KEYTAKEAWAYS
- Daily active addresses on Base chain surge from 832,000 to 3 million
- Web3.0 sector suffered over $2.363 billion in security incident losses in 2024
- Solana Virtual Machine SOON launches its Alpha mainnet today
CONTENT
Latest crypto updates: Bitcoin’s 16th anniversary hits $96K, AI crypto sector nears $50B cap, Base chain sees 360% user surge, SOON launches Solana VM, and Web3 security losses top $2.36B in 2024.
BITCOIN’S 16TH ANNIVERSARY
On January 3rd, it marks 16 years since Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block (Block #0) of Bitcoin on a small server in Helsinki, Finland on January 3rd, 2009.
Currently, out of the total 24 million bitcoins, over 19.8 million have been mined, with each bitcoin priced at $96,732, reaching a total market capitalization of approximately $2 trillion.
It’s worth noting that with the emergence of various digital currencies, Bitcoin’s role continues to evolve. The addition of new cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Litecoin has made the entire digital currency market increasingly diverse. As envisioned in the Bitcoin whitepaper, a decentralized financial ecosystem is gradually taking shape. With the continuous emergence of various DeFi (Decentralized Finance) applications and the growth of numerous public blockchain ecosystems, the Web3 industry is providing users with more flexible and efficient financial services.
AI AGENTS DRIVE CRYPTO AI MARKET CAP CLOSE TO $50 BILLION
According to CoinGecko data, on January 3rd, the market capitalization of the crypto AI sector has reached $48.986 billion. The AI Agent sub-sector in particular has seen continuous explosive growth during this period, with a weekly market value increase of 43%. The market capitalization of AI Agents has reached $15.677 billion, accounting for 32% of the entire crypto AI sector.
The explosive growth of crypto AI has surpassed the early development stage of DeFi, showing stronger advantages in market attractiveness and growth potential. According to The Block’s data, after DeFi’s explosive growth in 2020, it didn’t break through the $50 billion mark until mid-April 2021, when that market had gradually matured and diversified.
AI projects, as an emerging category, have grown rapidly in 2024, with funding reaching around $600 million. AI+ has become one of the mainstream narratives in this bull market, and the AI Agent trend is capturing the majority of on-chain liquidity.
BASE’S ACTIVE USERS SURGE 360% IN 4 DAYS
According to the Artemis dashboard, over the past 4 days, the number of daily active addresses on Base chain has skyrocketed from 832,000 to 3 million, representing a 360% increase.
The explosive growth in Base’s active users largely stems from its rapidly expanding user base. According to Flipside’s annual report, Base added 19.4 million new users in 2024, which is 8 times more than second-placed Polygon. In the DeFi sector, Base has outperformed both Ethereum and Polygon, becoming a significant platform for attracting high-frequency traders.
Base has demonstrated its powerful appeal in emerging market competition, which not only reflects its success in user acquisition and retention but also highlights the enormous development potential of Web3 technology in attracting users. Of course, Base public chain’s success is inseparable from its strong backing, such as Coinbase’s massive user base and its active performance in popular areas like meme coins and on-chain AI.
SOLANA VIRTUAL MACHINE SOON TO LAUNCH ITS ALPHA MAINNET TODAY
On January 3rd, the Solana Virtual Machine SOON will launch its Alpha mainnet. SOON is defined as the most efficient Rollup stack based on Decoupled SVM (Solana Virtual Machine) technology. SOON aims to address scalability and high transaction fee issues faced by large-scale networks (especially Ethereum). By adopting Rollup technology, it aims to reduce transaction costs and increase transaction speed.
SOON is a Rollup stack designed to run on Ethereum and other blockchains, operating on the Ethereum network and leveraging its vast ecosystem to attract a broad user base.
- Block time: 50 milliseconds ·
- Throughput: Achieved 30,000 TPS (transactions per second) in testnet ·
- Transaction record: Processed 950,000 transactions in one month, demonstrating its excellence in scalability and speed
SOON can serve as Solana’s incentive layer, attracting quality developers and enriching the public chain ecosystem. SOON Stack uses the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) to enable parallel transaction processing, thereby increasing throughput and reducing latency. SOON is not just a branch of the traditional SVM; it’s specifically designed for Rollups, enhancing security while reducing data availability waste. Additionally, SOON plans to integrate ZK proofs to achieve faster withdrawal speeds and enable interoperability between SOON Chains.
OVER $2.36 BILLION IN ON-CHAIN LOSSES THROUGHOUT 2024
Leading Web3.0 security company CertiK has recently released “Hack3d: 2024 Annual Security Report.” The report reveals that security incidents in the Web3.0 sector resulted in total losses exceeding $2.363 billion in 2024, a 31.61% increase year-over-year. Throughout the year, 760 security incidents occurred, with phishing and private key leaks being the two main attack methods, causing losses of $1.05 billion and $855 million respectively. Phishing attacks accounted for nearly 50% of the total annual losses, becoming the biggest threat to industry security.
Ethereum was the blockchain that suffered the most security incidents, with 403 attacks, frauds, and vulnerability exploits, totaling approximately $749 million in losses, averaging $1.8578 million per incident. Bitcoin chain and Tron also became frequent targets of attacks, suffering losses of approximately $567 million and $136 million respectively. There were 39 multi-chain security incidents, resulting in $435 million in losses.
The Web3.0 ecosystem increasingly shows cross-chain characteristics, with attackers no longer limiting themselves to single-chain attacks but conducting joint attacks across multiple platforms. The increase in cross-chain attacks requires blockchain projects to strengthen cooperation and protection in terms of interoperability and security design.
As Web3.0 continues to develop, blockchain technology security will face greater challenges. Users, developers, and project teams all need to place more emphasis on security design, especially in areas such as smart contract writing, private key protection, and phishing prevention.
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