Squiffs _ & Olivia Capozzalo
November 05, 2025

gm, Defiers

Today’s big story:

Gold, one of TradFi’s most coveted assets in 2025, is making a slow but steady rise to all-time high on-chain valuations.

In other news:

ZKsync proposes new tokenomics
DASH leads privacy rally
Researcher reports DWF Labs 2022 exploit
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📈 Markets in the Past 24 Hours

TICKER	VALUE	24H
Bitcoin	$103,649	2.36 %
Ethereum	$3,424.72	1.09 %
XRP	$2.27	2.95 %
BNB	$961.5	4.66 %
Solana	$161.28	4.37 %

Today’s Big Story

On-Chain Gold Sees DeFi-Native Demand as TVL Crosses $3B

With all the talk surrounding tokenized equities and RWAs on-chain, one of traditional finance’s most coveted assets in 2025, gold, is making a slow but steady rise to all-time high on-chain valuations.

Gold hit a new all-time high in October, and between that value increase and some new on-chain activations, tokenized gold crossed the $3 billion mark last month.

The move is led by Tether Gold, XAUT, which launched on Solana on Oct. 15, pushing its TVL above the $2 billion mark, a more than 100% gain since August.

The other major player, Paxos Gold, or PAXG, has been growing at a steady albeit slower rate than XAUT, and also hit a new all time high of $1.35 billion in the last week of October.

XAUT TVL. Source: DefiLlama

While skeptics have been quick to question why they would ever trust a crypto company or crypto wallet to hold gold as opposed to an insured brokerage, DeFi devotees and on-chain natives clearly see a use for the hybrid asset.

DeFi-Native Demand

DeFi integrations with XAUT and PAXG allow users to stack yield on top of their holdings, offering investors a better return than just holding a gold ETF like GLD.

Meanwhile on-chain natives, especially those who “made it” in crypto — and have average to below average standing with the banking system — are simply less likely to want to deal with all of the extra steps that come with off-ramping significant size to a bank account, transferring it to a brokerage, and then buying gold, when they can just use Uniswap or Hyperliquid instead.

While the motivations for owning tokenized gold are clear, gold is traditionally considered a “safe haven” asset, used to anchor portfolios in times of crises and debasement, and unfortunately, as shown by this week’s events with Stream and Balancer, DeFi is far from a safe haven for investors.

Over the last six months, seemingly every team in and around DeFi dropped everything to try and win the tokenized equity race, as if there was some huge pent up demand for the product line.

Meanwhile XAUT and PAXG’s slow and steady grind up shows that there is definitely room for spot RWAs, but the reality is that most TradFi traders can’t be bothered at the idea of hopping on-chain to trade low liquidity equities at the moment.

Squiffs, resident degen at The Defiant

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Institutions Want Bitcoin Yield — Threshold Is Building the Bridge [SPONSORED]

Institutional Bitcoin treasuries are coming but they won’t touch DeFi unless the liquidity, custody, and risk models meet their standards.

Threshold (TBTC) is building that bridge. In this interview, we break down how TBTC is competing with WBTC, why full decentralization alone isn’t enough, and why Threshold is now designing hybrid custody solutions to connect DeFi with the emerging wave of Bitcoin treasury companies (DATs). We also discuss adoption signals on Aave, real BTC collateral usage, governance structure, and the roadmap toward sustainably scaling Bitcoin finance beyond token incentives.

Top News in the Past 24 Hours

ZKsync Proposes Utility and Revenue Focused Tokenomics Shift The Ethereum Layer 2 has revealed an updated tokenomics proposal for its native token ZK, which would shift it from a pure governance token to a utility token. Why it matters: The move addresses the lack of tangible value in governance tokens.
Privacy Coin Rally Continues as DASH Surges 150% Despite the altcoin market’s woes, Zcash’s rally is driving the privacy token sector to new heights, and now OG privacy coin DASH is tailing ZEC. Why it matters: ZEC began its rally in late September, and is up almost 200% on the month, among renewed calls for privacy in crypto.
DWF Labs ‘Likely’ Exploited for $44M in 2022 Hack Linked to North Korea: Report An blockchain investigator revealed that DWF Labs may have been compromised in September 2022 by a North Korea-linked hacking group known as AppleJeus.Why it matters: If accurate, the alleged hack represents a major unreported breach, raising questions about market transparency and investor risk