Polymarket settlement disputes intensify, Ethereum technical roadmap questioned—what's the crypto world abroad talking about today?

Title: Polymarket Settlement Dispute Intensifies, Ethereum Technical Roadmap Under Scrutiny—What Are the Overseas Crypto Circles Talking About Today?

Author: Rhythm BlockBeats

Source:

Repost: Mars Finance

In the past 24 hours, mainstream crypto market discussions have focused on Polymarket’s settlement controversy and potential insider risks related to geopolitical events; in ecosystem development, concerns have been raised about Solana’s network health and MEV behaviors, Ethereum’s diverging roadmaps continue to ferment, and the Perp DEX sector is accelerating differentiation amid buyback mechanisms and market-making compression.

1. Mainstream Topics

2. Polymarket Venezuela “Invasion” Settlement Dispute

On January 3, the US launched military action against Venezuela, successfully arresting President Maduro and his wife and handing them over for trial in the US. The Trump administration characterized this operation as a “law enforcement action,” not a “military invasion.”

On Polymarket, related prediction markets (such as “Will the US invade Venezuela?”) ultimately ruled the “Yes” option as invalid because the action did not meet the market’s predefined “invasion” definition, i.e., a traditional large-scale ground military invasion, rather than a quick, targeted raid.

This settlement outcome sparked strong backlash in the community, with many users accusing it of “arbitrary rule interpretation” and “retrospective rephrasing,” pointing fingers at the dispute resolution mechanism led by UMA holders. Many posts sarcastically said “the casino is always the winner,” further amplifying doubts about the fairness and credibility of prediction markets. Related discussions quickly surpassed one million views, becoming the most talked-about topic of the day.

2. Insider Trading Suspicion Triggered by Maduro Incident

More controversially, hours before the military operation, multiple new wallets appeared on-chain, placing large bets—despite only about a 6%–8% probability—that “Maduro will be ousted before January 31” or “the US will intervene in Venezuela.” One account invested approximately $35,000 and ultimately made over $400,000 in profit.

The community immediately questioned whether insider information was leaked, even suggesting possible links to government or intelligence agencies. Although some argued that prediction market liquidity is limited and noisy, making it hard to draw conclusions from single trades, such precise timing was considered “too coincidental.”

This incident has prompted higher-level discussions, with some lawmakers proposing restrictions or bans on government officials participating in prediction markets to prevent potential insider trading risks. Coupled with the earlier settlement dispute, Polymarket’s systemic risks have become the absolute focus of today’s discussions.

3. Berachain Ecosystem TVL Plummets

Another widely circulated piece of news comes from Berachain. This Layer 1 project, which was highly hyped in 2025 (frequently holding promotional events, with TVL once surpassing $3 billion), has now seen total locked value drop to about $184 million, a decline of over 90%.

Community discussions generally attribute this to “post-hype cooling, insufficient product-market fit,” and “diminished incentives leading to rapid capital outflows.” Some users jokingly call it “Bear Chain” (a pun on Berachain sounding like “bear chain”). Comments from prominent figures like CZ also focus on the same point: marketing cannot replace sustainable products and cash flow in the long run. These discussions reflect a market reassessment of the long-term viability of new public chains.

4. TON Team Selling Rumors

The price of TON has fallen about 66% from its peak, with some posts attributing this to team sell-offs, sparking brief discussions. However, overall, this topic’s popularity is much lower than Polymarket and Berachain, and it is generally viewed as an isolated case within the broader market correction cycle, without sustained controversy.

2. Mainstream Ecosystem Developments

3. Solana

Block Packing Issue Raises Network Health Concerns

New tools (such as ibrl.wtf) reveal that some validators are adopting late packing strategies, deliberately delaying transaction inclusion until the end of blocks to maximize MEV extraction.

The community widely believes this behavior is eroding Solana’s core technical advantage: originally promoted for real-time transaction streaming, the network’s processing model has shifted to a “burst” mode, where transaction states are only visible at slot ends, affecting transaction immediacy and breaking fairness in execution. Jito governance lead @DrNickA described this as Solana’s “moment of crisis” and pointed out that such behaviors could directly hinder the development of advanced on-chain applications like CLOBs. He called for penalties on bad validators through delegation or guiding staking toward nodes with higher IBRL scores (e.g., Jito SOL).

The consensus is that, in the short term, social coordination is necessary, while long-term solutions should involve protocol-level mechanisms (such as BAM / MCP proposals) to enforce constraints. This hot topic reflects the market’s collective anxiety over whether MEV behaviors will erode Solana’s long-term value proposition.

2. Ethereum

Diverging Roadmaps and Anti-Censorship Upgrades Progress Simultaneously

Former EF researcher Dankrad Feist publicly questioned Vitalik’s emphasis on “trust minimization and resilience first,” suggesting this could push Ethereum toward “a refined Bitcoin-like digital gold,” sacrificing its potential to carry real economic activity. He advocates prioritizing high-value DeFi activities on L1.

Multicoin Capital partner Kyle Samani’s critique was more direct, claiming EF’s development focus is not on serving user needs but on Vitalik’s personal vision. This sparked polarized reactions: one side supports “sovereignty and anti-censorship” long-termism, while the other worries Ethereum is gradually drifting away from practicality and market competitiveness.

Alongside these ideological debates, a technical advancement is underway. Ethereum Magicians forum member Soispoke.eth analyzed that EIP-7805 (FOCIL: Fork Choice-enforced Inclusion Lists) may be included in the Hegotá upgrade (the successor to Glamsterdam).

FOCIL allows multiple validators to enforce inclusion of valid transactions, enhancing censorship resistance, transaction timeliness, and neutrality. The proposal previously failed to enter Glamsterdam due to scope control issues but now has more support among core developers, with prototypes ready. It is seen as beneficial for ordinary users, L2s, institutional participants, and applications.

3. Perp DEX: Lighter Signals Positive Development

Lighter has officially launched a protocol fee mechanism for ongoing on-chain buybacks of $LIT , with buybacks tracked via a dedicated treasury account. The community generally views this as a rare, genuinely value-capturing model that can scale linearly with platform usage, and recent $LIT price performance is seen as a direct reflection of this.

Meanwhile, bid-ask spreads and marginal analysis show that top market makers like Selini Capital and Jump Crypto are experiencing a significant compression of short-term profit margins. Data indicates Jump’s share of delayed arbitrage trades reaches 47%, and since September–October 2025, overall market-making margins have continuously shrunk, with mechanized strategies facing greater pressure under a 0.2 bps fee structure.

4. Other Project Updates

Infinex: Founder disclosed a monthly burn rate of about $1.1 million (team of around 60), prompting some community members to question high employee salaries. However, subsequent clarifications showed this figure includes infrastructure and operational costs, quickly cooling the controversy.

Tempo: Released TIP-20 token standard, optimized for stablecoins and payment scenarios, supporting transfer notes, compliance strategies, yield distribution, and “arbitrary stablecoin gas payments.” It has partnered with AllUnity, Bridge, LayerZero, among others.

MegaETH (MEGA): Included in Coinbase’s listing roadmap, seen by the community as a positive signal of mainstream platform recognition for high-performance L2s, with speculation that TGE is imminent.

TON: Old news resurfaced: the team sold about $450 million worth of tokens in 2025, which some users see as a key reason for the price dropping approximately 66% from its high, with discussions mostly joking and retrospective summaries.