Ethereum Gas Fee Continues to Drop, Now at 0.352 Gwei

On January 12, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined in a new post that the Ethereum network must pass the **"Walkaway Test"** — meaning it can operate long-term, securely, and in a decentralized way even without ongoing core development or "supplier-side" maintenance. Buterin noted Ethereum’s mission is to serve as infrastructure for trust-minimized applications across finance, governance, and other fields. This requires apps to act more like **"tools" than "services"**: once deployed, they should work reliably long-term without failing if their dev team stops maintenance, is attacked, or shifts to value extraction. To hit this, the underlying protocol can’t rely on constant upgrades to stay available. He stressed Ethereum must reach a stage where *"even if it chooses protocol ossification, its core value proposition still holds."* This doesn’t mean halting upgrades — but ensuring future updates are **"icing on the cake" rather than essential for survival**. Buterin al

January 12: Per Hyperinsight monitoring (via its Telegram channel: https://t.me/HyperInsight), the "ETH Focus" whale (address 0x720a6) closed a long position of 2599.23 ETH for profit, netting $257,000. Since October 2025, the address has exclusively executed ETH single-asset long/short trend trades—with holding periods ranging from minutes to days—realizing a total profit of $3.4105 million across its full trading cycle.

January 12: Binance Alpha has listed CharacterX (CAI).

**January 12 Update: Polymarket-Based Bot Polycule Suspected of Rug Pull** Community sources report that Polycule—a Polymarket-powered trading bot project—may have carried out a rug pull. Last Thursday, the Polycule team claimed it was hacked, with $230,000 in user funds impacted. The bot is currently offline, and the team previously said patching and audits would wrap up by the end of the weekend. However, as of the latest update, affected users still cannot withdraw their funds. The team has not shared any new details on the incident, pointing to a potential rug pull.