Reflexivity Research: November 2025 in Review

Executive Summary

November 2025 was one of the clearest demonstrations that crypto’s financial rails are becoming indistinguishable from global capital-market infrastructure.

Tether set the tone by reporting $10B+ in profits across Q1–Q3, record U.S. Treasury exposure, and accelerating USDT growth, reinforcing stablecoins as macro-scale financial actors.

Tokenization continued its structural breakout. Malaysia’s central bank formally outlined national tokenization plans, while BlackRock’s BUIDL expanded onto BNB Chain, gained a new institutional share class, and became collateral-eligible on Binance. Tokenized assets are no longer experiments; they are operational collateral layers.

DeFi protocols turned November into a showcase of aggressive value-accrual engineering. dYdX raised buybacks to 75% of fees; SkyEcosystem stepped up to $300k/day; Aevo proposed a structured burn-and-treasury cycle; Lido detailed an automated buyback framework alongside the release of stRATEGY.

But the month was equally defined by systemic stress events. Balancer saw >$128M in suspicious outflows, Berachain elected to halt the chain and hardfork to reverse an exploit, and StreamDefi disclosed a $93M off-chain loss.

Meanwhile, corporate and macro capital flows accelerated: Ripple raised $500M at a $40B valuation, VCI Global acquired $100M in OOB tokens, MetaPlanet borrowed $100M against BTC to buy more BTC, and Kalshi raised $1B at an $11B valuation. And prediction markets took a step toward mass exposure with Polymarket announcing odds integration into Google.

The Month’s Big Themes

1. Tokenized RWAs Became “Core Infrastructure,” Not Niche Assets

With BUIDL going multichain and accepted as collateral, plus Malaysia’s regulatory commitment, November marked the moment tokenized treasuries became active capital rather than passive wrappers.

2. Buybacks, Burns, and Treasury Engineering Returned to the Center

Protocols increasingly expressed value directly through economic levers, not narratives. November produced the strongest cluster of token-economic redesigns in 2025.

3. Governance Power and Chain Control Were Tested Publicly

Berachain’s chain halt and reversal highlighted the unavoidable tension between immutability and crisis mitigation as ecosystems mature.

4. Prediction Markets Broke Into Mainstream Distribution

Polymarket’s upcoming Google integration and Kalshi’s megafundraise showed that betting on information resolution is commoditizing rapidly.

5. Stablecoins Became a Regulatory Target

The UK’s proposed £20,000 cap on stablecoin holdings signaled a new phase in state-level limitations on private money issuance.

Stablecoins and Onchain Cash Management

Tether: A Macro-Scale Liquidity Organism

Tether emphasized:

• $10B+ profit across Q1–Q3 2025
• record U.S. Treasury exposure
• expanding USDT supply amid global uncertainty

Stablecoins are now operating as yield engines and macro liquidity providers, not simply payment tokens.

Ripple: Integrating Stablecoins Into Institutional Workflows

Ripple secured a $500M investment led by Fortress & Citadel, valuing the company at $40B. RLUSD crossed $1B in supply and is used in collateral workflows via “Ripple Prime.”

Deposit Tokens Move Into Production

JPMorgan officially rolled out JPM Coin for deposit-token settlement, demonstrating that banks intend to build their own on-chain monetary instruments rather than defer to public stablecoins.

Tokenization and RWAs: Collateral Everywhere

Malaysia’s National Tokenization Roadmap

Malaysia’s central bank articulated a structured plan for real-world-asset tokenization, including multi-year research and the establishment of an innovation hub, proof that tokenization is moving into monetary authority territory.

BlackRock BUIDL Goes Multichain and Becomes Collateral

Key November developments:

• BUIDL launches on BNB Chain
• A new institutional share class appears via Securitize
• Binance accepts BUIDL as collateral

This is one of the strongest institutional endorsements of tokenized Treasuries as usable, fungible collateral.

Tokenized Equities Enter L2 Distribution

Backed and Bybit partnered to issue tokenized Nvidia and Strategy shares on Mantle, showing RWAs are expanding beyond treasuries into high-beta equity exposures.

DeFi and Protocol Economics: Buybacks, Burns and Real Yield

November was the most active month of 2025 for token-economic restructuring.

dYdX: A Clear Shift to Fee → Token Value

The community approved raising buybacks from 25% → 75% of protocol fees, immediately increasing direct value transfer to tokenholders.

SkyEcosystem: High-Velocity Demand Engineering

Daily buybacks were increased to $300k, making it one of the most aggressive daily-support schedules in DeFi.

Aevo: Structured Buybacks + Burns

The Aevo proposal introduced:

• Monthly buybacks
• A 50% burn / 50% treasury allocation
• 100% burn in low-volume months
• An inaugural 69M AEVO burn (6.9% of supply)

A textbook shift toward predictable value-accrual.

Lido: Industrial-Scale Mechanism Design

Lido governance explored:

• Automated buyback triggers
• LP-based liquidity management
• A rolling $10M cap
• Considerations for vote-participation health

Additionally, Lido released stRATEGY, a curated yield composition layer atop stETH.

Points Model Retrenchment

Infrared Finance ended its points program, part of a broader November shift away from multi-season points metas.

Security and Risk: Exploits, Reversals & Offchain Failures

Balancer: One of 2025’s Largest Suspected Exploits

Balancer saw >$128M in vault outflows, raising credible concerns of a coordinated exploit.

Berachain: Chain Halt + Hardfork Reversal

Berachain halted the entire chain to perform a hardfork that reversed exploit damage, a rare but decisive move illustrating the governance flexibility some ecosystems retain.

StreamDefi: Offchain Manager Loss

The disclosure of a $93M loss tied to an external fund manager reiterated the hybrid nature of DeFi risk: the weakest link is often offchain.

Legal Pressure on Stablecoin Infrastructure

Dubai courts froze $456M connected to Justin Sun and the TrueUSD issuer Techteryx, citing breach-of-trust evidence.

Corporate, Capital Markets and Venture

Ripple: A Top-Tier Late-Stage Raise

A $500M round at a $40B valuation put Ripple into the upper tier of global fintech valuations.

Animoca Brands: Public-Market Entry

Animoca filed for a Nasdaq listing via reverse merger, a route increasingly used by crypto companies seeking public-market liquidity without traditional IPO friction.

OOB Ecosystem: Treasury Consolidation

VCI Global acquired $100M in OOB tokens and became the ecosystem’s treasury manager. The release underscored Tether’s role as a major OOBIT stakeholder.

Bitcoin Treasury Mechanisms Mature

Strategy proposed a euro-denominated STRE share offering for BTC accumulation, strengthening the playbook for corporate BTC-financing structures.

Prediction Markets: Distribution Goes Mainstream

Polymarket → Google Integration

Polymarket announced that Google will integrate its odds, setting up a massive leap in prediction-market visibility if rolled out globally.

Kalshi: Mega-Round Confirms Sector Legitimacy

Source: Kalashi

Kalshi raised $1B at an $11B valuation, showing investor conviction that regulated event markets are becoming institutional data infrastructure.

Rapid-Fire Updates

• Pumpdotfun released Pump Spotlight and previewed Mayhem Mode.
• TreasureDAO introduced AI Frens for its gaming ecosystem.
• ECC published its ZCash Q4 roadmap.
• Major UX/infrastructure updates shipped across Aave, Avalanche, Phantom, Hyperliquid, MegaETH, and others.

November 2025 U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETF Flows

(all figures are in USD millions)

• Headline: Month closed with net outflows of $3,466.7 across 19 trading days (8 up / 11 down). Daily prints were volatile with the largest creation +$524.0 on Nov 11 and the largest redemption –$903.2 on Nov 20.
• Pacing: Outflows hit both halves of the month, 1–15 Nov: –$2,320.1, 16–EOM: –$1,146.6, indicating a steady bleed rather than a single-event reversal.
• Issuer concentration: Redemptions were heavily concentrated. IBIT –$2,336.1 (≈67% of the month’s net outflow) was the primary driver, followed by FBTC –$412.7 (≈11.9%), GBTC –$333.1 (≈9.6%), and ARKB –$205.9 (≈5.9%). Smaller products also leaned negative (HODL –$121.7, BITB –$59.8), while BTC (Franklin) +$14.7 and BTCO +$5.0 provided only marginal offsets.
• Breadth across issuers: 2 up / 8 down / 1 flat for the month. Even excluding IBIT, November would still show –$1,130.6 in net outflows; excluding GBTC leaves –$3,133.6; excluding FBTC leaves –$3,054.0 i.e., the outflow was broad, not just a single-fund story.

November 2025 U.S. Spot Ether ETF Flows

(all figures in USD millions)

• Headline: Month ended with net outflows of $1,423.6 across 19 trading days (6 up / 12 down / 1 flat). Day-to-day was choppy (stdev $116.4, median –$74.2), with the largest creation +$96.6 on Nov 24 and the largest redemption –$261.6 on Nov 20.
• Pacing: Redemptions hit both halves of the month, 1–15 Nov: –$1,236.0, 16–EOM: –$187.6, i.e., a steady bleed rather than a single shock.
• Issuer concentration: Outflows were dominated by ETHA –$1,020.2 (~71.7% of the net outflow), followed by ETHE –$206.9 (~14.5%), FETH –$98.8 (~6.9%), and ETH (VanEck) –$91.0 (~6.4%). The long tail was mixed to slightly negative (ETHV –$20.5), while smaller products provided modest offsets (ETHW +$6.7, EZET +$4.8, CETH +$1.2, QETH +$1.1).
• Breadth across issuers: 4 up / 5 down for the month. Even excluding ETHA, November still prints –$403.4, underscoring that the weakness was broad, not just a single-fund story.

Monthly Best and Worst Performers

What Likely Drove the Top Gainers

Telcoin (TEL) surged after Nebraska granted Telcoin Digital Asset Bank a state charter, described by the governor’s office as the first U.S. digital-asset bank charter of its kind, positioning Telcoin to operate a regulated stablecoin and digital-asset banking business.

MYX Finance (MYX) climbed on momentum tied to new derivatives (perpetuals) activity and trader positioning around speculation of a potential Binance spot listing. World Liberty Financial (WLFI) received renewed attention after Reuters reported that the Trump-aligned venture plans to roll out real-world-asset financial products in January 2026, an announcement made at a Binance event.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) benefited from a broader market rebound: Reuters noted November’s volatility across crypto, ETF outflows, shifting rate-cut expectations, Bitcoin bouncing from sub-$90k levels, and BCH experienced its own mid-November breakout above a key technical zone that added fuel to its month-long gains.

Conclusion

November 2025 highlighted steady maturation across the crypto ecosystem. Stablecoin issuers strengthened their financial footing, tokenized assets expanded into practical collateral use, and several major protocols advanced clearer value-accrual frameworks. The month also underscored ongoing operational and security challenges through notable exploits, governance interventions, and offchain losses. Corporate activity remained robust, with significant fundraising, treasury maneuvers, and early-stage public-market positioning. Meanwhile, prediction markets and tokenized financial instruments continued to gain broader distribution.

Taken together, November reflected an industry progressing toward more structured economic models and institutional alignment, while still navigating the practical risks that arise as systems scale.

(CMC Research Partner)