GeckoPulse: The Selloff Continues!

Flushed Away

The selloff continues as Bitcoin temporarily fell below the $100K mark earlier today.

The price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency had plunged by 4.8% from $104.1K to $99.1K, but quickly back to above the $101K range as of the time of writing.

The downwards move has resulted in the liquidation of over $1.3B worth of leveraged long positions, according to CoinGlass data.

The price of ETH also fell by 5.7% from $3,490 to $3,290, a level which had not been revisited since July.

Other major cryptos saw smaller drops in value, with SOL and BNB falling by 2.4% and 1.2% respectively.

However, users from the crypto community fear that the worst has yet to come, with some claiming that the bottom for Bitcoin lies far lower at $88K.

According to NovaDius Wealth Management president Nate Gerci, the overall cost basis of total inflows into Bitcoin ETFs is approximately $89.6K, 11.3% lower than Bitcoin’s current price.

ZK Overhaul

The co-founder of the Ethereum scaling solution ZKsync has proposed a major revamp of its ZK governance token.

In his recent proposal on the ZKsync forums, co-founder Alex Gluchowski claimed that the token should prioritize economic utility, aligning the network’s usage with the token’s value.

As such, Gluchowski argued that the improved ZK token should accrue on-chain value from protocol-native fees, and other software and licensing agreements.

This value could then be redirected to DAO governance to be utilized for buybacks, staking programs and ecosystem incentives.

Since the proposal was published, the price of ZK has surged by 21.6% from $0.051 to $0.062.

The Stream Dries Up 

DeFi yield protocol Stream Finance has suspended platform operations after incurring close to 9-figures in losses.

According to an X post explaining the situation, the team stated that protocol funds were relayed to an external fund manager, which had revealed losses of over $93M.

Additionally, Stream will be engaging with a law firm to begin investigations on the matter.

In late October, users from the crypto community claimed that Stream and another stablecoin protocol, Elixir, had fraudulently minted excessive amounts of the yield-bearing xUSD tokens, fueled by recursive lending.

In a recent statement, Elixir mentioned that it can fully redeem their lending position at Stream at $1, ahead of other creditors.

Even before the $93M loss was disclosed, the price of xUSD had begun to depeg, and has now plunged by 56% from $1.25 to $0.55.

War is NOT brewing for Wintermute

Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy has refuted rumors that his market making firm is planning to sue Binance over losses incurred from the October 10 crash. 

Several users within the crypto community claimed that much of Wintermute’s liquidity on the exchange was liquidated by Binance’s auto-deleveraging mechanism.

Gaevoy also refuted rumors that his firm is facing financial difficulty after the crash, saying that it was all “a larp” (untrue).
However, just under a month after the events of October 10, the crypto market has failed to recover, with the price of Bitcoin remaining just under $104K.

In Other News

Former Rugby Star Arrested Over Crypto Theft. Former Rugby League star Trent Merrin was arrested by Australian authorities over the alleged theft of $91K worth of crypto.

Gemini Joins Prediction Market Bandwagon. Crypto exchange Gemini joins the growing list of crypto exchanges wanting to launch/offer prediction market features. Gemini’s parent company is looking to launch a federally regulated event market under the name “Gemini Titan.”

Hut 8 Breaks Top 10 Bitcoin Holders. Bitcoin miner Hut 8 has just released their Q3 earnings report. The report reveals the firm’s holdings of 13,696 BTC worth $1.6B, now putting them into the top 10 largest public bitcoin holders.

Another Hack? Smart contract auditor CertiK reports that they have detected multiple exploit transactions on DeFi protocol Moonwell. ~$1M in losses have been detected so far.

Crypto.com To Launch Hollywood Prediction Markets. The crypto.com crypto exchange is partnering up with Hollywood.com to launch an entertainment-focused predictions market. No launch date is mentioned yet.

Ripple Acquires Digital Custody Firm Palisade. This acquisition marks Ripple’s third major acquisition in its bid to push for institutional adoption of crypto. Palisade’s acquisition is expected to bolster Ripple’s Custody and Payment services.

Donut Labs Raises $22M to Build Crypto Trading Browser. Donut Labs has raised $22M to develop an AI-powered crypto trading browser. Founder Chris Zhu claims that their browser will be the world’s first agentic AI browser that can research, analyze, and execute trades autonomously.

Tom Lee Is Undeterred. The ETH treasury firm Bitmine, chaired by the famous Tom Lee, has bought another $294M in ETH last week, their total ETH holdings is now worth around $12B.

Animoca Eyes Public Listing via Reverse Merger. Digital assets conglomerate Animoca Brands has filed for a Nasdaq listing through a reverse merger with Singapore-based Currenc Group (CURR). The deal is expected to close in Q3 2026.