Crypto markets got hammered this week. Bitcoin dropped 7.3% to $101K, while Ethereum crashed 13% to $3.3K. More than $1.1 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated as Fed Chair Jerome Powell said another rate cut in December is not a foregone conclusion. The comment triggered cascading liquidations across exchanges, wiping out overleveraged longs and sending altcoins down even harder. The pressure even intensified in November, pushing Bitcoin to briefly trade below the $100,000 level for the first time in over four months.
Regardless of the crypto market price action, key players in the crypto economy are demonstrating remarkable financial strength. Coinbase posted better-than-expected Q3 financial results, with its shares popping on a resurgence in retail and institutional trading volume. Bitcoin-holding company Strategy (MicroStrategy) also topped analyst expectations, posting a massive $2.8 billion net income in Q3. Their conviction remains high, with CEO Michael Saylor publicly stating his expectation for Bitcoin to top $150K by year-end. Also, Cipher Mining's stock soared after it reported strong Q3 earnings and announced a massive 15-year lease with Amazon Web Services to deliver AI computing capacity.
BlackRock's IBIT continues to be a clear winner in the spot Bitcoin ETF race, boasting over $85 billion in assets under management and on a path to $100 billion. And this week saw the new Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BOL) garnered over $400 million in inflows in its first week alone. The ETF offers direct exposure to Solana's growth in stablecoin and tokenization, plus a substantial 7%+ staking yield. The CEO of Standard Chartered envisions a future where nearly all global transactions are conducted on a digital blockchain ledger and all money is digital. Bitwise CIO Matt Hogan echoes this sentiment, arguing the shift to stablecoin rails and tokenized assets is unavoidable, comparing the superior technology to the shift from writing letters to sending emails.
While the U.S. regulatory climate is finally turning hugely positive with the passage of the Genius Act, and the controversial pardon of Binance founder CZ. The pardoning of CZ dominated this week's regulatory headlines with Democratic senators condemning the pardon as blatant corruption. There is hope for the passage of the Clarity Act to define whether a digital asset is a security or a commodity.
SPS Weekly Performance Overview
SPS declined 3.7% this week from $0.00695 to $0.00670, but the price action revealed a complete range retest that ultimately defended key support levels. The market structure remains range-bound between $0.00645 support and $0.007 resistance. The technical picture shows SPS oscillating within a tight 10% horizontal band, which in trading textbooks is classic accumulation behavior. Market cap remained stable around $3.2-3.4M despite the volatility.
Trading volume averaged approximately $25K this week, down from the prior week's $38K. The low-volume environment otherwise signals limited breakout energy. Current liquidity remains thin at approximately $25-35K on normal days. This creates both opportunity and risk, with small orders (in comparison to the general crypto market) that can move the price significantly in either direction once the range resolves.
Market Analysis -- Trends
Splinterlands' in-game currency, DEC, is currently trading at $0.62 per 1K DEC (0.00062 per token) - approximately 38% below its $1 peg. Nearly a year ago, I wrote about why the DEC peg matters, and since then, the situation has only deteriorated. The core issue: the team received 1.2 billion DEC from the DAO to fund the Conclave Arcana mini set. This massive injection will recirculate back into the ecosystem at approximately 40 million DEC per week as players sell cards and packs. Thus, the splinterlands team is no longer a buyer of DEC as they're sitting on 1.2 billion DEC that will slowly recirculate into the market as players sell. Without buy pressure from the team offsetting the selling, DEC faces consistent downward pressure for the next 6-8 months until the team's reserves deplete. I wouldn't be surprised to see DEC push lower as this selling pressure plays out.
Personally, the DEC situation concerns me more than the SPS price action. DEC is the lifeblood of the in-game economy. When it trades 38% below peg, it signals fundamental problems with tokenomics and value accrual. Players lose confidence, and new players see a broken peg and question whether to enter an ecosystem with monetary instability.
Concluding Thoughts
SPS declined 3.7% this week, but that's not the core issue we explored. The DEC situation is worrying, with it trading 38% below peg with 1.2 billion DEC set to recirculate over the next 6-8 months, creating fundamental concerns about the in-game economy's health. Without natural buy pressure from the team and limited demand from new players, DEC faces persistent downward pressure that undermines confidence in Splinterlands' tokenomics.
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