Gate Research Institute: Global Rally in Cryptocurrency Recovery | Solana Meme Sector Revival

Cryptocurrency Market Overview

• BTC (+1.85% | Current price 92,898.3 USDT): BTC has completed a volume breakout after consolidating at a high level over the past 24 hours and has entered a phase of accelerated upward trend. On the macro level, recent fluctuations in US bond yields have eased, and the market’s pessimistic expectations for rate cuts have been partially digested. Overall, risk assets are in a recovery window. Technically, short-term moving averages (MA5, MA10) have turned steep again and are forming a stable bullish arrangement with MA30. From a short-term structure perspective, the upward target may further point to the 94,000–94,500 USD range.
• ETH (+1.2% | Current price 3,184.56 USDT): ETH continued its upward trend over the past 24 hours, rising with volume after consolidating at a high level, approaching $3,200 at one point. On the technical side, short-term moving averages (MA5, MA10) have turned steep again and are forming a stable bullish arrangement with MA30, with support from mid-term moving averages during pullbacks, indicating that the current rise is driven more by trend inertia than sentiment. It is important to note that ETH remains in a steady follow-up phase within the bullish trend, with a healthy structure but not yet entering an independent acceleration zone. Short-term performance still depends on BTC’s stability at high levels.
• Altcoins: The Fear and Greed Index is at 26, in the “Fear” zone. Overall market sentiment remains restrained, with a relatively healthy upward structure and controlled risk appetite.
• Macro: On January 2, the S&P 500 rose 0.19%, closing at 6,858.47 points; the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 0.66%, closing at 48,382.39 points; the Nasdaq Composite declined by 0.027%, closing at 23,235.63 points. As of 11:40 AM ( UTC+8 on January 5, the spot gold price is temporarily reported at 4,408.6 USD per ounce, with a 24H increase of 1.76%.

Hot Tokens in the Market

PONKE PONKE (+88%, Market Cap 33.46 million USD)

According to Gate data, the current price of PONKE token is $0.0605, up over 80% in 24 hours. PONKE is a community-driven meme coin on Solana, featuring an angry monkey mascot (a “degenerate gambler with anger issues” in Pepe the Frog style). It is gradually expanding to multi-chain ecosystems, real-world goods (such as NFC chip toys, plush dolls, and collaborations with RIPNDIP), Solana validator nodes, etc., aiming to transition from pure meme to a “tokenized entertainment” brand.

The rise of PONKE is related to the overall rebound of the Meme coin sector and capital rotation into the Solana ecosystem. Recently, other top Solana Meme coins like BONK have experienced significant gains, indicating a clear revival in the Solana Meme coin sector. PONKE, launched in 2023, is an established Solana Meme coin that is likely to be repriced by renewed capital.

MSQ MSQUARE (+59%, Market Cap 19.61 million USD)

According to Gate data, MSQ is currently priced at $1.29, up nearly 60% in 24 hours. MSQUARE (MSQ) is a utility token issued by MSQUARE GLOBAL Foundation; the project aims to be a platform integrating real economy and blockchain, with core goals of reducing cross-border payment friction, enabling real-world application discounts, and supporting multiple self-operated platforms.

As a narrative of real-world platform deployment, MSQ has no major recent news, but ongoing operations may have accumulated positive expectations within the community and among Korean users. The recent rise is attributed to a combination of market liquidity reset at the start of the year, a rebound of small-cap tokens, and short-term FOMO, rather than a single major catalyst.

WOLF Landwolf (+40%, Market Cap 15.57 million USD)

According to Gate data, WOLF is currently priced at $0.00001683, up 40% in 24 hours. LandWolf (WOLF) is a Meme coin on Solana, inspired by the character “Landwolf” from Matt Furie’s “Boys’ Club” comic (creator of Pepe the Frog). The character is known for a lazy, smart, cold pizza-eating, candle-sniffing “degen” image, positioned as Pepe’s partner/brother, emphasizing community-driven, zero transaction tax, pure meme culture.

WOLF’s rise is driven by the collective revival of the Matt Furie family narrative sparked by PEPE’s strong rebound. PEPE’s resurgence has led to a rotation within the Boys’ Club family: BRETT remains steady, ANDY is accumulating at low levels, and WOLF is viewed as an “undervalued leveraged play.” Viral spreads such as “YEAR OF THE WOLF” further amplify FOMO.

Alpha Insights

The global market experiences a broad rally, with Asia-Pacific stocks leading

At the start of 2026, global financial markets have had a strong beginning, showing a broad rally pattern, with Asia-Pacific stocks performing especially well and leading the gains. Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped over 2% on its first full trading day; South Korea’s Kospi index hit a new all-time high (breaking 4,420 points); Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index continued its strong rebound; the MSCI Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) index outperformed other regions significantly. This rally in Asia-Pacific is mainly driven by geopolitical catalysts—such as a military action that boosted risk appetite—and policy stimulus expectations in Asian economies, like potential easing in China, governance reforms in Japan, combined with liquidity reset effects, leading to rapid capital inflows into high-beta assets.

Meanwhile, the crypto market also surged, with BTC approaching the 93,000 USD mark, Ethereum nearing 3,200 USD, and major coins like XRP also recording significant gains. Market sentiment shifted from cautiousness at year-end to a clear bullish outlook. US stock futures rose slightly, continuing the optimistic AI-driven tone of 2025, while precious metals maintained their impressive rally: gold over 4,400 USD/oz, silver rebounding nearly 4%, benefiting from FED rate cut expectations—pricing in at least two 25 basis point rate cuts in 2026, potential USD weakening, geopolitical safe-haven demand, and structural supply-demand imbalances. Overall, this broad rally is essentially a combination of “year-start effect” (funds replenishing after tax-loss harvesting), geopolitical catalysts, macro easing expectations, and risk appetite recovery. Liquidity shifted quickly from holiday lows to activity, but trading volume remains thin, with short-term volatility risks still present. Caution is advised for profit-taking or sudden reversals due to unforeseen events.

Infinex has raised only about 550,000 USD in the past two days of public sale

Infinex is a Crypto Superapp launched by Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix, aiming to create a non-custodial multi-chain wallet and DeFi platform with user experience close to CEX, supporting cross-chain swaps, leverage trading, yield optimization, etc., with passkey biometric login to avoid traditional seed phrases and gas hassles. The project raised 65.3 million USD in 2024, with participation from Solana Ventures and others.

The public sale started at 06:00 UTC on January 3, 2026, selling 5% of the total supply via Sonar platform, aiming to raise 5 million USD, with a FDV of 99.99 million USD, and a 1-year lock-up period (early unlock possible with a penalty based on a higher FDV, e.g., 300 million USD). However, in the first two days, only about 550,000 USD was raised, with a completion rate of just 11%, involving 350 participants, averaging about 1,600 USD per person, far below expectations. The current fundraising pace has slowed significantly, with only a few thousand USD per hour. Predictive models suggest a final total of only 2-2.5 million USD, unlikely to reach the 5 million USD target.

The poor fundraising performance of Infinex is mainly due to multiple negative factors. Initially, a high FDV of 3 billion USD and a 15 million USD raise caused strong community backlash, being accused of “over-dilution.” The team’s urgent adjustment to the current level has severely damaged trust, leading many to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. The 1-year lock-up and early unlock penalties are very unfriendly to short-term speculators and liquidity seekers, making it less attractive than current lockless or short vesting projects. Additionally, the overall crypto public sale market is facing challenges. Despite the long-term value of Kain Warwick’s team and product direction, this sale’s flawed design highlights the importance of pricing and community consensus in token issuance.

Solana is about to launch a major consensus layer upgrade, Alpenglow

Alpenglow is a significant consensus layer upgrade for Solana, aiming to replace the existing Tower BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance protocol) and Proof of History mechanisms entirely. The goal is to reduce block finalization time from the current 12.8 seconds to a theoretical 100-150 milliseconds, about 1/100 of the original. This upgrade introduces two core components: Votor and Rotor. Votor is a lightweight voting aggregation model that allows validators to aggregate votes off-chain and achieve finality through single or double rounds of confirmation, with “Fast Finalization” (initial round with over 80% stake support) and “Slow Finalization” (initial round with 60-80% support requiring a second round). These run in parallel to ensure network consensus even with partial participation. Rotor reconstructs the block propagation layer, using stake-weighted relay paths to optimize data dissemination. Simulations show block propagation times can be as low as 18 milliseconds, significantly increasing network throughput.

Delphi Digital states that this upgrade is expected to be gradually rolled out in the first half of 2026, reflecting Solana’s long-term commitment to performance and stability. Alpenglow is a key step toward maturing Solana, shifting its narrative from “high throughput” to “sub-second finality + institutional friendliness,” especially suitable for real-time DeFi, gaming, and trading applications. However, challenges remain, and actual network performance under real-world scale still needs validation.
References:

• 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
• CoinGecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/cryptocurrency-heatmap
• Infinex Sale Tracker, https://inx-ico.swishi.xyz/
• Delphi Digital, https://x.com/Delphi_Digital/status/2007125651892117585?s=20

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