Cryptocurrency markets saw another week of downside, as investors eagerly anticipated the year’s last Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.
Bitcoin (BTC) rose to a weekly high of $94,330 on Tuesday as investor morale was bolstered by Strategy’s $962 million Bitcoin acquisition, the company’s largest investment since July 2025.
On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve delivered a widely anticipated 25-basis-point interest rate cut. Crypto markets saw a temporary bounce, as lower rates and cheaper borrowing costs typically increase risk appetite and capital entering risk assets such as crypto.
However, the market’s upside was temporary, as the Fed’s latest interest rate cut was “widely expected and pretty much priced in,” CoinEx exchange’s chief analyst, Jeff Ko, told Cointelegraph.
Despite the lack of investor appetite, fundamental developments such as the increasing number of crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the improving usability of onchain products are ushering in a potential “Netscape” moment for the crypto industry, analysts told Cointelegraph.
Crypto nears its “Netscape” moment as industry approaches inflection point
The cryptocurrency industry is approaching its “Netscape” moment, as steady progress in blockchain infrastructure and the rise of regulated investment products drive a new wave of institutional adoption, according to Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang.
The crypto sector is “facing its ‘Netscape’ or ‘iPhone’ moment,” Huang wrote Sunday in a post on X. “It’s working bigger than ever before, far beyond our wildest dreams. Both the institutional parts and the cypherpunk parts.”
Netscape launched the first easy-to-use web browser for mainstream users in 1994 before going public with a successful initial public offering (IPO) in August 1995, marking the first building block that triggered the internet’s mass adoption.
However, Microsoft saw the large-scale interest and capitalized on it on it by freely bundling Internet Explorer as a pre-installed component of the Windows operating system, outcompeting Netscape to become the most widely used internet browser.
Bubblemaps challenges PEPE’s fair launch, alleges 30% of genesis supply bundled
Blockchain data is casting doubt on the “for the people” launch narrative of memecoin Pepe, with new analysis suggesting that almost a third of the initial supply was held by a single entity and contributed to heavy early selling pressure.
About 30% of the Pepe (PEPE) token supply was bundled at launch in April 2023, blockchain data visualization platform Bubblemaps claimed on Wednesday in a post on X, adding that investors were “lied to.”
The same wallet cluster sold $2 million worth of PEPE tokens the day after launch, adding significant sell pressure that stopped the token from surpassing the $12 billion milestone, according to Bubblemaps.
That concentration of the genesis supply contrasts with Pepe’s original branding as a “coin for the people.” The project’s website said the token launched “in stealth” with no presale allocations.
“Elite” traders hunt dopamine-seeking retail on prediction markets: 10x Research
Prediction markets are emerging as a new battleground in the crypto economy, where the best-informed traders are competing against casual retail bettors for profits.
Most users are behaving more like sports bettors than disciplined traders, according to a Tuesday report from research firm 10x Research, which said they are trading “dopamine and narrative for discipline and edge.” It added: “Accuracy and profit are driven not by the crowd, but by a tiny, informed elite who price probability, hedge exposure, and extract premium from retail-driven longshots.”
The rising liquidity and retail participation are incentivizing professional trading desks to increase their prediction market activity and capture the spread and “misinformation asymmetry” arising from this market structure, 10x said.
The report is a concerning sign for casual traders looking to make easy money on prediction markets, as blockchain data suggests that most users lose their initial investment.
Only about 16.7% of wallets on Polymarket are in profit, while the remaining 83% have incurred losses, according to blockchain data from Dune.
Coinbase opens Solana DEX access as CeFi and DeFi converge
Coinbase is moving deeper into the Solana ecosystem, letting users trade native Solana tokens through a decentralized exchange integration rather than traditional listings.
Andrew Allen, Coinbase protocol specialist, said in an X post that Coinbase now allows its users to trade all Solana (SOL) tokens through a decentralized exchange (DEX) integration, “without listings,” he noted, adding that “very soon you will be able to open the Coinbase app and see native Solana assets on Coinbase.”
“For issuers and builders, if your token has sufficient liquidity, this means you can be accessible to the millions of users on Coinbase without getting listed,” Allen said.
The announcement follows Coinbase’s integration of tokens from its Base blockchain through a similar DEX integration in early August. The announcement noted that the exchange planned to “expand DEX support to include additional networks, starting with Solana.”
Mantra CEO tells OM holders to withdraw from OKX over “inaccurate” migration plan
Tensions between blockchain platform Mantra and crypto exchange OKX are rising after Mantra accused the exchange of posting incorrect information about its token migration.
In a Monday X post, Mantra CEO John Patrick Mullin urged users of centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) OKX to withdraw their Mantra (OM) tokens and cut their “dependency” on the platform.
“Users should consider withdrawing their OM tokens from OKX[...]. Avoid OKX Exchange Dependency: Complete migration without relying on potentially negligent or malicious intermediaries,” said Mullin.
His warning came in response to a Friday announcement from OKX about supporting the incoming OM token migration.
According to Mullin, the OKX post contained multiple inaccuracies, including false migration and implementation dates.
OKX said the migration would occur between Dec. 22 and Dec. 25. Mantra’s governance proposal, by contrast, states that the migration will only take place after the Jan. 15 deprecation of the Ethereum-based ERC-20 OM token.
Mullin also said OKX’s post referenced “arbitrary dates throughout December 2025,” while Mantra has not yet announced an official implementation date.
He claimed OKX had not communicated with Mantra since “the events” of April 13, while Mantra has “helpfully [been] communicating with all other major exchanges regarding our migration.”
During the forthcoming migration, the OM token will migrate from an Ethereum-native ERC-20 token to a Mantra Chain-native token.
Cointelegraph has contacted OKX for comment, but had not received a response by publication time.
OKX has since reached out to Mantra and corrected the inaccuracies in the announcement, the exchange wrote in a Wednesday X post
DeFi market overview
According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the red.
The Kaspa (KAS) token fell over 13%, marking the biggest decline in the top 100, followed by the Story (IP) token, also down 13% during the past week.
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.