Giant institutional traders continued so as to add publicity to crypto treasury firms over the previous week, whilst bear-market illiquidity compelled one other spherical of shakeouts throughout decentralized finance (DeFi).
The most important company shareholders of Bitmine Immersion Applied sciences, together with Morgan Stanley and Financial institution of America, elevated publicity to the Ether (ETH) treasury firm throughout This autumn 2025 regardless of a broader market sell-off.
Nonetheless, ongoing bear-market illiquidity is forcing some protocols to wind down operations, with DeFi lender ZeroLend shutting down. Crypto analytics platform Parsec has additionally shuttered, citing crypto market volatility as the principle purpose.
In the meantime, Bitcoin (BTC) and ETH every rose about 2.6% through the previous week, amid mounting outflows from US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which logged three consecutive days of promoting main as much as Thursday’s $165 million outflow, Farside Traders knowledge reveals.
Ether ETFs began the week with $48 million in inflows on Tuesday, however reversed to log two successive days of outflows, together with $41 million in outflows on Wednesday and $130 million on Thursday.
Morgan Stanley, different prime holders add Bitmine publicity amid sell-off
The biggest shareholders of Bitmine Immersion Applied sciences (BMNR) inventory elevated their investments within the main Ethereum treasury firm within the fourth quarter of 2025 regardless of a wider crypto market crash and poor inventory worth efficiency.
Morgan Stanley, the highest reported holder, elevated its place by about 26% to greater than 12.1 million shares, valued at $331 million on the quarter’s finish, based on its Type 13F submitting with the US Securities and Change Fee. ARK Funding Administration, the second-biggest holder, elevated its stake by about 27% to greater than 9.4 million shares value $256 million, its submitting reveals.
A number of different prime institutional holders additionally elevated publicity. BlackRock elevated its BMNR holdings by 166%, Goldman Sachs by 588%, Vanguard by 66% and Financial institution of America by 1,668%.
Wall Avenue provides BMNR publicity regardless of 48% inventory slide
Every of the highest 11 largest shareholders elevated publicity to BMNR throughout This autumn of 2025, together with Charles Schwab, Van Eck, Royal Financial institution of Canada, Citigroup and the Financial institution of New York Mellon Company, based on official filings compiled by crypto investor Collin.
The buildup got here regardless of a pointy drop in Bitmine’s share worth. BMNR fell about 48% within the fourth quarter of 2025 and about 60% over the previous six months, buying and selling close to $19.90 in premarket motion Thursday, based on Google Finance.
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DeFi lender ZeroLend shuts down, blames illiquid chains
Decentralized lending protocol ZeroLend stated it’s shutting down fully after the blockchains it operates on suffered from low consumer numbers and liquidity.
“After three years of constructing and working the protocol, we’ve made the troublesome choice to wind down operations,” ZeroLend’s founder, identified solely as “Ryker,” stated in a publish the protocol shared to X on Monday.
“Regardless of the staff’s continued efforts, it has turn into clear that the protocol is not sustainable in its present type,” he added.
ZeroLend centered its providers on Ethereum layer-2 blockchains, as soon as touted by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin as a central a part of the community’s plan to scale and stay aggressive.
Nonetheless, Buterin stated earlier this month that his imaginative and prescient for scaling with layer 2s “not is smart,” that many have did not correctly undertake Ethereum’s safety, and that scaling ought to more and more come from the mainnet and native rollups.
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DerivaDEX debuts Bermuda-licensed derivatives DEX
DerivaDEX has launched a Bermuda-licensed crypto derivatives platform, changing into what it says is the primary DAO-governed decentralized trade to function underneath formal regulatory approval.
In keeping with a press release from the platform, the trade acquired a T license from the Bermuda Financial Authority and has begun providing crypto perpetual swaps buying and selling to a restricted variety of superior retail and institutional members.
The BMA’s T, or take a look at license, is issued for a digital asset enterprise looking for to check a proof of idea.
At launch, DerivaDEX helps main crypto perpetual merchandise and stated it plans to increase into further markets, together with prediction markets and conventional securities. The corporate stated the platform combines offchain order matching with onchain settlement to Ethereum, whereas permitting customers to retain non-custodial management of funds.
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Parsec shuts down amid ongoing crypto market volatility
Onchain analytics firm Parsec is closing down after 5 years, as crypto dealer flows and onchain exercise not resemble their previous configurations.
“Parsec is shutting down,” the corporate stated in an X publish on Thursday, whereas its CEO, Will Sheehan, stated the “market zigged whereas we zagged just a few too many instances.”
Sheehan added that Parsec’s main give attention to decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) fell out of step with the place the business has now headed.
“Publish FTX DeFi spot lending leverage by no means actually got here again in the identical method, it modified, morphed into one thing we understood much less,” he stated, including that onchain exercise modified in a method he by no means understood.
NFT gross sales reached about $5.63 billion in 2025, a 37% drawdown from the $8.9 billion recorded in 2024. Common sale costs additionally declined year-on-year, falling to $96 from $124, based on CryptoSlam knowledge.
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Kraken’s xStocks tops $25 billion in quantity with greater than 80,000 onchain holders
Kraken’s tokenized equities platform, xStocks, has surpassed $25 billion in whole transaction quantity lower than eight months after launch, underscoring accelerating adoption as tokenization positive factors traction amongst mainstream traders.
Kraken disclosed Thursday that the $25 billion determine consists of buying and selling throughout centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges, in addition to minting and redemption exercise. The milestone represents a 150% enhance since November, when xStocks crossed $10 billion in cumulative transaction quantity.
The xStocks tokens are issued by Backed Finance, a regulated asset supplier that creates 1:1 backed tokenized representations of publicly traded equities and exchange-traded funds. Kraken serves as a main distribution and buying and selling venue, whereas Backed is accountable for structuring and issuing the tokenized devices.
When xStocks debuted in 2025, it supplied greater than 60 tokenized equities, together with shares tied to main US know-how firms like Amazon, Meta Platforms, Nvidia and Tesla.
Kraken stated onchain exercise has been a key progress driver since launch, with xStocks producing $3.5 billion in onchain buying and selling quantity and surpassing 80,000 distinctive onchain holders.
Not like buying and selling that happens solely inside centralized exchanges’ inner order books, onchain exercise takes place instantly on public blockchains, the place transactions are clear and wallets can self-custody belongings.
Rising onchain participation suggests customers should not solely buying and selling tokenized equities but in addition integrating them into broader decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystems.
Kraken stated that eight of the 11 largest tokenized equities by distinctive holder rely are actually a part of the xStocks ecosystem, signaling elevated market share within the rising tokenized equities sector.
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DeFi market overview
In keeping with knowledge from Cointelegraph Markets Professional and TradingView, a lot of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week within the inexperienced.
The layer-1 blockchain Kite (KITE) token rose 38% as the most important gainer within the prime 100, adopted by stablecoin cost ecosystem token Secure (STABLE), up over 30% through the previous week.
Thanks for studying our abstract of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Be part of us subsequent Friday for extra tales, insights and training concerning this dynamically advancing area.