Lighter token launch controversy and Breakpoint conference feedback: What is the overseas crypto community discussing today?

Summary: What have foreigners been most concerned about in the past 24 hours?

Date of publication: December 15, 2025
Author: BlockBeats Editorial Team

In the past 24 hours, the crypto market has shown complex developments across multiple dimensions. Mainstream topics have focused on the frequent exposure of security risks at trading platforms, while at the same time, improper promotional behavior by executives has sparked discussions about industry standards. In terms of ecosystem development, the Solana ecosystem has shifted towards practicality after the Breakpoint conference, Ethereum has launched an innovative fundraising mechanism, and competition in the Perp DEX sector has intensified.

I. Mainstream Topics

1. On-chain detective ZachXBT exposes potential ties between edgeX and MEXC

The renowned on-chain detective ZachXBT has recently turned his investigative focus to the edgeX trading platform, putting forward a shocking hypothesis: edgeX may be connected to the so-called "MEXC conspiracy group." ZachXBT's working theory further suggests that the previous Jelly Jelly / Zerebro attack on Hyperliquid may also be linked to a network associated with MEXC.

This investigation is not an isolated incident; it is related to a major theft case that ZachXBT exposed in September. In that case, a criminal gang used highly sophisticated social engineering attacks to steal as much as $243 million in assets from a single victim. ZachXBT's investigation at the time not only revealed the identities of the criminals but also successfully assisted law enforcement in arresting several suspects and freezing millions of dollars in stolen funds. Now, the new investigation points to a broader network of trading platform connections, hinting at possible systemic risks and organized criminal activity within the crypto industry.

2. Base executive promotes high-risk meme coin, sparking controversy

Jesse Pollak, Chief Product Officer at Coinbase, recently caused a huge stir with a tweet on social media. He openly promoted a meme coin deployed on the Base chain, describing it as a "new thing for the internet." Screenshots of the tweet show that he personally spent about $1,500 to purchase the token. However, community members quickly pointed out that the project, both in name and token distribution, exhibited strong characteristics of a rug pull scam.

As an executive at a leading compliant trading platform and the developer of the Base chain, Jesse Pollak's actions were fiercely criticized by the community. Numerous negative comments accused him of using his influence to promote high-risk or even potentially fraudulent projects, which could mislead retail investors and damage the reputation of the Base ecosystem. This incident has once again sparked discussions about what responsibilities leaders in the crypto industry should bear.

II. Mainstream Ecosystem Developments

1. Solana Ecosystem

After Solana's annual Breakpoint conference, community leaders and participants gave sharply contrasting feedback. On one hand, Paradigm researcher Frankie and Kamino trading platform founder Marius both highly praised the conference's outcomes. They believe Solana has made tremendous progress at all levels of its tech stack, with significantly increased participation from traditional finance (TradFi), and that discussions at the conference focused more on real-world applications and utility rather than empty narratives. Marius specifically mentioned that many wild dreams from five years ago, such as tokenized stocks and bonds, have now become reality on Solana.

However, Jason Choi, founder of Tangent, painted a very different picture. He considered it "the dullest" crypto conference he has attended in recent years. He observed a widespread sense of "weariness" among project builders, venture capitalists, and traders alike. Many industry OGs are quietly exiting, venture funds are underperforming, and there are very few new projects. This complex and contradictory sentiment may reflect the subtle crossroads at which Solana and the entire crypto market find themselves after a cycle.

Despite the complex market sentiment, the Solana ecosystem has still released several important developments. First, leading wallet application Phantom announced it will launch a debit card in partnership with Visa, with the first batch open to US users, aiming to bridge crypto assets with real-world spending scenarios. Secondly, data shows Solana is performing strongly on several key metrics. Ecosystem lead Lily Liu cited data calling it "the most used chain," with its total value locked (TVL) growing tenfold since 2023, and trading volume at its peak even reaching five times that of Ethereum.

2. Ethereum Ecosystem

Ethereum ecosystem's public goods fundraising platform Octant has launched an innovative funding allocation mechanism called StreamVote. Unlike traditional periodic, one-off grants, StreamVote allows funds to be continuously allocated to supported projects in a "stream" based on real-time voting results from community members.

Voters' voting weights can be adjusted at any time, meaning project teams can attract more real-time funding inflows through ongoing progress. The system is built on the Superfluid protocol and uses a quadratic voting mechanism to prevent Sybil attacks and encourage broader voting distribution. This innovation aims to provide more flexible and incentivized funding support for high-impact projects in the Ethereum ecosystem.

3. New Public Chain Developments

High-performance Ethereum-compatible chain MegaETH announced that its "Frontier" platform will open to application developers this week, marking a new stage in its mainnet ecosystem development.

Meanwhile, the much-anticipated new public chain Monad is facing challenges with community sentiment after its TGE. The founder of its blue-chip NFT project Chog posted to reassure the community, admitting that project marketing had set expectations too high and calling on the community to focus on long-term building, noting that successful public chains like Solana also went through long periods of sideways movement and development.

Finally, the payment-focused new chain Tempo has partnered with ethos network to launch a new stablecoin concept, $ethosUSD, which can only circulate between verified trusted users, aiming to enhance transaction security and compliance through an identity system.

4. Perp DEX Sector

Hyperliquid has released detailed documentation for its "Portfolio Margin" feature, allowing users to use a wider variety of assets as margin, taking another step toward achieving functionality on par with centralized exchanges (CEX). Community analysis suggests this feature will create interesting synergies with lending protocols on Hyperliquid's EVM-compatible layer (HyperEVM).

Meanwhile, the Tradexyz trading platform experienced a market manipulation incident over the weekend. A new address initiated a large short position, triggering a cascade of liquidations and forcing over $13 million in long positions to close. This incident highlights the potential risks of running perpetual contract markets on assets that do not trade 24/7.

The community has also conducted in-depth comparisons between the soon-to-launch Lighter trading platform and Hyperliquid. The community believes the two represent different development paths. Lighter is more inclined to cooperate with existing giants such as Coinbase and Robinhood, with its bullish logic based on being acquired or integrated. Hyperliquid, on the other hand, is committed to building a complete financial ecosystem independent of existing systems. This difference is also reflected in tokenomics: the HYPE token is deeply tied to the ecosystem, while the utility of the LIT token is relatively limited.