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BlockBeats News, December 25th, after a year of gradually clarifying regulatory environment and differentiated market performance, several top VCs have started to reevaluate the value proposition of the 2025 crypto industry. In a recent podcast, Pantera Capital Partner Mason Nystrom, Hash3 Co-Founder Hootie Rashidifard, and Variant Partner Alana Levin unanimously agreed that stablecoins, prediction markets, and traditional finance and internet incumbents were the biggest winners this year.Nystrom pointed out that established companies like Robinhood quickly moved after regulatory clarity, significantly accelerating their crypto strategy in 2025, "well anticipating where the puck is going to go."Rashidifard stated that stablecoin trading volume and profitability have surged, "Tether has become one of the most profitable companies per capita." He emphasized that stablecoins not only make money now but also truly provide fundamental financial value to end users.Levin listed prediction markets as one of the fastest-growing tracks in 2025, with Kalshi and Polymarket dispelling doubts about "volume padding" and "solely betting on elections." She specifically mentioned that Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) invested $2 billion in Polymarket this year, which was impressive.Looking at it from the perspective of failures:On a personal level: Levin called out Terraform Labs Co-Founder Do Kwon. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in December for fraud related to the collapse of Terra, considered a landmark failure case in the industry.On an institutional level: Rashidifard believed that the U.S. SEC during the "Biden era" was one of the institutional failures, as long-term tough enforcement did not bring about actual regulatory results but instead forced many entrepreneurs to leave. He pointed out that with Gensler stepping down, the passage of the GENIUS stablecoin bill, and the advancement of market structure legislation, the U.S. government's attitude toward the crypto industry underwent a fundamental shift in 2025.

BlockBeats News, December 25, the European Union's latest directive on digital asset tax transparency will take effect on January 1, officially incorporating cryptocurrency activities into the EU's tax reporting system. The directive, named DAC8, requires crypto asset service providers to collect and report detailed information about users and transactions to national tax authorities, which will then share this data among EU member states. This reform fills a longstanding gap, as certain parts of the crypto economy have previously faced less regulatory scrutiny than traditional financial accounts. Under DAC8, tax authorities can regulate the holding, trading, and transfer of cryptocurrencies with the same transparency as bank accounts. Securities exchanges, brokers, and other crypto service providers must now treat tax reporting as a core operational requirement rather than a secondary compliance matter. Although the directive takes effect from January 1, businesses have a limited transition period to adjust their systems before enforcement becomes mandatory.

BlockBeats News, December 25th, according to CNBC reports, David Davis, CEO of Disruptive company leading high-performance AI accelerator chip designer Groq, revealed that NVIDIA has agreed to acquire Groq for $20 billion in cash in its latest round of financing. Davis's company has invested over $500 million in Groq since its founding in 2016, and he stated that the deal was reached swiftly. Groq is expected to inform its investors about the transaction later on Wednesday. Davis said that although the acquisition includes all of Groq's assets, its early-stage Groq Cloud business is not part of this transaction. This will be NVIDIA's largest acquisition to date, with its previous largest acquisition being the nearly $7 billion purchase of Israeli chip designer Mellanox in 2019. With the skyrocketing demand for AI accelerator chips to accelerate large language model inference tasks, Groq is targeting $500 million in revenue this year.