Непредсказуемая неделя крипторынка: DDoS-атака на Solana и резкое падение хешрейта биткоина Translation: Unpredictable Week in Crypto Market: DDoS Attack on Solana and Sudden Drop in Bitcoin Hashrate

Bitcoin exhibited volatility in response to the decrease in inflation in the United States and the interest rate hike in Japan, while Solana experienced a significant DDoS attack, the Ethereum team unveiled details of a new upgrade, along with other events throughout the week.

Over the last seven days, Bitcoin lost the momentum it gained following the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut on December 10. The cryptocurrency fluctuated notably as macroeconomic data was released.

The week began with a decline, where Bitcoin slipped from $89,000 to $85,000.

In the following days, the asset showed signs of recovery, attempting to breach the resistance level around $90,000 on Wednesday. However, it failed and retraced to $85,000 once again.

On Thursday, December 18, optimism was bolstered by the release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data in the United States, which reported a 0.3% decrease, resulting in a year-over-year figure of 2.7% (down from 3% in October).

This outcome was below analysts’ expectations, who had forecasted a CPI of 3.1%.

The decline in inflation briefly pushed Bitcoin toward $90,000, but this uptick was short-lived. That evening, the asset dropped below $85,000 once more.

On December 19, digital gold re-established an upward trend in light of news from the Bank of Japan, which announced an increase in its key interest rate to a 30-year high.

The market’s reaction was unexpected for many participants; most analysts had anticipated a proportional negative impact on crypto-assets from Japan’s news, but prices instead rose.

Nonetheless, Bitcoin ended the week in the «red zone,» having declined by approximately 1.5%.

Most of the top 10 cryptocurrencies mirrored Bitcoin’s performance, with XRP being a notable exception as it gained 2.7%.

Solana (SOL) and Dogecoin (DOGE) fell more significantly, losing 4.9% and 4.4%, respectively.

The cryptocurrency Fear and Greed Index lingered in the «extreme fear» zone at a score of 20.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $3.08 trillion, with Bitcoin’s dominance index at 57.3% and Ethereum’s at 11.7%.

The Solana blockchain endured the fourth-largest DDoS attack in its history, where attackers attempted to overload the network for about a week. However, developers successfully mitigated the interference.

The intensity of the malicious traffic reached 6 Tbps, comparable in scale to attacks on infrastructure providers like Google Cloud, Cloudflare, and AWS. Despite the challenges, the blockchain continued to process transactions normally.

The Pipe Network team emphasized that the average transaction confirmation time remained around ~450 ms, with the p90 metric being under 700 ms.

Solana’s co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko labeled the events and the blockchain’s response as a «bullish» factor.

Additionally, on December 14, the L1 network Sui also faced a DDoS attack, which resulted in delays in block production.

During the week, the Solana Foundation also forged a partnership with Project Eleven to prepare the network for potential threats from quantum computers. Experts assessed the blockchain’s risks and created a testnet prototype utilizing post-quantum digital signatures.

«Our responsibility is to ensure the blockchain’s security not just for today, but for decades to come. The Solana ecosystem’s culture of rapid innovation will continue with the release of a second client and an advanced consensus mechanism this year,» stated Matt Sorge, Vice President of Technology at the Solana Foundation.

From December 14 to 15, Bitcoin’s network hash rate dropped by 8%, approximately 100 EH/s, following a 17% decline the previous week.

Although the hash rate has now recovered to 1080 EH/s, it had dipped to a local low of 890 EH/s.

Jack Kong, the founder of Nano Labs, suggested that the sharp drop might be due to the closure of mining farms in Xinjiang, China. Journalists have echoed a similar sentiment.

According to local miner communities, Chinese authorities confiscated or shut down between 200,000 to 400,000 Bitcoin mining devices.

Several experts pointed to a material from Reuters released in late November as a root cause of the raids, claiming that China’s mining sector is undergoing a «quiet resurgence,» with the country’s share of global hash rate increasing to 14%.

However, MinerMag journalists noted that the hash rate drop was not linked to China and was temporary.

Indeed, the metrics from major pools of Chinese origin—such as Antpool, F2Pool, ViaBTC, SpiderPool, and Binance Pool—dipped by 100 EH/s, with many of them located outside China, indicating that some may have been impacted by issues beyond the country’s borders.

By December 17, the capacities of most participants had nearly fully recovered.

«It is quite possible that some miners in Xinjiang voluntarily shut down over the weekend to avoid drawing attention during inspections and then quietly returned to the network once the pressure eased,» added MinerMag.

Ethereum developers unveiled the name of the second planned upgrade for 2026, dubbed Hegota—inspired by Bogotá (the location of Devcon) and the star Heze.

The main improvement proposal for the update will be selected no earlier than February, with the integration of Merkle trees—similar to Merkle trees in the protocol—being a strong candidate.

Attention will also focus on the mechanisms for the expiration of state and history storage, as well as optimizing the execution level. The issue of network «bloating» is becoming increasingly pertinent for node operators.

With new details shared, the network team confirmed a stable schedule of two upgrades per year. Before Hegota, the Glamsterdam update will be implemented, potentially integrating the following elements:

Visa has initiated USDC settlements for issuing banks and acquirers within the United States. Financial institutions can now conduct direct transactions in the stablecoin through the company’s infrastructure.

This initiative is being executed on the Solana blockchain, with Cross River Bank and Lead Bank being the first participants in the program.

A key innovation includes the transition to daily settlements, facilitating faster transactions and simplifying liquidity management. Financial institutions will be able to move funds seven days a week, abandoning the traditional five-day schedule.

Circle representatives highlighted that this integration will assist banks in modernizing their treasury operations while maintaining transparency and security.

Visa has also become the design partner of the new Layer 1 blockchain Arc, being developed by USDC issuer Circle, which is currently in its public testnet phase. Upon the launch of the mainnet, the payment giant will deploy its own validator node.

As of November 30, Visa reported that the annual volume of transactions in «stablecoins» through its network exceeded $3.5 billion.