Chaos in the Charts, Pressure from Beijing, and Strength in the Code

This week brought a true stress test—Bitcoin's $646M liquidation wipeout, China doubling down on its anti-crypto stance, and Ethereum rolling out one of its most important upgrades of the year.

If you're trying to make sense of the chaos, the signals, and the opportunities hiding underneath, this is the breakdown that keeps you ahead of everyone still reacting to the headlines.

Your edge isn't guessing the next candle—it's understanding the shifts shaping what comes after.

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Market-Moving News

Crypto didn't just move this week—it reset positioning, redrew regulatory lines, and upgraded the rails the entire ecosystem runs on.

If you want to know what actually matters for your next move, this is the pulse check you read before opening the charts again.

Markets

Bitcoin Liquidations Wipe Out $646M as Asia's Sell-Off Slams Leverage

Crypto markets opened the week with a harsh reset as nearly $646 million in leveraged positions were liquidated within hours.

The move erased last week's mild rebound and sent Bitcoin and Ethereum sharply lower.

Leverage Unwinds Hit Major Exchanges

Binance, Hyperliquid, and Bybit each saw over $160 million in forced unwinds as longs made up almost 90% of the total liquidations.

The largest single wipeout was a $14.48 million ETH-USDC position on Binance, showing how stretched positioning had become.

Bitcoin dipped more than 5% toward $86,000, while Ethereum slid over 6% to roughly $2,815.

The sell-off dragged Solana, XRP, BNB, and Dogecoin down between 4% and 7% during the same window.

Liquidity Stays Thin as Sentiment Weakens

Traders blamed thin liquidity and lingering macro uncertainty for accelerating the move, especially after weeks of ETF outflows and choppy weekend trading.

Open interest in BTC and ETH perpetuals continued to fall, signaling that leverage built during October's rally is still flushing out.

Monday's cascade mirrored earlier 2025 sell-offs, where heavy long exposure snapped at resistance and triggered rapid forced selling.

Some desks say the market now looks "cleaner," but warn that fragile risk appetite means intraday swings may stay elevated.

Take: This liquidation wave is painful, but it also resets the board.

If you've been waiting for leverage to wash out before re-entering, this is the kind of reset that brings clearer price action—but don't expect volatility to calm until US liquidity steps back in.

Policy

China Tightens Crackdown on Virtual Currencies and Stablecoins

China reaffirmed its hardline stance on crypto, promising an intensified crackdown on virtual currency activity after officials flagged rising speculative behavior.

Regulators emphasized that digital assets lack legal status and qualify as illegal financial operations under mainland law.

Stablecoins Come Under New Fire

During an inter-agency meeting, the People's Bank of China warned that stablecoins pose heightened risks due to weak customer identification and AML protections.

Officials said these gaps enable cross-border crime, fraud, and money laundering via crypto rails.

Beijing has long targeted mining and speculative trading, yet China recently re-emerged as the third-largest Bitcoin mining hub.

That contradiction isn't shifting policy, as regulators called for more aggressive enforcement and monitoring.

A Tale of Two Jurisdictions

The renewed crackdown stands in stark contrast to the US, where lawmakers are actively building stablecoin frameworks to bring the sector into regulated finance.

China's messaging highlights widening global policy divergence as major economies take opposite regulatory approaches.

Hong Kong, meanwhile, continues to chart its own course with pro-crypto rules and industry-friendly events like Hong Kong Fintech Week.

Its government has publicly promoted stablecoins and wider digital asset innovation despite mainland China's hardline stance.

Take: China's pressure won't reshape global markets overnight, but it reinforces a trend you should watch: regulatory paths are splitting.

As jurisdictions like the US and Hong Kong welcome stablecoins, capital and innovation will keep flowing toward friendlier environments.

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Network Upgrade

Ethereum Gears Up for Fusaka, Its Second Major Upgrade of 2025

Ethereum developers are preparing to activate Fusaka on Wednesday, marking the network's second major upgrade of the year.

The upgrade combines simultaneous improvements to Ethereum's consensus and execution layers.

Scaling for the Layer-2 Era

Fusaka introduces 12 Ethereum Improvement Proposals designed to support the massive transaction throughput coming from layer-2 ecosystems.

The centerpiece is PeerDAS, which lets validators check only portions of data blobs instead of downloading full payloads.

This change reduces bandwidth demands and speeds up verification, allowing layer-2 chains to batch more transactions at lower cost.

It also alleviates bottlenecks created by Ethereum's growing reliance on blob-based data submissions.

Broader Improvements Draw Institutional Attention

Beyond layer-2 support, the upgrade tweaks the maximum transaction size and includes optimizations to make smart contracts more efficient.

These refinements improve security and long-term operability even if they aren't headline features.

Institutions are watching closely, with Fidelity Digital Assets calling Fusaka a meaningful step toward a more economically coherent Ethereum roadmap.

Developers see it as foundational infrastructure for Ethereum's next decade of scaling.

Take: Fusaka won't produce fireworks overnight, but it's a structural fix that makes Ethereum more capable, cheaper, and competitive.

If you're long-term focused, upgrades like this are exactly what strengthen the network's fundamentals long before price catches up.

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Future Forward

Airdrops, token launches, and crypto conferences might look like simple dates on a calendar, but they're really the early warning signals of where the next wave of attention—and capital—is heading.

These moments show you which teams are shipping, which ideas are breaking out of the lab, and where the real momentum is about to build.

Stay close to these signals, and you start spotting opportunities before they hit the mainstream.

Whether it's a testnet airdrop building sudden hype, a quiet TGE preparing to erupt, or a conference where the next cycle's narrative is born, this is where early advantage lives.

Crypto Conferences:

💎 Blockchain For Europe 2025 (Dec 2, 2025)

💎 MENA Fintech and Insurtech Festival Qatar 2025 (Dec 2, 2025)

💎 Btrust Developer Day (Dec 2, 2025)

Upcoming Airdrops:

🎁 peaq (PEAQ) First Yield Payout (Dec 2025)

🎁 Wolf Game Wool (WOOL) Airdrop (Nov 14, 2025 - Jan 15, 2026)

🎁 Tradoor (TRADOOR) Airdrop (Feb 2026)

Upcoming Token Launches:

🚀 EarnPark (PARK) Token Sale Tier 4 (Dec 3, 2025)

🚀 GrantiX (GRANT) IDO on Huostarter (Dec 15, 2025)

🚀 Play AI (PLAI) TGE and Distribution (Q4 2025)

Which event are you most excited for? Let us know!

Crypto Know-How: What Is HashKey?

HashKey is Hong Kong's largest licensed crypto exchange, built to serve both retail and institutional traders under one of the world's strictest regulatory frameworks.

Think of it as Hong Kong's attempt to create a fully compliant, high-volume trading hub that can compete with the biggest global exchanges.

The company grew fast by offering ultra-low fees, which helped it capture about 75% of the city's licensed trading market.

But that strategy came with a cost—HashKey reported steep losses in 2024, showing how hard it is to scale an exchange when revenue stays stuck in basis-point territory.

Beyond trading, HashKey is trying to build a broader ecosystem through tokenization, staking, and Web3 events.

These business lines are still small today, but they show where the company hopes to grow as Hong Kong leans deeper into regulated digital assets.

For you, HashKey matters because it represents the blueprint many global regulators want—an exchange that plays by the rules without slowing innovation.

If Hong Kong's model succeeds, it could shape how compliant trading hubs evolve across Asia and beyond.

Everything Else

• HashKey's IPO filing shows record Hong Kong trading volume but deep losses driven by ultra-low fees, raising questions about whether its market-share strategy can ever translate into sustainable revenue.

• Europol and German–Swiss authorities shut down Cryptomixer after it laundered $1.4 billion in Bitcoin, disrupting ransomware and darknet operations that now have to scramble for new cash-out routes.

• Crypto ETPs snapped a four-week losing streak with $1 billion in inflows as optimism over a potential US rate cut surged, giving XRP its strongest weekly inflows on record.

• Sony is planning a 2026 US dollar stablecoin for PlayStation and its wider entertainment ecosystem, aiming to cut payment fees and deepen its growing Web3 strategy.

• Ripple secured approval from Singapore's central bank to expand its regulated payment services, strengthening its Asia-Pacific footprint as on-chain activity accelerates across the region.