Why Bitcoin dipped under $100K
There’s never a dull moment on the blockchain. Here’s what you need to know this week:
Bitcoin slipped under $100K for the first time since June. Also, a pair of staking-enabled Solana ETFs had a “big time debut.”
The Ethereum network is having a banner year. Stablecoin volumes are at record highs, and another blockchain upgrade is on the horizon.
The Bitcoin whitepaper just turned 17. Plus more key numbers and stats from around the cryptoverse.
MARKET BYTES
Bitcoin dipped under $100K, its lowest price since June
Just a month ago, bitcoin HODLers were celebrating yet another all-time high, as the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap crested $126,000 and the total crypto market cap surged above $4.3 trillion.
Since then, however, volatility has been the main crypto narrative — with uncertainty amplified by the ongoing government shutdown, global trade negotiations, a mixed macroeconomic picture, liquidation-driven market swings, this week’s sharp correction in AI-related stocks, and more.
On Tuesday, BTC fell more than 11% for the week to below $100,000, a level last seen in June. ETH, XRP, Dogecoin, and Solana were all down by more than 15% for the same period, as the broader crypto market cap fell nearly 8% to $3.6 trillion.
Prices began to rebound on Wednesday, with BTC climbing back above $104,000.
What’s been shaking markets? Here’s the news you need to know…
Bitcoin lost ground in October for the first time since 2018
When BTC spiked to kick off October, it felt right. After all, the month had such a strong reputation for ending in the green that its crypto-slang nickname is “Uptober.” But the volatile weeks that followed erased all of bitcoin’s early-month gains, leading to bitcoin’s first red October since 2018.
So what’s been going on? One major catalyst was a 24-hour crash in October that saw $19 billion in perpetual futures get liquidated. Since then, Bloomberg notes, “traders have stayed on the sidelines” as crypto markets have struggled to regain ground.
As one analyst put it, “Bitcoin’s decline to the June lows reflects a market structure still grappling with the psychological overhang from October’s massive liquidation event, which has fundamentally altered how participants engage with the prevailing downtrend.”
Another factor, according to Bloomberg, has been some longer-term BTC “whales” taking advantage of historic high prices to sell some of their crypto for a profit. Around $45 billion in BTC was sold over the last month, according to 10x Research.
Silver lining… In the longer term, some analysts suggest that the liquidation activity could actually tee markets up for future success. “We think the leverage flush in recent weeks has helped set the stage for a grind higher in the months to come,” as Coinbase Institutional’s latest monthly report notes. “We believe macro tailwinds like Fed rate cuts, easing liquidity, and pro-crypto regulatory shifts under initiatives like the GENIUS/CLARITY Acts still bolster a bullish case, potentially extending the cycle into 2026.”
BTC ETFs continue to shed capital
Meanwhile, BTC and ETH exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which helped kick off the last crypto boom period, also saw net outflows over the last month. ETH, however, notched $133 million in inflows last week, according to CoinShares’ latest report, potentially aided by the Federal Reserve’s latest interest rate cut.
BTC funds shed $851 million last week, with CoinShares’ main analyst saying that traders may have responded to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s suggestion that another rate cut in 2025 is not guaranteed.
Market forces… Jeff Kilburg, CEO of KKM Financial, contextualized bitcoin’s Tuesday decline alongside the stock market’s. “Everyone has had more access to buy bitcoin with the proliferation of Bitcoin ETFs, so I think a lot of people are putting it into their portfolios,” Kilburg told CNBC, “so it makes all the sense in the world to see a bit of a pullback in bitcoin.”
Solana ETFs score with “big time debut”
The news isn’t all bad, however, with the surprise launch of several altcoin ETFs last week resulting in a major new crypto asset category: spot Solana ETFs.
Bitwise’s new BSOL fund and Grayscale’s GSOL — which both include staking and share the rewards with fund holders — began trading on Tuesday and notched more than $200 million in cumulative inflows in their shortened first week.
BSOL’s total flows, which tallied about $420 million including seed capital, made it the best-performing crypto ETF of the week, the 16th best performing ETF of the week generally, and one of the biggest ETF debuts of 2025.
“What a week for $BSOL, besides the big volume, it led all crypto ETPs by a country mile in weekly flows,” said Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas. “Big time debut.”
XRP next?... There are dozens more crypto ETFs awaiting approval, and several ETF issuers are especially bullish on funds for XRP. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said that an XRP ETF could “easily become” a billion-dollar fund in its first several months.
ETH SPOTLIGHT
Ethereum prices might be down, but the blockchain’s fundamentals are stronger than ever
Ethereum, like much of the crypto market, has been mired in a slump. ETH is down more than 22% over the past month, and has struggled to sustain momentum since the massive crypto liquidation event last month.
But outside of short-term price action, there are good reasons to be optimistic about Ethereum’s long-term prospects, even beyond the rise of ETH treasury companies this year.
The Ethereum blockchain is home to a majority of stablecoin activity, and stablecoin volumes just set an all-time record. The network is also key to the tokenization of real-world assets, a trend that Wall Street giants including BlackRock say is the future of finance. And more developers worked on ETH-compatible projects this year than for any other blockchain.
Here’s what you need to know.
ETH’s monthly stablecoin volume just set a record high
Stablecoins saw a record $2.8 trillion in volume on Ethereum alone last month, despite October’s crypto market volatility.
USDC, the stablecoin issued by Circle, was by far the most popular stablecoin used on Ethereum, with more than $1.62 trillion in monthly volume, up 45% compared to the prior month.
The surge, some analysts suggest, was partially related to the market downturn. Investors are “staging capital to rotate between emerging narratives, using stablecoins as a hedge and a yield-generating tool until deployment,” said Kronos Research CIO Vincent Liu.
Non-trading uses for the tokens, such as payments and cross-border transfers, have also surged since Congress passed the GENIUS Act this summer — with stablecoin usage for payments growing around 70% according to a recent report from Artemis.
(The GENIUS Act is the first federal law in the U.S. specifically designed to regulate dollar-backed stablecoins.)
Ethereum could host the “vast majority” of tokenized assets, analysts say
Tokenization is the process of creating digital, blockchain-based tokens to represent real-world assets (RWAs) like stocks, bonds, or other financial instruments. Many analysts have pegged it as the next frontier for crypto.
A new report from Standard Chartered predicts that tokenized assets could become a $2 trillion market by 2028, with the “vast majority” of that market running on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum’s reliability, its growing adoption among Wall Street, and its compatibility with crypto-native innovations like smart contracts and DeFi, all put the network in a strong position to ride the tokenization boom.
“Stablecoins have laid the groundwork … for other asset classes, from tokenized money market funds to tokenized equities, to move onchain at scale,” the report said.
Tokenization is already happening at a rapid pace
BlackRock has already tokenized a nearly $3 billion money market fund using Ethereum; tokenized real estate and gold are becoming more common; and platforms like Ondo Finance offer access to more than 100 major tokenized stocks for users outside the U.S.
Securitize, which has partnered with BlackRock on tokenization efforts, is also launching a tokenized credit fund on Ethereum with BNY Mellon.
Ethereum network activity is thriving
Onchain data shows an increasingly robust Ethereum ecosystem that's attracting new developers, users, and use cases.
So far this year, Ethereum has added more than 16,000 developers to its ecosystem, bringing its total to more than 31,000 and cementing its status as the top blockchain for new developers.
The network averages nearly 2 million transactions daily, and is seeing more than 500,000 daily active wallets, both near all-time highs.
Transaction fees have also remained near record lows all year, a sign that Ethereum’s network upgrades have significantly improved its scalability.
At the same time, Ethereum layer 2 networks like Base (which was incubated by Coinbase) are seeing major activity, with the top five Ethereum L2s tallying around 750 million transactions over the past month.
What’s next for ETH?
Despite the crypto market correction, Ethereum’s fundamentals have continued to strengthen during the final stretch of 2025.
The network’s second major upgrade of the year, Fusaka, is expected to launch on Dec. 3 and aims to cut costs for developers, institutions, and retail users using layer-2 networks connected to Ethereum. Some developers are comparing the Fusaka upgrade to the highly-touted Merge upgrade of 2022, which marked ETH’s transition to a proof-of-stake network.
“It is definitely one of the upgrades that is close to even the Merge in terms of how we’ve looked forward to having this major scaling technology integrated into Ethereum,” said Dankrad Feist, co-lead of the protocol architecture team at the Ethereum Foundation.
NUMBERS TO KNOW
641,207 BTC
Amount of bitcoin (worth roughly $70 billion) that Strategy has on its balance sheet after recently adding 397 BTC. The Michael Saylor-founded firm is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, by far: The next largest holder is MARA holdings, with 53,250 BTC (about $5.7 billion).
17
Number of years ago, as of Oct. 31, that Satoshi Nakamoto’s original Bitcoin whitepaper was published, beginning bitcoin’s journey from an experiment in decentralized online money to an asset worth more than $2 trillion.
$5
Value of BTC that purchasers of the “Bitcoin Steakburger” at Steak ‘n Shake restaurants are eligible to receive. The chain has accepted crypto since earlier this year and is now plotting a BTC reserve. “Same-store sales increas[ed] by double digits in both Q2 and Q3 this year — boosts the brand has attributed in part to the fervor showcased by the Bitcoin community,” notes Decrypt.
TOKEN TRIVIA
What is a dollar cost averaging?
A
A gradual investment strategy that does not rely on “timing the market”
B
A method to automate crypto purchases on Coinbase
C
A way to invest any amount of money at regular intervals of time
D
All of the abov
Find the answer below.
Trivia Answer
D
All of the abov
