Monthly Crypto Roundup by CoinsDo: November 2025

November flipped the script on 2025’s bull narrative. After months of strength, crypto hit a sharp risk-off phase: Bitcoin posted its biggest monthly dollar loss since 2021, ether followed with a double-digit slide, ETF flows turned decisively negative, and trading volumes dropped back to “post-summer lull” levels.

At the same time, regulators moved ahead with clearer rules for stablecoins and yield products, and security incidents at Balancer and Upbit underscored that infrastructure risk hasn’t gone away.

Market Performance

Bitcoin’s Steepest Monthly Drop Since 2021

Bitcoin fell more than 20% in November, marking its largest monthly decline in four years.

The selloff was driven by:

• Yen carry trade unwinding:Japan’s unexpected policy tightening pushed up JGB yields, forcing global investors to unwind leveraged long positions funded in yen. BTC was one of the first risk assets to be hit as carry traders de-risked.
• Fed disappointment:Throughout Q3–Q4, traders had priced in a December 2025 rate cut. By mid-November, strong U.S. labor data and sticky services inflation caused markets to reassess. Probability of a December cut dropped, triggering broad risk-off flows.
• Record net outflows from U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, mirroring the deleveraging trend.

Despite the pullback, BTC ended the month holding above the mid-$80,000s.

Ethereum and Altcoins Underperform

Ethereum posted a double-digit drop, partially reflecting:

• Slowing activity on major L2s
• Liquidity thinning across mid-caps and long-tail tokens
• Traders rotating into stablecoins as volatility spiked

Altcoins performed worse than BTC, consistent with past macro-driven corrections.

Centralized-exchange spot volume fell sharply in November, matching levels last seen during the post-summer lull. DEX volumes also contracted meaningfully as speculative trading cooled.

Stablecoins and Yield-Bearing Assets

A new report highlighted that yield-bearing stablecoins and other interest-earning crypto assets have grown 300% in the last year, helped by the U.S. GENIUS Act, which created a clearer regulatory framework for certain dollar-pegged stablecoins. Reuters

Even so, yield-generating assets still make up only 8–11% of crypto’s market cap, versus 55–65% in traditional finance, underscoring how underdeveloped crypto’s yield infrastructure remains. Reuters

Even as prices retrace, the structural shift toward regulated, yield-bearing tokens continues. This is one of the key bridges between traditional fixed-income investors and on-chain assets.

Points of Interest

1. Record Outflows from U.S. Bitcoin ETFs

What happened

• November saw record net outflows from U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, coinciding with BTC’s largest monthly dollar loss since 2021.
• The move was part of a broader risk-off turn in global markets, with investors trimming exposure to both AI-linked equities and high-beta assets such as crypto.

Why it matters

• ETF flows now function as a real-time sentiment gauge for institutional and semi-institutional investors.
• For treasury or fund managers, this reinforces that market direction can be heavily influenced by traditional rails (brokerage accounts, ETFs) rather than only on-chain activity.

2. DeFi Security: Balancer Suffers ~$120M Exploit

What happened

• DeFi protocol Balancer was hacked for over $120 million in November after attackers exploited vulnerabilities in its smart contract architecture
• The attacker abused access controls in the manageUserBalance function to impersonate users and trigger withdrawals across Balancer v2 pools on multiple chains.

Why it matters

• Balancer is a long-standing protocol with multiple prior audits; the incident shows that even mature, audited DeFi systems remain exploitable.
• The exploit also highlighted how composability cuts both ways: a single contract flaw impacted multiple pools and projects integrated with Balancer.

3. CEX Risk Back in Focus: Upbit’s ~$30–37M Solana Hot-Wallet Hack

What happened

• South Korea’s largest exchange, Upbit, suspended withdrawals after detecting an unauthorized transfer of roughly $30–37 million in Solana-ecosystem assets from one of its hot wallets on 27 November.
• Authorities in Seoul now suspect North Korea’s Lazarus Group was behind the exploit, citing similarities to previous attacks.
• Upbit moved remaining funds to cold storage, froze a portion of stolen tokens, and pledged to fully compensate users.

Why it matters

• This is Upbit’s largest breach since 2019 and a reminder that exchange hot-wallet risk is still an institutional concern, even at leading platforms.
• The incident also came just as tech giant Naver announced a ~$10 billion acquisition of Upbit’s parent Dunamu, adding reputational pressure to quickly resolve the issue.

4. Regulation Watch: GENIUS Act, MiCA, and Global Momentum

What happened

Globally, regulators continued tightening and harmonizing rules:

• The EU is working to centralize oversight of its MiCA implementation under ESMA to reduce fragmentation.
• Countries including Kenya, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Poland, and Hungary advanced or refined national crypto frameworks covering VASPs, AML rules, and licensing.
• In the UK, the FCA continued outlining its “same risk, same regulation” approach to crypto and stablecoins, signalling more detailed rules into 2026.

Why it matters

• The direction of travel is clear: more formal oversight, not less
• For institutions, this is gradually reducing regulatory uncertainty around:
  • Stablecoins and tokenized cash equivalents
  • On-chain yield products
  • Exchange and custodial obligations

Final Thoughts

November 2025 was a reminder that crypto cycles still swing hard:

• Prices and volumes reset after an overheated run-up.
• Security incidents at Balancer and Upbit showed that both DeFi and CeFi remain attractive targets for sophisticated attackers.
• Regulatory momentum around stablecoins, yield products, and VASP regimes continued to build, even as short-term sentiment turned bearish.

For teams building in the space, the signal is less about month-to-month price action and more about three underlying trends that continued in November:

1. ETF and fund flows now drive a large share of price action.
2. Security and operational resilience are core differentiators, not edge cases.
3. Regulated, yield-bearing, and tokenized products are becoming the main bridge between traditional and on-chain finance.

These are likely to matter more for 2026 strategy than any single red or green candle.