Mezo, a Bitcoin-native DeFi platform for BTC-backed borrowing and yield, has partnered with Anchorage Digital to bring low-cost stablecoin loans and short-term veBTC rewards to institutional clients.
The move gives public companies and digital asset treasuries a compliant on-ramp into Bitcoin-native finance.
Through Anchorage’s Porto wallet, institutions can borrow against their Bitcoin (BTC) at a fixed 1% rate using Mezo’s Bitcoin-backed stablecoin, MUSD, according to Wednesday’s announcement.
The integration also adds short-term yield tools. Clients will be able to lock Bitcoin for a period of six to 30 days and receive veBTC. This tokenized position shares onchain network fees and offers higher rewards for longer commitments, along with governance rights over Mezo’s fee structure and economics.
Matt Luongo, CEO of Thesis and co-founder of Mezo, said:
“Mezo is realizing Hal Finney’s vision for a Bitcoin banking experience that issues its own digital currency backed by Bitcoin, acting as banks did before they became nationalized.”
Mezo is a Bitcoin-native finance protocol that lets users borrow, save and earn yield through onchain tools powered by MUSD. It was built by Thesis, a Bitcoin venture studio founded in 2014 that builds decentralized products and infrastructure.
Bitcoin-backed borrowing has gained momentum in 2025, with a steady stream of new platforms and products emerging online. The trend is expected to grow sharply, with a February report from Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt estimating the market could surge to $45 billion by 2030.
Tether revealed yesterday that it has taken an undisclosed stake in Ledn, a Bitcoin-backed lending platform that offers consumer loans secured by crypto. In October, Ledn said it had originated $392 million in Bitcoin-backed loans during the third quarter of 2025.
In May, Cantor Fitzgerald teamed up with Maple Finance and FalconX to execute its first loan backed by Bitcoin, a move that underscored Wall Street’s growing push into crypto credit markets.
In July, Block Earner rolled out Bitcoin-backed home loans in Australia, providing buyers with a way to tap their BTC for up to half of a property’s value as housing prices continue to surge in the country.
Bitcoin plunges below $90K, erasing all gains for 2025.
ETF outflows and leverage-driven liquidations deepen the selloff.
Sentiment hits “Extreme Fear” as crypto markets shed over $1T.
Bitcoin crashed below $90,000 on Wednesday, marking a devastating 28% decline from its early October peak above $126,000.
The plunge has erased all of crypto’s 2025 gains and pushed the largest cryptocurrency into bear market territory.
Ethereum tumbled 6% to below $3,000, while the broader crypto market saw roughly $1.2 trillion in value evaporate over recent weeks.
Analysts say this 43-day drawdown now ranks among the steepest corrections since 2017, with forced liquidations and ETF outflows accelerating the selloff.
The unwind feels sudden, given that Bitcoin looked unstoppable just six weeks ago.
What makes this collapse particularly brutal is how thoroughly it dismantles the bull narrative. Trump was supposed to be the “crypto president.”
The spot Bitcoin ETF was supposed to unlock institutional buying. Instead, Bitcoin is negative for 2025, down 2% after climbing as high as +35% in October.
Investors who chased breakouts above $120,000 are now underwater. That kind of momentum reversal breeds panic and forces margin calls.
The liquidation cascade: Why leverage turned this into a bloodbath
The mechanics of the crash tell you everything. K33 Research’s Vetle Lunde noted that “steady outflows from ETFs have also added fuel to the selloff.”
US spot Bitcoin ETFs shed nearly $2.3 billion over five consecutive sessions. That’s redemptions from big institutions that are simply walking away. When the largest buyers start selling, smaller traders follow in a herd stampede.
The real damage comes from leverage. The government shutdown eliminated key economic data, creating a data vacuum.
Without employment numbers and inflation prints, the Fed’s December rate-cut decision became genuinely uncertain. Suddenly, the “rate cuts will save crypto” thesis evaporated.
Leveraged long positions got liquidated in cascading forced sales. When Bitcoin swept below the average cost basis of spot Bitcoin ETFs, algorithmic selling kicked in.
Sentiment has completely inverted. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index remains pinned at “Extreme Fear,” the lowest it has been.
Retail investors who bought near $125,000 are watching unrealized losses mount. Long-term holders haven’t capitulated yet, but the on-chain data is starting to show cracks.
Where does Bitcoin bottom? Analysts map out ugly scenarios
Lunde’s base-case scenario puts support between $84,000 and $86,000, but that’s if this correction mirrors recent downturns.
If it gets worse, if it mirrors the two deepest corrections in the past two years, Bitcoin could revisit April’s lows near $74,000, where MicroStrategy’s average entry sits.
The truly bearish case opens the door to an 80% drawdown from recent highs. That would put Bitcoin in the $20,000–$25,000 zone, but analysts say that needs a full credit crisis to materialize.
Right now, stocks are holding up. Risk assets aren’t in freefall. That limits how low crypto can go without broader carnage.
But neither are they buying aggressively. Without a macro catalyst, a Fed pivot, tariff relief, or genuine AI-driven productivity gains, Bitcoin likely stays volatile and sloppy until early 2026.
Exchange-traded product (ETP) provider 21shares launched its Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Wednesday, marking the fifth SOL (SOL) ETF offering in the US.
“21Shares is debuting its spot Solana ETF (TSOL) today, which will have a fee of 21 basis points (BPS) and is opening with $100 million in assets under management (AUM).
The Solana ETFs have now taken in $2 billion as a group, with inflows basically every day, not bad considering the ‘extreme fear’ right now,” he wrote.
TSOL debuts trading with over $100 million in assets under management. Source: Eric Balchunas
Market analysts and industry executives have said that 2026 could be a monumental year for altcoin ETFs, with the potential introduction of over 100 new investment vehicles attracting fresh capital flows, according to Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise.
Although crypto ETFs provide a vehicle to attract capital flows from passive investors in traditional financial markets, investment flows work both ways, boosting underlying asset prices when demand is strong, but hurting prices when net outflows are high.
The price of SOL has decreased by approximately 14% over the last seven days, despite the ETF launches, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
The price of SOL cratered following a market-wide crash in October. Source: CoinMarketCap
Bitwise’s Solana ETF (BSOL) launched in October, attracting nearly $500 million in net inflows in the three weeks since its debut, making it one of the most successful ETF launches in history, according to Hougan.
In January, analysts at banking and financial services company JP Morgan forecast that SOL ETFs would attract billions of dollars to SOL.
JP Morgan analysts added that the price performance of SOL and XRP (XRP) ETFs could overshadow the price performance of Ether (ETH) ETFs in the first six months after they debuted in the United States.
XRP is under renewed pressure as the broader market downturn drags its profitability metrics back to levels last seen during Donald Trump’s November 2024 re-election.
Glassnode data shows that only 58.5% of XRP’s circulating supply is now in profit. That is the weakest reading since late November 2024, when the token hovered around $0.53.
Even at today’s price of roughly $2.15, about 41.5% of all circulating XRP, equating to nearly 26.5 billion tokens, sits at a realized loss.
XRP’s Supply in Profit (Source: Glassnode)
According to the firm, the imbalance reflects how much of this year’s trading volume clustered near elevated price zones. That concentration has left late buyers exposed as momentum fades.
According to CryptoSlate’s data, XRP has dropped 12% in the past six months and trades 40% below its July cycle peak of $3.65.
Why is XRP struggling?
Notably, derivatives activity has reinforced that cautious sentiment.
Open interest tracks the value of active futures contracts. As a result, lower levels typically show that speculative demand is weakening and traders are pulling back from directional bets.
This explains why XRP’s price growth has stalled significantly since its post-election spike. Indeed, XRP has traded chiefly sideways in a tight range around $2.10, disappointing traders who expected follow-through above that level.
Apart from that, XRP’s price has struggled significantly because its long-term holders have stepped up their profit-taking.
Glassnode noted that investors who accumulated XRP below $1 ahead of the late-2024 run are now unwinding positions at a breakneck pace.
According to the firm, this cohort profit-realization activity has risen 240% since September, climbing from about $65 million a day to nearly $220 million.
Despite the short-term weakness, the token’s underlying fundamentals remain intact.
Earlier this year, Ripple resolved its multi-year dispute with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through a settlement following several favorable rulings.
Market analysts view these developments as supportive of the asset’s long-term positioning because they build out the ecosystem that relies on the token.
Moreover, institutional interest in the digital assets continues to rise.
Several spot XRP ETFs have launched in November 2025, including products from Franklin Templeton, Bitwise, 21Shares, and CoinShares. Notably, Canary Capital’s XRPC ETF has already drawn nearly $278 million in early inflows, according to SoSoValue data.
XRP ETF Daily Inflows (Source: SoSoValue)
At the same time, the blockchain analytics platform Santiment noted that XRP remains a major topic across social platforms, with discussions focusing on ETF launches, market volatility, and the token’s positioning relative to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano.
Additionally, the firm also flagged recent retail sales as evidence of an imminent price rebound.
XRP Retailers Dumping (Source: Santiment)
It noted that wallets holding fewer than 100 XRP have sold 1.38% of their balances since early November. Retail capitulation often precedes rebounds, and analysts are watching the trend as a potential sign of recovery.
The upgrade introduces unified Liquidity Hubs to replace fragmented markets.
Spokes introduces modular lending setups with independent risks.
V4 aims to enhance capital efficiency and open new grounds for developers.
Lending protocol Aave is preparing for one of its most ground-breaking upgrades.
Two days after unveiling a mobile savings app, the team has released the update’s testnet, signalling progress towards Aave V4, which aims to change how liquidity moves within the protocol.
Aave V4 testnet, featuring a developer preview of our new interface, Aave Pro, is now live. pic.twitter.com/q7ltPy0pxC
V4 will replace the common multi-market system with an innovative, unified “Hub and Spoke” architecture.
The version 4 update aims to transform how decentralized finance lending works, prioritising developers looking to launch risk markets or experiment with assets that do not perfectly fit into Aave’s current structure.
Each L1 or L2 will have at least one Aave V4 Liquidity Hub, with the potential for multiple Hubs per network. Spokes allow for greater experimentation within these ecosystems without liquidity becoming a limiting factor. This design makes it easier to support new risk profiles and enable innovation without fragmenting liquidity, while also providing a way to seed liquidity for new Spokes.
To understand why the V4 upgrade matters, let’s check how Aave V3 operates and the challenges that pushed the team to seek a flexible model.
A glance at Aave V3
Each market works independently in Aave version 3.
Deployments like Ethereum Prime and Ethereum Core maintain their own asset lists and liquidity pools.
Individuals supply to a definite market, and they can only borrow from that avenue.
While this structure is helpful for risk separation, it creates some crucial limitations.
For instance, liquidity stuck in a certain market cannot support borrowing in another.
Also, building new markets requires bootstrapping funds from scratch.
That slows adoption while fragmenting the entire user base.
Further, governance becomes challenging and experimentation heavier as each distinct market requires its unique pool.
The Aave team added:
It also limits economies of scale for borrowing and makes it harder to support novel assets or implement unique borrow configurations, which end up siloed and harder to use.
A unified Liquidity Hub to replace independent markets
Meanwhile, version 4 overhauls the Aave lending ecosystem with a Liquidity Hub, which is a shared pool comprising assets for the whole platform.
The innovative Hub serves as the only source of liquidity, ensuring that borrowers and suppliers leverage the same capital base, replacing segmented ones.
Most importantly, users will not interact with the Hub directly, though all deposits will eventually end up there.
The Hub handles everything, including interest calculations, accounting, and borrowing limits.
Each L1 or L2 platform can host at least one Hub, except chains with specialised needs or massive traffic.
The team expects this consolidation to substantially enhance capital efficiency by reducing idle liquidity and enriching borrowing conditions.
AAVE outlook
Aave’s native token displayed significant selling pressure on its daily chart.
It lost more than 6% the past 24 hours to $166.
The 27% dip in daily trading volume confirms bearish sentiment in AAVE.
Meanwhile, its downward stance coincides with the broader weakness.
The global cryptocurrency market cap declined by over 4% the past day to $3.04 trillion as Bitcoin plummeted below $90,000, trading at $89,478.
Bitcoin attempted a recovery on Tuesday, but the market open on Wednesday saw bears applying pressure at the intra-day range highs.
Several altcoins are falling toward critical support levels, signaling that the bears remain in control.
Buyers are trying to sustain Bitcoin (BTC) above the $90,000 level, but the bears continue to build pressure. According to Farside Investors data, spot BTC exchange-traded funds recorded outflows of $372 million on Tuesday, extending the withdrawal streak to five days. That suggests the sentiment remains negative and investors are wary of buying into the decline.
Morgan Creek Capital founder Mark Yusko said in an interview with Cointelegraph that BTC has entered a bear market, but he anticipates a milder correction compared to the previous bear cycles. He expects the institutional adoption, reduced leverage, the broader macro environment and debasement of fiat currencies to act as long-term tailwinds.
Crypto market data daily view. Source: TradingView
A few other analysts are more optimistic in the short term, expecting the selling in BTC to subside soon. BitMine chairman Tom Lee said in an interview with CNBC that the downside is showing signs of exhaustion, and Tom Demar of Demar Analytics expects BTC to bottom “sometime this week.”
How far lower could BTC and the major altcoins fall? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.
Bitcoin price prediction
BTC fell below the $90,000 level on Tuesday, but the bulls purchased the dip as seen from the long tail on the candlestick.
The bears are in no mood to give up as they sold the rally and are attempting to sink the Bitcoin price below $89,253. If they manage to do that, the drop could extend to $87,800 and subsequently to $83,000.
Any recovery attempt is expected to face selling at the psychological level of $100,000. If the price turns down from the $100,000 level, it suggests that the bears have flipped the level into resistance. That increases the risk of a further downside.
Buyers will have to push and maintain the BTC/USDT pair above the $100,000 resistance to signal a comeback.
Ether price prediction
Ether (ETH) has been witnessing a tough battle between the buyers and sellers near the $3,000 level.
Any relief rally is expected to face significant selling at the 20-day exponential moving average ($3,365). If the price turns down sharply from the 20-day EMA, the risk of a break below $2,946 increases. The ETH/USDT pair may then plunge toward $2,500.
Alternatively, a break and close above the 20-day EMA suggests that the markets have rejected the break below $3,350. The Ether price could then climb to the 50-day simple moving average ($3,824).
XRP price prediction
Buyers attempted to start a recovery in XRP (XRP) on Tuesday, but the bears sold at higher levels.
The bears will try to sink the XRP/USDT pair to the support line of the descending channel pattern, which is a crucial level to watch out for. If the XRP price rebounds off the support line and breaks above the 20-day EMA ($2.31), it suggests that the pair may remain inside the channel for some more time.
On the other hand, a break and close below the channel could open the doors for a fall to the crucial support at $1.61.
BNB price prediction
Buyers are attempting to maintain BNB (BNB) above the $860 level, but the bears have continued to exert pressure.
The bears will attempt to sink the BNB price below the $860 support and deepen the correction to $730.
Contrarily, if the price turns up and breaks above the 20-day EMA ($971), it suggests that the sellers are losing their grip. The BNB/USDT pair could rise to $1,019 and then to the 50-day SMA ($1,078). Such a move signals a possible range-bound action between $860 and $1,183 for some time.
Solana price prediction
Solana (SOL) bounced off the $126 support on Tuesday, but the relief rallies are being sold into.
The bears will again attempt to pull the price below the $126 support. If they can pull it off, the Solana price could plummet toward the next major support at $95.
Conversely, if the price turns up from the current level or $126 and rises above the 20-day EMA ($154), it suggests that the bulls are attempting a comeback. The SOL/USDT pair could then climb to the 50-day SMA ($183), which is likely to attract sellers again.
Dogecoin price prediction
Dogecoin (DOGE) turned up from $0.15 on Tuesday, but the shallow bounce shows a lack of aggressive buying by the bulls.
The sellers will attempt to sink the Dogecoin price to the $0.14 level, where the buyers are expected to step in. The positive divergence on the RSI suggests that the selling pressure is reducing and a relief rally is possible. Buyers will have to drive the DOGE/USDT pair above the 20-day EMA to gain strength. The pair may then climb to the 50-day SMA ($0.19).
On the contrary, a break below the $0.14 support could intensify selling, pulling the pair to the Oct. 10 low of $0.10.
Cardano price prediction
Cardano (ADA) extended its slide below the $0.50 level, indicating that the bears remain in control.
There is minor support at $0.45, but if the level cracks, the ADA/USDT pair could drop to $0.40. The Cardano price may stage a recovery from $0.40, but is likely to face selling at $0.50. If the price turns down from $0.50, it suggests that the bears have flipped the level into resistance. The pair may then decline toward the Oct. 10 intraday low of $0.27.
Buyers will have to thrust the price above the 20-day EMA ($0.54) to indicate that the selling pressure is reducing. The pair could then rise to the 50-day SMA ($0.64) and later to $0.74.
The price turned down, and the bears are striving to pull the HYPE/USDT pair below the $35.50 support. If they succeed, the selling could accelerate and the Hyperliquid price could dive to $28.
The first sign of strength will be a break and close above the 50-day SMA. The pair could then rally to $44 and later to $52, where the bears are expected to mount a strong defense.
Bitcoin Cash price prediction
The bulls attempted to push Bitcoin Cash (BCH) above the resistance line on Tuesday, but the bears held their ground.
The Bitcoin Cash price has turned down sharply and slipped below the moving averages. Sellers will try to strengthen their position by pulling the price below the $443 support. If they manage to do that, the BCH/USDT pair could plummet to the support line.
The bulls will have to push and maintain the price above the resistance line to signal that the corrective phase may be over. The pair could then rally to $580 and subsequently to $615.
Zcash price prediction
Zcash (ZEC) is facing solid resistance at $750, but the bulls have not allowed the price to dip below the 20-day EMA ($536).
The upsloping moving averages indicate advantage to buyers, but the negative divergence on the RSI shows that the momentum is slowing down. That increases the risk of a break below the 20-day EMA. If that happens, the ZEC/USDT pair could drop toward $424.
The buyers will have to defend the 20-day EMA if they want to retain the advantage. If the Zcash price turns up from the current level or rebounds off the 20-day EMA with strength, the bulls will again attempt to drive the pair above $750.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Bitcoin is quietly walking its way down the liquidity staircase, and the next solid step sits around $85,000.
That number is not coming from a Fibonacci retracement, a moving average crossover, or any other technical analysis ‘gold standard.’
It comes from my simple grid of horizontal bands, grounded in factors that actually move markets: order-book depth, leverage positioning, psychological interest points, and historical price movements over an 18-month window.
Basically, these are the prices at which traders place their stop-loss and take-profit markers.
On a 30-minute chart, those bands form thick channels, and over the past year, Bitcoin has treated them like rungs on a ladder, pausing, stalling, and reversing at the same prices again and again.
Over the last month, that ladder has been pointing down.
From complacent highs to a vacuum below
The top white band is where Bitcoin found its all-time high of $126,000. It traded within this zone from May to October, with two slight dips below during September. Once it broke below during the tariff crash on October 11, it finally gave way completely at the start of this month.
Bitcoin all-time high channel
At the start of the slide, Bitcoin wicked down to a critical price point at $106,400, which I’ve talked about at length. Historically, when price wicks down on the 30-minute chart like this, it’s an ominous sign that it will eventually find its way to that level. And this time was no different.
Price action started to cluster at the top of the tight yellow band, roughly between $112,000 and $106,400. Every attempt to break higher into the next set of white lines struggled. The channel acted like a ceiling that kept absorbing buy pressure.
Start of the slide below $113,000
When that ceiling finally gave way, it did not do so gently.
The moment bids thinned out at that band, Bitcoin did what it often does in these grids: it sought out the next area of resting liquidity. The drop through the low $100,000s into the mid-$90,000s looked violent on lower timeframes, yet on the map of channels it resembled a jump from one floor to the next.
Bitcoin loses $100,000
Price then spent time grinding across the $97,000–$100,000 zone. This area had already been highlighted months earlier as a thick structure of orange lines. The psychological $100,000 support level gave up without a fight.
$100,000 to $93,000 was the place where spot buyers had shown interest before and where derivative traders had repeatedly built and unwound positions. Once again, the market treated it as a staging ground, not as a destination.
As soon as that zone exhausted, the staircase pulled Bitcoin lower.
The current battlefield: the purple band
Fast forward to the latest charts. Bitcoin now oscillates in the low $90,000s and high $80,000s, inside a wide purple channel.
You can see how the previous supports have flipped into resistance. Levels around $92,000–$93,000, which caught price on the way down the first time, now cap intraday bounces.
Each revisit attracts selling, evidence that trapped longs are using any strength to exit and that fresh shorts are leaning against a level they trust.
Bitcoin targets $85,000 next
Underneath, the purple lines map a series of shelves: $89,000, $87,000, then the last major one at roughly $85,000. These shelves are not arbitrary.
They are prices at which liquidity has clustered consistently since the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US. Market makers recycled inventory there, whales layered bids there, and funding and open interest shifted there. In other words, this is where the market has history.
Bitcoin is already sitting close to the mid-section of that band. Volatility has compressed compared with the waterfall move that sliced through the $97,000–$100,000 zone.
That change in character often precedes a second leg, as participants wait for the market to choose a direction before committing new risk. If selling pressure returns, there is not much in the way between current prices and the bottom of the purple channel.
Why $85,000 matters
The $85,000 region stands out for three reasons.
First, it represents the deepest pool of liquidity inside the current purple band. The density of levels around $85,000–$86,000 suggests that a lot of historical positioning converges there. Markets are attracted to such magnets, especially after a series of failed attempts to reclaim higher ground.
Second, the path between $89,000 and $85,000 is relatively clean on the grid. There are fewer intermediate bands, which means that once the current shelf gives way, price has room to accelerate until it meets the next cluster of orders.
Recent history supports that idea: the break under $110,000 did not grind lower in a slow trend, it air-dropped to the next meaningful zone.
Third, reaching that level would complete a measured move that mirrors the previous leg down from the $109,000–$103,000 area. The market often works in symmetrical swings when it hunts out fresh liquidity pockets. Traders who watch these structures may see $85,000 as a logical completion point for the present sequence.
None of this guarantees a visit. What it offers is a roadmap. If Bitcoin continues to respect the same grid it has been respecting for over 18 months, $85,000 becomes the next stop in a story that has already written several chapters in advance.
What lies below the purple floor
If Bitcoin does tag the bottom of the purple channel, the story does not end there. The grid extends further, into a landscape of green lines that start around $84,000 and stretch toward the high $70,000s.
Bitcoin bear market channels
Should that band fail, attention shifts to the pink cluster between $77,000 and $74,000. Then the violet channel would be next, where the line spacing tightens again in that region, a visual hint that the market spent a lot of time transacting there in the past.
This is a significant price point in my opinion. It is where Bitcoin posted a new all-time high just before the last halving, and just a little higher than the 2021 high. $73,000 acted as a ceiling going into 2025 and could very well be our support lifeline in 2026-2027.
Long-term holders who view Bitcoin’s current correction as a buying opportunity may have resting bids in that pocket. Short-term traders who sold the breakdown from $100,000 may also choose to secure profits there.
For those with a weak constitution, I recommend looking away now.
The final line on my map goes as low as $49,800. That level marks the lowest significant shelf in the current structure. If the market ever reaches it, sentiment will likely feel washed out.
Yet from a channel perspective, it would still be a touch of an old liquidity pool, not a journey into uncharted territory.
Bitcoin bear market bottom targets
The bear market, if we are now in it, could bottom around this price. $49,800 is a level that’s been rigorously defended at times across the last two cycles.
Falling under that would likely trigger extreme panic among Bitcoiners and new ETF buys alike. It would feel like the sky is falling to any bulls who bought in after 2020 or who don’t use a dollar-cost-averaging strategy.
Personally, I like $73,400 as the bear market floor for this cycle. It feels bearish enough to be realistic. There’s history, liquidity, and support in that region.
A roadmap, not a prophecy
The key to using these channels is discipline. They do not tell us that Bitcoin must fall to $85,000, or that it cannot first bounce back to $97,000 or $100,000. They offer a way to view the market as a series of probable reaction zones rather than a random walk.
Right now, the story on the 30-minute chart is simple.
Bitcoin has stepped down from one liquidity shelf to the next for weeks. It now wobbles inside a purple corridor where past positioning has been heavy. The bottom of that corridor sits near $85,000, and the layers beneath it, in the low $80,000s and mid $70,000s, are already marked out.
If the selling continues, these are the places where the market is most likely to slow down, consolidate, and potentially reverse. For traders who know how to position around those moments, the map is already drawn.
None of this is intended to be individual financial advice. These are my price points to watch for Bitcoin’s next move. It just so happens that Bitcoin has tagged them consistently since early 2024. What will happen next, not even Satoshi knows.
Whale selling and market fear push the Shiba Inu price lower.
SHIB card launches with zero fees and free rewards for early users.
Technical weakness keeps SHIB below key moving averages and support.
Shiba Inu price is facing renewed pressure despite the launch of an innovative SHIB-branded payment card and a major token giveaway.
While the launch of the SHIB card and accompanying SHIB rewards is a high-profile attempt to stimulate activity, the memecoin’s technical and market fundamentals suggest ongoing headwinds.
Shiba Inu launches SHIB payment card and rewards
Shiba Inu has partnered with digital asset exchange Bitget to introduce a custom SHIB-themed payment card, marking a step toward mainstream crypto adoption.
The SHIB card allows users to spend up to $400 per month in crypto with zero fees, including no conversion costs, foreign exchange fees, or hidden spreads.
Opening the Bitget Wallet Card is completely free, lowering the barrier for new users eager to integrate SHIB into daily transactions.
To celebrate the launch, the Shiba Inu ecosystem also rolled out a generous rewards program.
The first 100 users to claim the SHIB × Bitget Wallet Card will share a pool of 114,678,899 SHIB, while all subsequent participants receive $5 in SHIB.
The promotion runs from November 19 to November 26, with all rewards set to be distributed on November 28.
According to the official Shiba Inu X account, this campaign is designed to show the world how the ShibArmy can spend crypto, combining utility with community incentives.
🚨 SHIB × Bitget Wallet Card is LIVE! 🚨
WOOF! We’re dropping an exclusive SHIB card face + SHIB rewards for the #SHIBARMY 🎁
Rewards:
First 100 users who claim the SHIB × Bitget Wallet Card get their share of 114678899 in $SHIB
Despite these positive developments, the Shiba Inu price has dipped 3.83% in the past 24 hours, underperforming the broader crypto market, which fell 3.2%.
The decline extends the token’s seven-day loss of 12.32%, reflecting weak technical signals and heightened market risk aversion.
A major factor behind the drop is significant whale activity, with over 60 billion SHIB moved to exchanges in the past 24 hours.
Large inflows often precede selling, particularly in low-liquidity conditions, amplifying the risk of price declines as buyers struggle to absorb the additional supply.
Investor sentiment has also played a role, as the Fear & Greed Index shows “Extreme Fear” at 16/100.
Bitcoin dominance has also risen to 58.44%, signalling a rotation of capital away from riskier altcoins like Shiba Inu.
SHIB’s high-beta nature makes it particularly vulnerable during periods of market-wide risk aversion, and its lack of intrinsic utility exacerbates the impact.
Metrics reflecting the altcoin season indicate a diminishing appetite for speculative tokens, further weighing on the SHIB price.
Technical analysis signals a bear market
From a technical analysis standpoint, Shiba Inu (SHIB) continues to trade below key moving averages, with the 7-day SMA at $0.000009027 and the 30-day SMA at $0.0000097059.
In addition, the RSI sits at 39.04, indicating no oversold conditions and limited upward pressure from buyers.
Furthermore, the volume contraction of 22.57% reinforces the lack of momentum, suggesting that even moderate selling could push the price lower.
According to the analysis, the June low of $0.0000083 serves as a critical support.
Shiba Inu price outlook
While the launch of the SHIB × Bitget Wallet Card and the 114M SHIB giveaway have generated excitement, they have not offset broader market and technical challenges.
Whale selling pressure, extreme fear sentiment, and weak technical indicators could limit the short-term impact of SHIB card adoption and reward incentives.
As a result, traders should watch the November low of $0.00000843, especially if exchange inflows persist.
For more than a decade, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) has, for one reason or another, stood apart from the rest of the blockchain industry.
Built in 2012, long before the rise of modern DeFi, it embraced a minimalist design of fast settlement, deterministic consensus, and no economic incentives for validators.
That architecture helped XRPL grow into a trusted payments network, but it also left it structurally different from the yield-driven systems that now dominate the digital asset economy.
A payments chain in a yield-powered economy
XRPL’s consensus model, known as Proof of Association (PoA), relies on a Unique Node List (UNL) of trusted validators.
The system has no block rewards, no slashing, and no competition among validators for block production. Here, network fees are anti-spam tools and not revenue sources.
That structure once defined XRPL’s strength, but today it is also becoming its constraint. DeFi ecosystems thrive on yield mechanisms, and capital tends to flow toward chains that reward participation.
This is why XRPL’s total value locked, at around $87 million, looks modest compared with rival ecosystems, such as Solana and Ethereum, which are driven by staking and liquidity incentives.
XRPL’s DeFi TVL (Source: DeFiLlama)
Considering this, Ayo Akinyele, RippleX’s head of engineering, highlighted how XRP’s role could be significantly expanded far beyond simple settlement, while floating the idea of “native staking on the XRPL.”
According to him:
“[Native staking] would change how value flows through the XRPL network in ways we’d need to think through carefully. So, talking about the idea for XRP helps us understand what could evolve and what should stay the same.”
XRPL staking
In walking through what staking would require, Akinyele laid out the unavoidable implications.
First, XRPL would need a source of rewards, which it currently lacks. Second, it would need a way to distribute those rewards without compromising decentralization.
According to him, both requirements would reshape XRPL’s carefully balanced incentive model.
He explained that introducing rewards would create tensions that XRPL deliberately avoids. Validators would suddenly have financial motives that conflict with the network’s principle of neutrality.
Even more critically, financial incentives tend to drive operators to optimize for cost, clustering validators in the same cloud region or hardware configuration. That would undermine XRPL’s distributed trust model and weaken the properties that have preserved its resilience for more than a decade.
Akinyele noted:
“Once you add incentives, I agree operators start optimizing for cost: cheaper hardware, the same cloud region, centralized setups. That’s exactly the centralizing force the XRPL avoids by not using economic rewards to motivate validator behavior.”
At the same time, fee redistribution, a standard tool in Proof-of-Stake (PoS) systems, would invite Sybil attacks if applied broadly or political pressure if limited to UNL validators.
Ripple CTO David Schwartz echoed these concerns and highlighted two experimental ideas for how XRPL could address some of them. These include a two-layer stake-based consensus and a ZK-proof model for smart contract verification.
However, he made it clear that while both are technically interesting, they are far from viable.
According to him, they introduce significant risk for benefits that are largely theoretical. He added that XRPL does not currently suffer from the performance bottlenecks those systems are intended to solve.
XRPL users want yield
If staking remains incompatible with XRPL’s core architecture, the blockchain network users’ demand for yield is not.
As a result, that demand has migrated outward, into sidechains and bridges that wrap XRP and reintroduce incentives in adjacent ecosystems.
The most visible example is mXRP, a liquid staking token launched on XRPL’s EVM-compatible sidechain.
Through Midas, XRP holders can stake their assets, receive mXRP, and deploy it across DeFi protocols for up to 8% annualized returns.
Notably, the traction for this product has been strong. mXRP now holds around $25 million in TVL and recently expanded to the BNB Chain, where roughly 480,000 XRP holders collectively control nearly $800 million in wrapped XRP.
Moreover, listing mXRP on Lista’s markets has allowed holders to layer yields by using the token as collateral in liquidity pools, lending markets, and reward programs.
These numbers show that the market is building the incentives that XRPL avoids, and it is doing so in systems that sit just outside the core ledger.
This divergence underscores XRPL’s central dilemma. The chain’s architecture wasn’t built for the incentive structures that drive DeFi participation.
Yet, its users increasingly seek those opportunities and are finding them in ecosystems that wrap or extend XRP rather than rely on the ledger itself.
What does this mean for XRP?
The broader significance of the staking thought experiment is not about whether XRPL should adopt staking. It is about what these discussions reveal about XRP’s evolving economic role.
If XRPL were to introduce even a limited form of native staking—not for consensus but for network services or extended functionality—it would fundamentally alter XRP’s value profile. This shift would reshape how the asset is used and valued across the ecosystem.
Reliable on-chain yield would likely attract new classes of investors and increase capital retention within the ecosystem.
As a result, liquidity would deepen and XRP’s role as collateral could expand. At the same time, the digital asset would begin to behave more like other productive tokens in the DeFi landscape.
However, pursuing such a model risks undermining the neutrality and predictability that have historically defined XRP.
This would risk aligning XRP with the behavior of typical Proof-of-Stake (PoS) tokens, where investor interest is driven primarily by yield incentives instead of functional utility
Moreover, it could blur the line between XRP as a liquidity instrument and XRP as a yield-bearing asset, creating new volatility patterns and governance pressures.
The alternative path of preserving XRPL’s lean and incentive-free architecture would keep XRP aligned with its original purpose. It would remain a highly efficient bridge currency and settlement tool, with its value anchored in utility rather than rewards.
In this case, its growth might be slower, but stability would remain a core feature.
In this sense, the staking debate is less about staking itself and more about defining what XRP should be in its next decade.
As DeFi grows, programmability efforts progress, and cross-chain integrations expand, the question is whether XRPL can evolve just enough to remain competitive without losing the qualities that made it resilient in the first place.
That balance may ultimately determine not just the future of XRPL, but the economic future of XRP itself.
The US government’s ending of the shutdown and return to the normal legislative session may spark a surge in new crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) approvals by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2026, according to market analysts.
There is “huge” demand for crypto ETFs and exchange-traded products (ETPs), Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at investment firm Bitwise, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“It’s going to be ETF-palooza in crypto land. I think there will be 100-plus launches. We’re going to see a lot of single-asset crypto ETPs. What I’m most excited about, though, is the growth of index-based crypto ETPs.”
Demand for crypto index ETFs will be driven by investors looking for a small, passive crypto allocation, Hougan said.
Crypto ETFs siphon capital from traditional financial markets into digital assets, helping boost prices, and some analysts attribute the change in crypto market dynamics to capital flows from ETFs.
Despite the record-high trading volume, the price of XRP (XRP) has declined by about 13% over the past week, according to CoinMarketCap.
Canary Capital’s XRP ETF (XRPC) bleeds despite record-high trading volume during its debut. Source: Yahoo Finance
Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs tell a similar story, with about $1.1 billion in outflows so far in November, according to Farside Investors, putting the investment vehicle on track for its worst month on record.
The total average cost basis for Bitcoin ETFs is about $89,600, a level that Bitcoin fell below on Tuesday, putting the average ETF investor underwater, according to Sean Rose, an analyst at crypto market analysis platform Glassnode.
Bitcoin ETF investors held strong despite October’s market crash, with the ETFs seeing about $1 billion in outflows in the month following the crash, according to senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.
Bitcoin ETFs recorded over $1.1 billion in outflows over the last two weeks. Source: Farside Investors
