Hey folks,
Three big names keep showing up in the “real rails” headlines.
Not memecoin noise. Not a one-week pump story.
More like, “this is where builders and institutions are placing chips for 2026.”
Here are the 3 to watch.
Ethereum and ETH
Ethereum’s next major upgrade is lining up for 2026.
It’s called Glamsterdam, and the two headliner proposals getting the most attention are:
Quick refresher on ePBS.
Right now, Ethereum block production has a middle layer.
Specialized “builders” assemble blocks.
Validators pick a block to publish.
A lot of that coordination happens through third-party relay infrastructure.
ePBS is the push to move more of that process into Ethereum itself.
Why people care.
Less reliance on external middlemen.
More consistent rules around how blocks get built and chosen.
A cleaner path to reduce MEV-related unfairness over time.
Block-level access lists are the other practical add-on.
They let a block “pre-declare” what it plans to touch, so the network can process it more smoothly.
Why it matters for 2026.
Ethereum’s “win” is still being the safest default place to build serious apps and settlement.
This upgrade is aimed at making the base layer cleaner and fairer, not flashier.
Solana and SOL
Two concrete signals stacked up.
Firedancer is now live on Solana mainnet, after years of development. Solana called out that it had already been running on a handful of validators for an extended test period.
Then came the “payments rail” headline.
Visa announced a USDC settlement in the United States for issuer and acquirer partners, naming Cross River Bank and Lead Bank as the first participants, settling in USDC over Solana.
Visa also said its monthly stablecoin settlement volume passed a $3.5B annualized run rate as of Nov 30, and that broader U.S. availability is planned through 2026.
Why it matters for 2026.
Firedancer strengthens the network’s “client diversity” story.
Visa strengthens the “Solana as settlement plumbing” story.
That combo is hard to ignore.
Chainlink and LINK
Chainlink keeps popping up in tokenized finance workflows.
One big initiative is corporate actions.
Chainlink and 24 financial market participants are pushing an industry effort to fix what they call the $58B corporate actions problem, a cost estimate tied to post-trade operations pain.
Corporate actions are events like dividends, stock splits, and mergers. Today, the data still hops across too many systems and spreadsheets, leading to mismatches, delays, and extra cost.
Then there is the tokenized funds track with Swift.
Swift, UBS Asset Management, and Chainlink announced a pilot showing how institutions can use existing Swift infrastructure to help settle tokenized fund activity using off-chain cash settlement.
UBS said it has an in-production, end-to-end tokenized fund workflow using Chainlink’s Digital Transfer Agent standard.
Why it matters for 2026.
If tokenized assets scale, the boring glue wins.
Messaging standards, data standards, and workflow standards.
That’s the lane Chainlink is trying to own.
So should you care?
If you trade short-term, treat this as a narrative watchlist, not a “buy now” list. These stories move in bursts, then go quiet.
If you invest for the long term, this is the clean signal.
Ethereum is planning protocol-level design changes.
Solana is adding a major new validator client, and Visa is expanding USDC settlement on Solana rails into 2026.
Chainlink is showing up where institutions test tokenized funds and post-trade plumbing.
DYOR. This isn’t a call to buy or sell. Trade small, keep a stop, and protect your capital.
Bitcoin remained steady near $89,000 on Monday, even as crypto market liquidity shrinks ahead of the holiday week. Based on signals from options markets, ETF flows, and futures positioning, crypto traders are de-risking as the year draws to a close. Among altcoins, SOL, XRP, ADA, and DOGE all traded down during the week, while top performers included NIGHT, CC, and SKY, which gained 62.2%, 23.3%, and 17.3%, respectively.
Weekly price movement:
BTC $89,609 ⏬0.27% (1W)
ETH $3,039 ⏬3.38% (1W)
SOL $126 ⏬4.35% (1W)
XRP $1.92 ⏬3.72%
NIGHT $0.1054 ⏫62.24% (1W)
CC $0.09007 ⏫23.34% (1W)
(All data here as of 2:30 p.m., 22 December 2025)
Before we conclude, here’s a quick look at some important news from around the crypto world.
Binance, the leading crypto exchange by trading volume, has made it possible for everyone to earn a passive-like income through ether options, opening up a strategy once limited to pros. The exchange said it is allowing users to write (sell) ether options, helping them effectively manage risk and generate extra income, according to CoinDesk.
Ripple said it deepened its relationship with brokerage firm TJM Investments, buying a minority stake that takes it further into the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that institutions use to trade and settle assets. Ripple will support the trading and clearing operations of TJM, a US-regulated broker-dealer, according to a CoinDesk report.
That’s it for now. Thanks for sticking around.
See you later, folks! 👋