ZEC, DASH Lead as Privacy Coins Defy Broader Market Slide: Crypto Daybook Americas
By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
It’s another risk-off session across the crypto markets. Bitcoin slid 3.5% in the past 24 hours to approach October lows around $103,600. Any further and the largest cryptocurrency would be at its lowest price since June.
The CoinDesk 20 Index is down 5%, with major altcoins like ether and solana also hitting their lowest since August.
The usual culprits are taking the blame: hawkish comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell; a strengthening dollar index; persistent selling from long-time wallets.
“Liquidity is expanding globally, yet capital isn’t reaching crypto,” market maker Wintermute said. “ETF inflows have stalled, DAT activity has dried up, and only stablecoins are still growing.”
But there’s another angle, and it’s one worth considering. The bearish tone could be tied to the Oct. 17 flash crash, when several arbitrage bets lost money on their futures legs due to auto-deleveraging. These firms could be quietly liquidating their remaining long spot positions, adding to downward pressure on prices.
Speaking of the market swoon, Stream Finance’s stablecoin, xUSD, collapsed 80% to 30 cents, with the DeFi firm reporting a $93 million loss stemming from an external fund manager. Stream Finance said it hired a top legal firm, Perkins Coie LLP, to investigate the issue, and the crypto community is on edge, assessing the broader market fallout.
Some observers have noted that lenders of xUSD are now earning over 500% daily interest. That’s a clear indication the protocol’s treasury might be in serious trouble.
Amidst all this gloom, some privacy coins, such as Zcash, Decred and DASH, are surging, adding as much as 200% in just 24 hours. It appears that traders are seeking refuge wherever they can.
In traditional markets, the recent surge in credit default swaps tied to Oracle is being taken to represent investor angst over the company’s booming AI-related spending. The dollar index has risen to 100 for the first time in months, complicating matters for bitcoin bulls. Gold, meanwhile, continues to hold steady around $4,000 per ounce. Stay alert!
What to Watch
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.
- Crypto
- Nov. 4: IoTeX (IOTX) deploys Core v2.3.0 mainnet upgrade, introducing slashing for underperforming delegates and BLS PublicKey Registration for scalable signature aggregation to enhance network reliability and scalability.
- Nov. 4, 12 p.m. UTC: THORChain (RUNE) activates mainnet upgrade v3.12.0, introducing enhanced swaps, improved performance and Solana client support.
- Nov. 4, 10 a.m.: Sam Bankman-Fried will appear before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to argue for a new trial, challenging the fairness of his conviction and 25-year sentence for fraud,
- Macro
- Nov. 4, 6:35 a.m.: Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman is giving a speech on “Bank Supervision and Monetary Policy.” Watch live.
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- Nov. 4: Hut 8 (HUT), pre-market, -$0.12.
- Nov. 4: Mara Holdings (MARA), post-market, $0.02.
- Nov. 4: Sequans Communications (SQNS), pre-market, N/A.
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.
- Governance votes & calls
- Balancer DAO is voting on a major proposal to transition on-chain operations to a new legal entity (BIP-882), alongside proposals to improve emergency security (BIP-883), enable the BAL token on Plasma chain (BIP-884), update treasury permissions (BIP-885) and add a new Arbitrum gauge (BIP-886). Voting for all of these ends Nov. 4.
- Unlocks
- Token Launches
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.
Token Talk
By Oliver Knight
- The altcoin market suffered a bruising Asia session with several tokens falling by more than 15%, resulting in a $1.37 billion wave of liquidations, according to CoinGlass.
- HyperLiquid rival aster led the decline, sliding 18% to $0.88. Intriguingly, that’s below the price paid by Binance founder CZ, who announced a $1.8 million purchase at $0.90 over the weekend.
- “Every time I buy coins, I get stuck in a losing position, 100% record,” CZ wrote on X Tuesday.
- Numerous tokens including now find themselves back at critical levels of support that led to a bounce two weeks ago, although it’s worth noting that the likes of solana and BNB have fallen to fresh lows.
- One sector that has outperformed the wider market has been privacy coins, with and both still in the green for the month.
- Tuesday also saw exceptional rallies in and , two tokens considered “dino coins” by some as they were launched in 2017 and 2014 respectively. Both tokens have privacy features and appear to be riding the coattails of XMR and ZEC.
- DCR is up by 146% while DASH is up by 65% on significant volume, demonstrating that traders may be rotating away from the weaker wider market.
Derivatives Positioning
- Volmex’s Bitcoin Volatility Index, BVIV, which represents the 30-day implied, or expected, price turbulence, is rising, following the golden cross of its 50- and 200-day moving averages.
- BTC’s spot price has developed a negative correlation with volatility over the past year, which means further gains in BVIV could be marked by price weakness.
- Positioning in ZEC remains elevated, with open interest (OI) near lifetime highs of around 1.59 million ZEC. However, funding rates have flipped bearish, a sign that some traders are shorting futures, possibly against long spot positions.
- On the CME, futures tied to BTC and ETH continue to see diverging trends, with activity mostly concentrated in ether futures, where OI remains near record highs.
- On Deribit, BTC options show a bias for puts across all time frames, a sign of persistent downside concerns. Ether options show bullishness following the February 2026 expiry.
- OTC flows over Paradigm featured demand for the Nov. 7 expiry ether put at the $3,500 strike.
Market Movements
- BTC is down 2.8% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $103,900.89 (24hrs: -2.72%)
- ETH is down 2.98% at $3,494.29 (24hrs: -5.87%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 2.54% at 3,285.49 (24hrs: -5.03%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.93%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.0063% (6.893% annualized) on Bybit
- DXY is up 0.09% at 99.96
- Gold futures are down 0.26% at $4,003.40
- Silver futures are down 1.05% at $47.54
- Nikkei 225 closed down 1.74% at 51,497.20
- Hang Seng closed down 0.79% at 25,952.40
- FTSE is down 1.02% at 9,602.50
- Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.44% at 5,597.60
- DJIA closed on Monday down 0.48% at 47,336.68
- S&P 500 closed up 0.17% at 6,851.97
- Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.46% at 23,834.72
- S&P/TSX Composite closed little changed at 30,275.06
- S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.55% at 3,020.24
- U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 1.8 bps at 4.089%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 1.06% at 6,809.75
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.37% at 25,744.50
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are down 0.77% at 47,107.00
Bitcoin Stats
- BTC Dominance: 60.62% (-0.20%)
- Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03353 (-0.83%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,114 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $42.13
- Total Fees: 3.12 BTC / $335,825
- CME Futures Open Interest: 132,180 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 24.6 oz
- BTC vs gold market cap: 6.95%
Technical Analysis
- Volmex’s bitcoin volatility index, BVIV, which measures the expected price volatility over 30 days, has produced a golden crossover, a bullish cross of the 50- and 200-day simple moving averages.
- The pattern indicates more gains for the index, implying heightened price swings in the bitcoin market.
Crypto Equities
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Monday at $330.42 (-3.89%), -3.69% at $318.23 in pre-market
- Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $117.86 (-7.18%), -2.38% at $115.05
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $34.88 (-0.37%), -5.71% at $32.89
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $50.26 (-0.61%), -1.61% at $49.45
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $17.81 (-2.52%), -3.48% at $17.19
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $20.72 (+4.75%), -4.58% at $19.77
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $22.9 (+6.31%), -4.45% at $21.88
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $17.42 (-2.13%), -4.82% at $16.58
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $61.46 (+7.09%), -4.15% at $58.91
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $25.19 (+2.86%), -0.12% at $25.16
Crypto Treasury Companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $264.67 (-1.8%), -3.65% at $255.01
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $25.41 (-3.97%)
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $13.09 (-5.42%), -4.51% at $12.50
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $3.84 (-14.09%), -5.21% at $3.64
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.92 (-8.13%), -2.08% at $1.88
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$186.5 million
- Cumulative net flows: $60.97 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.35 million
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$135.7 million
- Cumulative net flows: $14.25 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~6.71 million
Source: Farside Investors
While You Were Sleeping
- Bitcoin, Ether, Solana Traders Liquidated for Over $1B as Prices Dump 5%-10% (CoinDesk): A drop from $112,000 to under $106,000 triggered a leveraged-futures flush led by long positions, capped by a $33.95 million HTX closure, with Hyperliquid posting the most forced exits.
- Bitcoin’s Last Support Before $100K Breaks as ‘Mag 7’ Skew Flips, Oracle CDS Surges (CoinDesk): An Asia-session slide below $106,000, fresh lows in ETH and SOL and a bearish moving-average crossover highlight weakening risk appetite amid ebbing rate-cut odds and a firmer dollar.
- Stream Finance Faces $93 Million Loss, Launches Legal Investigation (CoinDesk): An external fund manager overseeing Stream funds disclosed a loss of approximately $93 million in the firm’s assets, triggering a suspension of deposits and withdrawals as an investigation unfolds.
- Crypto’s ‘Decentralised Finance’ Sector at Risk of Attack, Warns Chainalysis (Financial Times): According to the firm, hacks totaled $2.2 billion in the first half of 2025, and CEO Jonathan Levin says this underscores how fast-growing DeFi platforms often prioritize expansion over security.
