Pieverse, Solprice, O1 Exchange, Synthesis Trade, Pocket Wallet, Human Plane, Duel Trade, Stand Trade, Mira, Trade Onsight, Raptor, Kairos Trade, Sharpe Terminal, Simmer Markets, Cobot, and others, have achieved large-scale deployment of prediction markets on Solana for the first time.
This diffusion round is seen as validating DFlow's advantages in low latency, high precision, and composability, and also demonstrates the potential of prediction markets as a new application distribution layer on Solana.

Meanwhile, Avici and MetaDAO are seen as two attempts to repair the "failure of crypto token design": the former focuses on privacy and usability, exploring a neo-banking path; the latter reconstructs the ICO mechanism through futarchy (prediction market governance), attempting to reduce VC dominance and early sell-offs to achieve a more equitable value discovery and distribution.

The discussion around DFlow is heating up, referred to as the "True Renaissance of the Solana Prediction Market" and a "Milestone Moment for AI × Trading," with many users directly linking it to a mid-to-long-term revaluation of $SOL.

The debate between Avici and MetaDAO is more structurally oriented: supporters see it as the "future of neobanks" and the "ICO rescue plan," emphasizing mechanism innovation and execution capabilities; while skeptics focus on regulatory risks and complexity. Overall, the community views it as a cutting-edge experiment for Solana in ownership, distribution, and governance mechanisms, calling for broader participation in the discussion.

Ethereum: Resilience Narrative, Cultural Conflict, and Institutional Adoption Coexist

Vitalik Buterin once again emphasized that Ethereum's core goal is not extreme efficiency or convenience, but to provide a minimally systemically vulnerable, politically neutral, globally accessible sovereign financial infrastructure. He likened Ethereum to a "financial-grade amplifier" of BitTorrent and Linux, emphasizing that L1 should become the long-term home of decentralized finance while remaining compatible with corporate needs without sacrificing decentralization.

This idea has once again sparked a cultural backlash. Threadguy criticized Vitalik for publicly disavowing ETH meme culture in 2021, and selling tokens gifted by projects like Shiba Inu (which were later donated to the India Covid fund), stating that this "undermines narrative and community momentum," contrasting it by saying Solana founder Toly would not intervene in such a way.

On the execution front, SharpLink ($SBET) deployed $170 million ETH on Linea, integrating staking, EigenLayer's heavy staking, protocol incentives, and Anchorage custody, seen as a key case for ETH's transition to "institutional-grade productive assets."

Furthermore, the ADI Chain Foundation partnered with M-Pesa Africa to expand institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure to 8 countries in Africa, serving around 60 million users, targeting up to 42% of the unbanked population in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Vitalik's statement elicited polarized reactions: supporters see it as the "final bastion of trust minimization," while critics view him as overly conservative, overlooking the efficiency competition with high-performance chains like Solana.

Threadguy's video further amplifies the ETH vs. Solana camp confrontation: ETH supporters emphasize the legitimacy of Vitalik's "scam clean-up," while Solana supporters sarcastically comment on his "hands-on cultural stifling."

By contrast, the SharpLink case study with ADI has received more consistent praise, seen as a "DeFi maturity signal" and "Ethereum productivity realization," but questions regarding revenue structure and execution details persist.

Perp DEX: Large Holder Unwinding Triggers Emotional Impact

On-chain data shows that the large holder Loracle sold approximately 277,000 $HYPE tokens (about $7.1 million) in a few hours, while still holding a net $HYPE position of around $6.8 million on HyperEVM (collateralized with $11.6 million in HYPE, borrowed about $4.8 million in USDC). If for deleveraging, they may further sell about 270,000 $HYPE tokens, indicating a continued selling pressure.

Market sentiment has significantly weakened, with some accusing them of "verbal hodling, actual dumping" and calling for a boycott; others see this as a typical profit-taking or risk management operation. Overall, the event is viewed as a reminder of the vulnerability of the perp DEX ecosystem under high leverage and liquidity structures, putting downward pressure on short-term prices.

Other

Delphi Digital partners with Polymarket to launch a prediction market data platform, offering real-time market data, event tracking, and analysis tools, aiming to elevate prediction markets into a "systematically exploitable information layer." Referred to as "prediction market intelligence layer upgrade," Delphi × Polymarket is seen by some users as a critical data source for AI training and decision-making.

Wintermute Ventures releases its 2025 deal flow summary: reviewing approximately 600 companies throughout the year, with 20% undergoing due diligence, ultimately leading to about 4% investment, focusing on financial infrastructure, foundational platforms, and AI/DeFi, emphasizing a hybrid equity + token-based structure while reflecting on the need to enhance founder response efficiency. The Wintermute report is widely praised for its "rare transparent disclosure," sparking discussions on VC funnel efficiency and sector preferences.

The Sui development team publishes the Seal whitepaper, introducing programmable data access control based on Move contracts, enabling precise on-chain definition of decryption permissions, time, and conditions, exploring a new paradigm for privacy data sharing. The Seal whitepaper has sparked lively discussions in the Sui community, seen as a "breakthrough in data privacy direction," particularly drawing attention in gaming and wallet integration scenarios, but concerns have also been raised regarding governance over keys and execution layer permissions.