A delivery network called Pipe reported that the Solana blockchain recently faced traffic peaking at around 6 terabits per second, a level its co-founders broadly acknowledged while the network continued producing blocks without downtime. Unlike earlier outages in 2021 and 2022, Solana’s mix of QUIC networking, stake-weighted quality of service, local fee markets, and priority fees throttled spam and kept confirmations stable with no major fee spike. Debate remains over whether the 6 Tbps figure represented a brief burst or sustained load, but the episode highlighted a design that channels malicious or low-stake traffic into slower lanes instead of knocking the chain offline.

On December 21, 2025, SantaStealer was detailed as a malware-as-a-service that prioritizes crypto wallets. It is promoted on Telegram and hacker forums with monthly plans at $175 (Basic) and $300 (Premium). Rapid7 links it to BluelineStealer and notes weak evasion, while data is exfiltrated in 10MB chunks over port 6767.

On Tuesday, Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov presented a 2026 roadmap built around Aave V4, Horizon, and a new Aave App. The plan aims to redesign the lending protocol, grow Horizon's real-world asset markets beyond its current $550 million in net deposits, and onboard the first million users via the consumer app. This long-term vision follows the conclusion of a four-year SEC investigation into Aave.

A crypto trader reportedly lost $50,000,000 in USDT after an address‑poisoning scam led to a mistaken copy‑paste. Stablecoins remained pegged, so broader markets saw little reaction, highlighting the finality risk in self‑custody. The incident shows how spoofed look‑alike addresses can appear in wallet history and mislead hurried senders.

On 20 December 2025, a crypto user mistakenly transferred nearly $50 million in USDT to a scam-controlled wallet by copying a spoofed address from their transaction history. Investigators describe this as an address poisoning attack, where the malicious address closely mimicked a legitimate one, leading the victim to send a successful test payment before moving the full amount. Analysts note that the incident is part of a wider rise in onchain losses and highlights how behavioral exploits can bypass technical safeguards.

In 2025, Dfinity Foundation vice president Lomesh Dutta told Cointelegraph that AI-powered no-code apps on decentralized blockchains could weaken AWS cloud dominance and cut dependence on centralized servers. AWS outages in April and on Oct. 20 disrupted Binance, KuCoin, MEXC and Coinbase for about 15 hours, highlighting the gap between crypto’s decentralization narrative and its underlying infrastructure.

On December 20, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino announced via social media that the company is recruiting a Chief Software Engineer to lead development of an AI-powered mobile cryptocurrency wallet using its open-source Wallet Development Kit and the QVAC AI platform. The planned non-custodial wallet is intended to improve user control over digital assets through AI-driven personalization, while analysts are cautiously watching how this initiative could influence Bitcoin and stablecoin market dynamics.

On December 20, 2025, a crypto investor mistakenly sent $50 million in USDT to a poisoned address. Within 30 minutes, the funds were swapped to DAI and then 16,690 ETH, with 16,680 ETH routed through Tornado Cash; on-chain timestamps show a 0.005 USDT test and the large transfer minutes apart.