November has shaped up to be one of the most negative months for the crypto market in the past three years. This recap breaks down the key reasons behind this downturn, examines its impact on core on-chain metrics, and highlights projects that continue to see rising activity despite the broader market decline.
Macroeconomic Headwinds Impact Crypto
The primary macroeconomic event influencing markets in early November was the prolonged U.S. government shutdown. This not only elevated market fear but also translated into tangible economic losses, as a significant portion of federal employees were placed on unpaid leave, thereby slowing down economic activity.
Interestingly, equities demonstrated greater resilience than Bitcoin. The S&P 500 experienced a smaller decline during the month and had recovered to its early-November levels by month-end. Bitcoin, however, posted its second-worst monthly performance in the past three years. Gold moved in the opposite direction, rallying 7% and reclaiming the levels lost during October’s decline.
Additional pressure on Bitcoin and the broader crypto market stems from the growing risk of a correction in the S&P 500. The S&P 500 is up 16% year-to-date and appears overheated according to several major indicators, such as the GDP-to-market-cap ratio. Under current conditions, an equity correction could trigger an even sharper move in crypto, especially as the two markets have become increasingly interconnected through ETFs and DATs.
Regarding DATs, some market participants highlight a potential "black swan" scenario: the bankruptcy of one of the DAT issuers, which could trigger a cascade of liquidations. For now, however, this remains purely hypothetical rather than an imminent risk.
Bitcoin's Performance and Market Sentiment
Bitcoin’s weaker performance compared to the S&P 500 suggests fading enthusiasm for the asset. Market sentiment on Twitter further reflects this shift, with conversations tilting more pessimistic toward crypto. On a deeper level, this may stem from the lack of a strong global narrative or major upcoming catalysts. The market has entered a "boring phase," with no significant crypto events on the horizon to fuel positive expectations.
The absence of optimistic drivers has gradually transformed into broader market pessimism. Some long-term holders have started locking in profits above the $100K level, while many recently funded wallets have slipped into unrealized losses.
Historically, when Bitcoin trades below the average purchase price of 1–2 year holders, it has often marked a strong accumulation zone. At the moment, this threshold sits just below $66K. However, it is not static: the longer Bitcoin remains above it, the higher this accumulation range will drift over time.
Ethereum's Volatility and Valuation Challenges
November is shaping up to be Ethereum’s second-worst month in the past three years. More notably, in 2025, Ethereum has recorded only three positive months so far. Over the last two years, ETH’s performance has tended to bifurcate: months are either clearly negative or extremely positive, often delivering sharp 20–40% gains in a single period.
Despite being the second-largest cryptocurrency and enjoying broad distribution, Ethereum remains highly volatile. Its unique position in the ecosystem makes it difficult to value. Ethereum is not a typical crypto startup that can be assessed using traditional metrics like P/E, yet it is also not positioned like Bitcoin—which increasingly behaves like digital gold rather than a typical crypto asset.
Even after a decade on the market, investors still need to "reinvent" ETH in terms of how it should be evaluated and understood. The market must ultimately decide what Ethereum represents as an asset class. The answer to that question may determine the direction of its future price performance.
On-Chain Activity Declines Amid Market Turbulence
BNB Chain Experiences Transaction and Fee Reduction
BNB Chain recorded a 32% month-over-month decrease in transactions. Fees fell from a 3-year high of $71M to just $17M, driven by a pullback in perp trading and a cooldown in the memecoin sector. Despite active addresses slipping to 57.6M, it remains the highest among all networks. Meanwhile, BNB Chain’s TVL declined 25%.
BNB is now trading at $843, down 35% from its October all-time high.
Despite the slowdown, BNB Chain continued to ship ecosystem updates in November, focusing on infrastructure and developer tools. Enhancements to opBNB and BNB Greenfield were showcased throughout the month, emphasizing lower latency and more efficient data availability.
Solana Network Sees Reduced Fees and DEX Volume
Solana network fees hit a year low of $20M, while chain apps’ fees dropped to $293M, also a 2025 low. Monthly transactions were recorded near the yearly-ATL level of 1.55B, while active addresses reached 43.7M.
DEX volume fell to $104B, but it is still the top result among all chains. Meanwhile, memecoin volume only accounts for 5% of the total chain volume, the lowest level since memes exploded two years ago. A decrease in memecoin activity is seen as the key driver behind the falling numbers. Solana is now experiencing strong competition from Base and other high-risk "memecoin substitutes," like perps and predictions.
A major milestone was the recent launch of spot Solana ETFs. It has been an impressive 21-day streak of inflows, with cumulative total net inflow hitting $619M. Bitwise’s BSOL is a clear leader here, accumulating 85% of the total SOL ETF inflows.
However, institutional money flows did not significantly help the token maintain its price. SOL followed the overall market fall and touched $127, a level not seen since April.
Base Network Faces Fee Drop and Active Address Decline
Base monthly fees dropped by 37% to $6.3M. DEX and perps volume fell by 32% and 37% respectively. It is surprising that Base recorded its lowest active address count of 2025 at 16.6M while simultaneously hitting a new ATH in transactions at 406.9M.
On November 21, Base core developer Jesse Pollak launched his own token. Within 40 minutes, JESSE reached a $25 million market cap before losing momentum; it now trades around $11 million with about $3.5 million in pool liquidity. The first 24 hours saw $25 million in trading volume, though $18 million of that came in the opening hour. Interest faded quickly, and by the end of the day, hourly volume had fallen below $100K.
Snipers earned more than $1 million from the launch by exploiting Base’s recent network upgrade and the addition of flashblocks. Each 2-second block contains sub-blocks that finalize in roughly 200 milliseconds, letting bots detect a token deploy and submit a buy transaction in the next flashblock while still inside the same main block.
Meanwhile, Coinbase has been expanding through two major acquisitions, Echo and Vector. Hints of a potential BASE token have further fueled interest, with many anticipating an eventual airdrop. All eyes are now on how competition between Base and Solana will evolve.
Tron Network Sees Reduced Fees but Increased Perps Volume
It has been a month of ups and downs for Tron in November. The network generated its lowest fee amount since January 2023 at $29.4M, though it still remains the highest among all chains. Around 84% of all Tron fees now come from USDT transfers.
DEX volume stayed roughly in line with October, while perps volume hit a new ATH, rising an impressive 274% month-over-month. All perp activity continues to come from Sunperp, the perp DEX built within the SunPump ecosystem.
Boosty Labs proposed introducing a transaction batching mechanism for Tron. The idea is to bundle multiple on-chain transactions into one, which could reduce fees and ease congestion for high-volume users like exchanges and payment processors, and testing is already underway on the testnet.
Lower fees could make Tron more attractive for enterprises, especially for USDT-related use cases, since the stablecoin represents about 45% of all Tether in circulation. Still, the proposal requires community approval through a governance vote before it can go live.
Plasma Network Faces Significant Stablecoin Market Cap and TVL Decline
It has been a tough month for Plasma, a newly launched L1 built specifically for stablecoins. The chain’s stablecoin market cap fell by more than 68%, dropping from $5.1B to $1.66B. Plasma’s TVL also declined by 34%, reaching $7B.
XPL crashed about 90% from its ATH and now sits around a $326M market cap. The decline is largely tied to weak on-chain activity, with the network processing only around 13 transactions per second, far below the performance targets highlighted at launch.
The stablecoin-focused narrative is now running into a reality check: without real user demand, even strong technical architecture will not carry a chain forward. For now, Plasma needs to show real usage, because early hype is not enough to sustain the ecosystem.
Altcoin Performance Amidst Bitcoin Decline
Most altcoins experienced losses in November due to overall market weakness. This selection highlights tokens that managed to show strength during the turbulence.
RAIN surged after Nasdaq-listed Enlivex Therapeutics announced plans to raise about $212 million through a private placement to build a digital asset treasury centered around the Rain token. With a 126% monthly increase, it became the top gainer among tokens with a market cap above $500M.
XMR continued to benefit from the privacy narrative, attracting capital during risk-off periods and geopolitical tension as investors seek assets resistant to surveillance. It delivered a solid 16% gain.
STRK gained momentum as recent protocol upgrades improved throughput and reduced fees, which supported developer activity even in a bearish environment. The token reached its highest level since February before retracing by roughly 50%, and it now sits at a $570M market cap.
MERL climbed to its 2025 ATH of 0.47 and is currently trading about 7% below that mark. The rally was driven by Merlin Chain’s latest upgrade, improving stability and scalability, supported by investor interest in Bitcoin L2s.
PIPPIN, a Solana-based memecoin, surged more than 600% over the past month. With no major updates tied to the project, the growth appears fueled mainly by heightened speculative trading activity.
Perpetual DEX Activity Slows, Lighter Emerges as Volume Leader
November marked the first time in many months that a change in the volume leader was observed. Lighter became the top project by perp volume with $292M, marking its ATH. Even though Lighter does not charge trading fees directly, the project also hit a record in monthly fees, collecting $24.5M.
Aster finished second with $259M in perp volume, matching its October milestone. However, its fees dropped sharply from $133M to $53M. Aster also announced plans to launch its own zero-fee L1 blockchain with a strong focus on privacy. The team aims to support tokenized traditional assets such as stocks and futures, and will introduce a new futures pre-market product in partnership with Buidlpad. These steps make sense, as having its own chain is a key advantage enjoyed by Aster’s main competitors.
edgeX attracted significant trader attention as well. The chain, designed specifically for perps, consistently ranks among the best-performing L1s by earnings. In November, edgeX set a new ATH in monthly fees at $64M, outperforming most rivals. Its TVL briefly reached $500M before retracing to $420M.
For Hyperliquid, it was a difficult month for the long-time market leader. Perp volume dropped to $244M, the lowest since June. Fees, however, remained relatively strong at $101M. Hyperliquid still dominates all competitors by open interest; as of December 2, its 24-hour OI stands at 5.92M, higher than all other projects combined.
On the development side, Hyperliquid launched HIP-3 Growth Mode, enabling permissionless market creation with significantly lower trading fees. The upgrade is designed to boost liquidity and attract new market makers. Taker fees on new markets are reduced by over 90%, and for top-tier traders can drop to as low as 0.00144%. To maintain stability, new markets must not duplicate existing assets, and their parameters remain locked for 30 days after deployment.
HYPE fell back to its May price level of $29. Despite this, community sentiment remains optimistic, supported by the rollout of HIP-3. On November 29, the team received its first major unlock of 2.6M HYPE, and the market is now watching closely to see how these tokens will be handled.
Overall, the perp sector faced pressure from the broader crypto market downturn, which reduced overall trading volumes. At the same time, competition increased from emerging chains, new derivatives-focused protocols, and high-risk sectors such as prediction markets.
Prediction Markets Thrive: Polymarket and Kalshi Lead the Way
The prediction market sector was the only area in crypto that did not experience issues with volume or user activity in November. A new ATH in trading volume was reached, showing a strong 54% increase compared to October.
Both major players, Polymarket and Kalshi, hit new record highs with $4.3B and $5.8B in volume, respectively. They also reached ATH levels in monthly transactions at 18.6M and 22.1M.
Opinion Labs, backed by YZi Labs, entered the arena with an impressive $4.2B in volume. However, it only recorded 1.1M transactions, which is about 17 times fewer than Polymarket. It is important to highlight that Opinion is the only one of the three running a full incentive program, so a large portion of the volume is likely driven by whales farming points and future rewards.
Polymarket’s biggest milestone in November was securing an Amended Order of Designation from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on November 24, allowing it to operate as a fully regulated U.S. exchange with intermediated access via futures commission merchants (FCMs) and traditional brokerages.
The approval requires stricter surveillance, upgraded clearing systems, enhanced market oversight, and Part 16 reporting—effectively bringing Polymarket in line with federal trading venues after leaving the U.S. in 2022 due to fines and restrictions. Earlier in the month, Polymarket reopened limited U.S. access in a beta phase, letting a small group of users trade event markets as regulatory progress continued.
On November 12, Polymarket announced an exclusive partnership with Yahoo Finance, becoming the platform’s sole provider of prediction-market data. It also expanded into sports and fantasy gaming through an exclusive integration with PrizePicks, embedding Polymarket’s markets directly into the popular fantasy sports app. A day later, on November 13, Polymarket signed a multi-year partnership with UFC and Zuffa Boxing, marking the first time prediction-market technology would be integrated into live sports broadcasts and venues.
Kalshi also had a big month in November, securing a $1B investment round led by Sequoia Capital and CapitalIG, bringing its total funding to $1.57B. This pushed the project to a new valuation peak and signaled strong institutional conviction in the business model.
Sports markets remain Kalshi’s main volume driver, but the platform continues expanding its offerings. New political markets were added, and the one tracking the duration of the U.S. government shutdown drew substantial trader attention. Kalshi also partnered with StockX, enabling speculation on sneaker resale prices, collectible demand, and brand performance during peak shopping periods. Combined with major partnerships, including a key one with Robinhood, Kalshi is rapidly moving into the financial mainstream.
Regulatory challenges remain, with certain U.S. states classifying Kalshi’s contracts as gambling. The project is currently appealing these rulings.
Recent investment trends show that institutional capital increasingly views prediction markets as a potential core component of modern financial infrastructure. This shift suggests they could eventually sit alongside traditional derivatives as a standard tool for real-time forecasting, risk management, and market sentiment pricing.