2025 in the sign of AI?

PLUS: Reflecting on 2024 for the Arbitrum DAO

AuthorAuthorAuthorAuthorAuthor

Francesco, Atomist, 0x_Vlad, CJ CJ & MarketsAlpha
January 03, 2025 • Est. Reading Time: 16 minutes

 

Happy New Year, brothers and sisters of the Castle!

May 2025 bring happiness, love, and unfathomable fortunes.

We are pumped for this new year. With both ai16z and Virtuals reaching new highs, the AI agents are here to stay and should be treated as a sector rather than a meta.

In this Chronicle, we have:

  • 🧡💙 The Arbitrum Corner - A Recap of 2024 for the Arbitrum DAO

  • 💸 Market Watch - How is the market doing as we enter 2025?

  • 🧙 Security Tips from Ambire Wallet - plus a 2x XP boost on Ambire Legends

  • 📈 Price Action - cheat sheet for trading crypto

  • 🔑 Key News - all the hottest headlines, updates, and new projects to check out

ARBITRUM CORNER

For the first Arbitrum Corner of the year, we take some time to reflect on what happened in 2024 and the main accomplishments of the Arbitrum DAO. As Arbitrum contributors, time flies when you’re heads down building.

Due to the nature of DAOs, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the amount of work and improvements needed.

Nonetheless, we have come a long way from the beginning.

In 2024 only, the Arbitrum DAO has:

✅ Established the Arbitrum Research and Development Committee (ARDC) to help delegates and decision-making by providing research-led insights

✅ Created an Experimental Delegate Incentive Program (DIP)

to incentivize governance participation

✅  Establish the ArbitrumDAO Procurement Committee

improving the efficiency and transparency of procurement processes within Arbitrum

✅ Launched a Long Term Incentive Program (LTIP)

to incentivize protocols building on Arbitrum

✅ Launched the Arbitrum Stable Treasury Endowment Program (STEP)

to kickstart efforts to differentiate Arbitrum DAO treasury

✅ Launched the STIP Bridge Incentive Program

to incentivize protocols previously excluded by STIP

✅ Conducted a Gov Hack Exercise at ETH-cc

hackathon-style event, which also served as a venue for DAO members to meet and coordinate Arbitrum’s strategic priorities

✅ Launched a $200m Gaming Fund

to kickstart the gaming niche within Arbitrum

✅ Started the Pilot for the Arbitrum Venture Initiative (AVI)

creating a DAO-led structure for Venture Investing

✅ Created the Multisig Support Service (MSS)

to streamline multi-sig signatures across programs

✅ Onboarded Entropy as DAO facilitator

to contribute to strategic and operational developments of the DAO and improve stakeholder coordination

✅ Ensured funds to Bootstrap Bold validator

allowing the Arbitrum Foundation to spinoff the first Bold validator

✅ Proposed ARB Staking

to boost the ARB token utility

✅ Launched a new version of the DIP

Refining Incentive mechanisms for delegates

✅ Elected a new ARDC

to continue the work of ARDC V1

✅ Created a DAO event Budget for 2025

to streamline proposals for events

✅ Proposed Treasury Management V2

with the creation of Treasury Management and Growth Management committees

✅ Proposed OpCo

to facilitate Arbitrum DAO operations

The results of DAO efforts have proved especially effective in the RWA niche, bootstrapping TVL basically from 0 to over $100m with the involvement of TradFi giants such as Franklin Templeton and Blackrock.

Imagine what 2025 can bring if we leverage all these new resources to strengthen established verticals and tackle new and emerging narratives faster.

Enjoy the last few days of break before another year of work for Arbitrum.

What are you most excited about?

Courtesy of Francesco

📈 PRICE ACTION

Gm frens!

With the upcoming year in a very bullish context, I’m going to pay a lot of attention to crypto. Of course, I want to share my views with you as best as I can. For this purpose, I have decided to level up my content a bit so that you can get a good general idea of what I’m seeing.

My main goal with this section of the newsletter is to comment on what’s happening in the markets from a strictly technical perspective and to identify opportune moments in the market in which I’m willing to put on some risk.

To do that, I have put together a cheat sheet of all the fundamental elements of my system so that when I comment on their interactions, you will have a good understanding of what I’m talking about.

I’m using a timeframe template that we at mentfx refer to as the EVC - Entry/Validation/Context. These are simply 3 far enough away from each other timeframes that give us a good overall overview of what’s happening in the market. The EVC I will be using for the newsletter is 1W/1D/1H.

The main thing I am always looking for is emerging and established trends on the C & V timeframe that pull back into rising moving averages.

As a trend follower, I, of course, always want to have momentum on my side. For this purpose, I look to get involved on >momentum cycles<

A momentum cycle is a strong impulsive trend that happens above the rising 10&20 EMAs. Pullbacks are usually shallow and interact with these averages before going higher. Sometimes the pullback might wick through the averages and still keep the momentum cycle in tact. During these cycles I look to trade the 1st four re-accumulations before I consider the cycle overextended.

Things you will find on my charts:

💡 Green & Red Boxes

  • Accumulation is a reversal pattern that stops a previous downtrend

  • It’s a sideways price action that eventually breaks to the upside

  • Re-accumulation is a continuation pattern that appears within an uptrend

  • It’s a sideways price action that eventually breaks to the upside

  • Distribution is a reversal pattern that stops a previous uptrend

  • It’s a sideways price action that eventually breaks to the downside

  • Re-distribution is a continuation pattern that appears within a downtrend

  • It’s a sideways price action that eventually breaks to the downside

  • The 10/20 EMA Tunnel

    • Used to identify momentum cycles

    • Areas of expected support

Generally, I’m looking to trade re-accumulations that happen above the rising 10/20 EMA tunnel for longs and vice versa for shorts. Once pthe rice breaks below the 10/20 EMA tunnel, I step away and wait for a new momentum cycle to begin.

Each of those small green boxes represents an area of interest for me, as it is part of a momentum cycle. Within these boxes, I’m stepping down to a lower timeframe and looking to get involved.

I will NOT discuss specific market entry strategies. There are millions of ways to enter the market, and everyone should find what suits them. I’m only trying to identify areas where I have gained an edge.

And there you have it! Pretty much my entire system summed up in a single page. I will leave a link to this document in each Chronicle as to not spam valuable space, so that it can aid you in understanding my views.

I sincerely hope this will be a valuable addition to your market understanding and that it will help you manage your risk, as risk is the ONLY thing that we, as traders, can control. With all that being said -

Trade responsibly and I’ll see y’all next time!

Courtesy of 0x_Vlad - trend-based trader and MentFX student

🔒️ STEPPING UP SECURITY WITH SMART ACCOUNTS

We hope this market is treating you well. As you trade your way up, don’t forget to keep your funds safe.

Here are some safety advantages from using smart accounts for a safe 2025.

Courtesy of Ambire Wallet🔥

  1. No more risky unlimited token approvals: Grant limited approval and swap in the same transaction using built-in cross-chain swap (swap, bridge, bridge, and swap). This is also possible with dapps that support transaction batching.

  2. Skip manual signatures: batch any set of transactions to save time and gas fees! This includes multiple swaps, transfers, token approvals revokes, borrowing from AAVE, etc.

  3. No more Bridging to Refill Gas: Topping up the Gas tank on one chain allows you to pay for gas on any supported EVM chain. In addition, every smart account transaction tops your gas tank with cashback.

Furthermore, Ambire is offering a 2x XP boost in Ambire Legends.

Have fun completing Legends and Quests to familiarize yourself with the Ambire Wallet.

Try Ambire Legends now ➡️ https://legends.ambire.com/

Make sure to use the invite code for Castle fam: castlecap

🔍️ MARKET WATCH

We’re kicking off 2025 with a bit of green all over the place, especially for $SOL, and $AVAX.

Source: Delphi Digital

Top Assets:

  • Bitcoin (BTC): +1.78%

  • Ethereum (ETH): +2.92%

  • Solana (SOL): +13.84%

  • Average Performance: 6.18%

Layer 1s:

  • SUI: +5.09%

  • FTM: -7.56%

  • NEAR: +7.77%

  • SEI: +2.01%

  • TON: -1.82%

  • Average Performance: 4.06%

Gaming Infrastructure:

  • RON: +0.87%

  • BEAM: +7.74%

  • MAGIC: +21.49%

DeFi (ETH-Based):

  • AAVE: -1.54%

  • LINK: +1.18%

  • CRV: +9.25%

  • FXS: -4.46%

  • Average Performance: 0.19%

Memecoins:

  • WIF: -7.5%

  • BONK: -1.18%

  • Average Performance: +6.07%

Modular & AI/DePIN Sectors:

  • Sector Averages:

    • Modular: +2.72%

    • AI & DePIN: +7.47%

  • Biggest Declines:

    • GMT: -28.11%

    • FTM: -7.56%

Overall Market Sentiment: Rebounding across most sectors, focusing on AI. Other L1 such as $SOL and $AVAX are experiencing positive sentiment.

BITCOIN ETF INFLOWS START NEGATIVE IN 2025

Bitcoin spot ETFs have slowed down on the enthusiasm of the previous weeks, with a negative $663.11m in net outflows. This could reflect a broader trend where institutions are more cautious to allocate to Bitcoin at these levels, waiting for more clarity on an additional drop, or whether the orange coin will shoot straight to new highs.

Within this context, Bitcoin dominance is also slowly going up again, reaching over 53%.

$USDe CONTINUES ITS RISE TO TOP STABLECOIN

One of the main winners of Q4 25 is Ethena, which has solidified its USDe as 3rd biggest stablecoin, with over $5.8b in market cap.

This is also reflected in the growth of its TVL, skyrocketing from $4.4b to $5.9 in december only.

While most narratives continue to bleed. AI continues gathering most of the mindshare in the sector, with Aixbt consistently ranking 1st in Kaito’s Yappers dashboard.

Here’s the top 20 for this week:

How do we position ourselves for this meta?

How can we differentiate between agents when there are so many of them?

Tools like cookies.fun can help us make the job easier and visualize them.

Here are the top 10 agents of the week, brought to you by Francesco:

🔑 KEY NEWS

MAJOR HEADLINES

PROJECT UPDATES

INTERESTING PROJECTS

Courtesy of CJ - check out his telegram channel for daily news, project updates and new releases

That’s all folks! We’re excited for another year of the Chronicle.

Make sure to get the last few days of relaxation because 2025 will be a grind!

Our newsletter may discuss projects or tokens in which we hold positions. While we aim to provide informative content, our views are not financial advice. Please conduct your research and consult professionals before making investment decisions. Crypto markets are volatile, and past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Invest responsibly, and be aware of the risks. Your capital is at risk, and we do not accept liability for any losses.

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