Finance

In October 2025, Layer2 and high-performance blockchains saw a rebound in activity, while on-chain structures remained differentiated. Arbitrum led the trend, with transaction volume up over 34% and more than $1 billion in net inflows driven by DRIP incentives and asset tokenization, solidifying its position as the leading Layer2 network. Starknet rose on the back of the BTCFi narrative, attracting a steady return of capital and users. Bitcoin entered a technical correction after retreating from its highs, with short-term positions stabilizing and long-term holders resuming accumulation, indicating a market rebalancing phase. Polymarket gained momentum with its narrative of merging prediction markets and traditional finance, surpassing $2.7 billion in monthly trading volume, while Humanity Protocol focused on “AI + DID” and zero-knowledge identity verification, with its token $H up over 300% in the past month, becoming a leading project in the decentralized identity sector.

This report highlights that as of October 2025, the global oracle sector’s Total Value Secured (TVS) has surpassed $102.1 billion, with a total market capitalization of $14.1 billion. The market remains dominated by Chainlink, while competition is shifting from technical scalability toward economic model sustainability and cross-chain capability. The report notes that oracle growth has entered a “multiplier effect” phase, with momentum shifting from DeFi-native demand to Real World Assets (RWA), which are emerging as the core driver of institutional adoption. Meanwhile, cross-chain communication (CCIP), prediction markets, and AI-integrated oracles are expected to shape the next growth curve. On the economic front, the sector is transitioning from a “pay-per-call” model to a “service staking” paradigm, signaling a return to fundamentals-based valuation logic. The report estimates LINK’s long-term fair value range at $26–35, with potential upside to $40–45 upon the implementation of the Smart Value Recovery (S

This report summarizes the Web3 funding landscape in October 2025. In October, a total of 130 deals were completed, with $5.12 billion raised, representing a 104.8% month-over-month surge, the second-highest level in the past year. Funding was primarily driven by strategic rounds, which accounted for over 70% of the total, fueled by the explosion of the prediction market Polymarket and the accelerated integration of CeFi and TradFi. By sector, DeFi led with $2.15 billion, reflecting concentrated capital flows toward innovative financial applications. In terms of funding structure, projects in the $3M–$10M range accounted for nearly one-third of rounds, while projects under $1M represented only 5.9%, marking a recent low. The report also highlights key funded projects, including Orochi Network, KapKap, Voyage, TBook, and Lava.

In October, Bitcoin recorded its first monthly loss since 2018, with the overall cryptocurrency market significantly underperforming traditional risk assets. Despite this weakness, the top 30% of quantitative fund portfolios achieved an impressive annualized return of 35.4%, substantially outperforming Bitcoin. The Hedging Investment-USDT strategy stood out, delivering a positive 5% return even as Bitcoin declined more than 5.5% during the month. Overall drawdowns across quantitative funds remained minimal, with the USDT strategy’s maximum drawdown at just -0.01%. Looking ahead to November, macro liquidity conditions and policy expectations are expected to continue driving market direction, while the crypto market may remain in a “high-volatility, low-trend” consolidation phase.

An in-depth analysis of the resurgence of crypto presales in 2025, exploring the evolution from early participation narratives to structured financing, examining why capital is refocusing on early-stage projects, and revealing how presale models are reshaping the crypto fundraising landscape through case studies like Plasma and MegaETH, balancing compliance and innovation.

Tokenized gold is a blockchain-based digital asset that represents ownership of physical gold reserves, where each token typically corresponds to a fixed quantity of gold. Tokenized gold maps real-world gold onto blockchain networks through custody and smart contract systems, allowing it to be traded, transferred, and divided like cryptocurrencies.

AI's rapid expansion is reshaping the global energy marketplace. Discover how to respond to the surge in AI-driven energy demand and pinpoint the critical factors shaping future energy investment strategies.

This report highlights that x402 is redefining internet semantics by shifting from the traditional “Request → Response” model to a new financial primitive of “Request → On-chain Atomic Settlement → Revenue Distribution.” This transformation enables native payment settlement and automated revenue splitting, positioning x402 as the execution layer for PayFi and machine-to-machine (M2M) payments. Over the past month, x402 processed more than 47 million transactions with an average value of under one dollar, signaling rapid demand growth yet still far from penetrating high-value commercial use cases. The ecosystem shows strong early concentration: Base chain consistently captures over 60% of market share, while major players such as Coinbase, Cloudflare, and Gate are accelerating infrastructure-level adoption. Short-term value continues to be driven by leading facilitators, whereas long-term potential hinges on whether x402 can establish a cross-chain revenue settlement network capable of powering per-use payment

This in-depth article dissects Tether as a shadow central bank, offering a comprehensive understanding of the intertwined effects of private currency issuance, demand for U.S. Treasury bonds, dollarization in emerging markets, and circumvention of geopolitical sanctions.

Gate Research: In November 2025, high-performance blockchains continued to dominate on-chain activity, with ecosystem stratification becoming increasingly evident. Solana maintained its lead in both transaction volume and active addresses through high-frequency interactions. Although Arbitrum remained in a low-activity range on the usage side, sustained net inflows driven by asset tokenization and institutional infrastructure expansion positioned it as a key focus of market capital. After breaking below short-term cost bases, BTC entered a repricing phase, with short-term turnover increasing while long-term holdings remained stable, shifting the market structure from strong-side consolidation to a pressure-driven equilibrium. The broadening BTCFi narrative also fueled a strong upswing in Starknet, drawing notable capital and user inflows. At the project level, Monad’s mainnet launch ignited the high-performance L1 narrative, rapidly expanding on-chain activity and application deployment, while Telcoin saw a s

This article discusses how tokenized deposits facilitate low-cost lending within the banking system, while stablecoins provide cross-border, 24/7, and permissionless solutions for capital movement. It further highlights that the future of the financial system lies in the coexistence and synergy of these two approaches.

This article analyzes industrial demand, the liquidity illusion driven by expectations of interest rate cuts, LBMA’s $2 billion in debt backed by 140 million ounces under a fractional reserve system, the global eastward shift of gold, and central bank accumulation of physical reserves. Together, these trends signal a monetary restructuring where possession of physical assets confers pricing power in a weak-dollar era.

Gate Research Weekly Report: BTC and ETH remained in high-level consolidation, while stablecoin market capitalization stood at $311.00 billion and Ethereum gas fees stayed at low levels. PRL, DAO, and L3 led gains, as X’s payments push and AI Agent narratives continued to gain traction. In the next seven days, SUI, GUN, JUP, and EIGEN will unlock tokens worth about $41.59 million, $9.59 million, $8.28 million, and $7.33 million, respectively.

The operating mechanism of petroleum oil tokens refers to a framework that converts physical oil reserves, extraction rights, or energy-related narratives into blockchain-based digital assets. With the rise of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, petroleum tokens are increasingly seen as a bridge between traditional commodity markets and decentralized finance, addressing issues such as long settlement cycles, limited retail access, and fragmented liquidity.

Tokenized oil or tokenized petroleum tokens are blockchain-based energy cryptocurrencies that digitize oil and related energy assets for trading and transparency. Since the launch of Venezuela’s Petro, these tokens have become an important part of the intersection between energy finance and blockchain innovation. More recently, energy-themed meme tokens on Solana have also attracted attention from investors and regulators.