Still Waiting For An Altcoin Season? These Metrics Show Why It Might Never Happen

Top executives at crypto-focused VC firm Paradigm have called for accelerating the pace of development on Ethereum, adding to a recent debate around the future of the world's second-biggest cryptocurrency.

The post attempts to sidestep some of the debate by choosing instead to focus on a single goal: accelerating the pace of development.

"There is reasonable debate about what Ethereum’s north star should be," the post states. "But wherever you think Ethereum should go, surely it is better to get there faster...We think Ethereum should be focused on reaching the efficient frontier of what’s possible before arguing — hypothetically — about how we would choose between our values once we’ve hit those limits."

The post directly calls for Ethereum to accelerate its pace of development, shipping more than one major upgrade per year, while arguing against the mindset that the best way to protect Ethereum's decentralized status is to slow, or "ossify," the development of the core protocol.

"The core development process is one of the main mechanisms for offchain governance by Ethereum’s social layer, and reflects input from engineers, researchers, validators, and institutions," the post states. "Ossifying the core protocol would mean abandoning that governance mechanism and Ethereum’s ability to evolve in response to changes in the market structures of areas like L2s and MEV."

The authors also calls out several "non-controversial improvements" that they argue should be shipped quickly, rather than being delayed to fit in with a major annual upgrade. Some changes include repricing the L1's opcodes to scale Ethereum without modifying the block gas limit, improving the UX of batched transactions through further development of the account abstraction framework, and further developing rollups that can meet increasing demand.

Paradigm also highlighted its work on the Reth Ethereum client, which currently holds a 2% share of Ethereum's execution clients. Geth, the leading client, has a 43% market share with runner-up Nethermind claiming around 36% of the market, according to Client Diversity.

"We built Reth intentionally as an SDK for building “EVM-core” nodes to enable experimentation and innovation by researchers and engineers," the post states. "We invite the research community to collaborate with us in prototyping new features towards improving Ethereum’s performance, censorship resistance, and future-proofing, with Reth."

The post was co-authored by Matt Huang, Paradigm's co-founder, alongside the firm's CTO Georgios Konstantopoulos and general partners Dan Robinson and Charlie Noyes. Paradigm recently co-led a $150 million Series C funding round for Phantom, the crypto wallet that was originally Solana-exclusive but has since expanded to the Ethereum ecosystem, with Sui support coming soon.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

SUI is steadily approaching the $3.9 level, weighed down by increasing bearish momentum that has put pressure on buyers to defend this critical support. The cryptocurrency’s recent inability to sustain higher levels has amplified concerns, with sellers taking advantage of waning bullish efforts. This has left the market in a delicate balance, where the next move could either stabilize the price or push it further into bearish territory.

The $3.9 level has emerged as a vital threshold, and how the market reacts here could set the tone for SUI’s trajectory in the near term. If bulls mount a strong defense, it may pave the way for a potential recovery and attract fresh buying interest. However, a breakdown below this mark might intensify selling pressure, possibly driving the price toward deeper lows.

Price Action Near $3.9: Bearish Trend Or Opportunity For Reversal?

As SUI approaches the critical $3.9 level, the price action presents a pivotal moment that could shape the future direction of the asset. With bearish pressure mounting, there’s a real concern that the price might breach this support, opening the door for more declines.

The market’s current sentiment leans toward caution as traders keep a close eye on whether the $3.9 level can hold firm or give way to selling pressure. A sustained drop below this level could signal more downside, with the possibility of further testing of lower support levels.

Key technical indicators are raising concerns about a potential breakdown for SUI as it approaches the $3.9 support level. SUI is currently trading below the 100-day Simple Moving Average (SMA), a sign that market sentiment has shifted to the downside. Typically, this development suggests that bearish pressure is mounting, causing extended drops if this negative trend continues.

Adding to the bearish outlook is the Relative Strength Index (RSI) currently trading below the 50% threshold, a level that often signals that selling activity is dominating the market. When the RSI falls below 50%, it indicates that the market sentiment is leaning toward a downward trend, reinforcing the possibility of more losses.

What $3.9 Means For SUI Future Price Direction

When SUI reaches the $3.9 support, it is difficult to determine its next direction. However, should the $3.9 support fail to hold, it could open the door for increased bearish pressure, driving the price toward the next support levels at $2.8 and $2.3.

Meanwhile, if SUI manages to hold the $3.9 support and bounce back, a reversal or consolidation phase is likely, paving the way for a recovery toward the $4.9 resistance level. A successful breakout above this level may attract additional buying pressure, propelling the price further to challenge the $5.3 mark.

Virtuals Protocol, a decentralized platform for launching AI agents, has announced its expansion to the Solana blockchain.

This move aims to foster multichain availability while empowering builders and driving innovation within the ecosystem.

Virtuals’ Multichain Ambition

On January 25, Virtuals Protocol confirmed its expansion from Base to Solana. The protocol highlighted that this step marks the beginning of a new chapter, enabling it to grow its community and create more value for developers.

Virtuals aim to unlock new growth opportunities by leveraging Solana’s advanced scalability and active developer community,

EtherMage, the protocol’s pseudonymous lead developer, described this expansion as the first of many steps toward building a diverse and robust multichain ecosystem. According to him, the move would help to realize their vision of an interconnected and autonomous digital society.

He noted that dedicated teams are already in place to collaborate with Solana and other blockchain communities. These teams will focus on funding, mentorship, and visibility for projects building within the Virtuals ecosystem.

Virtuals’ Plan for the Solana Ecosystem

Virtuals Protocol has outlined several initiatives tailored to Solana. Among these is the Meteora Pool, a platform feature designed to create fresh opportunities for trading and engagement.

Additionally, 1% of the trading fees generated will be converted to SOL and allocated to the Strategic SOL Reserve (SSR) to reward contributors and enhance Solana’s ecosystem.

The protocol has also introduced a grant program to boost development across both Base and Solana ecosystems. Under this program, projects on these chains can access 42,000 $VIRTUAL tokens to support early-stage growth.

Looking ahead, Virtuals is set to host an AI Hackathon in March in partnership with the Solana Foundation. This event aims to offer technical mentorship and support to developers, further reinforcing the protocol’s commitment to fostering innovation.

Virtual protocol has emerged as a top-performing platform in the crypto space, benefiting from the growing demand for AI-driven solutions. Its multichain expansion to Solana signals its dedication to shaping the future of decentralized AI and supporting a thriving developer ecosystem.

Despite news of the expansion, Virtuals’ native VIRTUAL token is down more than 4% in the last 24 hours to $2.54 as of press time, according to BeInCrypto data.

Michael Saylor, co-founder of the MicroStrategy behemoth and a renowned Bitcoin believer, has taken to his account on the X social media network (formerly popular as Twitter) to send yet another daily BTC-themed message to his multi-million army of followers.

"Create something better," Saylor tweets

Once again, Saylor has published an AI-generated image of himself with BTC symbols lavishly spread in the background. This time, Saylor looks like an artist in a studio with drawing easels surrounding him. Each contains a Bitcoin logo drawn in a slightly different style.

“Create something ₿etter,” Saylor tweeted, typing the “B” with four vertical strokes, as if reaffirming his confidence in BTC as in the asset which has no second best to it.

As reported by U.Today, four days ago, MicroStrategy announced a mammoth Bitcoin purchase as it acquired a $1.1 billion worth of BTC. Now, Saylor’s firm holds 461,000 BTC in its stash.

In the meantime, the world’s flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin has demonstrated a decline of roughly 2.43% as it dropped from $107,190 to the $104,600 price mark. At the time of this writing, BTC is changing hands slightly higher – at $104,800 per coin.

Solana DEX aggregator Jupiter made a number of major announcements at its 'Catstanbul 2025' event, named after its Turkish locale and Jupiter's psuedonymous founder, 'Meow.'

Jupiter, which recently distributed over $600 million to its community in a 'Jupuary' airdrop, debuted a 'V2' redesign of its platform, declaring that the platform is once again in beta as new features are added throughout the platform. The new features include a "...real time slippage estimator, a brand new ultra mode, smart trigger orders and many, many more," according to Meow. "Everything announced here will be rolled out over [the] next couple of weeks."

Jupiter's Ultra Mode promises to be "10x cheaper, 10x better" than competing options, offering "real-time slippage estimation, dynamic priority fees, optimised transaction landing," and a new security tool that protects user assets dubbed "Jupiter Shield."

Jupiter also introduced 'Jupnet,' an omnichain network that "aims to aggregate all of crypto in one single decentralized ledger for maximum ease of use for users and developers," according to Jupiter's announcement. The network is currently in early testnet, with the first public beta coming "in the next couple of months."

The Jupnet proposal introduces decentralized and independent validators that would create a single source of truth across many blockchains, but could also execute transactions on different blockchains.

"For Jupnet, we envision a world where one account can access all chains, all currencies and all commodities, aka the 1A3C vision," the announcement states.

AI and Memecoin Moves

Aside from the platform updates, Jupiter made major moves in the increasingly-hot AI and memecoin sectors.

Jupiter announced early Saturday its acquisition of a majority stake in the memecoin platform Moonshot, a Pump.fun competitor which rocketed up the Apple App Store charts following the launch of Donald Trump and his wife Melania's memecoins.

"The team is amongst the smartest, most driven group of people i have ever met & it has been incredibly fun jamming on the future of memes together," wrote Meow on X. The value of the deal was not immediately disclosed.

Regarding AI, Jupiter announced the launch of a $10 million 'Magic Fund' that seeks to support open-source AI development in conjunction with Eliza Labs, the team behind the AI agent project ai16z.

"We are accelerating ambitious founders building [good tech,]" Eliza Labs founder Shaw Walters said on X. Walters also previewed a 'v2' of the ElizaOS platform, with a Research Preview launching in March and a public launch slated for April.

Also at the event, AI agent platform Virtuals announced its expansion to Solana. Virtuals originally launched on Coinbase's Base Ethereum Layer 2 network. Virtuals also announced a number of initiatives meant to support developers and initiatives across Solana and Base.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.