Gate Research: Kalshi and Polymarket Reach Record Monthly Trading Volume | Policy Shift Opens Room for Mid-term BTC Upside

Summary

• Improved SEC regulation and revived rate cut expectations have triggered a V-shaped market rebound, with ETH leading strongly; capital is likely to flow into DeFi and Layer2 within the Ethereum ecosystem.
• Ethereum Fusaka upgrade was successfully completed; Cayman Islands see a surge in Web3 project registrations; PayPal stablecoin PYUSD shows significant growth.
• Kalshi and Polymarket reached nearly $10 billion in trading volume in November, setting a record for the strongest month.
• The current market downturn is not due to true fundamental deterioration; next year’s 401(k) pension plan guidelines may allow crypto allocation in retirement portfolios.
• ENA, LINEA, and BB will unlock approximately $50.92 million, $12.75 million, and $2.51 million worth of tokens, respectively, over the next 7 days.

Market Interpretation

Market Commentary

• BTC Market — BTC posted a “deep V rebound + high consolidation” structure in the past day. On December 2, after dipping to $83,828, it quickly reversed under the dual stimulus of improved SEC regulatory expectations and revived FED rate cut expectations, surging to a high of $94,189.8. Technically, MA5, MA10, and MA30 are in a classic bullish arrangement, with the trend remaining strong. Current price is consolidating near $94,000; as long as it stays above the MA30 core support, the bullish structure remains intact, and BTC may re-challenge the $94,000–95,000 range and attempt a breakout.
• ETH Market — ETH dipped to $2,719.28 on December 2, then quickly reversed into a clear V-bottom structure, continuing to set new local highs. Technically, MA5, MA10, and MA30 show a textbook bullish divergence; short-term moving averages are steep, indicating strong upward momentum. Since the rebound, price has stayed above MA5 and MA10, with limited pullbacks and solid short-term buying support. Combined with improved macro outlook and sentiment uplift from the Ethereum Fusaka upgrade, ETH has the conditions for the uptrend to continue and could challenge $3,300 in the short term. Note: if short-term momentum slows, a quick pullback may occur, but as long as MA10 or MA30 holds, corrections are likely healthy consolidations, with the overall uptrend intact.
• Altcoins — The market saw a V-shaped rebound. With ETH leading, funds are likely to flow into Ethereum-related DeFi and Layer2 ecosystems, and risk appetite is recovering.
• Stablecoins — Total stablecoin market cap is $307.801 billion, up $2.613 billion (0.86%) over the past week.
• Gas Fee — Ethereum network gas fees stayed mostly below 1 Gwei over the past week, with a peak hourly value of 2.63 Gwei. As of December 4, the daily average gas fee was 0.013 Gwei.

Hot Tokens

In the past 24 hours, crypto market sentiment has warmed significantly. The fear & greed index rebounded to 26, leaving “extreme fear,” and overall risk appetite is rising. Boosted by improved regulatory expectations and FED liquidity outlook, the market saw a V-shaped rebound, with ETH leading among major assets. As ETH maintained its strength, funds started to flow into its related DeFi and Layer2 ecosystems, also driving strong performance in some small-cap trending tokens, including derivatives token Tradoor, Bitcoin extension track BOB, and AI-oriented SAPIEN, all with impressive gains. Below is an analysis of the reasons behind each token’s rise.

TRADOOR Tradoor (+176.85%, circulating market cap $19.8274 million)

According to Gate data, TRADOOR is now trading at $1.3843, up over 170% in 24 hours. Tradoor is an on-chain derivatives trading platform based on TON blockchain, focusing on a user-friendly leveraged trading experience. Core innovations include machine learning-optimized pricing models for zero slippage and fair trading; low barrier to entry for leveraged trades; and integrated AI security to filter malicious orders.

TRADOOR’s price surge is mainly catalyzed by its Gate listing. Gate recently launched both TRADOOR spot and perpetual contracts, along with first-trade, net deposit, and trading competition rewards, triggering FOMO and attracting new inflows.

BOB BOB (+111.55%, circulating market cap $60.7614 million)

According to Gate data, BOB is now at $0.0268, up over 110% in 24 hours. BOB is a hybrid Layer2 network aiming to combine Bitcoin’s security and liquidity with Ethereum’s smart contract innovation, serving as a gateway to BTCFi.

BOB’s surge is mainly driven by listings on Korean exchanges and short squeezes. BOB went live on a Korean exchange with KRW trading pairs, sparking heavy short-term demand from local investors. After gaining Korean investor favor, prices quickly spiked, triggering leveraged short liquidations and a self-reinforcing rally. Coinglass data shows BOB open interest grew over 700% to above $30 million, with perpetual volume up over 3,200% to $1.26 billion, and BOB maintained a max negative funding rate, hitting an astonishing 1,600% annualized negative rate on Gate.

SAPIEN Sapien (+51.46%, circulating market cap $45.76 million)

According to Gate data, SAPIEN is now at $0.18, up over 50% in 24 hours. Sapien is a decentralized AI data network addressing the lack of reliable and transparent AI training data. It uses a community-driven “knowledge minting” mechanism, allowing users to contribute, verify, and monetize human knowledge data for AI model training.

SAPIEN’s recent rise is mainly due to a revival of the AI & robotics narrative and concentrated capital speculation. With industrialization accelerating in humanoid/embodied intelligence, demand for high-quality AI training data is rising, making upstream data service projects like Sapien the focus of market attention. Sapien’s ecosystem serves over 30 enterprise clients, including Lenovo and Midjourney, with solid fundamentals and a relatively low token market cap, making it easy for moderate inflows to drive sharp price increases. Additionally, SAPIEN’s annualized negative funding rates on exchanges exceed 600%, creating a “short squeeze” effect and amplifying gains.

Highlight Data

Ethereum Successfully Completes Fusaka Upgrade, Unlocking Space for Layer2 and On-Chain Ecosystem

Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade is a major network update in 2025, following May’s Pectra upgrade, and was activated on December 3, 2025, at 21:49:11 UTC. This upgrade synchronizes improvements to Ethereum’s execution and consensus layers, aiming to address the explosive growth of Layer2 networks and push the network toward higher TPS.

Fusaka is more than just parameter tuning or optimization; it brings a series of structural changes, especially focusing on scalability, data availability, and fee/fee structures, mainly including:

1. Peer-to-Peer Data Availability Sampling: Validators no longer need to download the full blob or entire dataset; they can sample and verify parts of the data, greatly reducing node storage and bandwidth requirements.
2. Expanded Blob Capacity: Fusaka significantly increases block capacity and gas limit, allowing each block to carry more transactions and data, which is especially beneficial for Layer2 batch submissions and rollup support.
3. Other Optimizations: Includes Cell Proofs (blob proof format changes) and passkey signature verification (supporting FaceID/TouchID bridge-less authentication), enhancing user experience and smart contract compatibility.

Overall, Fusaka paves the way for Layer2 networks and large-scale applications, enabling Ethereum to maintain security and decentralization while supporting future increases in on-chain activity frequency and scale.

Cayman Islands Become a Hotspot for Web3 Project Legal Entities, Registrations Up 70% Year-over-Year

The number of foundation company registrations in the Cayman Islands increased 70% year-over-year, exceeding 1,300 by the end of 2024, with more than 400 new registrations in 2025. These structures are increasingly used as legal shells for so-called decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and as ecosystem managers for large Web3 projects, with 17 foundation companies managing treasuries of over $100 million. This suggests Web3 projects have shifted from fully anonymous operations toward actively seeking legal and compliant structures.

The 2024 Samuels v. Lido DAO case warned that DAOs without legal wrappers may be regarded as general partnerships, and participants—including voting token holders—could face unlimited personal liability, pushing many projects to quickly seek legal entities to provide liability protection for community members. Additionally, the Cayman Islands announced it will implement the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) on January 1, 2026, requiring crypto service providers to conduct due diligence and report information, but passive foundations or protocol treasuries that only hold assets and do not provide services are expected to be exempt. The foundation company structure in the Cayman Islands matches the DAO model favored by current Web3 projects: no shareholders are required, but the entity can contract, hold assets (like treasuries and IP), and employ staff; its charter can be customized, including token-based governance.

In short, the surge of Cayman Web3 foundations shows projects are proactively choosing the most legally compatible structure for decentralized governance, in response to legal risks in major jurisdictions and adapting to new global regulations, to pursue safer, longer-term development.

PayPal Stablecoin PYUSD Grows Against the Trend, Up 36% in the Past 30 Days

PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD has seen astonishing countertrend growth, with market cap soaring from $1.2 billion in September 2025 to around $3.8 billion by November—over $1 billion in supply was added in November alone. PYUSD has surpassed USD1 to become the world’s sixth-largest stablecoin, thanks to a series of strategic moves by PayPal.

In September 2025, PayPal partnered with Spark, a leading DeFi liquidity platform launched by the original MakerDAO core team, integrating PYUSD into Spark’s lending markets to establish institutional-grade on-chain liquidity. This transformed PYUSD from a pure payment tool into a yield-bearing DeFi asset, attracting capital seeking stable returns. PYUSD also aggressively expanded to multiple chains, targeting payment and remittance scenarios. It is now available on Solana, Sei, and more, and has entered mainstream commerce via partnerships with Mastercard, Fiserv, and other payment giants. PayPal leverages its massive user base and clear business strategy as PYUSD’s moat. Users can buy, hold, and send PYUSD directly within familiar PayPal and Venmo apps without understanding complex wallets or private keys—lowering the barrier to entry. PayPal also offers a holding reward plan for PYUSD, providing users with about 3.7% annualized yield, essentially passing reserve interest to users to boost stickiness and holding willingness.

This Week’s Focus

Kalshi and Polymarket Near $10 Billion in November Trading Volume, Setting Record Month

In November, Kalshi’s monthly trading volume jumped from $4.4 billion in October to $5.8 billion, up 32% month-over-month. Over the same period, Polymarket’s volume rose from $3.02–3.04 billion to over $3.74 billion, up 23.8%. Combined, the two platforms approached $10 billion in volume, making November the strongest month in crypto prediction market history.

Kalshi and Polymarket now dominate global prediction market liquidity and volume, forming a rapidly consolidating “duopoly.” The surge in volume is mainly due to a return of retail interest, frequent macro events, and ongoing expansion of both platforms’ product and liquidity infrastructure, which strengthen their appeal to users and capital. This shows prediction markets are emerging as a new high-frequency macro trading venue, with data and liquidity increasingly resembling a “crypto CME,” and may play an important role in pricing and sentiment guidance in future markets.

Since October, Circle Has Minted $13 Billion in USDC on Solana

According to Onchain Lens, this week Circle minted $750 million USDC on Solana. Since the “1011 crash,” Circle has minted $13 billion in USDC on Solana, and $49 billion in total in 2025.

Circle’s rapid large-scale USDC minting has significantly boosted stablecoin supply on Solana, providing ample liquidity for DeFi and cross-chain trading. Over the past two months, Solana’s on-chain trading, meme trading, and DeFi arbitrage have surged, driving up stablecoin demand. During market volatility or downturns, some funds shift to stablecoins for safety, which can also influence short-term minting data. Overall, this large-scale issuance reflects strong demand for stable assets and shows institutions/traders are shifting some assets from volatile cryptocurrencies to stablecoins to manage risk.

Bitcoin Market Fears Exaggerated, Policy Shifts Open Room for Mid-Term Upside

K33 Head of Research Vetle Lunde noted in the December market outlook that Bitcoin’s biggest fears are distant, hypothetical issues—such as quantum risk or potential strategy-driven BTC sales—rather than imminent threats. While Bitcoin is experiencing its sharpest correction since the 2022–23 bear market, the current panic is driven by exaggerated long-term risks rather than direct structural threats. Excessive derivatives, concentrated long-term holder selling, and broad supply distribution have catalyzed recent lows. However, a series of mid-term policy and structural developments could significantly improve Bitcoin’s outlook—for example, new 401(k) pension plan guidelines to be issued in February 2026 may allow crypto allocations in the $9 trillion retirement market.

If the upcoming 401(k) plans do allow crypto exposure, this could have a major impact on crypto market structure by injecting substantial long-term capital from mainstream retirement pools, significantly increasing overall demand. Unlike previous cycles dominated by high-risk speculators, the entry of pension funds would enhance institutionalization, compliance, and stability of crypto assets, boosting market confidence and price stability.

Funding Weekly

According to RootData, from November 28 to December 4, 2025, 7 crypto and related projects announced funding or M&A deals, spanning bitcoin savings, DePIN, AI, infrastructure, and more. Below are brief introductions of the week’s top-funded projects:

Ostium

Announced $20 million in funding on December 3, led by General Catalyst.

Ostium is a synthetic asset protocol enabling institutional and retail traders, as well as hedgers, to gain commodities exposure via on-chain trading.

BitStack

Announced $15 million in funding on December 2, led by 13books Capital.

BitStack is a bitcoin savings app that makes saving in bitcoin simple, fun, and easy. It rounds up bank transactions to the nearest euro, allowing users to save effortlessly. The spare change accumulates over the week and is automatically converted to bitcoin each Monday.

Gonka

Announced $12 million in funding on November 29, led by BitFury.

Gonka is a decentralized computing network designed for AI inference and training. Contributors earn GNK tokens by providing GPU computing power; developers can run AI applications without cloud or closed model constraints; and users drive demand through inference.

Next Week’s Watchlist

Token Unlocks

According to Tokenomist, over the next 7 days (2025.12.5 - 2025.12.11), several major tokens will see large unlocks. Top 3 are as follows:

• ENA will unlock about $50.92 million in tokens over the next 7 days, accounting for 2.3% of circulating supply.
• LINEA will unlock about $12.75 million in tokens over the next 7 days, accounting for 8.4% of circulating supply.
• BB will unlock about $2.51 million in tokens over the next 7 days, accounting for 7.4% of circulating supply.
  References

• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT
• Farside Investors, https://farside.co.uk/btc/
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data
• Coingecoko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/cryptocurrency-heatmap
• Rootdata, https://www.rootdata.com/Fundraising
• Tokenomist, https://tokenomist.ai/
• TheBlock, https://www.theblock.co/post/380909/kalshi-and-polymarket-post-strongest-months-yet-with-nearly-10-billion-in-combined-november-volume
• K33, https://k33.com/research/articles/zooming-in-rather-than-out
• X, https://x.com/OnchainLens/status/1995530252576248303
• Coinglass, https://www.coinglass.com/FundingRate
• CoinDesk, https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/12/03/ethereum-activates-fusaka-upgrade-aiming-to-cut-node-costs-speed-layer-2-settlements
• Cointelegraph, https://cointelegraph.com/news/cayman-islands-web3-foundation-companies
• DeFiLlama, https://defillama.com/stablecoin/paypal-usd

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