OVERVIEW

The Grinch Who Stole Volume: The Draining Of 5 Major Chains 🪠

Before we dive in, here’s today’s crypto market heatmap:

And here’s a look at crypto’s total market and altcoin market cap charts:

ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
Oh Come, All Ye Chart Freaks, Joyful And Not Drunk Yet 🧑‍🎤

Before we dig into the nitty gritty on-chain data, let's establish what we're actually looking at. Two metrics, both from Santiment, both measuring on-chain reality rather than price fantasy. 🧙

Daily Active Addresses (DAA): The count of unique addresses that participated in at least one on-chain transaction over a 24-hour period. This is your participation gauge - how many wallets are actually using the network, whether that's sending, receiving, or interacting with smart contracts.

Transaction Volume: The total amount of native tokens moved on-chain in a given day (measured in BTC, ETH, SOL, etc. - not USD). This captures the magnitude of activity. A chain can have lots of participants moving dust, or few participants moving whales. Volume tells you the latter.

One more thing: these metrics have nothing to do with price directly. A token can pump 50% on pure futures leverage while on-chain activity flatlines. That's exactly the kind of hollow move that tends to reverse. 

Conversely, strong on-chain expansion that precedes a price move is the real deal - that's accumulation you can trust.

Now let's see what December 2025 is telling us... 👀 

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ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
Bitcoin 🪙

Volume is bleeding faster than addresses. 🩸 

That's a conviction problem and not a participation problem. People are still showing up, but they're transacting with smaller bags or less frequency. The August spike to 940K addresses came with the summer volatility - since then it's been a grind lower for $BTC ( ▲ 1.81% ).

December's looking like the quietest month of Q4 on the volume front. Weekends continue to show predictable drop-offs. Not bearish per se, but this isn't the on-chain profile of a market ready to rip higher.

My take: Volume/Address divergence = positioning is lighter than price action suggests. 🪶 

ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
Ethereum 🥈 

ETH is in zombie mode. 🧟 

Addresses basically flat month-over-month while volume tanks 10%. That early-February spike (10M+ $ETH ( ▲ 5.15% ) volume) is a distant memory. There was a brief reawakening in July-August with addresses pushing toward 700-850K, but December's given all that back. 

The narrative around "ETH is dead" crowd isn't supported by address data - people are still using the chain - but the transaction sizes have shrunk considerably. The November 27 address spike to 897K was a one-day wonder; context suggests end-of-month positioning, not organic growth.

My take: ETH is being held, not traded. Low volume + stable addresses = accumulation posture or apathy. Take your pick. 🤷 

ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
XRP 😨 

This is the your biggest divergence between Daily Active Addresses and Transaction Volume in today’s newsletter. 🧠 

Remember March? XRP exploded to 612K daily active addresses and 530K addresses in a single day during that insane run. That was the cycle peak for on-chain engagement. Now we're scratching around 40K addresses - a 93% collapse from March highs.

The early-December volume spike on the 2nd ($4B in $XRP ( ▲ 1.88% ) volume) was the last gasp of speculative energy, and it came without any meaningful address expansion. Classic "whales moving bags, retail asleep at the wheel" pattern.

My take: The XRP army showed up in Q1, declared victory, and largely left. Price holding up better than on-chain engagement suggests (remember one of the Cryptotwits newsletters near the beginning the month? XRP was the best performer of the bunch). That's either future support building quietly, or a distribution in progress. Keep an eye on whether addresses stabilize here or continue leaking. 🌊 

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3 Largest crypto-focused asset manager based on AUM as of 10/31/2025. For other companies in this category, AUM is considered as of most recent public disclosure.

4 Gross expense ratio at 0% for 3 months or the first $1.0 billion of assets. After the fund reaches $1.0 billion in assets or after 3-month waiver period ending March 2, 2026, the fee will be 0.35%. Brokerage fees and other expenses may still apply.

Grayscale Chainlink Trust ETF (“GLNK” or the “Fund”), an exchange traded product, is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (“40 Act”), and therefore is not subject to the same regulations and protections as 40 Act registered ETFs and mutual funds. GLNK is subject to significant risk and heightened volatility. GLNK is not suitable for an investor who cannot afford to the loss of the entire investment. An investment in GLNK is not a direct investment in Chainlink.

Please read the prospectus carefully before investing in the Fund. 

Foreside Fund Services, LLC is the Marketing Agent for the Fund. Largest crypto-focused asset manager based on AUM as of 10/31/2025. For other companies in this category, AUM is considered as of most recent public disclosure.

Stakingrewards.com. The range observed is from 09/16/22 to 09/28/25 and the average over this period is 7.10%.

*3rd Party Ad. Not an offer or recommendation by Stocktwits. See disclosure here.

ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
Solana 🥳

Out of the five tickers in today’s newsletter, Solana is the only chain showing address growth into December. 🏆️

Ya, ya, ya, it’s way off the January highs (6.86M addresses), but the trend since September's bottom at 1.83M has been a steady rebuild. Volume is still depressed - October's 200M+ $SOL ( ▲ 2.88% ) days are gone - but the address resilience suggests the ecosystem has sticky users who didn't just show up for the pump-and-dump on rug.pull.

My take: This is the cleanest "base building" chart of the group. Address growth + low volume typically precedes accumulation phases. If you're looking for relative strength in altcoin on-chain fundamentals, SOL is your horse. 💪 

ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
Cardano 😶

YUGE volume explosion in the first half of December. 🌋

December 9-11 had a monster volume explosion - 4.1B $ADA ( ▲ 2.31% ) moved on the 9th alone - lines up with the Midnight (NIGHT) token redemption going live on December 10.

The address uptick reflects users coming back to interact with wallets they may have set and forgotten since the June snapshot. The disproportionate volume-to-address ratio makes sense: redemption required wallet signatures and on-chain transactions, but many users were likely consolidating or moving ADA in preparation for claiming NIGHT.

My take: This volume spike is event-driven, not organic accumulation (at least, not according to these two metrics alone). With NIGHT tokens unlocking in 25% tranches over the next year (through December 2026), expect periodic ADA wallet activity around those vesting dates - next one hits in early March. Don't mistake airdrop mechanics for bullish on-chain signals. 🧠

ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
Putting It All Together 🛞

Volume is compressing across the board while addresses tell different stories. 🔉 

SOL's the quiet grinder building users, ADA's spike is airdrop mechanics not organic demand, and XRP is living proof that retail can abandon a trade faster than they piled in.

This isn't a market screaming "risk-on" - it's a market with traders waiting for something to trigger a pamp while larger players are, quite obviously, building their positions.

Participation is flat-to-down, conviction (measured by volume) is bleeding out, and the only real activity spike of the month was farmers collecting free tokens. 🧑‍🌾 

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Author Disclosure: The author of this newsletter holds positions in AVAX, ADA, PUDGY, WLC, IMX, XTZ, NEAR, HBAR, ALGO, INJ, LTC, LINK, ZEC, XLM, and FET. 📋

Grayscale Chainlink Trust ETF (“GLNK” or the “Fund”), an exchange traded product, is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (“40 Act”), and therefore is not subject to the same regulations and protections as 40 Act registered ETFs and mutual funds. GLNK is subject to significant risk and heightened volatility. GLNK is not suitable for an investor who cannot afford to the loss of the entire investment. An investment in GLNK is not a direct investment in Chainlink. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing in the Fund. Foreside Fund Services, LLC is the Marketing Agent for the Fund.

1 Largest crypto-focused asset manager based on AUM as of 10/31/2025. For other companies in this category, AUM is considered as of most recent public disclosure.

2 Gross expense ratio at 0% for 3 months or the first $1.0 billion of assets. After the fund reaches $1.0 billion in assets or after 3-month waiver period ending March 2, 2026, the fee will be 0.35%. Brokerage fees and other expenses may still apply.