December Crypto Market Outlook: Ethereum's Primary Uptrend Imminent; Public Blockchain Battle to Commence

Original Author: RainyNap, Crypto KOL

GM, December Outlook is here.

Dino coins are not my forte, and it's also hard to grasp these ancient coins. This outlook is mainly to talk to you about some directions I'm looking at.

If you find this content helpful, feel free to like and retweet.

1/ AI Agent

After experiencing a series of hype around AI Memecoins, AI Agent applications, and infrastructure, it's time to focus on the longer term.

First, let me share my personal perception:

1. It's unlikely that there will be new pure AI MEME projects emerging as the market has been sifted through, leaving only $GOAT and $ACT, the two AI Memes listed on Binance (I have no opinion on $TURBO though). However, both $GOAT and $ACT are Wintermute market-making, and I believe those riding the wave are quite miserable, such as myself.

2. Market aesthetics upgrade: AI MEME -> AI Agent applications -> More sophisticated AI Agent applications and AI Agent infrastructure.

My Thoughts on Future Development:

1. AI Agents with entirely new output forms will be more popular;

For example, the currently popular AI Agents in the market are mostly tweet bots, where the focus is more on "novel content," such as $AIXBT's market analysis tweets. As long as you produce differentiated high-quality output, the market will respond positively.

Differentiated high-quality output covers two aspects,

One is a new content form, where the key is "traffic," i.e., being able to attract a sufficient audience. We now see exploration and experimentation by new AI Agents in video content, podcast content (including things like $ZEREBRO and $LUNA releasing music singles, and $POD working on podcast-related content);

Second is a new behavior pattern, such as launching an Agent that can autonomously trade memecoins. In the future, we should expect to see more exploration of new behavior patterns (this is also why I was bullish on $FLOWER and $LOLA). If new behavior patterns yield positive results, the market will respond favorably.

2. The market will show more demand for AI-related infrastructure;

This is easily understood, so I won't explain it further. Building skyscrapers on flat ground relies on a solid foundation. Tokens like $VIRTUAL, $AI16Z, and $VVWIFU represent this category. Apart from these fundamental issuing infrastructures, it's also worth paying attention to infrastructures that integrate these basic infrastructures, such as Seraph on Virtuals.

3. The future trend is "Agents that can operate independently and collaborate with each other";

We can already see this trend, such as what $UBC is currently doing (Agent to Agent). In the future, AI Agents on Virtuals may also move towards this trend. $LUM is the inception of such conceptual tokens; it is a cultural meme without utility (although there are now teams starting to do things based on $LUM, but I still don't fully grasp their ideas).

P.S. Currently, I am at a loss with my $LUM holdings; mentioning it is one thing, but it does not constitute financial advice.

2. Ethereum

I personally believe that Ethereum will experience a major uptrend (referring to the Ether/Bitcoin exchange rate), but I am not sure when this uptrend will occur. My view is still the same as it was in November:

1. A BTC ETF will have a spillover effect;

2. Major institutions like BlackRock are all working on RWAs on Ethereum, meaning that Ethereum's underlying value cannot be ignored;

3. The rise of the Base AI Agent ecosystem;

In terms of price performance, tokens like $ONDO, $LINK, $UNI, $ENS have started to show strength. This indicates that the market has begun to focus on Ethereum-related Beta targets. This is a bullish signal.

As for the choice of Ethereum Beta, there are essentially three directions:

1. ETH staking-related ($LDO, $EIGEN LRT);

2. DeFi & RWA ($AAVE, $UNI, $COW, $MKR, $ONDO, $LINK);

3. Meme coins ($MOG, $PEPE, $SHRUB). I personally prefer DeFi-related assets and indirectly hold $PENDLE and $EIGEN through holding $PNP and $EGP.

3/ Public Blockchain Battle

In the previous article about Stacks, I mentioned that the public blockchain battle is about to begin again — in December, you can see: 1) Fantom Sonic mainnet is about to launch; 2) Avalanche9000 mainnet will go live on December 16; 3) Aptos data growth + institutional adoption + ETP; 4) Stacks introducing sBTC post the Satoshi upgrade for more adoption, and so on.

Most surviving old public chains are starting to make moves while the market is favorable. We should expect to see a new round of Layer1 battles in December and Q1 of next year. Don't forget, this public blockchain battle also has a new player: HyperLiquid. From my perspective, the $HYPE hype train is not as heavy as we imagined, with fewer participants/holders in the Chinese community (especially compared to $ACT $PNUT). The future listing of $HYPE is still anticipated.

Regarding the few I mentioned above, I consider them all not bad. Their common denominator is being "willing to release expectations to drive the price" (Fantom is my favorite in the old public chain space). I will write a separate article on Fantom and Avalanche's updates.

Aside from Layer1, I will be focusing on the $METIS and Base chains in the Ethereum Layer2 space. Keep an eye on the project @ScoreMilk on Metis, which is why I'm paying attention to Metis.

Lastly, let me mention Base. Base has a unique tone, so when participating, try not to focus on whether the concept is good or not; instead, focus on whether it meets the needs of the Coinbase Cabal. Otherwise, even with a good concept, it will likely be short-lived.

4/ Chain Abstraction

Just a brief mention of chain abstraction.

Chain abstraction/intent abstraction is a concept I highly regard as it can reduce the barrier to entry for blockchain and the complexity on-chain.

In this space, I only look at products, not token prices — as long as the product is user-friendly, the token price fluctuations are not that important. Furthermore, I believe chain abstraction/intent abstraction still needs time for refinement and development.

For friends interested in this space, you can take a look at the @ParticleNtwrk project. Particle is a modular & chain abstraction Layer1 (which I introduced before), with its core function being "providing users with a universal account for cross-chain single address and front-end interactions." You can also explore @NEARProtocol's chain abstraction framework.

5/ What else is worth mentioning in December?

1. This week $IO will announce something (remember the AI Trio I'm bullish on? $IO $GRASS $TAO);

2. 12/10 $ME TGE (we may see some signs of NFT revival, personally I think it may be related to Opensea);

3. Coinbase delist $WBTC;

4. Keep an eye on the AI infrastructure on Solana, $SHDW $SNS;

5. $HNT is a project I am very optimistic about, I believe $HNT will have a relatively good performance in this round (just look at the data on Mobile, although few people mention it, Mobile users have actually been maintaining a good growth rate).

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