Crypto Market Recap: October 2025

￰0￱ Shutdown Sparks Uncertainty October started with a major shock for the ￰1￱ October 1, 2025, the federal government shut down after Congress failed to agree on a new ￰2￱ of thousands of federal employees were sent home, and many agencies stopped or slowed their ￰3￱ a result, key economic data, like labor reports and inflation numbers, stopped coming ￰4￱ lack of information created even more ￰5￱ Federal Reserve had to make decisions without fresh data, while investors grew nervous about what might happen ￰6￱ shutdown also hit the economy directly, costing billions of dollars each week, lowering consumer spending, and increasing the risk of job losses as government spending slowed ￰7￱ crypto, especially Bitcoin , becomes more connected to the ￰8￱ market, these uncertainties quickly affect digital assets as ￰9￱ shutdown added pressure to risk assets, eventually leading to a drop in cryptocurrency ￰10￱ long as the shutdown continues, it will remain the main focus in both economic and policy discussions, and its influence on the market will likely ￰11￱ the government reopens, we can expect a short-term sense of relief across markets.

However, the absence of clear progress on crypto regulation could limit ￰12￱ the overheated S&P 500 enters a correction phase, crypto might also move sideways or see a mild decline in ￰13￱ Breaks Its Seven-Year “Uptober” Streak Traditionally a bullish month, October ended with Bitcoin’s first negative performance in seven ￰14￱ were several reasons for this shift. First, Bitcoin had already been rising for months, it grew steadily from April onward, with only a brief pause in ￰15￱ such a strong run, the market naturally needed a period of consolidation. A more direct cause was the ￰16￱ government shutdown, which created uncertainty across all ￰17￱ impact became especially visible at the start of November, when the prolonged shutdown and delayed economic data triggered another wave of risk aversion, putting additional pressure on Bitcoin and the broader crypto ￰18￱ past month once again confirmed that Bitcoin is becoming increasingly tied to the global financial ￰19￱ sharp reaction to the ￰20￱ shutdown proved this link ￰21￱ a higher-risk asset, Bitcoin moved faster and more violently than traditional markets, amplifying the effects of macro ￰22￱ forward, Bitcoin’s price dynamics appear closely connected to the U.

S. economy, stock market performance, and any future developments in crypto ￰23￱ global liquidity conditions and American policy shifts evolve, Bitcoin is likely to mirror those changes even more directly, behaving less like an isolated digital asset and more like a volatile extension of the broader financial ￰24￱ Faces Sharper Decline Amid Regulatory Uncertainty Ethereum , being a riskier asset compared to Bitcoin, saw an even sharper decline and showed greater volatility throughout the ￰25￱ the past two years, Ethereum’s price behavior has been marked by extremes, it either gradually trends downward or experiences sudden monthly surges of 40% or more.

Historically, these strong price rallies have almost always coincided with major catalysts, such as anticipation of an ETF approval, Trump’s election victory, or the passage of the GENIUS ￰26￱ this stage, regulatory developments remain the primary driver for Ethereum’s price ￰27￱ significant policy move, particularly one related to institutional access or classification of digital assets, is likely to determine the direction of its next major ￰28￱ State of Blockchains BNB Chain Keeps Leading in Active Addresses It’s been the best month for BNB Chain this ￰29￱ fees reached $70.7M, the highest since January ￰30￱ chain also led in October by active addresses, reaching 58.3M ￰31￱ recorded $119B in DEX volume, the highest since October 2021, and set a new record in perps trading at $16.8B.

The surge in activity came from perps trading, driven mainly by Aster , a perp DEX that brought thousands of traders to BNB ￰32￱ users farmed the Aster airdrop, the network’s metrics ￰33￱ liquidity influx reignited the memecoin sector – ￰34￱ launchpad earned $44M in fees, surpassing its total historical ￰35￱ forgotten tokens hit new ATHs, while new runners ￰36￱ the end of the month, the memecoin hype cooled off, but overall network activity stayed near peak ￰37￱ is the Top Chain by DEX Volume October was a contradictory month for ￰38￱ fees dropped to $27.7M, the lowest level since ￰39￱ addresses dropped to 37.7M, which is far below the peak activity seen a year ￰40￱ the positive side, total transactions grew by 3% MoM, and DEX volume hit $149M, the highest since February and the top among all ￰41￱ became the #1 DEX by volume, surpassing Meteora, Raydium, and ￰42￱ activity was at a minimal level this year as traders shifted toward other chains (Base, BNB Chain) and sectors like perps trading and prediction ￰43￱ solidified its dominance as Solana’s leading launchpad, now holding 90-95% market share by volume, token launches, and active users.

Meanwhile, a surge in sandwich attacks raised concerns in the ￰44￱ 400K attacks were recorded in October, affecting 200K users and resulting in nearly 20K SOL in ￰45￱ banned 15 validators involved, but the impact has been limited so ￰46￱ month also saw the launch of the Solana ETF by Bitmine, which attracted $199M in inflows. However, it had little effect on price, with SOL closing October down 10% ￰47￱ Memecoin Activity Grows Base showed strong performance in ￰48￱ network’s TVL surpassed $10B for the first time, while the stablecoin market cap reached $4.63B. Network fees climbed to $9.9M, the highest since January, and DEX volume hit a new ATH of $55B.

Total transactions dipped 5% MoM but stayed near record levels. However, active addresses fell 8%, approaching their 2025 ￰49￱ activity surged across the ￰50￱ 1.19M new tokens created, Base became the #1 chain in token launches, overtaking both Solana and BNB ￰51￱ , a Base-native token launch tool, earned $4.8M in fees, marking its second-best result ￰52￱ the increased attention, most major Base memecoins dropped over 30% in ￰53￱ around the potential launch of a BASE token continued through ￰54￱ the Base team confirmed they are exploring tokenization, no official roadmap has been ￰55￱ forecasted that the upcoming Base token could reach a $34B market cap, citing a 2x rise in DeFi TVL over the past year and projecting up to $23B in new liquidity if an airdrop and token launch ￰56￱ hits highest transactions count since 2023 In October, the network recorded its highest monthly fees of 2025 at $1.64M.

The number of transactions hit 61.5M, the highest level since 2023. Meanwhile, active addresses fell by around 10%, and TVL declined by about 15%. In ecosystem news, Visa enabled payments in four different stablecoins on Avalanche. BlackRock’s BUIDL added $500M in RWAs, making Avalanche its second-largest chain after Ethereum.

Additionally, Avalanche Treasury ￰57￱ a $675M merger with Mountain Lake Acquisition ￰58￱ form a publicly listed vehicle for AVAX exposure, with plans to list on Nasdaq in Q1 2026 pending ￰59￱ performers ZEC saw rising institutional interest following Grayscale’s announcement of a Zcash Trust aimed at accredited ￰60￱ privacy coins gaining renewed attention, investors turned to ZEC as an alternative to public ￰61￱ a result, the token surged over 200% in ￰62￱ jumped more than 300% after its listing on Aster, which unlocked liquidity and brought exposure to thousands of new traders. However, the rally was largely speculation-driven, fueled by social media hype and momentum around the AI narrative rather than ￰63￱ token is now sitting at $300M market ￰64￱ became another beneficiary of the privacy meta, breaking out of a five-year downtrend and attracting traders who had been waiting for a ￰65￱ upgrades added to market ￰66￱ token is now trading at its highest level since 2023.

H (Humanity Protocol) skyrocketed 153% in a single day on October 14 following signs of whale ￰67￱ rally was supported by the project’s expansion in the Sui ecosystem and its increasing role in decentralized biometric ID solutions. However, the token later pulled back ~30% from its newly set ￰68￱ gained 59% in October, standing out among large-cap ￰69￱ surge came amid growing institutional interest and the launch of the world’s first staked Bittensor Exchange-Traded Product (ETP) by Deutsche Digital Assets and ￰70￱ overview: Aave, Ethena, Pendle Aave Aave showed a strong resilience during a major market-wide stress event, automatically handling $180 million in liquidations with zero downtime or user ￰71￱ underscores the strength of its automated risk ￰72￱ protocol continued to attract institutional-scale users and deepen integrations, serving as a crucial liquidity source and collateral platform for the expanding initiatives of both Ethena and ￰73￱ reaching an ATH TVL of $76B, Aave's TVL pulled back to $63B following a broader market ￰74￱ the first time ever, Aave generated over $100 million in monthly fees, totaling $102.6M.

The upcoming V4 mainnet scheduled for late Q4 2025 is going to strengthen Aave’s position as the leading DeFi lending ￰75￱ Ethena went through a major stress test in October when USDe briefly lost its peg on Binance due to an external oracle ￰76￱ peg was quickly restored, but the circulating supply dropped from 15B to 9B over the month. Later, during a broader market downturn and heavy liquidations, Ethena successfully handled another stress event — its mint and redeem functions operated without interruption, processing $2B in redemptions within 24 ￰77￱ protocol expanded its integrations, launching deeper collaborations with major DeFi money markets such as Aave and Pendle to diversify collateral and enhance cross-protocol liquidity.

Additionally, Ethena introduced JupUSD, the native stablecoin of the Jupiter ecosystem, built on its Stablecoin-as-a-Service ￰78￱ project also transitioned the USDtb smart contract to Anchorage Digital, making it the first federally regulated stablecoin issued under the GENIUS ￰79￱ Pendle launched new “Agentic DeFi” strategies in collaboration with Giza Tech (Pulse), INFINIT Labs (Plasma), AFI Protocol, and Symphony, introducing advanced automated yield ￰80￱ recognition also grew, marked by the launch of the Pendle ETP on the SIX Swiss Exchange by 21Shares – a major step toward bridging DeFi yields with traditional finance. Pendle’s new Boros product for trading funding rates on centralized and decentralized exchanges reached $2.83B in trading volume and $4.7B in open interest within 3 ￰81￱ DEX Wars The battle between major perp DEXs has intensified as new players gain ￰82￱ sector has evolved from Hyperliquid dominance into a highly competitive ￰83￱ still led October by trading volume at $308B, but rivals trail ￰84￱ finished October in second place, with $272B, followed by Aster with $260B.

Interestingly, during the last week of October, both Lighter and Aster outperformed Hyperliquid as its volumes dropped to July’s lows. However, with $9B in open interest, Hyperliquid remains unmatched. It’s is more than all other players have ￰85￱ the way, both Hyperliquid and Aster also entered the top 10 projects by monthly ￰86￱ October market crash served as a stress test, showcasing Hyperliquid’s robust infrastructure, which stayed fully operational during mass ￰87￱ and Aster grew fast, but we’ll have to see if they can keep it up in the long run, as they rely on incentivized traffic (both have points programs, while Hyperliquid doesn’t). Prediction Markets: Polymarket vs Kalshi In October, prediction markets became the top narrative, dominating CT ￰88￱ total monthly trading volume hit a new ATH of $8.5B, surpassing the ￰89￱ ￰90￱ number of traders also reached an all-time high of ￰91￱ rivalry between Polymarket and Kalshi only ￰92￱ is now focused on regulatory steps to legally expand into the ￰93￱ news came with the announcement of a $2B strategic round backed by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of NYSE, at a $9B ￰94￱ big update was the confirmation of the POLY token launch coming in 2026, which will include an airdrop for active ￰95￱ news boosted excitement in the crypto community and drove Polymarket activity ￰96￱ also announced a new investment round in October – a $300M Series D at a $5B valuation, led by Sequoia Capital and Andreessen ￰97￱ total, the project has raised $565M to ￰98￱ recent partnership with Robinhood has been a game changer, allowing users to trade NFL and college football markets directly through the ￰99￱ “Sports” category now makes up over 90% of Kalshi’s ￰100￱ diversify, the platform is expanding into Polymarket’s territory, crypto, and has onboarded notable CT influencers like John Wang, ICO Beast, 0xUltra, and others.

Now, let’s break some ￰101￱ hit $4.4B in volume vs Polymarket’s $4.1B. The gap is pretty small, compared to September, when Kalshi was a clear winner – $2.9B vs $1.6B. Again, most of Kalshi volume comes from sports, whereas Polymarket has it distributed among several categories: sports, politics, and ￰102￱ also leads in transaction count: 16M vs ￰103￱ of November 1, it’s Polymarket’s $200M in open interest against Kalshi’s $296M. Other prediction apps can’t get anywhere close to the numbers demonstrated by these ￰104￱ new launches, it’s worth mentioning Opinion Labs , a prediction market backed by YZi ￰105￱ access is limited now, though, so keep an eye out for updates.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes ￰106￱ is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.