Crypto in November 2025: Bitcoin Breaks Below $100k
2025-12-01
The damage from October's crash kept compounding. November was the worst November for Bitcoin since 2022, sentiment hit FTX-collapse lows, and even a wave of new ETF launches could not stop the bleeding. Here is the recap.
Below Six Figures
Bitcoin broke below $100,000 on November 4 for the first time since June, then ground lower to a bottom near $80,500-$81,000 on November 21 -- roughly 36% below its October 6 record. Ethereum fell from ~$3,600 to a trough near $2,745 over the same stretch. Around $1 trillion was wiped from total crypto market cap during the month, and the Fear & Greed Index sank to about 10-11, its lowest reading since the FTX collapse in November 2022. Bitcoin clawed back above ~$90k into month-end, but November still closed down ~17%.
The Largest DeFi Hack of Q4
On November 3, the Balancer V2 exploit drained roughly $116-128 million across six chains in under 30 minutes via an arithmetic precision bug, forcing Berachain to halt its network. More than $55 million was later recovered, but Balancer Labs ultimately wound down. Late in the month, South Korea's Upbit was hacked for ~$36 million via a Solana hot-wallet breach.
XRP ETFs and a Policy Restart
The product machine kept running even in the downturn. The first US spot XRP ETFs launched -- Canary Capital's XRPC on Nasdaq (November 13, ~$58 million day-one volume, the strongest ETF debut of the year) and Bitwise's XRP on the NYSE (November 20). The 43-day government shutdown ended on November 12, and the same day SEC Chair Paul Atkins outlined "Project Crypto," a four-tier token taxonomy and a forthcoming "Regulation Crypto" proposal with a startup safe harbor, signaling formal rulemaking in 2026.
The Flows Turned
For the first time, the ETF tide reversed in earnest. US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw roughly $3.4-3.8 billion in November outflows, and BlackRock's IBIT posted its first-ever monthly outflow (~$2.3 billion), including a then-record $527.8 million single day on November 18. Ethereum ETFs bled a record ~$1.4 billion.
The Takeaway
November was capitulation. When the marginal buyer of 2025 -- the ETF -- becomes a net seller, the reflexive engine that drove the bull market runs in reverse. Watching flow turn, not just price, is how you see a regime change early. Our models track exactly that; see them on the forecasts dashboard.