Crypto Pulse: Vibe Coding, Stablecoin Wars, and RWA Horizons [FP Weekly 2]
Recap of Four Pillars research content on Week 2, 2026
[Article] The DApp Survival Formula: Insights from Solana’s Rent Recovery Market
Written by Jun
The value capture narrative in blockchain has moved from protocols to applications, and more recently to wallets that have absorbed functions such as swaps and bridges and now sit directly on the user touchpoint. This evolution has even produced the Fat Wallet thesis, which argues that wallets will lead ecosystem value capture. However, DApps can still build defenses that wallets cannot easily breach by leveraging temporal depth, meaning inertia rooted in user experience, and functional depth, meaning capabilities that cut to the essence of the market. These two forms of depth can give DApps durable, independent competitive advantages.
Solana uses a rent model in which accounts deposit a refundable reserve to cover data storage costs at creation. Even after users sell their tokens, accounts whose token balance is zero are not automatically closed, which has led to the accumulation of about 607 million potentially stranded accounts. Liquidity locked inside truly abandoned “zombie ATAs” is estimated at at least 110,000 SOL, creating a large rent recovery market
Sol Incinerator captured this market by offering a utility that finds and returns rent users did not realize they had locked up. As of November 2025, it had returned more than 470,000 SOL in total and recorded a reuse rate close to 80%, establishing clear category leadership. This shows that even when later entrants introduced additional incentives such as referrals or gamification, users still chose an intuitive workflow focused on the core outcome, asset recovery, along with trust that had already been validated in the market.
Wallets, leveraging their advantage as the starting point for user transactions and often promoting a zero fee policy, embedded rent recovery features directly into the wallet. However, due to inherent constraints around security risk management and maintaining a general purpose UX, they could not implement DApp level sophisticated filtering or mass burn logic. As a result, they were unable to surpass the DApp’s functional depth, which maximizes both expertise and convenience.
While Anza’s announced plan to reduce rent suggests the market’s size may change, the value capture battle that played out inside this niche is still instructive. Even if wallets control the Web3 “on-ramp,” DApps can survive independently in the Fat Wallet era if they differentiate themselves as the “destination” that solves user problems completely and with specialized expertise.
[Issue] Why Circle Is Expanding Its Stablecoin Stack
Written by Ponyo
Issuer premium in stablecoins is compressing as value shifts toward distribution and usage control rather than issuance scale.
Circle’s margins no longer scale with USDC circulation, reflecting growing economic capture at the distribution layer.
CPN and Arc represent a strategic move up the stack to regain leverage over usage, routing, and settlement.
For $CRCL, the upside is stabilization of long-term economics rather than explosive growth.
[Issue] The Case for Selling $OP Before $BASE
Written by Ponyo
Base generated ~71% of all Superchain sequencer revenue in 2025. The revenue concentration has only intensified, but Coinbase’s payments to Optimism remain capped at 2.5%.
OP token has collapsed 93% from ATH ($4.84 → $0.32) while Base’s TVL grew 48% ($3.1B → $5B) in 2025. The market is pricing in that Base’s growth doesn’t accrue to OP holders, but hasn’t yet priced in the exit risk.
The OP Stack is MIT-licensed. The only thing keeping Base in the Superchain is a governance relationship that a BASE token with independent scope would dissolve. Coinbase can fork tomorrow, and they’re building the political infrastructure to do so.
Optimism gave Base 118M OP tokens to ensure long-term alignment, but capped their voting power at 9% of supply. This isn’t alignment; it’s a minority stake with an exit option. If OP price dumps post-renegotiation, Coinbase’s grant losses are dwarfed by eliminating the revenue share.
This Week’s Research
[Articles]
[Issues]
[Comments]
How Will the Spread of Vibe Coding Impact the Crypto Ecosystem?
AAVE Horizon Borrow Reached $200M, and Would RWA Lending Boom?
Never ending debate over stablecoin rewards (feat. Market Structure Bill)