A new CryptoQuant report by Darkfost highlights one of the most alarming developments: Ethereum’s open interest on Binance has been steadily collapsing for more than three months. After reaching an all-time high of $12.6 billion on August 22, open interest has now been cut in half. Nearly $6.4 billion in derivative positions have evaporated, bringing ETH’s open interest down to $6.2 billion, a steep 51% decline.

While this appears to be an extraordinary contraction, Darkfost notes that open interest has only just slipped below the previous all-time high of $7.7 billion. This underscores how speculative and overstretched the 2025 derivatives market had become — and suggests that Ethereum may be undergoing a much deeper structural reset than most expected.

Speculation Unwinds Across Exchanges as Ethereum Enters Deep Reset Phase

Darkfost emphasizes that 2025 has been the most speculative phase in Ethereum’s history, fueled by aggressive leverage, rapid inflows, and a market structure that proved far less solid — and far less sustainable — than it appeared during the rally. The collapse in open interest on Binance is only part of the story.

The same pattern is unfolding across major derivatives platforms, revealing a broader structural unwind rather than an exchange-specific phenomenon.

On Gate.io, ETH open interest has fallen from $5.2 billion to $3.5 billion. On Bybit, the drop is even more severe, plunging from $6.1 billion to $2.3 billion. This synchronized contraction shows how aggressively speculative positions have been flushed out. Meanwhile, the ongoing correction has dragged Ethereum’s price from $4,830 to $2,800, marking a steep 43% decline from the highs.

This widespread reduction in leverage suggests the market is undergoing a deeper reset than typical corrections. Investors are not rushing to re-enter positions, especially as liquidations continue to stack up across exchanges.

While shrinking open interest weighs on short-term momentum and sentiment, Darkfost notes that such aggressive deleveraging may ultimately help rebuild a healthier market foundation — one capable of supporting a durable bottom for ETH.

ETH Loses Key Trend Support as 3-Day Structure Turns Fully Bearish

Ethereum’s 3-day chart shows a decisive breakdown in structure, with price now firmly below the 50 SMA, 100 SMA, and 200 SMA for the first time since late 2024. The rejection from the $3,600–$3,800 region triggered a strong impulse to the downside, sending ETH directly through all major moving averages and confirming a shift toward a higher-timeframe downtrend. The current trading zone around $2,800 reflects a critical test of former support, but momentum remains weak.

The 50 SMA has now crossed below the 100 SMA, while both are beginning to converge downward toward the 200 SMA — a configuration that typically precedes sustained corrections. Volume has increased on red candles, showing that sellers remain dominant, and there is little evidence of aggressive dip-buying. The most recent candle wick toward $2,700 highlights vulnerability rather than strength, suggesting buyers are hesitant to defend this level with conviction.

ETH is also forming a series of lower highs and lower lows, further confirming bearish market structure. If $2,750 breaks cleanly, the next significant liquidity zones sit near $2,550 and $2,300, where prior consolidations developed earlier in the cycle.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com

Why The Bitcoin, Ethereum, And Dogecoin Prices Could Still Pump

Crypto analyst ChainShinobi explained what is going on in the market, predicting that the trend could end up going against what investors are expecting at this time. According to the X post, while everyone is currently calling for lower prices, it could lead to another pump that culminates in the final top for the crypto market

ChainShinobi predicts what they refer to as “a face-melter”, the type of rally that no one sees coming and takes the likes of Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum to possibly new all-time highs. However, instead of using this time to call for higher prices, the analyst believes that it is the best time for investors to actually get out of the market. This pump, which the analyst refers to as an exit window, could provide investors one final chance to actually get out of the market before another price crash.

This is “The moment to lock in massive profit while everyone else is busy blinding themselves with hopium and pushing their targets higher and higher… the same way they dragged their targets lower and lower right now,” the crypto analyst said.

The Same Wave Every Cycle

As for when the Dogecoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin prices could move into the next bear market, the crypto analyst tells investors not to expect it until next year. More precisely, ChainShinobi believes that the bear market will fully begin by the end of the first quarter of 2025.

When the pump comes, the analyst warns that there could be an influx of bullish sentiment, with bullish news flooding the market. But it is during this time that the market is expected to turn. Essentially, the bear market is expected to begin when investors least expect it. “It’s pretty easy to see what’s coming. You don’t need to overdo TA or PA right now to see the path laid out,” the post read.

Bitcoin Long-Term Holder Supply Has Just Turned Around

As pointed out by Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards in a new post on X, the 6-month inactive supply has recently witnessed its first uptick since April. This part of the supply, covering tokens that have been dormant (that is, not involved in any transaction on the blockchain) since at least six months ago, belongs to investors popularly known as long-term holders (LTHs).

Statistically, the longer investors keep their coins dormant, the less likely they are to sell them in the future. As such, the LTH cohort with its relatively long holding time includes the resolute hands of the market. Despite their resilience, however, these investors have participated in selling during the past few months. Below is the chart shared by Edwards that shows the trend in the amount of supply dormant for longer than six months.

As is visible in the graph, the drawdown in the Bitcoin LTH supply changed for the worse during the cryptocurrency’s crash last month, indicating that the diamond hands took part in a significant amount of distribution. Since this selloff, however, the decline in the metric appears to have paused, at least for now. There has even been a small increase in the indicator recently, a potential sign of a shift in investor behavior.

Something to note is that while drops in the LTH supply can correspond to selling that’s occurring in the present, the same isn’t true in the case of an increase. An uptick in the metric isn’t a sign that members of the cohort are buying right now. Rather, it suggests some accumulation occurred six months ago, and now those coins have been held long enough to mature into the group.

That said, the trend is naturally still a positive sign for Bitcoin, as it implies HODLing behavior could be becoming more dominant on the network. The last time such a shift occurred was around the time of the cryptocurrency’s lows back in April.

What followed that LTH supply rise was BTC’s rally to new all-time highs (ATHs). Considering this, it only remains to be seen whether the latest shift toward long-term holding will lead to anything similar, or if the cryptocurrency’s decline is here to stay this time around.

BTC Price

Bitcoin briefly slipped under $84,000 on Monday, but its price has since seen some recovery as it’s now back at $87,500.

What Happens After A Historic Squeeze?

The Bitcoin versus Gold monthly Bollinger Bands are expanding from the tightest reading in history. A chartered market technician and Bitcoin trader, Tony “The Bull” Severino, revealed on X that the price is currently sitting at the lower Bollinger band, and a decisive close below will trigger a sell signal as the bands expand from a squeeze setup.

According to TonyTheBullCMT, this setup creates the potential for a significant trending-down move, which is the first major downtrend on the BTC against Gold chart. This might look the same against the USD, so don’t expect it to translate 1:1 there. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that Gold looks ready to overshadow BTC. If BTC is at % billion in the middle and falling into that lower greenish section, it won’t be a good sign for BTC in this ratio.

The weekly Bollinger Bands on this pair were the tightest ever in history, and since they began to expand, BTC dropped over 25% in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, the monthly signal is at least 4x stronger.

Bitcoin has been in a brutal downtrend throughout the year. Crypto analyst Zynx has pointed out that BTC is now sitting almost 50% below its all-time high against Gold, and the ratio shows that the crypto king has effectively been in a bear market for an entire year of 2025.

Over the last 12 months, BTC has been down 45% against Gold. At this point, it would need to rally 99% to surpass its previous all-time high against Gold, which shows that BTC must hit around $170,000 before it can begin to claim a true bull market.

Bitcoin And Gold Ratio Hits A Statistical Low Rarely Reached

Bitcoin has reached one of its rarest valuation points relative to gold in more than a decade. An analyst and founder of GREEND0TS, Stacy Muur, highlighted that the BTC/Gold ratio has just dropped below the statistical lower boundary of a 15-year power-law model.

Interestingly, BTC has breached this level only once before in late 2017 and snapped back within weeks. Historically, when BTC gets this incredibly cheap compared to Gold, it doesn’t stay cheap against Gold for long. This is not a timing signal; rather, it is a rare statistical anomaly worth watching.

Bitcoin Treasury Companies Now Hold Over 1 Million In BTC

Bitcoin Treasuries data shows that the top 100 public Bitcoin treasury companies currently hold 1,058,929 BTC, while all public companies combined hold 1,061,697. Notably, Strategy is the largest public Bitcoin holder with 650,000 BTC. Michael Saylor’s company yesterday announced another 130 BTC purchase for $11.7 million. 

Meanwhile, the second-largest Bitcoin treasury company is BTC miner MARA holdings, which holds 53,250 BTC. Tether-backed Twenty One Capital, Metaplanet, and Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company complete the top 5, with 43,514, 30,823, and 30,021 BTC, respectively. Meanwhile, companies like Coinbase, Bullish, and Trump Media are among the top 10 largest BTC treasury companies. 

It is worth noting that these public companies account for only a part of the Bitcoin treasuries. Further data from Bitcoin Treasuries shows that there is currently 4 million BTC in treasuries as a whole, including the coins held by governments, private companies, exchanges, DeFi platforms, and ETFs.  

BlackRock is currently the second-largest Bitcoin holder, only behind Satoshi Nakamoto. Strategy is third on the list, while Binance and the U.S. government complete the top 5, with BTC holdings of 628,868 and 323,588, respectively. The 4 million BTC held by these treasury companies as a group accounts for 19% of the total Bitcoin supply. 

Bitcoin treasury companies such as Strategy and Metaplanet have raised new capital amid the recent crash to buy more BTC. Saylor’s company recently raised $836 million from its STRE offering, which it used to buy 8,178 BTC. Meanwhile, Metaplanet raised $130 million to expand its BTC treasury. 

More Companies Set To Adopt Bitcoin

More Bitcoin treasury companies are set to emerge as $10 trillion asset manager, Vanguard, will start offering BTC ETFs from today. Notably, some companies gain BTC exposure through these ETFs rather than buying Bitcoin directly. On-chain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence revealed that the largest U.S. bank, JPMorgan, holds $300 million worth of BlackRock’s BTC ETF. 

Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that Bitcoin treasuries such as Strategy are coming under immense pressure amid the current market downtrend. Strategy’s CEO, Phong Le, admitted that they might have to sell Bitcoin as a last resort to fund dividend payments if their mNAV drops below 1x and they can no longer raise capital. 

At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price is trading at around $87,000, up in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

On-chain investigators traced a clear path of funds, and community members say the clues are strong enough to support an official probe. Still, exchanges are holding back unless a police case number is presented.

On-Chain Trail Revealed

Based on reports from on-chain sleuths, the attacker moved 260 Ether through Tornado Cash before routing 232.49 ETH to deposit addresses at KuCoin. The laundering path involved 111 wallets and 45 unique KuCoin deposits, according to a public breakdown by a community investigator known as Shima.

Shibarium Bridge hacker foolishly chose not to accept the K9 bounty – it’s finally time to share the investigation we’ve been working on… this is juicy

The hacker made one stupid mistake and it completely unravelled their Tornado Cash laundering.

That one mistake… pic.twitter.com/itxsXbbGSm

— Shima 島。 (@MRShimamoto) December 1, 2025

A small mistake — a single transfer of 0.0874 ETH — linked otherwise hidden wallets and allowed the investigator to map much of the operation. The tracing work was shared with the Shiba Inu ecosystem team so it could be used to press for recovery.

Why didn’t https://t.co/OoTvg1kraL call the police?

Why isn’t there a report to the appropriate authorities to get a case number?

Why have no law enforcement been involved in the https://t.co/OoTvg1kraL bridge hack? https://t.co/88Gdxi0rhh

— Pulse Digital (@CryptoPulse9) December 1, 2025

Practical Roadblocks To Recovery

Tracing crypto through mixers remains difficult, even when the ledger gives clues. Exchanges often need subpoena power, legal requests or a case number to share account details.

That requirement can leave strong on-chain leads stuck if a project does not file a police report. Community investigators can point the way, but many of the next steps depend on formal legal action and cross-border cooperation.

After Shima handed the findings to the project team, members of the community and teams such as K9 Finance stepped in. One representative, using the handle DeFi Turtle, reached out to KuCoin to ask that the exchange freeze the suspected funds.

KuCoin replied that it would require a formal law enforcement case number before taking such action, based on the messages that have circulated in community channels. Without a police report, the exchange said it could not legally provide internal records or lock the linked accounts.

Faced with slow institutional movement, Shima has offered the full dataset, the mapping work and the methodology to victims and to any law enforcement body willing to act. Victims in different countries may need to lodge complaints locally to create the case numbers that exchanges demand.

Shane Cook, founder of Pulse Digital Marketing, questioned why the Shiba Inu team had not filed an official complaint despite the on-chain evidence. Reports show the team previously confirmed the breach and said it had contacted security firms including PeckShield and Hexens.

Cook’s criticism centers on the idea that technical analysis alone may not be enough; a legal filing is often required to make exchanges cooperate. The community now wonders whether the project prioritized reopening the bridge and repayment planning over pursuing legal routes.

Featured image from Hacked.com, chart from TradingView

The latest technical analysis from Guy on the Earth focuses on this exact moment, noting that XRP’s entire structure now depends on whether this $2 zone can keep functioning as the pivot that stops further downside.

Holding $2 As The Important Bull Support

Guy on the Earth describes the $2 price level as the line separating resilience from a potentially long period of stagnation. His analysis shows XRP holding this level despite several weeks of bearish candles, a sign that sellers have not managed to gain full control even after the broader market’s pullback. 

The weekly chart he shared displays a cluster of past support zones roughly aligned between $2 and $1.95, making this area the foundation of the current trend. According to the analyst, losing the $2 price level could leave XRP drifting for months or even years with little upside movement, aside from isolated opportunities when temporary lows form. For now, the fact that XRP ended the past week in the green, even slightly, keeps the structure intact.

XRP’s reaction around $2 cannot be understood without watching Bitcoin. In his view, the best scenario for XRP is for Bitcoin to bounce back above $100,000, and a subsequent fall in BTC dominance. The chart’s declining RSI on the XRP weekly timeframe also hints at momentum changing, but its path will ultimately follow whatever direction Bitcoin chooses next.

XRP Price Chart. Source: @guyontheearth On X

Two Diverging Paths From Here

Guy on the Earth outlines two possible outcomes as the market enters a critical phase. The first is a recovery from current levels that allows altcoins to outperform again, opening the door for XRP to revisit the mid-range zone around $2.60 before making any attempt at its previous highs. 

The second is a deeper market drop that drags XRP below the $2 price level. This move would flip its most important support into resistance and set up a prolonged stretch of declining price action. Nothing inspiring will happen below there except well-timed buys when the lows appear to be in.

Both scenarios are realistic, and $2 is the dividing point that will determine which one unfolds. The analyst’s bias leans toward a move higher, but he warns that traders must be aware of the risks if Bitcoin does not stabilize soon.

At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $2.02 after a 1.2% fall in the past 24 hours and is at risk of losing this $2 support level.

Why The XRP Price Needs To Climb To $1,000

Crypto analyst @unkownDLT has shared a rather ambitious price forecast for XRP this week. The analyst claims that the cryptocurrency must reach thousands of dollars to operate as a fundamental component within global settlement and collateral markets. He highlights that this bold target is not mere speculative hype but a projection of what could unfold if XRP were to serve as the backbone of global liquidity flows. 

@unkownDLT argues that capturing even a small share of about 5-10% of the global value transfer market would require the cryptocurrency to be worth at least $1,000 to operate efficiently. From this viewpoint, XRP’s high potential value is a necessity. 

Typically, trillions of dollars move across borders through banks, clearing houses, and collateral markets each day. The analyst suggests that if XRP were to serve as a bridge asset for major institutions and cross-border payment systems, its price would need to be high enough to prevent the blockchain network from running out of usable supply. In essence, a higher valuation would allow the network to handle larger transaction volumes without requiring enormous amounts of XRP for every transfer. 

@unkownDLT explained that a low-value asset cannot serve as an effective settlement buffer for global finance. On the other hand, a higher-value token would provide more usable liquidity and offer greater stability and lower volatility. Since its inception, XRP has had a fixed number of units, so a rise in its price is one of the few ways to scale its capacity to handle trillions of dollars in daily global inflows. 

XRP’s Price Discovery And True Value

In a separate post, @unkownDLT revealed that XRP has yet to experience a price discovery. Currently, the cryptocurrency is in a downtrend and has consistently failed to reclaim previous highs. The analyst has set XRP’s price discovery target above $3.4, representing a 69% increase from its current price of around $2.00. He says that technical patterns do not drive this bullish target, but the emergence of new market conditions. 

According to @unkownDLT, XRP has never traded in an environment shaped by institutional inflows, regulatory clarity, Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), or a global shift toward distributed ledger infrastructure. With these elements converging, he believes the next cycle will behave differently from past market cycles. 

The analyst has also highlighted that XRP’s true value becomes visible only when institutions require a neutral asset to settle tokenized value across interconnected networks. He described the cryptocurrency as a universal clearing layer that bridges settlement environments and enables seamless movement across digital financial systems.

Ripple Intensifies Its Global Payments Playbook

The Singapore regulatory upgrade extends the scope of Ripple’s Major Payment Institution (MPI) license, giving its subsidiary, Ripple Markets APAC Pte. Ltd., authority to operate a fully regulated, end-to-end payments platform. The license enables Ripple to handle fund collection, secure custody, token conversion, and final payouts within a single operational framework. XRP and Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD are embedded into the system, consolidating complex cross-border processes into a fast, compliant, and transparent environment.

This upgrade positions Ripple as a turnkey solution for banks, corporates, and fintechs. By managing both regulatory compliance and the technology infrastructure, Ripple removes the fragmentation that slows legacy systems. These institutions now have a single point of contact, reducing complexity and making operations more efficient.

Ripple is also expanding its geographic reach through strategic partnerships. Its collaboration with Bahrain Fintech Bay allows the company to run pilot programs, real-world payment trials, and early deployment of token-driven services in the Gulf region. These initiatives help Ripple establish liquidity corridors, embed its infrastructure into local financial ecosystems, and build familiarity with regional regulators.

Financially, Ripple strengthened its position with a $500 million funding round in November 2025, which valued the company at roughly $40 billion. The capital is being directed toward scaling payment infrastructure, enhancing enterprise tools, and expanding its stablecoin program. With these resources, Ripple can roll out its technology faster, integrate with new partners more efficiently, and advance its dominance in the institutional payments market.

XRP’s Expanding Utility In Ripple’s Global Framework

XRP remains the settlement engine of Ripple’s infrastructure, providing instant liquidity, rapid transaction settlement, and multi-currency interoperability. This functionality allows Ripple to address high-friction payment corridors, such as those in Africa, where it works with regional providers to replace slow correspondent banking chains with XRP-enabled settlements. In the Asia-Pacific region, growing on-chain activity and rising institutional demand create favorable conditions for token-based cross-border payments. The Singapore MPI upgrade now offers a regulated launchpad to deliver XRP-powered rails across these high-growth regions.

Building on this foundation, Ripple is creating a vertically integrated ecosystem where fiat, stablecoins, and digital assets operate through a unified platform. Within this framework, XRP bridges currencies, provides deep liquidity, and executes transactions faster than traditional systems. Each regulatory approval, partnership, and infrastructure deployment further embeds XRP into the backbone of global financial infrastructure.

Together, these milestones illustrate Ripple’s multi-market strategy: expanding regulatory clarity, deploying robust infrastructure, and demonstrating real-world XRP utility. The Singapore upgrade is a decisive step in this progression, reinforcing Ripple’s steady movement toward making XRP a central tool for cross-border payment systems.

Why The Crypto Sell-Off Is “Strange”

In a post on X, Dorman notes that traditional risk assets are behaving exactly as textbooks would suggest: “equity, credit and gold/silver markets are launching to ATHs every month because the Fed is cutting rates, QT is ending, consumer spending is strong, record earnings, AI demand still incredibly strong.” Yet crypto continues to grind lower, even as most of the usual bearish narratives have been invalidated. “MSTR isn’t selling, Tether isn’t insolvent, DATs aren’t selling, NVDA isn’t blowing up, the Fed isn’t turning hawkish, the tariff wars aren’t restarting,” he writes, before admitting: “I still have no idea why crypto is down.”

In his accompanying essay “The Selling Nobody Can Explain” (Dec. 1, 2025), Dorman details a market that has fallen in seven of the past eight weeks, with only a brief Thanksgiving rally before renewed selling as Japanese markets reopened. The first leg lower followed the October 10 exchange outages at Binance and others, weeks ahead of the FOMC meeting. Much of November’s weakness was retrospectively ascribed to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish tone, which drove December rate-cut odds from “almost a 100% chance” to “as low as 30%.”

What makes the late-November continuation unusual, he argues, is that the macro backdrop has since turned supportive again. Core PPI printed at 2.6% versus 2.7% expected, early post-shutdown labor data point to a cooling jobs market, and December cut odds have rebounded to around 90%. Equities “staged a fierce rally to close November in positive territory,” and betting markets are effectively pricing in Kevin Hassett, a known policy dove, as the next Fed chair. Against that backdrop, Dorman asks, “why are digital assets still selling off on every piece of bad news but failing to rally with good news?” His answer is stark: “I have no idea.”

One working explanation is that the marginal seller is no longer crypto-native. Dorman cites Bill Ackman’s remark that his Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac positions are trading in sympathy with crypto, despite orthogonal fundamentals. The comment, he argues, reflects the growing overlap between TradFi, retail and digital-asset investors. What was “a pretty isolated industry” is now deeply integrated into multi-asset portfolios, and in those structures “investments in crypto seem to be the first to go.” The crypto ecosystem itself is highly transparent; by contrast, “TradFi remains more of a black box. And that black box is dominating flows and activity right now.”

Wall Street Is Coming

Dorman revisits Arca’s framework that token value is a mix of financial, utility and social components. With sentiment at cycle lows, it is no surprise that assets whose value is mostly social – Bitcoin, L1s, NFTs, memecoins – are under pressure. The surprise is that tokens with stronger financial or utility anchors have not consistently outperformed. “While some do (BNB), most do not (DeFi tokens, PUMP). So that’s a bit odd.” Equally unusual, he says, is the absence of “cavalry” buyers; instead, more players are “piling into the weakness, expecting more weakness,” leaning on momentum rather than fundamentals.

On MicroStrategy, Dorman reiterates that the firm “will never be forced sellers,” despite recurring headlines. On Tether, he pushes back against a rapid narrative shift from mega-valuation to supposed insolvency. With USDT roughly 70% backed by cash and equivalents and 30% by gold, bitcoin and loans, he argues that “any questions about their liquidity are just silly,” given the implausibility of 70% same-day redemptions. Solvency risks would require large losses across that 30% sleeve, which he sees as manageable given the parent company’s profitability.

Ultimately, Dorman reduces the puzzle to flows and market structure. “There are no buyers within the crypto walls today,” he writes. Crypto-native investors are “exhausted,” and the Wall Street firms that are “coming” into the asset class “aren’t here today.” Until crypto assets can be purchased seamlessly within existing mandates and systems at institutions like Vanguard, State Street, BNY, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, “they just won’t do it.” For now, he concludes, the persistent weakness “certainly has us scratching our heads.”

At press time, the total crypto market cap was at $2.9 trillion.