'Tis the Season for Red Candles

Denis Omelchenko & Camila Russo
December 01, 2025

Happy Monday, Defiers!

Today’s big story:

Bitcoin craters to $84,000 after rising bond yields in Japan sparked risk-off sentiment

In other news:

Optimism teases enterprise strategy
Fidelity’s tokenized fund hits $250M
Kinetiq’s KNTQ debuts at $130M valuation
Galaxy reports Q3 crypto VC rebound

Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.

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📈 Markets in the Past 24 Hours

TICKER	VALUE	24H
Bitcoin	$84,788	-7.21 %
Ethereum	$2,729.97	-9.93 %
XRP	$2	-9.29 %
BNB	$813.66	-8.96 %
Solana	$124.3	-10.08 %

Today’s Big Story

That Was the Worst November Ever for Crypto

Bitcoin closed November down 17.6%, its worst November ever, surpassing the 17.2% drop in 2019. And if history is any guide, December might not be much better. After a down November in 2019, Bitcoin fell another 5.1% in December, and CoinGlass data shows BTC has never had a positive December following a negative November.

Markets were quiet over Thanksgiving, but the first day of December hit Bitcoin for about 5%, leaving Q4 already down around 4%. There’s still room to bounce, but this is now the second-worst Q4 in BTC history, behind the last three months of 2018, when it fell around 36.5%.

At the time we sent this email, around 2pm EST, Bitcoin (BTC) was trading near $84,800, down more than 7% for the day, a sharp drop from the weekend’s $91,800. That move triggered over $600 million in daily liquidations and wiped more than $200 billion off the market, per data from CoinGlass.

There wasn’t a single big negative headline. Instead, Japanese government bonds slipped, with the two-year yield hitting its highest level since 2008 after the Bank of Japan chief hinted at a December rate hike.

The two-year rate, which reacts strongly to policy expectations, rose three basis points to 1.02%, with high-beta crypto taking the hit first and losing most of the weekend’s gains in just a few hours.

The yield rise means borrowing in Japan isn’t cheap anymore as big investors who borrowed low-cost yen to invest around the world now have to pay more interest.

Despite the volatility influx, analysts at Singapore-based crypto trading firm QCP Capital noted in a Monday research piece that the macro picture “should be supportive for crypto.”

Quantitative tightening is officially over, the odds of a December rate cut are up to 87% on prediction markets and pro-crypto candidate Kevin Hassett has a 66% chance of becoming the next Fed Chair.

Now, as the analysts say, the big question is whether BTC can hold its previous lows as bearish sentiment grows.

Denis Omelchenko, staff reporter at The Defiant

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🎬WATCH

More than wrappers | RWAs on Avalanche | Ecosystems, Ep.3

In our third episode of the Avalanche Ecosystems mini-series, we dive into one of the most important trends in crypto: tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs). From land records to treasuries, private credit, and publicly traded equities, Avalanche is enabling institutions to not just issue onchain wrappers, but to create the real thing. It's tokenization the right way.

With interviews from Luigi D’Onorio DeMeo and Morgan Krupetsky (Ava Labs), Dan Silverman (Balcony), Kevin Chan (Grove) and Gabriel Otte (Dinari), we explore how Avalanche’s architecture is powering a new wave of RWAs across finance, government infrastructure, and consumer applications.

Watch the mini doc here:

This content is part of a media partnership between The Defiant and Ava Labs

Top News in the Past 24 Hours

Optimism CEO Teases New Enterprise Strategy Optimism CEO Jing Wang hinted at a major enterprise-focused initiative aimed at bringing traditional businesses onchain, suggesting OP Stack could soon power corporate and institutional blockchain deployments. Why it matters: If Optimism lands anchor clients, it could reshape the competitive landscape for rollups.
Fidelity’s Tokenized RWA Fund on Ethereum Hits $250M Fidelity’s onchain treasury fund has surpassed $250 million in assets just months after launch, making it one of the largest tokenized funds on public blockchains. Why it matters: A TradFi giant hitting a quarter-billion in tokenized assets on Ethereum is a watershed moment for institutional RWA adoption, and intensifies competition with Franklin Templeton and BlackRock in onchain money markets.
Hyperliquid-Based Kinetiq’s KNTQ Token Trades at $130M Valuation Kinetiq, a liquid staking protocol built on Hyperliquid, saw its newly launched KNTQ token debut at a $130M fully diluted valuation following strong demand on launch. Why it matters: It’s another data point showing Hyperliquid’s growing gravitational pull for high-performance DeFi and AI-adjacent projects and signals rising investor appetite for decentralized compute economies.
Seven Deals Made up 50% of Q3 Crypto VC Activity: Galaxy Galaxy Digital’s Q3 report shows crypto venture funding up quarter-over-quarter, with early-stage deals dominating and infrastructure, AI-crypto, and RWA startups drawing the most attention. Why it matters: After two years of contraction, consistent quarter-on-quarter growth suggests a real recovery in crypto venture markets especially for projects building the rails for RWAs, AI, and scaling.