Weekly DeFi Index

This week, the price and volume indices increased by +10.42% and +45.19%, respectively, while the volatility index dropped by -42.14%.

Chart of the Week

Bitcoin mining industry faced headwinds since Q3 2025, driven by a 50% block reward reduction after the April 2024 halving, a crypto market downturn, and macroeconomic pressures. Hashprice — a critical metric for miner profitability that tracks expected revenue per unit of computing power expended to mine blocks — fell to around $35 per petahash-second (PH/s) per day in November, a multi-year low (it stands at around $40 PH/s per day at the time of writing). The decline potentially pushed profitability into negative territory as the Bitcoin mining daily hashcost ranges from $16 PH/s and $58 PH/s per day. Additionally, US tariffs and supply chain concerns further strained operations.

News Highlights

• World Liberty Financial, a DeFi project linked to the Trump family, launched World Liberty Markets, a crypto lending platform centred on its USD1 stablecoin and WLFI governance token, enabling users to borrow and lend digital assets.
• The Optimism Foundation proposed using 50% of Superchain revenue to repurchase OP tokens in an effort to tie the token more closely to ecosystem growth. Optimism collected 5,868 ETH in Superchain revenue, and the purchased tokens would return to the treasury for potential burning or staking rewards based on future governance decisions.
• Polygon Labs agreed to acquire US crypto payments company Coinme and wallet provider Sequence in deals worth over $250 million to establish itself as a regulated stablecoin payments platform.
• ZKsync, a Layer-2 network, released its 2026 roadmap emphasising privacy, deterministic control, and native interoperability to support institutional adoption of digital assets. Key initiatives include the development of Prividium, a privacy-focused execution environment designed to protect sensitive financial data, and the evolution of the ZK Stack into an orchestrated system enabling cross-chain connectivity.
• Franklin Templeton amended the Western Asset Institutional Treasury Obligations Fund (LUIXX) and the Western Asset Institutional Treasury Reserves Fund (DIGXX) to align with the US stablecoin regime. The LUIXX fund invests exclusively in short-term US government obligations and is structured to meet GENIUS Act reserve requirements. The DIGXX fund added a blockchain-enabled ‘Digital Institutional’ share class to serve as 24/7 on-chain collateral for tokenisation platforms, custodians, and broker-dealers.
• A smart contract vulnerability in the Truebit protocol led to a $26 million exploit, causing TRU’s price to crash by 99%. The attack exploited an integer overflow in the contract's price calculation logic, allowing the attacker to mint tokens at near-zero cost.

Recent Research Reports

Interested to know more? Access exclusive reports by signing up as a Private member, joining our Crypto.com Exchange VIP Programme, or collecting a Loaded Lions NFT. The latest crypto market insights are also available via the dashboard.

We’re all ears.

Your feedback has always helped us provide insightful crypto market trends. Tell us how we can improve this newsletter further by taking a quick survey below (it will only take less than a minute). Thank you!

Take our survey now

Author

Research and Insights Team

Get the latest market, DeFi & NFT updates delivered to your inbox:

Be the first to hear about new insights:

Disclaimer

The information in this report is provided as general market commentary by Crypto.com and its affiliates, and does not constitute any financial, investment, legal, tax, or any other advice. This report is not intended to offer or recommend any access to products and/or services. While we endeavour to publish and maintain accurate information, we do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information in this report, nor do we adopt nor endorse, nor are we responsible for, the accuracy or reliability of any information submitted by other parties.

This report is not directed or intended for distribution to, or use by, any person or entity who is a citizen or resident of, or located in a jurisdiction, where such distribution or use would be contrary to applicable law or that would subject Crypto.com and/or its affiliates to any registration or licensing requirement.

The brands and the logos appearing in this report are registered trademarks of their respective owners.