The cryptocurrency market experienced a deep decline in November 2025.
Date: 2025-12-12 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: CRYPTO PAYMENTS
Binance Research published a review of crypto market performance for November 2025, revealing a 15.43% decline in total capitalization. This marks the second consecutive month that the sector has remained in the red, indicating a shift in the market cycle after the strong growth in the first half of the year. Experts note that, amid declining interest in risky assets, the share of both Bitcoin and Ethereum has decreased, coinciding with the strengthening of external macroeconomic factors.
The main pressure came from the uncertainty surrounding the Federal Reserve's December meeting, where the market expected further signals about rate cuts. At the same time, investors were pricing in a possible rate hike from the Bank of Japan, creating risks for popular carry trades. Further negative sentiment was generated by a correction in the tech stock sector, where skepticism about the return on large investments in artificial intelligence triggered a broad sell-off, which also affected crypto assets.
Against this backdrop, the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing program ended, and in January, the regulator will begin buying up to $25 billion in short-term bonds monthly. Formally, this resembles "QE-Lite" and is interpreted as a return to liquidity, which could pave the way for a future market recovery.
November proved particularly challenging for Bitcoin, with its price briefly falling to $80,000 and ending the month at around $87,000. However, the key factor was record outflows from spot ETFs, which collectively lost approximately $3.5 billion. Net outflows exceeded $1 billion for several weeks in a row, and on November 21, trading volume reached an all-time high of $11 billion. The market effectively confirmed that investors perceive such ETFs as fully-fledged risk assets sensitive to macroeconomic expectations.
Meanwhile, funds based on Solana, XRP, and Litecoin started with inflows, which may indicate gradual institutional diversification into altcoins. Ethereum itself lost more than 21%, driven not only by the general correction but also by profit-taking ahead of the December Fusaka update.
Among other major assets, BCH and TRX showed the smallest losses, while SOL, ADA, and HYPE experienced the deepest declines. The correction spread across virtually the entire spectrum of cryptocurrencies, from high-risk to the most liquid.
The DeFi sector also experienced significant pressure: the volume of locked funds fell by 20%. Analysts cite deposits of several stablecoins, the Balancer hack, and investors' shift to a minimal-risk approach as reasons for this. Against this backdrop, the debate over Uniswap's fee switch mechanism only increased uncertainty among liquidity providers.
A sharp decline in interest in NFTs was also noted, with total sales falling by almost half. Projects on Ethereum and BNB Chain suffered the most, while DMarket became the leader in volume.
Experts believe that December is traditionally characterized by low liquidity, which means volatility could increase. At the same time, a technical rebound is possible after the large-scale fixation in November, and in the long term, the decisive factor remains the reversal of the Fed's policy and the further development of ETF products.
