Cardano’s Recovery Stalls, but TVL Growth Signals Could Spark Year-End Upside

In a recent tweet, Michael Saylor-led Bitcoin treasury company Strategy said it had discovered something better than Bitcoin: more Bitcoin. Strategy wrote in a tweet: "We discovered something better than bitcoin… More bitcoin."

Crypto has been under pressure for more than a month, when a shock liquidation event in October wiped out billions of dollars in leveraged positions and led to a downturn in prices.

Bitcoin is on track for its worst monthly performance since 2022. Bitcoin has now shed about a quarter of its value in November, the most for a single month since June 2022, according to Bloomberg.

Investors in Bitcoin exchange traded funds recently found themselves sitting on collective losses after Bitcoin fell below $89,600.The slew of digital-asset treasury companies inspired by Michael Saylor’s Strategy have also seen outflows.

More Bitcoin?

Reversals of fortune are nothing new for Bitcoin diehards, seeing euphoric rallies and then brutal sell-offs, which happen every few years, or whenever sentiment shifts. At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $87,087, having reached a low of $80,524 on Nov. 21.

The recent Bitcoin sell-off pushed firms like Strategy closer to the value of their Bitcoin reserves.

Amid the seeming concerns, Strategy assures readers that it remains well fortified to cushion the impact of Bitcoin's price drop, saying it has 5.9x assets to convertible debt if Bitcoin ever reaches its cost basis.

"If BTC drops to our $74K average cost basis, we still have 5.9x assets to convertible debt, which we refer to as the BTC Rating of our debt. At $25K BTC, it would be 2.0x," Strategy said in a recent tweet.

Strategy revealed that it bought more Bitcoin during the 2022" crypto winter," when Bitcoin fell nearly 50% below its cost basis. "In the depths of the 2022 crypto winter, our average cost basis was $30K while $BTC traded nearly 50% below it at $16K. What did we do? We bought more," it said.

The crypto market has seen a notable resurgence in the last hour, with prices of leading cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin flipping to the positive side.

This hourly price shift has triggered a wild liquidation event in the Bitcoin derivatives market, as data from Coinglass shows a substantial skewing against short positions.

During the last hourly liquidation session, a total of $8.03 million in Bitcoin positions were wiped out, recording a massive $8 million in short positions against just $21,930 in long positions.

Bitcoin short trades under pressure 

This massive liquidation imbalance, which happened when the market witnessed a sudden shift in sentiment, has seen short traders suffer the major portion of the liquidation, marking a massive 36,389% liquidation imbalance in just one hour.

Earlier today, Bitcoin had started the day in the red territory as its price had slowed down from the rapid resurgence witnessed the previous day. Nonetheless, Bitcoin later regained its momentum during the latter hours of the day, with its price resuming its rally, putting bearish traders betting against its upsurge in intense pressure.

Bitcoin back on track to reclaim $100,000

While momentum is finally returning to the market amid renewed interest and confidence, the massive short-position wipe-off comes as no surprise, as traders appeared heavily tilted toward downside expectations due to the prolonged volatility witnessed in previous days.

However, the market has pushed Bitcoin back into positive price action amid surging demand from institutions, as Bitcoin ETFs also record impressive daily inflows.

Nonetheless, the short-term windows show how the pressure built suddenly, sparking curiosities about its next price action. Bitcoin’s intraday movement showed that the price slid from an $86,171 low to reclaiming the $90,000, causing the unexpected shift.

Nonetheless, data from CoinMarketCap shows that it has surged decently by 2.61% over the last day, and it is now trading at $89,760 as of writing time.

With these unexpected price moves and the growing demand for the leading cryptocurrency, it appears that Bitcoin is up for a big rally in December, potentially at the verge of reclaiming the $100,000 crucial support level.

Some Cardano investors who staked their assets stand the risk of suffering irrecoverable losses. As per insights shared by a community stakeholder known on X as Cardano YOD₳, over seven million ADA belonging to some 1,683 holders are at risk of permanent loss.

Retired stake pool leaves Cardano holders vulnerable

Notably, these wallets are delegating their Cardano to a retired pool. For context, a stake operator known as Homer J. was involved in an incident that led to a temporary fork for the Cardano network. The fork on the blockchain split the nodes and stakes.

Homer J.’s pool has now been retired. Unfortunately, the pool still holds over seven million ADA, and the wallet holders are still delegating to the inactive pool. This development implies that these holders risk missing their rewards.

While the Cardano itself is not lost, the wallet holders cannot earn any reward from their delegation to Homer J.’s pool. Hence, Cardano YOD₳ has urged all affected holders delegating to the operator with the ticker AAA to stop and channel it elsewhere.

YOD₳ is calling on such investors to switch their delegation to an active pool where they can earn staking rewards again.

A user in the community decried the closure of the pool by Homer J., claiming it was possibly a mistake. Reactions trailing the post suggest that some affected investors are already seeking alternatives, like MANDA and PLKOZ.

The development has affected Cardano’s price outlook, with ADA dipping to $0.4059 in earlier trading. As of press time, Cardano exchanged hands at $0.4141, which reflects a 1.68% increase in the last 24 hours.

However, trading volume is still down by 21.76% at $571.42 million. The coin’s inability to find stability above $0.50 might be a source of concern to market participants in the Cardano ecosystem.

Price pressure continues as ADA awaits December catalysts

With several key dates anticipated in December for Cardano holders, it is possible that these events could trigger a turnaround for ADA.

Notably, Cardano’s Midnight token will launch on Dec. 8. The community is also looking forward to round-the-clock trading of ADA on Coinbase, as of Dec. 5.

These developments might serve as catalysts for a price rebound for the altcoin. Additionally, a proposal to expand ADA’s listing on different exchanges has received approval from the Cardano Foundation.

How Cardano performs on the broader crypto market remains something observers will be watching. 

XRP spent the session moving in a tight range around $2.14-$2.18, but the real action was not visible on the chart at all. It was buried in the liquidation feed, where the popular cryptocurrency suddenly posted one of its most distorted prints in days. 

According to CoinGlass, total liquidations hit $1.32 million, but the long-versus-short breakdown told the real story: $1.23 million flushed from longs, while shorts barely took an $85,580 hit.CoinGlass">

That gap created the 1,447% imbalance, a number that usually catches the attention of every derivatives trader, as it is the kind of figure that shows the market was not just leaning long — it was stacked on one side of the orderbook, and the first wave knocked everyone over at once.

Liquidation cluster shows why XRP’s imbalance mattered

The environment made it seem even worse. For all digital assets combined, the 12-hour total was $81.20 million. Bitcoin was at $16.97 million, and Ethereum was close to $10.76 million. Smaller names like Zcash (ZEC) had seven-figure hits, but XRP's imbalance was the only print that looked lopsided rather than just reactive to the wider sweep.

Spot candles were falling behind the story: a few small jumps, a few smooth drops, nothing that visually explained why so many long positions were falling at the same time. That mismatch often shows up at turning points, when positioning gets ahead of price and the market simply removes the excess.

Now, the focus is on liquidity. If the depth fills back in quickly, it is a reset. If not, the imbalance can bleed into the next leg down for the XRP price.

The wider crypto market led by Bitcoin and Ethereum is on the rise today. Bitcoin price gained around 3% during the past 24 hours to trade above $90k on Wednesday, November 26, 2025, during the mid-North American session. 

Ethereum price rallied above a crucial resistance level around $2,981 to trade at about $3,031 at press time. As such, the total crypto market cap surged 1.2% to hover around $3.04 trillion at press time.

Why are Bitcoin and Ethereum Up Today

Renewed demand from institutional investors after a heavy capitulation last few weeks

The demand for Bitcoin and Ethereum by institutional investors has rebounded in the past few days. After a notable capitulation in the past few weeks, on-chain data shows whale investors have returned.

For instance, BlackRock’s IBIT recorded a net cash inflow of over $130 million on Tuesday, partially offsetting last week’s huge outflow. On-chain data analysis revealed that a single whale investor withdrew 6k ETH, valued at over $17 million, from Binance on Wednesday, thus increasing holdings to nearly 74k ETH.

Technical tailwinds amid bearish outlook for Gold

From a technical analysis standpoint, BTC price has led the wider altcoin market in underperforming other markets year-to-date. Amid the mainstream adoption of crypto fueled by regulatory clarity under President Donald Trump, the wider crypto assets have been under huge selling pressure YTD.

However, today’s Bitcoin-led market rebound has rejuvenated bullish sentiment for the wider crypto space. With the weekly Relative Strength Index (RSI) hovering in oversold levels, the bullish momentum is likely to continue in the coming weeks.

XRP spot ETFs started the new week with a stronger start than the whole previous one, and the updated data from SoSoValue shows it clearly. The new week has only two sessions, Nov. 24 and 25, and the total is already at $199.45 million. That number alone puts these two days ahead of the prior full week's $179.60 million.

On Monday, issuers reported $164.04 million in net inflows. Yesterday, Nov. 25, we had another $35.41 million in the bank. These two days together make up the $199.45 million weekly reading. 

By now, the total amount of money invested in all XRP ETFs was $622.11 million. Total net assets climbed to $644.64 million, equal to 0.49% of XRP's market cap. The issuer breakdown shows consistent participation: Bitwise added $21.30 million on the latest day, Canary added $6.99 million and Franklin printed $7.12 million. SoSoValue">

Every major player had good results during this time, which gave the weekly print a boost rather than just a few spikes here and there.

XRP trading activity also increased

The most recent session closed near $44 million in value traded, while early-November sessions were operating closer to $20-25 million. That rise lines up with the stronger inflow numbers.

XRP's price stayed within a range of $2.16 and $2.29, showing no clear reaction to the ETF inflows. The flows came in, no matter what the short-term price action was doing.

Thus, two sessions was all it took for XRP ETFs to beat the whole previous week, which is the strongest start since they launched. Now all eyes are on the price.