Outpoll Weekly Recap: Crypto (December 29, 2025 – January 4, 2026)

1 day ago7 min read

As the final week of 2025 bled into the first of 2026, the crypto markets delivered a masterclass in volatility that felt like a smart contract executing its logic with cold precision. The headline act was Bitcoin’s dramatic rejection at the $85,000 psychological barrier, a move that sent a shiver through the entire ecosystem and saw its dominance dip slightly as capital briefly flirted with alternatives.This wasn't mere profit-taking; it was a complex recalibration, with on-chain data pointing to significant movement from long-term holders to exchanges, suggesting a strategic pause rather than a panic. In the prediction markets, the real narrative unfolded.Traders, acting as the ecosystem's collective nervous system, sharply downgraded the odds of a spot Ethereum ETF approval by the SEC's late-January deadline, with probabilities on platforms like Polymarket collapsing from a hopeful 45% to a sobering 18% in just days. This sentiment shift, more than any price swing, speaks volumes about the market's mature, if cautious, parsing of regulatory tea leaves.Yet, beneath this surface tension, the engine of innovation kept humming. The DeFi sector saw a notable surge in activity on Layer 2 rollups, with Arbitrum and Optimism processing record transaction volumes as users chased yield and lower fees—a clear vote of confidence in Ethereum's scaling roadmap that Vitalik has long championed.Meanwhile, a quiet but significant trend emerged in DAO governance, with several major protocols successfully executing complex treasury diversification votes without the usual factional drama, showcasing a growing procedural maturity. This week was a reminder that crypto’s story is no longer written solely on price charts. It’s being coded into more efficient contracts, voted on in decentralized forums, and hedged in prediction markets, painting a picture of an industry that, while still volatile, is building the foundational layers for its next phase.

#Weekly recap