Gate Institute: BTC and ETH fluctuate and consolidate, while AI and privacy computing sectors show structural strength

Cryptocurrency Market Overview

According to CoinGecko data, from December 2 to December 15, 2025, global market trends diverged. Despite the Fed’s rate cuts as scheduled, policy disagreements and expectations of pausing rate cuts suppressed risk appetite; gold led traditional assets with over 60% gains year-to-date, stock markets hit new highs but AI infrastructure sector sentiment cooled. Fear in the crypto market increased, trading volume concentrated in mainstream assets and stablecoins, with overall funds leaning toward defensive positioning and volatility hedging.【1】

In terms of market structure, BTC surged above $94,000 but then significantly retreated, forming a lower high structure on the 4-hour chart, with the $90,000–$91,000 range shifting from support to resistance; ETH fell back from around $3,400 but remained above $3,000 with relatively stable oscillation, showing a more robust price structure. Some tokens outperformed against the trend, with M rising over 46% last week, MERL and ZEC up approximately 28% and 19% respectively, becoming short-term highlights. On the news front, Polygon completed the Madhugiri hard fork upgrade, increasing network throughput by about 33%; Ethereum’s daily transaction fees (90-day moving average) dropped below 300 ETH/day, a multi-year low. Meanwhile, institutions continued to push Bitcoin collateral services, and regulators signaled accelerated rule-making and expansion of qualified collateral assets, marginally improving the long-term institutional environment.

On-chain capital flows showed Hyperliquid with a net inflow of approximately $190 million, significantly leading, reflecting concentrated bets on on-chain perpetual contracts, high-frequency trading, and high capital efficiency infrastructure; new trading scenarios amplified fund inflows in the short term. In contrast, the actual adoption of stablecoin public chains like Stable after their mainnet launch was below previous expectations, with existing mature public chain stablecoin networks still dominant; future performance depends on real-world applications and use cases.

Overall, the market remains in a phase characterized by “high macro uncertainty and structural opportunities,” with funds primarily engaged in defensive allocations and efficiency-driven strategies. Conditions for a short-term risk appetite rebound are not yet mature, and the market is more likely to maintain a cautious, structural rotation pattern.

Full Spectrum of Price Fluctuations

This report groups the top 500 tokens by market cap to observe their average gains from December 2 to December 15, 2025. The market did not experience a broad synchronized correction but showed clear structural divergence. Larger-cap assets performed relatively better, with the 1–100 rank averaging a 4.10% increase, and the 101–200 rank further rising to 5.18%, indicating that mainstream and secondary mainstream assets still attract relative capital allocation.

In contrast, the 201–300 rank saw a slight decline of -1.38%, the only group with negative returns, reflecting that mid-cap tokens faced more pressure under selective capital withdrawal. The 301–400 and 401–500 segments posted positive gains of 1.38% and 2.43%, respectively, showing some small-cap assets maintained mild recovery driven by low bases and thematic capital.

Overall, the market at this stage exhibits a layered pattern of “leading assets rallying, mid-tier under pressure, tail assets recovering,” with capital not simply avoiding risk but favoring structural allocations between liquidity, narratives, and resilience. The performance gap between market cap segments has widened significantly.

Note: Market cap distribution is based on CoinGecko data, grouping the top 500 tokens into segments of 100 (e.g., ranks 1–100, 101–200, etc.), calculating the price change during December 2–15, 2025, and averaging within each group to derive the average gain indicator for that market cap segment. The overall average gain (2.34%) is the unweighted mean of individual top 500 tokens’ gains.

Figure 1: The overall average gain is 2.34%. The market did not experience a broad synchronized correction but showed clear structural divergence.

Top Gainers and Losers

Over the past two weeks (December 2–15), the crypto market displayed high divergence amid macro uncertainties and rapid narrative shifts, with some tokens’ gains and losses significantly amplified, reflecting that short-term funds remain engaged in high-volatility speculation.

Top Gainers: High-Elasticity Thematic Coins Explode, BEAT and NIGHT Lead

In this period, BEAT ranked first with a 237.39% increase. As an application token focused on AI music and virtual content creation, BEAT benefited from the rising AI narrative combined with its small market cap, attracting short-term capital and amplifying its price elasticity.

NIGHT (+173.35%) ranked second, as a token within the Midnight Network ecosystem, emphasizing “privacy by default + selective disclosure” on a compliant privacy blockchain, targeting finance, identity, and data sharing scenarios. As the mainnet and roadmap became clearer, market reassessment of privacy computing and compliant infrastructure drove NIGHT’s strong performance during the recovery phase.

Following these, tokens like LUNA and JELLYJELLY also gained over 100%, reflecting a market preference for small- and mid-cap, high-narrative, high-volatility assets with high elasticity.

Top Losers: High-Risk Assets Retreat Sharply, Weak Consensus Tokens Under Pressure

On the downside, SAD and LGCT led declines, indicating that tokens with weaker liquidity or insufficient fundamentals faced early sell-offs amid increased volatility. TOMI, H, APEPE, MON also declined 30%–50%, mostly in assets with waning narratives, limited trading depth, or prior speculative overreach, reflecting phase-wise risk aversion toward high Beta assets.

Overall, the top gainers and losers display a typical pattern of “stronger assets strengthening, weaker assets quickly clearing out.” Funds did not fully exit the market but selectively bet on high-elasticity themes while quickly reducing exposure to assets lacking sustained narratives or momentum. In the short term, small-cap tokens with clear themes, community consensus, and active trading may remain volatile, but overall risk appetite remains cautious, with pronounced structural features.

Figure 2: BEAT with a 237.39% increase remains the top performer, mainly benefiting from the rising AI narrative and high elasticity from small market cap, attracting short-term capital inflows that significantly amplify price volatility.

Market Cap Rank and Price Change Relationship

To analyze the structural features of this cycle’s token performance, a scatter plot of the top 500 tokens by market cap was created. The horizontal axis shows market cap rank (left is larger cap), and the vertical axis shows price change from December 2 to December 15, 2025. Each dot represents a token, with green indicating gains and red indicating losses.

Overall, most tokens are still in the negative zone, with widespread distribution of negative returns across all market cap segments, indicating the market remains sentiment-weak with limited recovery momentum. However, tokens with notable gains are concentrated in the lower to mid-market cap range, reflecting a preference for high-elasticity, narrative-driven assets.

Structurally, high-gain tokens like BEAT, NIGHT, FOLKS, NIZA, JELLYJELLY are mainly in the mid-to-lower market cap segments, forming scattered but prominent “outliers,” indicating phase-wise concentrated bets. Conversely, tokens like LGCT, TOMI, SAD with significant declines are also concentrated in the mid-to-lower segments, with larger drawdowns, showing that during liquidity contraction, these segments are more prone to accelerated declines.

Overall, the current cycle exhibits a “relatively stable large cap, high divergence in small- and mid-cap” pattern. Gains are concentrated among a few high-confidence, high-volatility assets; declines are more widespread, dominating the market. This structure suggests that current funds are mainly engaged in short-term trading and thematic speculation, with risk appetite still cautious and a clear preference for structural positioning.

Figure 3: Scatter plot of top 500 tokens’ gains and losses shows gains concentrated in a few high-confidence, high-volatility assets; losses are more widespread, dominating the market.

Top 100 Market Cap Leaders

In this volatile cycle, the top 100 tokens continue to show divergence. Mainstream assets are under pressure overall, but some projects with clear narratives or structural support still achieve relative gains.

In gains, NIGHT (+173.35%) leads the top 100, becoming one of the few tokens with significant appreciation, reflecting market focus on privacy computing and compliant blockchain narratives during phase recovery. Next, M (+29.58%) and MNT (+29.25%) perform steadily, while HASH (+28.84%) and ZEC (+19.81%) also record double-digit gains, indicating that hash power, infrastructure, and privacy-related assets have some resilience under risk-off sentiment. Overall, the number of rising projects in the top 100 is limited but with high concentration of gains, showing “few strong outperformers, not broad-based.”

On the downside, QNT (-22.58%) leads declines, with ICP (-15.14%), KAS (-13.85%), and APT (-12.30%) also experiencing notable corrections. These retraced assets are often high Beta or overvalued projects from earlier phases, more affected by risk aversion and capital contraction.

In summary, the top 100 assets show a “few with strong narratives breaking out, most others retreating” pattern. Funds are not fully exiting mainstream assets but selectively allocating to differentiated tokens with mid-term support, indicating a cautious, structural phase.

Figure 4: Among the top 100 tokens, NIGHT leads, reflecting that privacy computing and compliant blockchain narratives are gaining focused attention during phase recovery.

Volume Expansion Analysis

Volume Growth Analysis

Beyond price rebounds, examining volume changes more clearly reveals how funds participate structurally. Data shows that volume expansion is mainly concentrated in mid- to small-cap tokens ranked 200–400, exhibiting a pattern of “volume increase but with clear rebound divergence.”

LUNA’s volume increased by 138.91 times, with a 24.58% rebound, making it the most notable in terms of volume-price resonance, indicating short-term funds concentrated at lows to play the rebound. CONSCIOUS’s volume grew 8.60 times with a 19.05% price rebound, also showing a healthy “volume-price synchronization,” reflecting rising market attention and buy-side support.

In contrast, LUNC and AXL saw volume increases of 59.06 and 27.53 times, but their price rebounds were only 10.40% and 5.95%, indicating that volume mainly came from short-term turnover and liquidity replenishment rather than trend-driven capital inflows. VSN’s volume and price gains are limited, overall still in tentative recovery.

In summary, volume-expanding tokens are mainly in the mid-to-lower market cap range, with volume increases driven by short-term speculation and rebound trading. Truly “volume + clear rebound” tokens are few, indicating that current funds favor phase trading opportunities rather than a full trend initiation, with risk appetite still cautious.

Figure 5: Volume growth multiples and price change scatter plot show that volume expansion does not necessarily correspond to price increases; only a few tokens achieve volume-price resonance, indicating a market still in oscillation and structural speculation.

Correlation Analysis

After exploring the linkage between volume and price, this section further analyzes their systemic correlation from a statistical perspective. Using “volume growth rate / market cap” as a relative activity indicator, and calculating its correlation with price change, to identify more fund-driven tokens. Circle size indicates the strength of relative activity; larger circles mean more volume expansion per unit market cap and higher sensitivity of price to capital inflows.

Most tokens’ correlation coefficients are in the 0.65–0.85 range, showing that price movements are still largely driven by trading activity, but not in a fully synchronized manner, indicating some segmentation in fund behavior.

High-correlation tokens like STCUSD, WFLR, WGLUE, XCN have coefficients close to or above 0.85–0.90, indicating their price trends are highly aligned with volume changes. These assets tend to be highly tradable, liquidity-dependent, or narrative-driven, with prices easily pushed up or down during volume surges, typical high Beta, sentiment-sensitive assets.

Tokens with correlation in the 0.75–0.85 range show “volume-driven but with controlled amplitude,” affected by fund flows but with some fundamental or functional support. Low-correlation assets like WAL, BARD, CTC, QTUM are less sensitive to volume changes, driven more by medium- to long-term demand and ecosystem progress, with relative defensive characteristics. Overall, the correlation distribution indicates a clear structural layering: high-correlation assets are more trading and sentiment-driven, medium-correlation assets balance fund and logic, low-correlation assets are more independent, reflecting a market moving toward asset-specific valuation.

Figure 7: Volume activity and price change correlation shows that trading and sentiment tokens have significantly higher correlation, while infrastructure and mature ecosystem tokens are less sensitive to volume changes, revealing a clear market structure layering.

The current crypto market, under macro uncertainty, continues a pattern of structural rotation. The top 500 tokens overall gained about 2.34%, but with marked divergence. Leading assets outperform, mid-tier under pressure, small caps show signs of recovery. Thematic high-elasticity assets like BEAT, NIGHT, LUNA surged notably driven by AI, privacy computing, and high-volatility speculation; conversely, weak consensus or high Beta assets like SAD, LGCT, TOMI declined rapidly. Volume expansion was significant in some mid- and small-cap tokens but overall still shows a “volume divergence” pattern, with no trend consensus yet.

Besides trading, multiple potential airdrop projects are ongoing, covering AI, Layer2, social points, and identity verification. By timing participation and maintaining engagement, users can position early in the volatile market to earn token incentives and qualify for airdrops. Below, four projects and participation methods are outlined to help systematically capture Web3 opportunities.

Hot Airdrop Projects

This section highlights four key airdrop and incentive projects from December 2 to December 15, 2025: Tashi Network (Solana ecosystem node XP Farming network), Pharos (progressing to Phase 3 incentive testnet), Chainers (community task-based Loyalty Program), and Altura (content incentive project based on Cookie.fun’s Mindshare Campaign). All are in early or incentive phases, where users can contribute by deploying nodes, participating in testnets, completing social tasks, or creating content, laying groundwork for future airdrops, token distributions, or rewards.

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) Tashi Network

Tashi Network is a decentralized infrastructure project based on Solana, with core products being user-deployable network nodes. Users can participate by launching or installing nodes, continuously earning XP points. XP will be converted into project tokens under future rules, used for airdrops or ecosystem incentives.【2】

Participation Methods:

1. Visit Tashi Network official website, connect Solana wallet, and access Dashboard
2. Complete network tasks (run nodes, invite friends, obtain test tokens) for extra XP
3. Complete social tasks (follow X, join Telegram/Discord, share/retweet) to accumulate more XP

( Pharos

Pharos is an emerging public chain ecosystem progressing toward Phase 3 of its incentive testnet. It encourages user participation through testnet interactions, daily check-ins, social binding, and ecosystem app experiences, distributing test tokens and on-chain credentials. Currently, Pharos emphasizes “ongoing activity” and “authentic engagement,” including daily sign-ins, token transfers, and actual use of ecosystem projects.【3】

Participation Methods:

1. Visit Pharos official website, connect wallet, and add Pharos testnet to wallet
2. Access testnet dashboard, complete daily check-ins, and invite friends
3. Bind social media accounts (X, Discord, etc.)

) Chainers

Chainers is a Web3 project focused on community and user growth, recently launching a Loyalty Program that distributes XP points through social tasks and invites. Users can complete basic community tasks (follow social media, join groups) and invite friends to earn points, which will be used as key metrics for future airdrops or token distributions. The design emphasizes early community building, genuine participation, and long-term engagement rather than complex on-chain interactions.【4】

Participation Methods:

1. Visit Chainers official website, connect wallet, and access Loyalty Program page
2. Complete main social tasks (join Telegram, follow X, join Discord) to earn XP
3. Participate in daily tasks and invite friends via dedicated referral links to earn additional points

Altura

Altura is a Web3 project focused on AI Agents and content distribution narratives, recently launching the Mindshare Campaign on Cookie.fun. The campaign distributes rewards through content creation and social sharing, with 0.5% of total token supply allocated as the prize pool to incentivize community engagement and discussion. The mechanism emphasizes “content influence” over simple interactions, with Mindshare share directly affecting user rewards.【5】

Participation Methods:

1. Visit Cookie.fun, access Altura Campaign page, and connect X account
2. Create and publish high-quality content about Altura (product intro, mechanism analysis, opinions)
3. Continuously improve content engagement to increase personal Mindshare share and leaderboard ranking

Reminder

Airdrop plans and participation methods may be updated at any time. Users are advised to follow official channels for the latest info. Exercise caution, understand risks, and conduct thorough research before participating. ######https://www.gate.com/### No guarantee of subsequent airdrop rewards.

Summary

Reviewing December 2–15, 2025, despite the Fed’s scheduled rate cuts, policy disagreements and pause expectations suppressed risk appetite. BTC and ETH remained in consolidation. On-chain, funds concentrated in high-efficiency derivatives and trading infrastructure, with Hyperliquid leading net inflows, reflecting ongoing bets on perpetual contracts and high-frequency trading. Thematic capital focused on high-elasticity assets like AI, privacy computing, and high-volatility plays, with BEAT, NIGHT, LUNA surging significantly. Conversely, new public chains and stablecoin narratives showed limited fulfillment. Volume-price structures show some tokens like LUNA and CONSCIOUS achieving volume-price resonance, but most volume surges resulted in limited gains, indicating funds favor short-term rebounds and liquidity plays. Correlation analysis further shows high Beta, trading-oriented tokens are most sensitive to sentiment, while infrastructure and mature ecosystem assets are relatively independent.

Additionally, the projects tracked—Tashi Network, Pharos, Chainers, and Altura—are all in clear incentive phases, focusing on node network expansion, testnet activity, community growth, and content dissemination, respectively. Participation involves tasks like node deployment, daily check-ins, on-chain interactions, inviting friends, or content creation, to continuously increase XP, points, or Mindshare, thereby amplifying potential airdrops and rewards.
References:

1. CoinGecko, [https://www.coingecko.com/][Gate]https://www.coingecko.com/(
2. Tashi Network, [https://depin.tashi.network/login/])https://depin.tashi.network/login/(
3. Pharos, [https://testnet.pharosnetwork.xyz/experience])https://testnet.pharosnetwork.xyz/experience(
4. Chainers, [https://quest.chainers.io/loyalty])https://quest.chainers.io/loyalty(
5. Altura, [https://www.cookie.fun/campaigns/alturax])https://www.cookie.fun/campaigns/alturax(

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