Gate Decentralized Finance Daily ( November 14 ): TVL falls below $130 billion; Babylon completes significant upgrade on Mainnet.

On November 14, despite the end of the U.S. government shutdown, the crypto market experienced significant dumping due to the decreased probability of a Fed rate cut in December. BTC fell below the psychological level of $100,000, reporting at $97,000; ETH retreated to $3,200; the total DeFi TVL across the network dropped to $127.816 billion, with a 24-hour decline of 2.89%, and over $700 million in liquidations occurred across the network in 24 hours. Mainstream protocols generally fell back, with Lido, EigenLayer, and ether.fi dropping over 9%. DEX 24-hour trading volume was approximately $15.017 billion, a decrease of 11.12% compared to the previous period, indicating a bearish short-term market sentiment. Market hotspots focused on protocol security incidents, token economic adjustments, and regulatory compliance progress.

DeFi Market Overview

(Source: DeFiLlama)

Total DeFi TVL across the network: Today (November 14), the U.S. government shutdown has finally ended, however, with the Fed's probability of a rate cut in December declining, the crypto market has once again suffered a bloodbath, with over 700 million dollars liquidated across the network in the last 24 hours. BTC has fallen below the psychological barrier of 100,000 dollars, currently around 97,000 dollars; ETH has retreated to the level of 3,200 dollars; the total DeFi TVL across the network has fallen below 130 billion dollars, currently at 127.816 billion dollars, a 24H decrease of 2.89%.

DEX 24-hour volume: approximately 15.017 billion USD, a week-on-week decrease of 11.12%, with the top three being: PancakeSwap (3.004 billion USD), Uniswap (2.938 billion USD), HumidiFi (0.80078 billion USD).

Popular Protocols and On-Chain Performance

Based on TVL, the top ten Decentralized Finance protocol data are as follows:

(Source: DeFiLlama)

The performance data of the leading protocols are as follows:

Aave: TVL approximately 33.446 billion USD, 24-hour fall 3.59%;

Lido: TVL approximately 27.649 billion USD, 24-hour fall of 9.59%;

EigenLayer: TVL approximately 13.297 billion USD, 24-hour fall of 9.30%;

Spark: TVL approximately 9.142 billion USD, 24-hour fall 4.23%;

Ethena: TVL approximately 8.355 billion USD, 24-hour fall of 1.35%;

ether.fi: TVL approximately 7.748 billion USD, 24-hour fall of 9.73%.

In addition, the top ten projects by protocol fees in the past 24 hours are as follows:

(Source: DeFiLlama)

Among them, Ethena's protocol fees in the past 24 hours reached 7.46 million USD, ranking third, just behind Tether (23.46 million USD) and Circle (7.9 million USD); Hyperliquid's protocol fees in the past 24 hours reached 4.94 million USD, ranking fourth; Jupiter ranked fifth with 3.71 million USD.

Project News Overview

1. Crypto analyst Specter stated that on-chain investigations indicate that BTX Capital and its founder Vanessa Cao may have participated in price manipulation of various tokens on Hyperliquid, including POPCAT and TST, profiting from a huge financial advantage. On November 12, the attacker set up a buy wall of about $25 million at a POPCAT price of approximately $0.21, creating a strong demand illusion using over 26 wallets before canceling orders, leading to significant liquidations. The incident caused the attacker to lose $4 million in collateral, while HLP incurred a loss of $4.9 million. Specter believes that the attacker was able to bear such substantial losses possibly because they shorted the token on a centralized exchange.

On-chain capital flows further point to BTX Capital. The wallets involved in the manipulation of TST, the Bybit deposit wallet, and the multi-signature address are all directly linked to BTX Capital's official wallet and VanessaCao's public wallet vanessacao.eth. The capital flow indicates that it can easily mobilize large amounts of funds for price manipulation. Specter points out that BTX Capital may have also manipulated tokens such as ZEREBRO, JELLYJELLY, and HIFI, which have seen unusual fluctuations recently, and suspects that similar methods may be applied to ZEC.

2. The official WLFI multi-signature wallet transferred 166.6 million WLFI (approximately 23.74 million USD) to 7 wallets, with each wallet receiving about 23.8 million WLFI.

3. The Cosmos ecosystem liquidity staking protocol Drop Protocol announced that due to the current ecological direction and market conditions, its sustainable development path is not feasible. After evaluation, it will orderly cease operations. The shutdown process will be responsible and transparent, taking into account the interests of all parties. Some of Drop's assets still have active applications in the DeFi field and efforts will be made to ensure the continuity of services in high adoption rate areas. At the same time, Drop will no longer promote the Token Generation Event (TGE) and related airdrops for the Droplets plan, and is exploring the distribution of protocol income to participants of this plan as a return. Specific distribution methods and details for claiming will be announced separately. Currently, Drop has entered a stable transition operation phase, with all dAssets included. dTIA and deINIT will gradually stop services, withdrawals will be open and the timetable will be announced in advance, while dATOM and dNTRN will continue to receive support.

4. The official Sui team has announced on platform X that the X account of the Sui ecosystem liquidity staking protocol Aftermath has been compromised. Please do not engage in any operations with this account until the official recovery.

5. According to The Block, Aditya Palepu, CEO of DEX Labs, revealed that DerivaDEX, managed by a DAO, has obtained a license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, which is the first DAO-related license issued by the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

It is reported that DerivaDEX is a decentralized derivatives trading platform focused on institutional users, expected to launch by the end of the year. The protocol was designed by veterans from DRW and Consensys and is supported by venture capital firms such as Dragonfly, CMS Holdings, Electric Capital, and Polychain.

6. According to official news, the Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon has completed a major upgrade of its mainnet, making two key adjustments to the BABY token economic model and introducing a convenient BTC staking duration extension feature. Among these, the annual inflation rate of BABY has decreased from 8% to 5.5%, with the annual minting volume reduced by 250 million coins, enhancing the sustainability of the token economic model. At the same time, a joint staking mechanism has been introduced, allowing users who stake both BTC and BABY to receive higher rewards, strengthening the alignment of interests with the ecosystem. In addition, the BTC staking duration extension feature allows users to extend the lock-up period without un-staking, ensuring seamless connectivity of staking rewards and avoiding interruptions.

7. The dYdX community voted to immediately increase the repurchase ratio of the $DYDX Token from 25% of protocol fees to 75%.

8. Aave Labs subsidiary Push Virtual Assets Ireland Limited has obtained authorization from the Central Bank of Ireland as a CASP under the EU MiCAR framework and will launch a regulated zero-fee stablecoin up/down slope service in the EEA, supporting GHO and other stablecoins. This service allows users to conveniently convert between euros and digital assets, emphasizing consumer protection and transparency. Aave Labs has chosen Ireland as its EEA operational center; the authorization is only applicable to Push's compliant inflows and outflows, while the decentralized Aave Protocol remains unaffected.

9. According to Token Terminal data, Uniswap recorded its highest single-month volume in October 2025, approximately $1166 million USD, setting a new record since the platform's launch.

10. Uniswap announced the launch of Continuous Clearing Auctions (CCA) to guide liquidity and conduct public price discovery for newly issued or low liquidity tokens on Uniswap v4. CCA operates entirely on-chain, setting a single clearing price per block, with higher bids prioritized, and same-price allocations distributed proportionally, where successful bidders pay the same price; after the auction ends, proceeds are automatically added to the v4 liquidity pool. The first collaborating project is Aztec, which offers an optional ZK Passport module for private and verifiable participation. Project parties can customize options such as the number of tokens for sale, starting price, duration, and batch sizes.

11. According to The Block, Monad announced that its Layer 1 blockchain and native Token MON will launch at 9 AM EST on November 24, and has designated Anchorage Digital as its preferred custodian. Institutional users can securely hold and stake MON through Anchorage's custody platform or self-custody wallet Porto. MON will be the first project to go live on Coinbase's new public offering platform, with an initial circulating supply lock-up ratio of 50.6%.

12. According to DeFi researcher Ignas, Aave is currently voting to set the LTV of tokens such as $CRV, $UNI, $ZK, $BAL, $LDO, 1INCH, $METIS, $CAKE to 0 and remove lending due to the 10/10 (Beijing time 10/11 early morning) dumping period when the oracle's single update surged by 15%–50%, and some price feeds were delayed, causing bad debt risks. Ignas pointed out that the price feed from Chainlink had a price difference of about 58% compared to DEX prices, resulting in ~$200K funds being arbitraged; the total collateral income of these assets in the past three months is about $14K, and the borrowing income is low (for example, CRV annualized ~$80K). He himself, as a delegator, has voted in support.

13. Hedera announced that it has integrated ERC-3643 (the T-REX standard proposed by Tokeny) into its Asset Tokenization Studio, supporting cross-border asset issuance within a global compliance framework. This standard introduces on-chain identity verification and a modular architecture, enhancing flexibility and compliance. The new feature will assist financial institutions and enterprises in conveniently issuing compliant assets that meet KYC/KYB requirements, and it will be supported in parallel with ERC-1400 for global compatibility.

Overview of Major Ecosystem Leading Decentralized Finance Projects

BNB Chain DEX 24-hour trading volume once again tops the list at approximately 3.441 billion USD, with the top three projects being:

PancakeSwap ($2.495 billion), Uniswap ($520.66 million), OPINION ($364.87 million);

Solana DEX ranks second in 24-hour volume, approximately 3.348 billion USD, with the top three projects being:

HumidiFi ($800.78 million), Meteora ($745.48 million), Orca ($565.12 million);

Ethereum DEX ranks third in 24-hour trading volume, at approximately $2.749 billion, with the top three projects being:

Uniswap ($1.164 billion), Curve Finance ($709.4 million), Fluid ($462.72 million).

Gate DeFi Token Market Data

According to the data from the Gate market page, the price performance of the top ten tokens in the DeFi sector is as follows:

(Source: Gate DeFi Market Trends)

As of November 14, the crypto market is generally on the decline, with tokens in the DeFi sector experiencing broad drops, specifically:

UNI currently reports at 7.36 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 7.29%;

AAVE is currently reported at 185.1 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 13.73%;

WLFI is currently reported at 0.1441 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 4.06%;

MORPHO is currently reported at 2 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 4.08%;

INJ is currently priced at 7 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 6.18%;

MYX is currently reported at 2.22 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 10.88%;

CRV is currently priced at 0.4494 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 4.58%;

SYRUP is currently priced at 0.4801 USD, with a 24-hour increase of 2.75%;

2Z is currently reported at $0.1588, with a 24-hour fall of 5.43%;

FF is currently priced at $0.1254, with a 24-hour fall of 9.29%.

Market Trend Analysis

TVL is under significant pressure compared to mainstream protocols

The total DeFi TVL in the entire network has fallen below 130 billion USD, to 127.816 billion USD, indicating a high overall market risk. The top protocols have seen significant declines:

• Aave: $33.446 billion, fall 3.59%
• Lido: 27.649 billion USD, fall 9.59%
• EigenLayer: $13.297 billion, fall 9.30%
• ether.fi: $7.748 billion, fall 9.73%

The contraction of TVL reflects the release of market risk and a wait-and-see sentiment among investors, while the differences in the decline of mainstream protocols indicate a clear divergence in investors' sensitivity to the risks of different protocols.

DEX volume and on-chain activity decline

In the past 24 hours, the total DEX trading volume across the network was approximately $15.017 billion, a week-on-week decrease of 11.12%. Among them, BNB Chain returned to the top with $3.441 billion, while Solana and Ethereum were $3.348 billion and $2.749 billion, respectively. The decline in trading volume reflects a decrease in short-term market risk appetite, with investors tending to wait and see or exit high-risk strategies.

Protocol Fee Ranking and On-Chain Activity Differentiation

In terms of protocol fees, Ethena ranks third with 7.46 million USD, while Hyperliquid and Jupiter are at 4.94 million USD and 3.71 million USD respectively. Mainstream protocols can still maintain a certain level of trading stickiness, but the fee levels are relatively low compared to the overall market, indicating a more cautious short-term capital flow.

Analyst Views

1. Market risk release leads to short-term decline

Analysts point out that the current fall is influenced by macroeconomic policies, with BTC and ETH falling simultaneously, exacerbating the outflow pressure of funds from DeFi protocols. The decline in both TVL and DEX trading volume indicates a rise in short-term risk aversion, but liquidation events show that leveraged funds still exhibit behavior of chasing highs and cutting losses.

2. On-chain manipulation and security incidents still require attention

The price manipulation events of tokens such as POCPAT and TST on Hyperliquid, as well as the large transfer event of WLFI, remind the market that protocol security and on-chain manipulation may still trigger short-term fluctuations. Analysts advise investors to remain vigilant during high volatility periods and pay attention to protocol security and on-chain capital flow.

3. Project adjustments and Token economic reforms can mitigate systemic risks

The Babylon mainnet upgrade and the BABY Token economic adjustments, along with dYdX increasing the token repurchase ratio, reflect the protocol's proactive optimization of the economic model and incentive structure amidst market fluctuations, which is conducive to mid-term stability.

4. Regulatory compliance actions benefit institutional confidence

DerivaDEX has obtained a Bermuda DAO license, Aave has launched EU MiCAR authorized services, and Hedera supports the issuance of ERC-3643 compliant assets, indicating that the regulatory compliance process is advancing. Analysts believe that the development of compliance and institutionalization will enhance institutional investor confidence in the long term, contributing to the resilience of the DeFi ecosystem.

5. Investment Strategy Reference In the current high-volatility market, analysts suggest:

• Be cautious and observe short-term fluctuations, avoiding high-leverage operations.
• Focus on projects optimizing protocol economic models and mitigating security incidents
• Track the trends in Compliance development to prepare in advance for institutional and long-term investment layout.

Conclusion

On November 14, the DeFi market showed significant downward pressure, with TVL and DEX volume shrinking simultaneously, and liquidation events occurring frequently, leading to a bearish short-term market sentiment. However, the economic adjustments from protocol parties, progress in regulatory compliance, and on-chain innovations still provide medium to long-term resilience support for the ecosystem. During the short-term fluctuations, investors should prioritize risk management while paying attention to structural opportunities and the ability to respond to security incidents.