Release date: February 26, 2025
Author: BlockBeats Editorial Team

Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market has seen intense discussion across multiple fronts. Mainstream topics have centered on the controversy surrounding AI-driven mass layoffs, whether Ethereum’s roadmap can truly be executed, structural risks faced by Wall Street market-making institutions, and the political boundaries between cutting-edge AI companies and national security. In terms of ecosystem development, Ethereum is advancing L2 interoperability and cross-chain infrastructure; Solana is accelerating its evolution by balancing protocol coordination, security investments, and the deployment of AI development tools; the Perp DEX sector is entering a new round of competition around incentive and governance mechanisms; and prediction markets are rapidly upgrading toward real-time news and verification layers.

I. Mainstream Topics

Jack Dorsey posted an internal memo on X, announcing that Block laid off over 4,000 employees that day (approximately 40% of its 10,000+ workforce), explicitly stating that the move aims to create a smaller, more efficient organization through AI tools.

Controversy has erupted: Has AI truly matured enough to replace 40% of jobs in such a short time, or are companies using the AI narrative to mask deeper operational or capital pressures? Has there ever been a technology born in December that triggered layoffs on this scale by February in history?

Avi Felman and others argue that when Elon laid off 80% of Twitter’s staff, AI was far from mature; today, AI is merely a more “plausible” justification for the same underlying goal: organizational downsizing. Draecomino and James Wang point out that there has never been a historical case where a technology, just two months after its release, caused a 40% workforce reduction—this cannot be a genuine impact of AI. Protolambda emphasizes that large companies inherently face high decision-making costs, and even with AI, increasing headcount does not necessarily translate to higher productivity. The real core issue lies in whether the pace of AI-driven productivity gains has become severely misaligned with the decision-making rhythms and organizational adjustment capabilities of traditional enterprises.

Justin Drake announced the launch of strawmap.org as a "draft" roadmap for the EF Protocol, outlining multiple hard fork upgrades through 2029, targeting structural advancements such as high-speed L1, gigagas L1, and teragas L2.

The controversy surrounding this roadmap centers on whether it offers a clear and executable path, and whether AI truly empowers researchers with "superpowers," or whether EF’s governance structure and execution efficiency remain the bottleneck.

dcfgod believes the architecture of ETH 3.0 is clear: a layered progression of fast L1, gigagas L1, and teragas L2; Ryan S. Adams notes that AI has indeed enhanced researchers' capabilities, but true differentiation still lies in agency and vision; _choppingblock suggests the current roadmap still has significant room for improvement.

The underlying long-term tension lies in whether the Ethereum Foundation’s preference for an open, discussion-based approach to strategy formulation can meet the real-world demand for faster iteration and execution.

Jane Street has significantly increased its purchases of shares in the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), becoming its largest holder, raising questions about the ETF's authorized participant (AP) arbitrage mechanism and being linked by some commentators to recent lawsuits and risks associated with "paper BTC."

The key issue is whether this is a typical quantitative arbitrage behavior or a signal of potential market manipulation or liquidity stress.

Macrobysunil questions why Jane Street needs to hold such a large position and whether its motivations warrant deeper scrutiny; protolambda compares Jack Dorsey’s layoff remarks to “citrini doom round 2,” suggesting broader systemic risks may exist within paper asset structures.

A deeper issue is whether the ETF authorized participant mechanism amplifies systemic vulnerability when commodity ETFs become disconnected from cryptocurrency spot and derivatives markets.

The CEO of Anthropic has formally refused to comply with requirements from the U.S. Department of Defense (sometimes referred to in discussions as the "Department of War"). On Polymarket, the odds for "Refuse" have sharply fluctuated to approximately 44%.

The core of the market discussion is whether AI companies should provide unrestricted models to defense or surveillance systems, and whether refusing to do so will become a defining moment in the politicalization of AI in 2026.

Some Polymarket community members believe the 44% odds reflect a genuine divide in the market over "ethical boundaries"; garrytan suggests that, in an environment where AI is highly politicized, users mastering meta-prompting skills may become a form of self-protection.

The event reflects the irreconcilable ethical and commercial tensions between cutting-edge model development and national security interests.

@plur_daddy posted, "There's Not Enough Money In The World—AI capex cycle causing market regime change" (1.7 million views), and was shared by KOLs such as Ansem, directly comparing the layoffs by Elon and Dorsey.

The core debate lies in whether hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure investment is causing a "dual squeeze" of global liquidity contraction and employment disruption, or whether this is an inevitable structural reallocation within a new growth cycle.

plur_daddy believes AI capex is creating a new market regime characterized by "not enough money"; eliant_capital and Ansem point out that back then, no one questioned Elon's layoffs, and similarly, Dorsey's layoffs may simply be a continuation of capital concentration and organizational restructuring.

More fundamentally, has the extremely capital-intensive growth path of AI become structurally misaligned with the liquidity supply capacity of the existing global financial system?

II. Ecosystem Development

DoubleZero Enters Ethereum: Cross-Chain Strategy by Solana Infrastructure Company

DoubleZero, co-founded by Austin Federa, former CMO of Solana, has announced its server migration to the Ethereum ecosystem with the goal of "Making Solana Faster," a move covered by CoinDesk as part of a global speed competition. The initiative has quickly garnered support from core Solana team members and has been simultaneously shared by multiple KOLs from both the Ethereum and Solana communities, widely seen as a positive signal of collaboration and integration between the two ecosystems at the infrastructure level. More profoundly, it suggests that cross-ecosystem expansion by specialized infrastructure providers may become the new norm in the multi-chain era. However, it remains uncertain whether Solana’s speed improvements will long-term depend on external migration capabilities, due to potential variables and path dependencies.

L2BEAT launches Interop tracking tool

L2BEAT has officially launched the Interop Tracker, providing real-time monitoring of cross-chain tech stacks and interoperability progress across Ethereum’s various L2s. The tool has quickly gained widespread sharing within the ETH List and is seen as a significant milestone in the transparency and standardization of the L2 ecosystem. In the long term, it is expected to drive greater interoperability alignment and technical convergence among Ethereum L2s; however, in practice, it remains uncertain whether fragmented tech stacks will truly accelerate integration, due to timing and governance challenges.

Jupiter experienced a breaking change event

Jupiter’s core operations member SIONG tweeted overnight, documenting a protocol’s disruptive update deployed without prior notice, forcing the team to respond all night. Leading projects such as Backpack and Armani, though adding no comments, collectively retweeted, amplifying the signal. This sparked widespread discussion within the Solana ecosystem about the lack of coordination and communication between protocols. The incident exposed the risk of fragmented governance in a high-frequency iteration environment and may, in the long term, push Solana to adopt more mature cross-protocol notification standards—but in the short term, trust costs within the ecosystem have clearly risen.

The Reserve protocol has increased its security bounty to $250,000.

Ted Livingston announced an increase in the Reserve contract's security bounty to $250,000, emphasizing the goal of "ensuring the contract is as secure as possible." This move has been viewed within the Solana DeFi community as a positive example of proactive investment in security, setting a higher standard for security spending. However, given the increasing complexity of attack methods, there remains practical uncertainty as to whether $250,000 is sufficient to cover the costs and incentive needs of potential future attack surfaces.

DFlow and Phantom launch Claude Skills for Solana

DFlow, in collaboration with Phantom, has launched a Claude AI skill set specifically designed for developing Solana applications, quickly drawing significant attention from the developer community and being seen as a landmark event marking AI tools' formal entry into the Solana development workflow. This move has the potential to significantly lower the barrier to entry for Solana dApp development, accelerating innovation and application iteration; however, the stability of the AI skill set in real-world production environments and its ability to consistently translate into tangible productivity gains remain to be further validated.

Base launches the x402 protocol

minseok.base.eth, Head of Growth at Base, announced that the x402 protocol has officially launched on the Base mainnet. The ecosystem widely regards this as a significant infrastructure upgrade, with particular focus on its potential to enable on-chain payments, API calls, and other use cases. The protocol may serve as the starting point for a standardized on-chain protocol within the Coinbase ecosystem, but its actual adoption rate, ecosystem compatibility, and developer acceptance will require time to evaluate.

Lighter launches the LIT Fee Credits program

Lighter has officially launched the LIT Fee Credits mechanism, allowing small market makers and high-frequency traders to exchange LIT tokens for fee discounts and priority matching latency. The Perp DEX community generally views this move as lowering the entry barrier for smaller participants and promoting liquidity diversification. If the mechanism operates smoothly, it could reshape the market maker ecosystem for perpetual contract DEXs; however, the long-term sustainability and fairness of the points-based economy remain uncertain.

The Chopping Block focuses on AI × Crypto and the OpenClaw security incident

This week, The Chopping Block podcast invited @ilblackdragon to discuss the narrative around AI and crypto convergence, as well as the serious security lapse by OpenClaw. The episode gained widespread traction across cross-sector KOL communities, with the core focus on the real-world landscape of opportunities and risks in the AI-crypto intersection. This discussion highlights that the 2026 AI-crypto narrative has moved beyond conceptual stages into a phase of tangible risk dynamics, yet frequent security incidents serve as a reminder that the sector remains in an early and fragile window.

Hyperliquid has released HIP-6 governance proposal

The Hyperliquid community has officially released HIP-6, a governance proposal that has drawn significant attention within the Perp DEX governance circle, with discussions centering on the direction of protocol parameter and incentive mechanism adjustments. This proposal could represent a crucial step toward a more mature DAO governance structure for Hyperliquid, though the final outcome and strength of community consensus remain subject to negotiation.

Kalshi real-time publishes Musk's "hold on" TSLA news

Kalshi published Elon Musk’s call to hold TSLA in a “JUST IN” format, garnering 140,000 views on a single post, while simultaneously announcing reporting channels. Prediction markets are evolving from mere betting tools into real-time news dissemination and verification layers. This move signals that prediction markets are becoming one of the mainstream channels for information discovery, but it also brings long-term challenges around regulatory compliance and controlling information authenticity.

Polymarket odds for multiple events experiencing significant fluctuations

Over the past 24 hours, Polymarket has tracked major events such as "FAA closing Texas airspace" and "Anthropic refusing Department of Defense requests," with associated odds fluctuating in real time. The crypto and AI communities widely view this as evidence that prediction markets are evolving into engines for discovering geopolitical and AI policy news. Prediction markets are rapidly becoming a parallel layer for news verification, but risks of event manipulation and structural vulnerabilities in authenticity remain unresolved at the mechanistic level.

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