wendy

Behind Binance’s rise to the top of the crypto world, most people immediately think of Changpeng Zhao. Yet, standing quietly at the center of many decisive moments is Yi He — a co-founder who rarely seeks the spotlight, but consistently steps forward when the stakes are highest.

When Binance faced regulatory storms and relentless media scrutiny, Yi He was the one managing crises, stabilizing operations, and steering the exchange through its most fragile periods. To understand how Binance grew into a multi-billion-dollar empire, it’s impossible to overlook her journey, mindset, and leadership philosophy.
The Starting Line: Yi He’s Early Life
Yi He was born in a poor rural area of Sichuan, China. Electricity and clean water were scarce, and her father passed away early, leaving the family in difficult circumstances. His greatest legacy, however, was not money, but a bookshelf. As a teacher, he left behind a personal library that became Yi He’s window to the outside world.

While other children were confined to farm work, Yi He immersed herself in books. That habit shaped her independence of thought and her refusal to accept limitations imposed by background or circumstance.
Initially, she followed her mother’s wishes and studied education, preparing to become a teacher. But her curiosity and creative instinct pulled her elsewhere. On a whim, she auditioned for a television host role. Despite lacking formal training, her natural presence and sharp thinking earned her the job, transforming a rural schoolteacher into a familiar face on a travel-focused TV channel.
Her early life delivered a simple lesson she would repeat many times later: credentials don’t define how far you can go — attitude and timing do.
Entering Crypto Before It Was Popular
In 2013, when Bitcoin was hovering near $1,000 and widely dismissed as a scam, Yi He saw something different. Through a chance meeting with early crypto investors, she was invited to join OKCoin as Head of Marketing, at the time one of China’s largest Bitcoin exchanges.

Choosing crypto in 2013 meant stepping into uncertainty. For Yi He, that risk was precisely the opportunity. It was a space where early movers could define the rules instead of following them.
It was also at OKCoin that she met Changpeng Zhao. In 2014, Yi He, already a rising star within the company, hired CZ as CTO. At that time, he was just another engineer looking for traction.
Their paths crossed again in 2017, when CZ left to build Binance. Knowing he lacked marketing and community-building strength, he approached Yi He for help. Her response became legendary: “I’m expensive. You can’t afford me.”
Only after CZ persistently demonstrated the potential of Binance and BNB, just before the ICO, did Yi He agree — with one condition: “Go build it. I’ll handle the rest.”
Although never legally married, Yi He and CZ became life partners in every practical sense, raising three children together while running one of the most intense businesses in crypto. Their bond formed what many insiders describe as a “steel alliance”: CZ focused on systems and strategy, Yi He on people, execution, and growth.
Yi He’s Role in Binance’s Ascent
If CZ is the architect, Yi He is the operator. She is known for stepping directly into daily execution, handling internal coordination, culture, and crisis management. Titles matter little to her. As she once put it, leadership is defined by who stands at the front when the storm hits.
Binance’s dominance is not only the product of code or trading engines. Much of it comes from Yi He’s ability to align teams, maintain morale under pressure, and keep the organization close to its users even during existential threats.
Over time, the crypto community began to recognize her as one of the most influential women in the industry. While her exact net worth is undisclosed, reports from major outlets suggest she controls at least 10% of Binance’s equity.
In December 2025, Yi He was officially appointed Co-CEO alongside Richard Teng, marking her formal return to the executive forefront after CZ stepped down. Alongside this role, she continues to oversee YZi Labs, formerly known as Binance Labs.

Life Philosophy: How Yi He Thinks About Success
Growing up with nothing gave Yi He an unusual advantage: she is not afraid of losing. She has often referenced the idea of “mimetic desire,” the belief that most suffering comes from chasing dreams borrowed from others. For her, winning is a bonus. Failure is an expected part of progress.
She views crypto as a chessboard. You can lose pieces, but you must never lose conviction.
Yi He is equally uncompromising in her personal life. She returned to work almost immediately after childbirth, openly rejecting the idea that motherhood and ambition must conflict. To her, both career and family are deliberate choices, not sacrifices imposed by circumstance.
In relationships, she believes only strong individuals can walk together for the long term. It is a pragmatic, unapologetic worldview — fitting for someone often described as crypto’s queen, carrying both power and pressure in equal measure.
A Journey Defined by Responsibility
By conventional standards, Yi He started from a disadvantage: rural poverty, early loss, and no elite credentials. Yet she repeatedly chose uncertainty over comfort — leaving teaching, entering crypto early, and standing firm during Binance’s most dangerous moments.
What separates Yi He is not wealth or title, but perspective. She doesn’t complain about starting points or wait for permission. She accepts risk and takes responsibility for outcomes.
In an industry as unforgiving as crypto, where late arrivals are quickly forgotten, Yi He’s story offers a clear reminder: no one remains invisible forever if they are persistent, resilient, and clear-minded enough to see the path through to the end.
How do you view the path Yi He has chosen — and her way of surviving, and thriving, in one of the most volatile industries in the world?
#Binance #wendy #YiHe $BTC $ETH $BNB

The year 2025 exposed a growing contradiction at the heart of Ethereum’s scaling strategy. Layer 2 networks achieved explosive technical progress, yet most L2 tokens failed to reflect that success in price. As rollups absorbed users, transactions, and liquidity, uncomfortable questions surfaced: are Layer 2s truly symbiotic with Ethereum, or are they quietly extracting value from it?
As 2026 begins, one thing is clear. The era of storytelling is over. Layer 2s are entering a phase where only real revenue, durable usage, and economic discipline matter.
The State of the Layer 2 Ecosystem in 2025
From a technical standpoint, Ethereum’s Layer 2 landscape has advanced at an extraordinary pace. This acceleration was not accidental. It followed a deliberate and increasingly effective upgrade roadmap at the base layer.
The Dencun upgrade in March 2024 introduced data blobs through EIP-4844, sharply reducing data availability costs and materially improving sequencer margins. Pectra followed in May 2025, doubling blob capacity via EIP-7691 and pushing average L2 transaction fees closer to zero. By December 2025, Fusaka delivered PeerDAS under EIP-7892, expanding throughput and data scalability even further.
These changes reshaped on-chain reality. By November 2025, Layer 2 networks accounted for roughly 95% of Ethereum’s total transaction throughput. Average system-wide TPS climbed from about 50 in 2023 to more than 325 in 2025. Capital followed usage, with over $37 billion in assets now residing on rollups.
In purely operational terms, Ethereum has become a rollup-centric ecosystem in full effect.
Are Layer 2s “Parasitic” to Ethereum?
This technical success created a second, more uncomfortable narrative. While Ethereum scaled dramatically, ETH itself underperformed Bitcoin for most of 2025. Many investors began to question whether value was truly accruing back to Ethereum.
The concern is not abstract. Transaction fees, once Ethereum mainnet’s primary revenue source, are now largely captured by centralized sequencers operating L2s. As system throughput expanded from 50 TPS to over 300 TPS, most of the incremental profit remained at the rollup layer. Base alone generated approximately $75.4 million in revenue in 2025, representing about 62% of total Layer 2 revenue, while Ethereum increasingly relied on comparatively modest data availability fees after Dencun.
Asset issuance patterns reinforced this shift. Bitcoin representations on rollups grew by more than 120% during the year, while stablecoin supply expanded over 30%. Users increasingly transact directly on L2s without touching mainnet, weakening Ethereum’s role as the default liquidity layer and reducing organic demand for ETH itself.
By late 2025, more than 95% of Ethereum-related transactions were happening off mainnet. Ethereum risks becoming a passive security and settlement layer rather than an active economic hub.
Yet the irony is sharp. While L2s absorbed activity, their own native tokens suffered. On average, Layer 2 governance tokens lost over 50% of their value year-to-date. The market’s message was blunt: high P/E narratives without credible cash flow are no longer acceptable. The “revenue meta” has arrived, and technology alone is no longer enough.

Market Fragmentation and the Coming Shakeout
Competition inside the Layer 2 arena has intensified to an unsustainable degree. Between Arbitrum Orbit and the Optimism Superchain, more than 80 chains are already live. Capital, however, is concentrating rapidly.
Base dominates revenue generation. Arbitrum leads in secured DeFi assets. Smaller or poorly differentiated chains are quietly exiting. Projects such as Pirate Nation and Polygon zkEVM have already stalled, while companies like Stripe and Circle choosing to build dedicated Layer 1s underscore how difficult it has become for generic rollups to justify their existence.
Looking ahead, Layer 2s are likely to absorb more than 99% of Ethereum’s transaction activity. But the competitive battlefield is shifting. Growth will no longer be driven by retail speculation. Institutional capital, enterprise integration, and sustainable revenue models will decide the winners.
New entrants may further disrupt the hierarchy. Robinhood Chain promises direct access to millions of traditional finance users. MegaETH aims to reset performance expectations entirely. The question is no longer who can scale, but who can monetize scale responsibly.
Where the Opportunities Lie in 2026
Arbitrum: DeFi Sovereign at Scale
Arbitrum remains the backbone of on-chain DeFi, securing roughly $16.8 billion in TVL and hosting over $8.6 billion in stablecoins. It is home to established protocols like Aave and Uniswap, while also incubating native successes such as GMX and Hyperliquid.

The strategic focus for 2026 is less about expansion and more about sovereignty. Through Orbit chains, blockspace sales, and mechanisms like Timeboost, Arbitrum DAO is building diversified, non-inflationary revenue streams. A potential native stablecoin could further transform Arbitrum into a yield-generating digital jurisdiction rather than a token-subsidized network.
Optimism: Rebalancing the Superchain
Optimism endured a difficult year, with OP sharply underperforming. Yet its technical footprint remains enormous. The OP Stack now powers a majority of Layer 2 transaction volume.
The challenge is concentration risk. Base accounts for more than 80% of Superchain TVL and the bulk of shared revenue. Recognizing this imbalance, Optimism is shifting focus back toward OP Mainnet, where 100% of revenue accrues to the DAO. This move reflects a broader realization: shared ecosystems only work if they generate meaningful, retained cash flow.

Base: Revenue, Distribution, and Consumer Apps
Base is the undisputed revenue leader of 2025. Its $75.4 million in on-chain revenue was not driven by incentives, but by distribution. Backed by Coinbase, Base taps directly into millions of verified users.
Beyond DeFi, Base is evolving into a consumer application platform spanning AI, gaming, lending, and creator economies. Its ambition for 2026 centers on the “Base App,” an all-in-one interface combining wallet, social, NFTs, and messaging. If successful, Base could become the first truly mainstream on-chain super app. A network token may emerge, but expectations of easy airdrops are fading. Any token design will likely emphasize long-term user behavior over short-term liquidity mining.
MegaETH: Real-Time Blockchain as a Product
MegaETH represents a different thesis altogether. Instead of incremental speed improvements, it proposes a real-time blockchain capable of processing up to 100,000 TPS with block times as low as 10 milliseconds.
Its ecosystem strategy is tightly curated through MegaMafia, a set of applications built specifically to exploit real-time execution. Revenue is embedded early via USDm, a native stablecoin, while the MEGA token has explicit utility in sequencer staking and transaction priority auctions. The project’s community-focused token distribution also stands out in a market weary of VC-heavy allocations.
Mantle: Institutional Financial Infrastructure
Mantle’s differentiation comes from integration, not spectacle. Closely aligned with Bybit, Mantle positions itself as a vertically integrated financial chain. Products such as mETH, cmETH, FBTC, and deep partnerships in real-world asset tokenization make Mantle a natural home for institutional capital.
Its roadmap splits cleanly between retail onboarding via mobile applications and enterprise-grade tokenization-as-a-service. In a market obsessed with yield quality, Mantle’s strategy is quietly effective.
ZKsync: Compliance-First Scaling
While others chase users, ZKsync is building for banks. With upgrades like Airbender and Atlas, it is optimizing for fast finality, low proving costs, and institutional reliability.
Its Prividium model enables private, compliant chains that still connect to Ethereum liquidity, appealing to regulated entities such as major banks. In 2026, ZKsync plans to activate a fee-based buyback and burn mechanism, turning network usage directly into token value.
From Narratives to Numbers
The lesson of 2025 is unambiguous. Technical dominance does not guarantee economic success, and scaling alone does not justify valuation. As Layer 2s enter 2026, only those that function as profitable on-chain businesses will survive.
The market is no longer rewarding promises. It is pricing cash flow, capital efficiency, and strategic clarity. For investors, this marks a shift from lottery-style speculation toward genuine ownership thinking.
Layer 2 is no longer about who can scale Ethereum the fastest. It is about who can turn scale into lasting value.
This article is for informational purposes only. The information provided is not investment advice
#Binance #wendy #Layer2 #ETH $ETH $ARB $OP

By the end of 2025, Arbitrum had firmly secured its position as the leading Layer-2 network, with total value locked hovering around $20 billion. On-chain data tells a deeper story, however. Beyond raw scale, the network has clearly crossed a threshold: Arbitrum is no longer in a phase of explosive, incentive-driven expansion. It has entered a stage of maturity, where growth is increasingly defined by usage depth, capital quality, and sustainable value creation.

Arbitrum’s Financial Standing and Liquidity Profile in 2025
Within the broader Layer-2 landscape of 2025, Arbitrum continues to dominate capital inflows. Data aggregated by DefiLlama shows the network consistently ranking first in TVL throughout the year, peaking at approximately $19.2 billion in early September and reaching the symbolic $20 billion mark toward year-end.

What stands out is not just the quantity of capital, but its composition. Liquidity quality has improved markedly, driven by a sharp expansion of stablecoin supply across the ecosystem. Stablecoin market capitalization on Arbitrum surged by 229% over the year, a shift largely attributed to the effectiveness of the DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP). This growth reinforced Arbitrum’s role as a primary USD liquidity hub within DeFi, rather than merely a temporary destination for yield-seeking capital.
From an economic perspective, the network is also demonstrating its ability to generate real, recurring cash flows. In October 2025 alone, Arbitrum recorded $4.4 million in on-chain revenue. While modest compared to centralized platforms, this figure is meaningful in a highly competitive Layer-2 environment and signals that Arbitrum’s business model is beginning to translate activity into tangible economic output.
A Structural Shift: From Scaling Out to Scaling Deep
Early 2025: Linear Growth Dynamics
During the first half of the year, Arbitrum followed a familiar expansion pattern. On-chain indicators showed a strong positive correlation between transaction count and new wallet creation. Network activity was largely fueled by an influx of new users, attracted by incentives and early-stage opportunities.
At this stage, growth depended heavily on onboarding fresh participants. Transaction volume rose primarily because more addresses were entering the ecosystem, rather than because existing users were interacting more frequently.

Late 2025: Decoupling and Network Maturity
By the second half of 2025, especially in Q4, this relationship began to change. Wallet creation slowed and showed signs of saturation, yet total transaction volume continued to climb at a steady pace.
This decoupling is one of the clearest indicators of network health. Growth momentum was no longer tied to continuously attracting new users. Instead, it was driven by existing participants becoming more active.
The shift from “quantity” to “quality” is most evident in the metric of transactions per active address. Early in the year, users averaged roughly five to seven transactions per wallet. By Q4, this metric had reset to a higher baseline, consistently holding above fifteen transactions per wallet.

These figures suggest that Arbitrum has successfully evolved from a short-term liquidity magnet into what could be described as a “habitual execution layer.” Users are no longer leaving after incentive campaigns end. They remain active because the network supports real, recurring needs such as high-frequency DeFi activity and on-chain gaming, hallmarks of a more durable on-chain economy.
Growth Driven by Real Usage, Not Short-Term Incentives
Following its infrastructure build-out phase, Arbitrum’s growth is now increasingly driven by genuine usage demand. The network recently surpassed 2.1 billion lifetime transactions, a milestone that carries more weight when viewed through its acceleration curve.
The first billion transactions took several years to accumulate. The second billion, by contrast, was completed in under twelve months. This compression in time highlights a transition from experimental adoption to large-scale, operational usage.
This activity is supported by a stable and engaged user base. Active wallets have reached approximately 1.45 million, with daily active addresses consistently around 470,000. Rather than reflecting episodic spikes, these figures point to sustained engagement across applications and users.
In parallel with usage growth, Arbitrum has begun to clarify its long-term economic model. The introduction of Timeboost, a mechanism that auctions transaction priority, generated over $5 million in revenue for the DAO within just seven months. More importantly, it demonstrated that network infrastructure itself can be monetized beyond basic gas fees.
This diversification of revenue sources reduces reliance on short-term incentives and lays the groundwork for a more resilient economic framework.
Looking Ahead to 2026: Optimizing Value per User
As Arbitrum moves into 2026, the core challenge is no longer proving scalability or attracting users at any cost. Key metrics around transactions, activity, and revenue suggest the network has completed its foundational phase and entered a stage of stable, large-scale operation.
The strategic focus is likely to shift toward maximizing value per transaction and per user, rather than chasing headline growth numbers. Experiments like Timeboost hint at a broader direction, where revenue is generated not only from base-layer fees but also from value-added infrastructure services aligned with real ecosystem demand.
If Arbitrum continues to expand these models thoughtfully, it could gradually build a more sustainable economic base for the DAO, one less dependent on cyclical incentive programs. In this next phase, competitiveness will be measured not by throughput or application count alone, but by how efficiently on-chain activity is converted into long-term economic value.
This period may ultimately determine whether Arbitrum can maintain its role as a central execution layer within the Ethereum ecosystem, even as competition among scaling networks continues to intensify.
This article is for informational purposes only. The information provided is not investment advice
#Binance #wendy #ARB #Arbitrum $ARB

Most blockchains are transparent by design. While this openness supports trust and auditability, it also means that transaction details are visible to anyone. Zcash (ZEC) was created to challenge that trade-off by offering strong privacy without breaking the core principles of blockchain security.
Launched in 2016, Zcash extends the Bitcoin model with advanced cryptography that allows users to choose whether their transactions are public or private. This flexibility makes it one of the most established privacy-focused cryptocurrencies in the market.

What Is Zcash?
Zcash is a cryptocurrency derived from the Bitcoin codebase, built to give users control over their financial privacy. It was founded by Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn and a team of cryptographers, evolving from early research projects known as Zerocoin and Zerocash.
Like Bitcoin, Zcash uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism and a fixed monetary supply. What sets it apart is its optional privacy layer, which allows transaction details to be hidden while remaining fully verifiable by the network.
Privacy Through zk-SNARKs
At the heart of Zcash is a cryptographic technique called zk-SNARKs, short for Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge. This technology allows one party to prove that a transaction is valid without revealing any sensitive information.
On transparent blockchains, transaction data such as sender address, recipient address, and amount are publicly visible. Zcash introduces shielded transactions, where these details are encrypted. The network can still confirm that the transaction follows all the rules, but observers cannot see who sent funds, who received them, or how much was transferred.
Importantly, Zcash does not force privacy. Users can choose between transparent transactions, which behave similarly to Bitcoin, and shielded transactions, which maximize confidentiality. This optional design allows Zcash to support a wide range of use cases, from public payments to private transfers.
Mining and the Equihash Algorithm
Zcash secures its network using proof of work, but it does not rely on Bitcoin’s SHA-256 hashing algorithm. Instead, it uses Equihash, a memory-intensive algorithm designed to reduce certain types of mining centralization.
Because Equihash differs from SHA-256, Bitcoin mining hardware cannot be used to mine Zcash. Over time, specialized ASIC miners optimized for Equihash have become dominant, making large-scale mining far more efficient than using consumer-grade hardware.
As network difficulty has increased, mining ZEC with a standard personal computer has become impractical. Most miners today rely on ASIC hardware and often participate in mining pools, where computational power is combined and rewards are shared among participants.
Governance and Development
Zcash was initially developed by the Electric Coin Company, which played a central role in protocol research and implementation. As part of a broader push toward decentralization, governance responsibilities and intellectual property were gradually transferred to the Zcash Foundation.
By the mid-2020s, the Foundation had taken on a leading role in overseeing protocol governance, funding ecosystem development, and representing the project’s long-term interests. This transition reflects Zcash’s effort to move away from reliance on a single organization and toward community-driven stewardship.
Regulation and Market Developments
Privacy-focused cryptocurrencies often face additional scrutiny from regulators due to concerns around compliance and misuse. Zcash has been part of ongoing discussions about how privacy technologies can coexist with regulatory frameworks, especially as governments explore digital currencies and stricter oversight.
In late 2025, interest from traditional finance increased when Grayscale submitted an application for a Zcash exchange-traded fund. If approved, such a product would allow investors to gain exposure to ZEC through standard brokerage accounts, without directly holding or managing the cryptocurrency itself.
Final Thoughts
Zcash represents one of the most mature implementations of blockchain privacy. By using zero-knowledge proofs, it demonstrates that transactions can remain confidential without sacrificing verifiability or security.
With its optional privacy model, established mining network, and ongoing governance evolution, Zcash continues to serve as a reference point for discussions around financial privacy in crypto. As digital finance grows and regulatory expectations evolve, Zcash’s approach highlights how advanced cryptography can expand user choice while preserving the integrity of decentralized systems.
#Binance #wendy #ZCash $ZEC