Headline: Крипторынок в тревоге: биткоин рухнул ниже $100 000, а атаки на DeFi усугубляют ситуацию Translation: Crypto Market in Turmoil: Bitcoin Plummets Below $100,000, While DeFi Attacks Worsen the Situation

The leading cryptocurrency has breached a significant psychological threshold, recent hacks of DeFi protocols have triggered challenges within the sector, the founder of Samourai Wallet has been sentenced to five years in prison, among other noteworthy events from the past week.

The last seven days have instilled considerable fear in crypto investors, with digital gold dipping below $100,000 on two occasions.

The week commenced with a cascading decline that persisted through Wednesday, November 5. That day marked the first test of the psychological level. In just 24 hours, liquidation volumes surpassed $1.78 billion.

Following that, the asset managed a slight recovery to $105,000, but by Friday, it faced a correction back to $99,000. Although buyers quickly stepped in, the coin failed to regain its previous levels.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $102,700, having lost nearly 8% over the week, with a market cap of $2.04 trillion.

The leading cryptocurrency dragged other assets down with it, many of which experienced even steeper declines. Ethereum briefly fell to $3,000 but has since rebounded to $3,400, yet its weekly loss still exceeded 11%.

Other top-10 market cap assets also entered the «red zone.» Solana dropped 14%, XRP 10%, and BNB fell by 9%.

The Fear and Greed Index decreased to 22, indicating a state of «extreme fear.»

In the declining market, the segment of privacy coins stood out significantly. Just over the past 24 hours, its market cap rose by 40% to $41.6 billion.

Leading the charge in this sector was Zcash, which gained 45% over the week, surpassing the $600 mark. Monero rose by 23%, while Decred doubled in value.

The market decline was also accompanied by significant outflows from ETFs. American Bitcoin products faced one of their toughest weeks, losing $1.22 billion.

Ethereum funds saw a total of $507 million withdrawn. In contrast to the overall trend, Solana ETFs attracted $136 million.

In addition to the general stagnation of the crypto market, issues arose in the domain of decentralized finance, primarily due to a series of hacking incidents.

On November 3, news broke about the hack of the DeFi protocol Balancer, where criminals managed to steal at least $128 million.

It is likely that the attackers exploited a vulnerability in Balancer V2 pools, creating a malicious contract that deceived the system when new liquidity pools were established. The stolen funds were immediately funneled through crypto mixers.

This hacking incident prompted the Berachain Foundation to conduct an emergency hard fork, stopping the network to address the vulnerability in the native decentralized exchange BEX. This measure aims to block the movement of the stolen tokens out of the network and prevent future incidents.

Following Balancer, the protocol Stream Finance also came under attack. On November 4, the project halted withdrawals and deposits, announcing a loss of assets amounting to $93 million.

Subsequently, the Staked Stream USD (xUSD) token lost its peg.

Analysts at YieldsAndMore suggested that these incidents could trigger a cascade of liquidations and collateral issues, estimating potential accompanying damage at $285 million.

According to their data, the collapse of xUSD affected several stablecoins, including deUSD and scUSD, as well as treasury assets. «Synthetic» tokens xUSD, xBTC, and xETH are now at risk as well.

Their speculations were confirmed just days later. On November 6, the «stablecoin» USDX from Stable Labs lost its peg to the US dollar, plummeting by over 60% in a single day to $0.3. Currently, the asset has dropped to $0.1.

The community initiated an urgent vote regarding forced liquidation in the USDX/USD1 market to mitigate potential losses, with the majority accepting the initiative.

Meanwhile, the Elixir protocol announced the cessation of support for its stablecoin deUSD due to the Stream Finance hack. Latest reports indicate that the team has already repurchased around 80% of tokens from holders at a 1:1 ratio in USDC.

Despite Ethereum’s unimpressive market performance, its on-chain metrics are reaching new heights.

The Ethereum ecosystem recorded a new historic peak in transactions per second (TPS). After incorporating data from the decentralized exchange Lighter’s L2 network, the figure hit 24,192.

Lighter alone boasts a throughput exceeding 4,000 TPS, while its nearest competitor, Base, only manages 112 TPS.

The technological foundation for the new record was laid by the Pectra and Dencun hard forks, which significantly enhanced the transaction processing speed at layer two.

Ryan Sean Adams, host of the Bankless podcast, noted that L2 solutions have increased Ethereum’s scalability by 200 times since October. He attributed this to the adoption of ZK technologies and suggested that achieving 100,000 TPS is possible in the coming months.

Co-founder of the blockchain Vitalik Buterin commented on the event, emphasizing that the second-largest cryptocurrency’s network is «scaling.»

During the week, the Ethereum Foundation relaunched its grant program, introducing a «proactive approach» to project support.

This initiative aims to address the resource shortage by shifting from a reactive to a proactive strategy, ensuring that funding goes towards priority goals for the ecosystem.

The program is structured along two channels: a «wish list» and «request for proposals.» The former outlines general areas where the fund perceives «important gaps and opportunities for progress,» while the latter details specific issues and «invites applicants to propose targeted solutions.»

On November 6, a US court sentenced co-founder of Samourai Wallet, Keonah Rodriguez, to five years in prison—the maximum term sought by prosecutors. He was also ordered to pay a $250,000 fine.

The verdict for the second co-founder, William Hill, is scheduled for November 19.

Prior to the hearing, the prosecution submitted a memorandum to the judge, stating that the defendants «repeatedly encouraged, promoted, and urged criminals» to use their platform for concealing illegal funds.

The document included screenshots of messages and posts in which Rodriguez referred to cryptocurrency mixing as «money laundering.» Additionally, in 2020 and 2023, Hill allegedly promoted Samourai on dark web forums, claiming that the project would «cleanse dirty bitcoins» and render them «untraceable.»

Earlier, Rodriguez and Hill struck a deal with law enforcement, partially acknowledging guilt in creating an unlicensed service that facilitated the laundering of millions earned through illegal activities.

Kazakhstan’s central bank head, Timur Suliemenov, announced the creation of a state crypto reserve, expected to range from $500 million to $1 billion.

The fund is set to debut in 2026, operated by the country’s primary platform for blockchain technology development—the Astana International Financial Centre. The reserve will largely consist of digital assets seized in criminal investigations related to illicit mining and trading.

The structure does not plan to invest directly in cryptocurrency but to invest through exchange-traded funds.

Management will be handled by a state investment platform, and foreign partners may be attracted post-launch. The crypto fund will become part of Kazakhstan’s strategy to institutionalize the crypto industry.

Suliemenov first mentioned the idea of forming a crypto reserve from confiscated bitcoins back in June. In September, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev tasked officials to expedite this initiative.

In the same month, the central bank announced the launch of a pilot project for a «stablecoin» pegged to the national currency, the tenge.

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