Gate Research: Polygon completes Madhugiri hard fork upgrade|Exchange BTC supply has dropped sharply

Crypto Market Panorama

• BTC (+2.07% 丨 Current price 92,005 USDT): BTC briefly fell back to the $92,000 range and saw buying orders, and although the price pulled back from the high of $94,500, the overall price remained within the short-term bull structure. In terms of moving averages, MA5 and MA10 have slightly retraced, but they are still above MA30, indicating that the trend has not yet weakened and has only entered a short-term consolidation. The MACD red bars converged from the highs, the momentum slowed down but was still above the zero axis, and the market was in a cooling phase after strength. If BTC can stabilize the $91,800–92,200 zone, it can continue the repair trend; A break below the MA30 could further backtest the $90,500 support.
• ETH (+5.84%丨Current price 3,290 USDT): ETH experienced profit-taking after rising to $3,397, and the price fell back to around $3,290, entering a consolidation range after a strong trend. The moving average structure is still more numerous, and although MA5 and MA10 are close to the price downward, they still remain above MA30, indicating that the short-term trend has not been broken. The MACD red bars have converged significantly, and the bulls’ momentum has cooled, but there has been no reversal signal yet. If ETH can hold $3,250–3,280, it will still be a strong consolidation; A break below $3,220 could further backtest support near MA30.
• Altcoins: The panic index remained at 26, a slight rebound from yesterday’s extreme panic, but the overall sentiment is still in a state of caution, and capital risk appetite remains low.
• Macro: The S&P 500 index fell 0.08% to 6,840.51 points on December 9; the Dow Jones fell 0.38% to 47,560.29 points; The Nasdaq rose 0.13% to 23,576.49. As of 10:15 AM (UTC+8) on December 10, the price of spot gold was temporarily trading at $4,214 per ounce, an increase of 0.14% in 24H.

Nuggets Hot Token

PIPPIN Pippin (+66.39%, Circulating Market Cap US$301 million)

According to Gate market data, the PIPPIN token is currently quoted at $0.29568, up about 66.39% in 24 hours. Pippin is an SVG unicorn image generated based on ChatGPT-4o’s latest LLM benchmark, created by AI innovator Yohei Nakajima. Yohei is a highly influential thought leader in the AI x VC space and is regarded as one of the core enablers of the “AI for VC” movement. He is known for his openly built creative style, publishing over 100 AI-powered prototypes, automated agents, and open-source tools.

Overall, this rise is more the result of the combined effect of “narrative reinforcement + market sentiment preference + capital game” rather than clear product updates or technological progress. Although Pippin’s community interaction has not been active recently, the latest post on the official X account is also stuck in August, indicating that the increase is not driven by community activities and is not obviously event-driven. However, the AI narrative foundation behind the project, built by Yohei Nakajima, remains topical, making the token an object of speculative preference during the sentiment recovery.

WET HumidiFi (+37.01%, $40.58 million in circulating market cap)

According to Gate market data, the WET token is currently quoted at $0.19182, up 37.01% in 24 hours. HumidiFi is an on-chain liquidity and transaction infrastructure project built around the Solana ecosystem, aiming to create a composable DeFi product experience with a new “water element” visual concept. Its core vision is to provide a fairer and more efficient trading environment, with the concept of “Humidity” as the basis for on-chain interaction and incentive expansion.

This round of rise may mainly benefit from the strong attention and trading demand driven by the launch of TGE. The project officially announced the TGE on December 9 and released a WaterWorld-themed video to deepen the market’s understanding of the project’s positioning. Subsequently, the team posted an analysis of DTF presale transaction fees, emphasizing the successful implementation of this presale in the anti-bot front-running and fair distribution mechanism, which significantly increased the community’s confidence in the project’s technical capabilities and execution. In addition, the news of WET’s launch of multiple Solana ecosystem trading platforms further enhances token availability and stimulates early liquidity growth.

PENGU Pengu (+10.46%, $787 million in circulating market cap)

According to Gate market data, the PENGU token is currently trading at $0.012527, up about 10.46% in 24 hours. Pengu is a Web3 entertainment ecosystem built around “on-chain community culture and brand image”, with highly recognizable penguin IP as the core narrative, expanding its influence in the crypto community through lightweight content, community participation, and cross-platform interaction.

This round of rise may mainly benefit from two important developments recently announced by the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem: its mobile game “Pudgy Party” has exceeded 1 million downloads on the App Store and Google Play, significantly strengthening Pudgy’s penetration ability in the mainstream market; At the same time, Lil Pudgys announced the official launch of AI interactive dolls powered by Curio, and each physical toy is equipped with an exclusive AI companion function, further combining real products with digital interaction. These two updates together deepen Pudgy IP’s brand reach among Web2/Web3 users and enhance the outside world’s expectations for its “cross-media content + consumer products + on-chain ecosystem” integration capabilities.

Alpha Interpretation

Polygon Madhugiri upgrade with performance leap and enterprise-grade infrastructure optimization

Polygon has completed the Madhugiri hard fork upgrade, and the network throughput has increased by about 33% to nearly 1,400 TPS after architectural optimization. The core of this upgrade is the introduction of a mechanism that can adjust the block time, so that the future adjustment of block generation speed can be directly configured within the chain instead of relying on hard forks, thereby significantly reducing upgrade costs and system disturbances. At the same time, the upgrade unifies the consensus period to 1 second and simultaneously enables Ethereum’s Fusaka series EIPs to reduce the burden on the network caused by abnormal transactions through security measures such as limiting the gas limit for a single transaction, further improving system robustness.

Overall, the Madhugiri upgrade not only promotes Polygon’s two-way enhancement in performance and security, but also provides a more deterministic and controllable infrastructure for large enterprise users, especially in high-frequency and high-reliability scenarios such as Revolut, MasterCard, and Stripe. The enhancement of network throughput and the introduction of parameter adjustability make Polygon more potential for enterprise-level expansion, laying the foundation for it to strive for higher infrastructure standards in the competitive landscape of rollup and L2.

Decentralized AI joins hands with on-chain liquidity networks to drive CARiFIN to build next-generation insurance infrastructure

FLock.io, a decentralized AI model platform, announced a collaboration with Deluthium, an AI-native liquidity infrastructure, and Aerodrome, a core liquidity hub on the Base chain, to jointly build a new generation of on-chain inclusive financial platform CARiFIN, and accelerate its implementation in the regulatory and governance framework of relevant institutions. The cooperation aims to solve the long-standing structural problems of lack of trust, insufficient liquidity, and complex compliance requirements in the micro insurance market, with the goal of providing more transparent, efficient and sustainable insurance support for groups with underserved financial services, and promoting the wider application of inclusive financial products in the on-chain ecosystem.

In terms of platform architecture, FLock.io’s AI model will serve as the platform’s intelligent decision-making core, responsible for risk modeling and automated claims judgment under privacy protection, significantly reducing operating costs and improving processing efficiency. Deluthium provides stable and secure on-chain fund execution and stablecoin exchange capabilities, and uses institutional-grade dark pools to achieve smooth settlement of claims funds with zero slippage. Aerodrome relies on the VerifiedERC20 modular standard to introduce identity verification and compliance guarantee mechanisms to ensure that the payment process is auditable and traceable on-chain. The technical collaboration of the three parties forms an end-to-end closed loop of on-chain insurance infrastructure, providing higher trust and scalability for inclusive financial scenarios.

BTC exchange supply has declined sharply, and selling pressure continues to ease and improve market structure

According to Santiment data, the available supply of BTC on exchanges has decreased by approximately 403,200 BTC over the past year, indicating that a significant amount of chip is flowing from exchanges to self-custody or long-term holding addresses. This type of capital flow usually means that investors are more inclined to long-term allocation than short-term trading, which significantly reduces active selling pressure in the market and provides more stable support for spot prices. As short-term realizable chips decline, the market’s sensitivity to sudden selling is also relatively reduced.

From a structural perspective, the continued contraction of exchange balances not only reduces the probability of large-scale sell-offs but also reinforces BTC’s tightening characteristics, making the relationship between supply and demand more favorable to price performance. In an environment where macro uncertainty and derivatives leverage are intertwined, the reduction of supply on the spot side has become an important stabilizing force, helping to ease volatility, enhance market confidence, and accumulate a more stable foundation for subsequent markets.
Resources:

• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT
• Farside Investors, https://farside.co.uk/btc/
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT
• Farside Investors, https://farside.co.uk/eth/
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data
• Investing, https://investing.com/indices/usa-indices
• Investing, https://investing.com/currencies/xau-usd
• X, [https://polygon.technology/blog/polygon-speeds-up-by-33-with-madhugiri-hardfork](https://polygon.technology/blog/ polygon-speeds-up-by-33-with-madhugiri-hardfork)
• X, https://x.com/Cointelegraph/status/1998241268053233907?s=20

Disclaimer Investing in the cryptocurrency market involves a high level of risk, and users are advised to conduct independent research and fully understand the nature of the assets and products they are purchasing before making any investment decisions. Gate is not responsible for any loss or damage resulting from such investment decisions.