Traditional Multi-Billion Dollar Capital Hillhouse Breaks Through, Websea Welcomes the Strongest Capital Cycle in History

By: blockbeats|2025/12/01 12:00:02

Recently, the world's leading digital asset trading platform, Websea, officially announced strategic investment from the private equity giant, Horizons (Horizons Culture).

This is not only a collaboration between capital and technology but also the first systematic entry of traditional multi-billion-dollar industrial capital into the field of crypto financial trading, marking a key turning point for the industry. As the global capital market witnessed Nasdaq's investment in Gemini skyrocketing by 60% on the first day, traditional financial institutions are accelerating their presence in the digital asset space. Against this backdrop, Horizons strategically invested in Websea, signifying not just a financial integration but also the traditional capital's recognition and confidence in the long-term value of crypto finance.

The two parties will host a strategic investment shareholders meeting, where Horizons will assist Websea in comprehensive efforts in the four major directions of "platform development, risk control enhancement, product innovation, and platform token ecosystem" to strengthen the platform's core competitiveness with a more robust compliance system, advanced risk management capabilities, and forward-looking product innovation. It is expected that the platform token WBS ecosystem will embrace a brand-new development opportunity. Horizons Culture will fully leverage its influence in film and television production, artist management, and content creation to enhance Websea's competitiveness in live streaming and the general entertainment ecosystem, providing a more enriching and immersive digital asset culture experience for young users.

What does this mean for Websea users?

Since its establishment in 2023, Websea has taken "risk management + inclusive finance" as its strategic path, pioneering industry-renowned products such as capital-guaranteed copy trading, contract insurance, and yield rush fund, creating a unique user protection system. Now, with Horizons' investment joining, these innovations will no longer be just individual breakthroughs but will be comprehensively upgraded to a systematic ecological capability, injecting a brand-new growth engine into Websea from three major dimensions of security, ecology, and experience:

Further Evolution of the Security System—Leveraging Horizons' profound experience in finance, risk control, and compliance systems, Websea will transition from "product security" to "industrial-grade security," providing users with a more robust and transparent protection for funds and transactions;

Expansion of Ecological Value—The WBS platform token will be endowed with a broader range of applications, extending to real scenarios such as supply chain finance, point redemption, and ecological consumption, ensuring long-term value support for every use;

Release of User Dividends—As the platform enters a new strategic cycle, Websea will launch a series of global events and airdrop incentive plans, allowing every user to directly benefit from the growth dividend brought by capital entry;

Upgrade of Intelligent Experience—Leveraging Horizons' layout in AI and data intelligence, Websea will build more precise risk control models and strategy recommendation systems, making financial management and trading experiences more personalized and efficient.

For users, this is not only a capital injection but also an opportunity to truly experience the platform's evolution in terms of "Security, Profit, and Value Resonance".

Industry Signal: The "Confirmation Entry" Moment of Traditional Capital

Hygeia's entry is not only a crucial leap for Websea but also sends a clear signal to the industry: traditional capital is recognizing and embracing the future of crypto finance. This landmark event has shattered the old perception of "disconnect between traditional capital and the crypto world" and has provided a real-world example for more institutional funds to enter the space.

Looking back at industry history, we can see that when Coinbase received capital injections from the NYSE, the American Car Association, and the Spanish Foreign Exchange Bank, it successfully accelerated the compliance listing process and established its position as a global trading platform leader. When Binance introduced funding support from Abu Dhabi's MGX, initiating an ecological layout, its platform token BNB also saw a historic value surge. Today, Hygeia's choice to partner with Websea not only represents capital's high recognition of Websea's risk control system and product innovation but also clearly shows the market that the future landscape of global crypto finance is being redrawn.

Hygeia's entry marks a milestone moment of deep integration between traditional capital and crypto finance, signaling that crypto finance is no longer an experimental edge of capital but has become an essential core force in the global asset allocation system. With Hygeia's support, Websea will not only be the pioneer of innovative products but will also represent an industry paradigm where institutionalized trust and technological innovation coexist. In the future, Websea will use globalized resources as the engine, risk management as the foundation, and continuously drive crypto finance from the periphery to the mainstream, from innovation to order, from products to ecosystems, becoming an industry new benchmark with top-tier capital backing and global resource empowering.

This article is contributed content and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.

Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market has shown strong momentum across multiple dimensions. The mainstream discussion has focused on Coinbase's official entry into the prediction market through the acquisition of The Clearing Company, as well as the intense controversy within the AAVE community regarding token incentives and governance rights.

In terms of ecosystem development, Solana has introduced the innovative Kora fee layer aimed at reducing user transaction costs; meanwhile, the Perp DEX competition has intensified, with the showdown between Hyperliquid and Lighter sparking widespread community discussion on the future of decentralized derivatives.

I. Mainstream Topics

1. Coinbase Acquires The Clearing Company, Officially Entering Prediction Market

This week, Coinbase announced the acquisition of The Clearing Company, marking another significant move to deepen its presence in this field after last week's announcement of launching a prediction market on its platform.

The Clearing Company's founder, Toni Gemayel, and the team will join Coinbase to jointly drive the development of the prediction market business.

Coinbase's Product Lead, Shan Aggarwal, stated that the growth of the prediction market is still in its early stages and predicts that 2026 will be the breakout year for this field.

The community has reacted positively to this, generally believing that Coinbase's entry will bring significant traffic and compliance advantages to the prediction market. However, this has also sparked discussions about the industry's competitive landscape.

Jai Bhavnani, Founder of Rivalry, commented that for startups, if their product model proves to be successful, industry giants like Coinbase have ample reason to replicate it.

This serves as a reminder to all entrepreneurs in the crypto space that they must build significant moats to withstand competition pressure from these giants.

2. Kalshi Launches Kalshi Research and Integrates BSC Network

Regulated prediction market platform Kalshi launched its research arm, Kalshi Research, this week, aimed at opening its internal data to the academic community and researchers to facilitate exploration of prediction market-related topics.

Its inaugural research report highlights Kalshi's outperformance in predicting inflation compared to Wall Street's traditional models. Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara commented that the power of prediction markets lies in the valuable data they generate, and it is now time to better utilize this data.

Meanwhile, Kalshi announced its support for the BNB Chain (BSC), allowing users to deposit and withdraw BNB and USDT via the BSC network.

This move is seen as a significant step for Kalshi to open its platform to a broader crypto user base, aiming to unlock access to the world's largest prediction market. Furthermore, Kalshi also revealed plans to host the first Prediction Market Summit in 2026 to further drive industry engagement and development.

3. AAVE Token Incentive Controversy Persists as Founders and Whales Increase Holdings Against the Market Trend

The AAVE community recently engaged in heated debates around an Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP) titled "AAVE Tokenomics Alignment Phase One - Ownership Governance," aiming to transfer ownership and control of the Aave brand from Aave Labs to Aave DAO.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov publicly stated his intention to vote against the proposal, believing it oversimplifies the complex legal and operational structure, potentially slowing down the development process of core products like Aave V4.

The community's reaction was polarized. Some criticized Stani for adopting a "double standard" in governance and questioned whether his team had siphoned off protocol revenue, while others supported his cautious stance, arguing that significant governance changes require more thorough discussion.

This controversy highlights the tension between the ideal of DAO governance in DeFi projects and the actual power held by core development teams.

Despite governance disputes putting pressure on the AAVE token price, on-chain data shows that Stani Kulechov himself has purchased millions of dollars' worth of AAVE in the past few hours.

Simultaneously, a whale address, 0xDDC4, which had been quiet for 6 months, once again spent 500 ETH (approximately $1.53 million) to purchase 9,629 AAVE tokens. Data indicates that this whale has accumulated nearly 40,000 AAVE over the past year but is currently in an unrealized loss position.

The founder and whale's increased holdings during market volatility were interpreted by some investors as a confidence signal in AAVE's long-term value.

4. Top Articles: DeFi Curators and Ethereum Annual Summary

In this week's top article, Morpho Labs' "Curator Explained" detailed the role of "curators" in DeFi.

The article likened curators to asset managers in traditional finance, who design, deploy, and manage on-chain vaults, providing users with a one-click diversified investment portfolio.

Unlike traditional fund managers, DeFi curators execute strategies automatically through non-custodial smart contracts, allowing users to maintain full control of their assets. The article offered a new perspective on the specialization and risk management in the DeFi space.

Another widely circulated article, "Ethereum 2025: From Experiment to Global Infrastructure," provided a comprehensive summary of Ethereum's development over the past year. The article noted that 2025 is a crucial year for Ethereum's transition from an experimental project to global financial infrastructure. Through the Pectra and Fusaka hard forks, Ethereum achieved significant reductions in account abstraction and transaction costs.

Furthermore, the SEC's clarification of Ethereum's "non-securities" nature and the launch of tokenized funds on the Ethereum mainnet by traditional financial giants like JPMorgan marked Ethereum's gaining recognition from mainstream institutions. The article suggested that whether it is the continued growth of DeFi, the thriving L2 ecosystem, or the integration with the AI field, Ethereum's vision as the "world computer" is gradually becoming a reality.

II. Mainstream Ecosystem Updates

1. Solana: Launches Kora Fee Layer and propAMM Data Research

The Solana Foundation engineering team released a fee layer solution called Kora this week.

Kora is a fee relayer and signatory node designed to provide the Solana ecosystem with a more flexible transaction fee payment method. Through Kora, users will be able to achieve gas-free transactions or choose to pay network fees using any stablecoin or SPL token. This innovation is seen as an important step in lowering the barrier of entry for new users and improving Solana network's availability.

Additionally, a deep research report on propAMM (proactive market maker) sparked community interest. The report's data analysis of propAMMs on Solana like HumidiFi indicated that Solana has achieved, or even surpassed, the level of transaction execution quality in traditional finance (TradFi) markets.

For example, on the SOL-USDC trading pair, HumidiFi is able to provide a highly competitive spread for large trades (0.4-1.6 bps), which is already better than the trading slippage of some mid-cap stocks in traditional markets.

Research suggests that propAMM is making the vision of the "Internet Capital Market" a reality, with Solana emerging as the prime venue for all of this to happen.

2. Perp DEX: Hyperliquid vs. Lighter Competition Intensifies

The competition in the perpetual contract DEX (Perp DEX) space is becoming increasingly heated.

In its latest official article, Hyperliquid has positioned its emerging competitor, Lighter, alongside centralized exchanges like Binance, referring to it as a platform utilizing a centralized sequencer. Hyperliquid emphasizes its transparency advantage of being "fully on-chain, operated by a validator network, and with no hidden state."

The community widely interprets this as Hyperliquid declaring "war" on Lighter. The technical differences between the two platforms have also become a focal point of discussion: Hyperliquid focuses on ultimate on-chain transparency, while Lighter emphasizes achieving "verifiable execution" through zero-knowledge proofs to provide users with a Central Limit Order Book (CLOB)-like trading experience.

This battle over the future direction of decentralized derivatives exchanges is expected to peak in 2026.

Meanwhile, discussions about Lighter's trading fees have surfaced. Some users have pointed out that Lighter charged as much as 81 basis points (0.81%) for a $2 million USD/JPY forex trade, far exceeding the near-zero spreads of traditional forex brokers.

Some argue that Lighter does not follow a B-book model that bets against market makers, instead anchoring its prices to the TradFi market, and the high fees may be related to the current liquidity or market maker balance incentives. Providing a more competitive spread for real-world assets (RWA) in the highly volatile crypto market is a key issue Lighter will need to address in the future.

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