Data & Insights: B is for Broccoli and Bybit Losing $1.5 Billion

BNB & Broccoli

• Earlier last week, the 7-day moving average (7DMA) of the number of transactions on BNB Chain reached 5.91 million.
  • This figure is the highest it's been since the first week of January 2024.
  • The 7DMA of BNB Chain’s transaction count bottomed on 20 August 2024 at 2.88 million transactions, before gradually increasing by 65% over the following 5 months.
  • The most notable spike in BNB Chain’s transaction count occurred recently at the beginning of February 2025.
  • In the 2 weeks since then, the 7DMA of BNB Chain’s transaction count has increased by 47%, from 4.01 million to 5.91 million.
• Meanwhile, daily new unique addresses (DNUAs) on BNB Chain experienced a notable single-day spike last week.
  • This figure jumped from 456K DNUAs on 18 February to nearly 2 million DNUAs the following day.
  • This was likely due to the start of BNB Chain’s meme liquidity program, a campaign where a select number of memecoins on the chain are rewarded with liquidity injections by the BNB Chain team.
  • One of the criteria for a memecoin to be selected was to have over 1,000 active holders, which likely prompted a number of these memecoin developers and teams to sybil this metric.
  • This provides a prime example of how “number of addresses” is a relatively inflated metric that rarely ever represents real users, as a large number of “unique” addresses could stem from a single entity generating them all.
• On the other hand, the catalyst for the recent increase in activity on BNB Chain was likely due to the $TST token and the events (and tokens) that followed.
  • For context, on February 6, 2025, BNB Chain’s official X account released a video tutorial to guide users on how to launch memecoins on the chain.
  • The video showcased a single frame of the memecoin that was being created as an example, in which the token had the ticker $TST.
  • Market participants caught wind of this and immediately began to trade the $TST token, causing it to grow from a market cap of near 0 to over $5 million within 3 hours.
  • $TST subsequently crashed by over -90% shortly after, as its market cap fell to under $400K.
  • In an interesting turn of events in the following hours, an acknowledgment and clarification tweet from CZ regarding the token prompted it to moon to upwards of a $45 million market cap within ~30 minutes.
  • This event catalyzed a spark on BNB Chain, where a number of memecoins began to emerge, with the most notable being $CaptainBNB and a variety of $Broccoli coins, in which the market cap of the former peaked at $65 million.
  • The latter was a result of CZ teasing and subsequently revealing the name of his pet dog, Broccoli, which prompted an on-chain frenzy where PancakeSwap briefly surpassed Uniswap in daily and weekly trading volume at the time, as well as multiple $Broccoli tokens reaching mid-8 figure market caps, with some even reaching over 9-figures in market cap.

Say Goodbye(-bit) to 1.5 Billion Dollars

• On Friday, 21 February 2025, Bybit experienced the largest-ever attack on a centralized crypto exchange (CEX) conducted by the Lazarus group for over $1.5 billion.
  • The hacker group managed to take control of a Bybit cold wallet containing ETH, which they then proceeded to transfer the entire amount to an unspecified address.
  • Following this, the % of total transaction activity of ETH flows to and from illicit services spiked from 0.19% to 1.57%.
  • Illicit services, as defined by Chainalysis, include ransomware addresses, sanctioned entities, darknet markets, and addresses associated with scams and stolen funds.
• Meanwhile, on-chain volume for stablecoins on Ethereum experienced a notable spike on the day of the hack.
  • The cumulative total volume across all stablecoins on Ethereum on the day was $67.8 billion across all stablecoins, 62% higher than the previous day’s total.
  • Among them, Ethena’s USDe was the most notable, as it experienced a 385% single-day spike, to over $1.61 billion worth of volume that day.
  • In the 3 days since the day of the Bybit hack, USDe has continued to experience heightened trading volumes, averaging $1.21 billion per day in this period.
  • The reason for this was likely concerns from market participants regarding Ethena having, at the time, roughly 20% of their reserves on Bybit, with over $400 million in ETH and ETH-related liquid staked tokens.
  • This led to USDe temporarily dropping to $0.99 at its lowest point on the day, based on the USDe/USDC Curve pool on Ethereum.
  • It is worth noting that Ethena’s spot assets backing USDe are held in off exchange custody solutions. In the case of Bybit, the custody solution used is Copper Clearloop, therefore rendering the concern as FUD.
  • However, Ethena did have roughly $30m of aggregate unrealised PNL relating to hedge positions on the Bybit exchange, which is less than half of the reserve fund. Though this unrealised exposure was reduced to zero shortly after.
• The market in general also reacted negatively to the hack, as BTC and ETH declined by over 4% and 7% in the immediate hours following the hack.
  • MNT, the token of the Bybit-supported layer 1 blockchain Mantle, dropped by over 20% within the 3 hours following the exchange hack.
  • ETH experienced a short-lived rebound in the following days as Bybit presumably conducted large purchases of ETH to replenish their lost reserves, but has since failed to maintain its relative price strength.

Gotta Go Fast

• Sonic, the layer 1 blockchain rebranded from Fantom, has experienced an electrifying February so far, having more than tripled its average daily transaction count.
  • At the beginning of February 2025, the 7-day moving average (7DMA) of the daily transaction count on Sonic stood at just 212K. 
  • Fast forward just 3 weeks later and this figure has more than tripled, standing at 738K transactions as of Saturday, 22 February.
  • This figure is also 10% higher than its previous all-time high set in the month prior on January 13, 2025.
  • The recent uptick experienced by Sonic is a notable achievement in its nascency, as the 7DMA of the chain’s daily transactions stood at just 50K in its first day of mainnet on December 18, 2025.
• A number of projects and tokens in the Sonic blockchain have also experienced significant increases in recent weeks.
  • For example, SHADOW, the token of Sonic’s main decentralized exchange, grew from a $2 million market cap at the beginning of February 2025, to over $40 million by the third week of the month.
  • Another token named $METRO has also seen its market capitalization increase from $1 million to over $16 million in the same period.
  • Meanwhile, the chain’s highest-valued token that isn’t its native S token or a stablecoin, is named $GSNAKE, which boasted a market cap of $300 million at its peak around Valentine’s Day.
• Sonic’s native S token itself nearly doubled in February 2025, with a market capitalization of over $2.7 billion at the time of writing.

CoW Swap Moorketshare

• The DEX aggregator landscape is changing as CoW Swap is emerging as a significant player, capturing 26% market share in January 2025, more than doubling from 12% a year ago. This growth positions the protocol to potentially overtake 1inch as the leading DEX aggregator.
  • Monthly volume on the platform reached nearly $5B in January, down from December 2024's peak of $7.8B, but remains substantial relative to historical levels.
  • Notable institutional activity includes World Liberty's $90M swap of stablecoins for various tokens including ETH, WBTC, LINK, ENA, and TRX, executed in systematic $470k blocks.
• The protocol distinguishes itself through its unique Coincidence of Wants (CoW) mechanism, which matches traders directly when possible before routing to AMMs.
  • This direct matching minimizes reliance on liquidity pools, thereby reducing slippage and transaction fees while bolstering protection against front-running and other MEV exploits.
  • Ethereum remains the dominant chain for CoW Swap activity with $3.8B monthly volume, while Base has emerged as a secondary hub with $1B in monthly transactions.
  • Top traded assets concentrate around USD-denominated stablecoins, wrapped and native ETH, and wrapped BTC, indicating a focus on major asset pairs.
  • Current data indicates that 50% of transactions execute above the expected slippage while 45% execute below it.
• While CoW Swap has been showing signs of success, it's not the only one growing in recent months. 
  • Protocols like Kyber and Bebop have gained market share in recent months, suggesting growing trader preference for optimized routing solutions.
  • The aggregator space is at its most diverse, with market leader 1inch down to 30% market share, suggesting new protocols are innovating and competing for the top spot. 
• As institutional traders and whale wallets return onchain, aggregator efficiency in handling large trades becomes crucial.
  • The ability to manage slippage and provide competitive pricing for substantial positions may determine which aggregators capture market share going forward.
  • Recent large-block trades demonstrate growing institutional comfort with DEX aggregators for significant position entries and exits.

Coinbase Making COIN

• Coinbase recently dropped its Q4 2024 report, which revealed some interesting trends. Total trading volume reached $400B, matching levels last seen during the 2021 market cycle, but with notably different participant composition.
  • Retail trading accounted for 21% ($94B) of quarterly volume, lower than the 36% retail participation observed in 2021.
  • This surge in institutional-driven volume comes as the SEC announced the dismissal of its case against Coinbase, potentially removing key regulatory barriers for tradfi engagement.
• The shift in trading demographics suggests an evolving market structure in crypto markets. Similarly, the assets being swapped have also grown. 
  • Trading activity has expanded beyond major cryptocurrencies (BTC and ETH), indicating institutional investors' growing comfort with exploring higher-risk digital assets.
  • The reduced retail participation relative to 2021 levels suggests potential room for volume growth should retail interest return to historical levels.
• Institutional dominance marks a departure from previous volume peaks.
  • Unlike the retail-driven frenzy of 2021, current volumes reflect more systematic trading approaches typical of institutional participants.
  • This transformation comes as a counterpoint to recent market activity dominated by memecoin speculation and short-term trading patterns.
• The exchange's volume metrics will likely continue to serve as a barometer for institutional crypto adoption going forward. 
  • Coinbase's regulated status and infrastructure make it a likely entry point for traditional finance firms entering crypto markets.
  • The combination of regulatory clarity and robust trading volumes could accelerate institutional participation, though the sustainability of these trends remains to be demonstrated.