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- Jump Crypto’s Firedancer Goes Live on Solana Mainnet
Jump Crypto’s Firedancer Goes Live on Solana Mainnet
Plus: 🚨 Aave DAO revenue dispute, ⚽️ Tether blocked from Juventus takeover, 🕵️ Aevo hit by $2.3 million exploit.
Juan Aranovich
December 15, 2025
Hi! In today’s edition:
🚀 Firedancer goes live on Solana mainnet after three years of development
🚨 Aave holders accuse Labs of quietly redirecting DAO revenue
⚽️ Juventus owner rejects Tether’s $1.3 billion takeover bid
🕵️ Aevo loses $2.3 million in an exploit tied to Ribbon vaults
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By Tikta
Jump Crypto’s Firedancer Goes Live on Solana Mainnet
Jump Crypto’s Firedancer validator client has gone live on the Solana mainnet after roughly three years of development, marking a major step toward Solana’s long-term goal of supporting up to one million transactions per second (TPS) in real-world conditions.
It was activated after over 100 days of continuous testnet operation on a handful of validators, producing more than 50,000 blocks without major issues.
Firedancer is a high-performance, C/C++-based validator client for Solana built as a full alternative to Solana Labs’ original Agave client.
A production-ready alternative reduces the risk that a bug in one implementation could halt the entire network.
Earlier this year, a hybrid client known as “Frankendancer,” which combines elements of Agave and Firedancer, entered beta testing. Blockworks data shows more than 26% of validators now running it — a possible early signal of Firedancer gaining momentum.
It’s Macro Monday 👉️👉️ Bits + Bips is LIVE at 4:30pm ET!
Get your weekly dose of macro x crypto analysis: Bits + Bips hosts Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins are joined by Elisabeth Kirby, Head of Market Structure at Tradeweb, to discuss updates from Solana Breakpoint, the state of the (still slumping) markets, concerns around Hyperliquid, and more.
AAVE Holders Question if DAO Quietly Redirected Revenue Away From Treasury
A major dispute has broken out in the Aave community over where fees from the new CoW Swap integration are going.
Multiple delegates allege that fees generated from swaps on CoW Swap that previously accrued to the Aave DAO are now being diverted to an address controlled by Aave Labs instead of the DAO treasury.
The issue was raised by Aave governance member “EzR3aL,” who claimed that swap fees from trades routed through CoW Swap on Aave’s official interface were being sent to a different onchain address.
Estimates circulating in the forum suggest the rerouting could represent roughly 45 to 50 ETH per week on mainnet alone, translating to about $200,000 weekly and around $10 million annually in foregone revenue.
Marc Zeller, founder of key DAO delegate Aave Chain Initiative (ACI), said the stealth privatization of the DAO’s potential revenue was “extremely concerning” and an attack on the best interest of AAVE token holders.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov addressed some of the backlash, saying that Aave Labs funds, builds, and maintains the front-end interface and adapters, making it a proprietary product separate from the core protocol governed by the DAO.
“It’s also perfectly fine for Aave Labs to monetize its products, especially as they don’t touch the protocol itself,” said Kulechov.
Juventus Owner Rejects Tether’s $1.3 Billion Takeover Bid
Exor N.V., the controlling shareholder of Juventus Football Club owned by the Agnelli family, rejected stablecoin issuer Tether's takeover bid.
Tether's $1.3 billion all cash bid for Exor's 65.4% stake came at a 21% premium to its current value.
Exor said it has no intention of selling shares to any third party, including Tether, emphasizing Juventus as a "storied and successful club" tied to the Agnelli family for over 100 years.
Tether, already Juventus' second-largest shareholder with an 11.5% stake acquired since February 2025, gained a board seat last month.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, a self-proclaimed lifelong fan, said he aimed to "Make Juventus Great Again" through the acquisition.
Aevo Loses $2.3 Million in Exploit Targeting Ribbon Vaults
Decentralized exchange Aevo, formerly Ribbon Finance, suffered a $2.3 million exploit in its legacy Ribbon Decentralized Options Vaults (DOV).
Onchain researcher @SpecterAnalyst first flagged the exploit contract on X, and subsequent research from other security researchers suggested that an oracle misconfiguration was likely the root cause of the hack.
The exploit began six days after an oracle upgrade that adjusted decimals to 18 for certain assets, while USDC remained at 8, creating inconsistencies, researcher Liyi Zhou explained.
The attacker then created poorly structured oTokens using whitelisted collateral like WETH for options such as stETH calls with USDC strikes, then used proxy admin functions to forge ExpiryPriceUpdated events.
This tricked the MarginPool into settling large short oToken positions favorably, draining ETH, wstETH, USDC, and WBTC across redeem/redeemTo transactions to 15 wallets.
“All Ribbon vaults have been stopped and will be decommissioned effective immediately,” said the Aevo team in a statement.
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🏦 JPMorgan launched its first tokenized money-market fund on Ethereum, seeding the private “MONY” fund with $100 million and allowing wealthy investors to earn yield through blockchain-based tokens that represent traditional low-risk cash investments.
🛡️ The SEC published a new investor guide on crypto wallets and custody, explaining the trade-offs between self-custody and third-party providers while warning about risks like asset rehypothecation, fund mixing, hacking in online wallets, and permanent loss from damaged or stolen offline devices.
⚙️ Ethereum client Prysm explained that the Dec. 4 Fusaka mainnet outage was caused by heavy computing strain during certain network messages, which led to 41 missed cycles, participation falling to about 75%, and roughly 382 ETH in lost validator rewards before fixes were rolled out.
🎭 The Security Alliance warned that North Korean hacking groups were running daily crypto scams using fake Zoom calls, often starting from hijacked Telegram accounts and tricking victims into installing malware that has helped steal more than $300 million in digital assets.
🌉 YO Labs raised $10 million in a Series A led by Foundation Capital with backing from Coinbase Ventures to expand YO Protocol, a system that automatically shifts funds across blockchains to chase better yields without users managing each network themselves.
