It’s all encrypted — Week 14 of November 2025 | Posted by Bat Tai Chi | Coins | November 2025
We apologize for missing your letter last week. That’s not to say nothing happened, it was a trip. This was a bloody week with many calling for an official end to the bull market after BTC fell below 100,000 (-4% WoW) again and ETH hit -4% at 3200. This time it attracted a lot of attention with scary headlines that DAT was trading underwater and even MSTR was affected. Perhaps more than anything else, it is a measure of overall sentiment. Perp DEX Lighter raises 68mm at 1.5 billion valuation on news that Grayscale has filed for IPO, Balancer Hack that shocked the market and raised concerns about DeFi Vault curators and backdoor trading. Read safely!
Bat Tai Chi — btc21@mail.com
Headline:
Balancer Hack — Multi-Chain Chaos and Hard Lessons from DeFi
Balancer’s flash loan exploit was like an unpleasant wake-up call. More than $120 million was withdrawn from interconnected pools across multiple chains, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Berachain, in a matter of minutes. The impact of this multi-chain exposure has been felt like a tsunami sweeping DeFi. The attack exploited a vulnerability in Balancer’s “manageUserBalance” function, allowing unauthorized swaps and rapid asset exfiltration. What’s scary is how quickly exploits can cascade across networks that share the same codebase but have different security postures. For example, Berachain paused its chain and performed a reconfiguration. Because the code goes too deep into the protocol level, while others have gone so far as to freeze the attacker’s addresses. For OG DeFi protocols like Balancer, their reputations will suffer and confidence in the security of their cross-chain operations will plummet. This, combined with USDX’s synthetic stablecoin depegs to PancakeSwap and Lista DAO, shows that risk disclosure in DeFi remains weak. Some backdoor trading and emergency liquidations are happening behind the scenes. DeFi is maturing, but scars of trust still remain.
Non-US stablecoins backed by gold — Central Asia leads the way in a new era
Kyrgyzstan launched USDKG, a government-issued stablecoin. USDKG is fully backed by physical gold reserves and is pegged 1:1 to USD. Kazakhstan is also considering a 1 billion cryptocurrency reserve fund to back the initiative using seized assets by 2026. This move represents a bold push for governments that have historically been skeptical of digital assets to embrace Web3 on their own terms. Meanwhile, the Bank of England in the UK announced strict stablecoin holding limits of just £20,000 per coin for individuals and £10m for companies. Regulators are clearly wary of stablecoins becoming the “new Eurodollars,” nervous about the systemic risks and financial sovereignty of the 21st century cryptocurrency economy. An interesting clash between innovation and regulation is unfolding.
Coinbase Launches ICO Platform — Are We Back to the ICO Future?
On November 10, Coinbase unveiled a new ICO platform that aims to “set a new industry benchmark” for token issuance. The platform promises to make token sales more sustainable and decentralized, taking lessons from past madness and the rise of airdrop controversies. Bitwise’s Matt Hogan recently emphasized that while cryptocurrency capital formation is evolving and institutional flows are increasing, new transparency standards are needed. This comes as the debate over token allocation disclosure intensifies, particularly in relation to Wintermute’s market formation. The era of opaque token trading is facing scrutiny like never before. But can institutional and public cryptocurrency users find common ground?
quotes:
TBH this is the easiest bear market I have ever seen. I think most of you have forgotten what 2022 was like. Luna collapsed, 3AC, FTX, Genesis, BlockFi, Axie, NFTs, and just about everything felt like a house of cards. And then after all that went down, BANKS went down, stablecoins got unpegged, Gary Gensler and the president tried to destroy just about every company in the industry. I wasn’t really sure how long these things would survive. Compared to that? This is refreshing. The price went down. That’s right. The basics are great. Cryptocurrency is working. So relax and bring something to eat. Lock it. We’ll be fine.
Haseeb Quershi — Managing Partner at Dragonfly
A beginner’s guide to QUANTUM safety. In the past, it was about protecting your private key (seed phrase). In the upcoming BSQC (Big Scar Quantum Computer) era, public keys must also be protected. Basically, BSQC can figure out the private key from the public key. The current taproot address (in its latest format) is not secure. This is an address that starts with “bc1p” and is not good because the address contains the public key. The previous format hides the public key behind a hash, so BSQC cannot easily decrypt it.
willy woo
Today Coinx’base announces its decision to leave Delaware and re-incorporate in Texas. This decision was not taken lightly, but we will always do our best for our customers, employees, and shareholders.
Paul Grewal — Chief Legal Officer, Coinbase