Market Overview
*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on November 28, 2025.
Bitcoin (BTC) ended the week up 6.78%, while Ethereum (ETH) showed strength, increasing by 7.74% in the same period. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization saw a slight recovery, finishing the week at $3.196 trillion, up from $3.053 trillion the week prior.
Liquidations remained muted this week. After $1.5 billion in longs were liquidated last Friday, most days saw less than $300 million in liquidations for both shorts and longs. Funding rates have shown little to no change, remaining at their current low levels.
Several significant developments occurred this week:
- •Naver Financial, the payment arm of South Korean internet giant Naver, has acquired Dunamu, the parent company of the centralized exchange Upbit, in a $10 billion deal.
- •Korea's largest exchange, Upbit, experienced an exploit of $36 million on the Solana Network. All affected users will be compensated.
- •Buy now pay later (BNPL) firm Klarna has launched its own stablecoin, KlarnaUSD, on Stripe's blockchain, Tempo.
Despite an initial challenging start to the week with crypto markets breaking lower, the weekend saw a rapid relief rally, carrying bullish momentum into the current week. The reclaim of the 90,000 level has rekindled hopes for some bulls, although many traders remain cautious. The S&P 500 performed well this week, recovering 1.1% from the previous week. The Nasdaq, however, was affected by NVDA's underperformance, returning only 0.42% this week.
Notable altcoin outperformers this week included Rain (RAIN), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Kaspa (KAS), SPX6900 (SPX), and Fartcoin (FARTCOIN).
Narrative of the Week
On-chain stock trading, encompassing both spot and perpetual markets, continues to grow in activity, serving as a bridge between traditional finance and the crypto world.
Key developments in this space include:
- •Perpetual DEX, Lighter, has introduced perpetuals for stocks, initially listing COIN and HOOD with 10x leverage, and later adding TSLA, NVDA, and PLTR.
- •Binance Wallet has launched on-chain stocks, powered by the RWA protocol Ondo Finance, with trading fees as low as 0%.
- •Several traders have noted an issue with funding rates on many stock perpetual trading platforms, suggesting that a 10% annual funding rate is significantly higher than what most traditional finance participants would find acceptable.
Perpetuals and tokenized stocks both facilitate the integration of stocks into the crypto space, albeit through different mechanisms, aiming to bridge the gap between traditional and decentralized finance.
Major Project Updates
This week saw significant updates from major projects in the blockchain space:
- •MegaETH opened pre-deposits for its chain. However, the launch faced various technical issues, leading to a decision to refund all deposits. Deposits are expected to reopen at a later date.
- •Monad mainnet has gone live, enabling claims for the MON token airdrop for eligible recipients and Coinbase ICO participants.
- •Coinbase has acquired the social memecoin trading platform Vector.fun.
- •Skale Network has expanded its reach by integrating with Coinbase's Layer 2 solution, Base. This integration allows builders to deploy a Skale chain on Base using Skale Manager.
MegaETH and Monad are competing for attention and capital as both highly anticipated chains launched in the same week.
DeFi Brief
*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on November 28, 2025
Developments in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) this week include:
- •Hyperliquid introduced Growth Mode for HIP-3, enabling HIP-3 deployers to reduce their fees by 90%.
- •Perpetual DEX aggregator Ranger Finance has launched rgUSD, a yield-bearing stablecoin powered by Elemental. The current minting cap for rgUSD is set at $1 million.
- •Crypto superapp Infinex announced plans to sell 5% of its INX token supply at a fully-diluted valuation of $300 million via Sonar. Patron NFT holders are set to receive guaranteed allocations.
Perpetual DEXes continue to expand their product offerings, introducing new features designed to drive new revenue streams.
Fundraises
Several projects successfully secured funding this week:
- •TON restaking protocol Nexton raised $4 million in a strategic funding round led by Danal Pay, with participation from other investors including the TON Foundation, Amber Group, and MetaLab Ventures.
- •RWA protocol Pruv Finance raised $3 million in a pre-A funding round. Investors included UOB Venture Management, Saison Capital, Taisu Ventures, Spiral Ventures, and Royal Group.
- •SpaceComputer raised $10 million in a seed round led by Maven11 and Lattice, with support from Superscrypt, Amber Group, Arbitrum, and HashKey, among others.
- •Leveraged yield exchange RateX raised $7 million in a strategic round. Investors included GSR, Gate, Animoca Ventures, and Crypto.com Capital.
Airdrops Abound
Opportunities for airdrops were announced this week:
- •AI infrastructure blockchain Talus has opened registration for its upcoming airdrop for early supporters. The claim date for the airdrop has not yet been announced.
- •Hyperliquid liquid staking protocol Kinetiq has launched its governance token, KNTQ, and is airdropping tokens to eligible users via HyperCore.
Tweet of the Week
One for the history books.
Source: @chud_eth