Gate Decentralized Finance Daily ( November 3 ): Balancer attacked with losses exceeding 100 million USD; Ether.fi initiates a 50 million USD buyback proposal.

On November 3rd, the DeFi market continued its downward trend, with the total value locked (TVL) across the network falling below 150 billion USD, and major protocols generally recording a decline of 3%–5%. Balancer suffered an attack event exceeding 100 million USD, exacerbating market panic; meanwhile, the buyback and incentive mechanism reform of the Sky protocol, the buyback proposal of Ether.fi, and CZ's AST holdings dynamics became the on-chain focus. Analysts point out that in the short term, the DeFi zone will continue to face pressure, with funds likely concentrating on protocols that have stable income models and security capabilities.

Decentralized Finance Market Overview

(Source: DeFiLlama)

Total DeFi TVL across the network: Today (November 3rd), the cryptocurrency market is experiencing a downward trend, with BTC falling below $108,000 and ETH above $3,700; the total DeFi TVL has dropped below the $150 billion mark, currently at $146.448 billion, a 24H decrease of 2.39%.

DEX 24-hour trading volume: approximately $12.424 billion, with the top three being: Uniswap ($3.703 billion), PancakeSwap ($2.686 billion), Meteora ($0.96003 billion).

Popular Protocols and On-Chain Performance

Based on TVL, the data of the top ten DeFi protocols is as follows:

(Source: DeFiLlama)

Among them, the top-ranked protocol data performances are as follows:

Aave: TVL approximately $36.991 billion, 24-hour fall 3.05%;

Lido: TVL approximately 31.891 billion USD, 24-hour fall 4.84%;

EigenLayer: TVL approximately 15.524 billion USD, 24-hour fall of 4.82%;

Spark: TVL approximately 10.005 billion USD, 24-hour fall of 3.55%;

Ethena: TVL approximately 9.407 billion USD, 24-hour fall of 0.14%;

ether.fi: TVL approximately 9.229 billion USD, 24-hour fall of 4.91%.

In addition, the top ten projects by protocol fees in the past 24 hours are as follows:

(Source: DeFiLlama)

Among them, Uniswap's protocol fees in the past 24 hours reached 7.53 million dollars, ranking third after Tether (23.37 million dollars) and Circle (7.89 million dollars); Aster's protocol fees in the past 24 hours reached 3.77 million dollars, ranking fourth; Meteora ranked fifth with 2.96 million dollars.

Project News Overview

1. On-chain data shows that the DeFi protocol Balancer has allegedly been attacked. According to Lookonchain's monitoring, the stolen funds from Balancer have exceeded 116.6 million USD. Subsequently, Lido issued a statement saying, “Some Balancer V2 pools have been attacked. The Lido protocol has not been affected, and all user funds are safe. As a precaution, the management team of Lido GGV, Veda, has withdrawn its unaffected Balancer holdings. All Lido Earn funds remain safe.”

2. The cross-chain aggregated DeFi platform Infinex announced that its early governance token XGP will be deactivated before the upcoming Crates event and TGE. XGP holders must transfer their XGP to their Infinex accounts by November 9, 2025, 08:00, at which time all XGP held before the deadline will be automatically converted: every 200,000 XGP can be redeemed for 1 Patron NFT, while users holding less than 200,000 XGP will be converted to Crates.

3. CZ stated, “After I disclosed the information yesterday, I saw a lot of overinterpretation.” He also initiated a poll on Twitter asking, “Should disclosures be made in the future?” Previously, on November 2, CZ posted that “I just bought some ASTER today with my own money on a CEX. I am not a trader; I buy and hold.” According to the trading screenshot released by CZ, his account holds 2,090,598.14 ASTER, with a trading price of 0.913 USD.

Regarding the 3x short position opened during the ASTER surge last night, CZ responded, “This is a decentralized world. Anyone can short, anyone can long, anyone can hold.”

4. The Sky protocol (formerly MakerDAO) has officially passed the latest execution vote:

Staking reward mechanism update: The original SKY → USDS reward model will be replaced by the SKY → SKY reward model. Stakers need to manually migrate to the new system.

Repurchase scale expanded: Daily SKY repurchase limit increased to 300,000 USDS.

Treasury replenishment: The protocol will transfer 500 million SKY to the treasury for subsequent staking reward distribution.

The approval of this proposal marks a significant adjustment in the incentive mechanism and tokenomics of the Sky protocol, with relevant updates set to take effect successively.

5. Monad stated on social media, “Less than 24 hours left until the airdrop claim period ends.” The claim period will end on November 3 at 21:00.

6. Dash stated that the good performance of DASH prices this month is not a result of a sudden event, but rather stems from long-term fundamental development. The five significant achievements over the past few years include: the release of DashSpend, in-depth research on bill payment issues, comprehensive improvements to the privacy payment feature, DEX support (added to the Maya Protocol), and the launch of the decentralized application platform Evolution.

7. The Ether.fi community has initiated a proposal to allocate up to 50 million USD from its treasury for the repurchase of ETHFI tokens, to be executed when the price of ETHFI tokens falls below 3 USD. The proposal is currently under voting, with a support rate of 100%, and the voting will end on November 4, 2025.

8. The Eigen Foundation stated, “In the past few weeks, the Eigen Foundation has transferred EIGEN tokens from its main treasury address, which is used for regular ecosystem development and operational activities. These transfers are of a management nature, aimed at supporting funding, partnerships, and liquidity functions, with the goal of promoting the growth of the Eigen ecosystem. These operations are unrelated to the token unlocking or selling by team members, and the foundation's token economic model and governance framework have remained unchanged since launch.”

Overview of Major Ecological Leaders in DeFi Projects

Solana DEX 24-hour trading volume ranks first, approximately 2.96 billion USD, with a week-on-week growth of 15.3%, with the top three projects being:

Meteora (USD 961.54 million), HumidiFi (USD 720.56 million), Raydium (USD 449.36 million);

Ethereum DEX ranks second in 24-hour trading volume, approximately $2.847 billion, a decrease of 17.16% compared to the previous period, with the top three projects being:

Uniswap ($2.275 billion), Fluid ($290.58 million), Curve Finance ($247.59 million);

BNB Chain DEX ranks third in 24-hour trading volume, approximately $2.659 billion, with the top three projects being:

PancakeSwap ($2.537 billion), Uniswap ($591.27 million), four.meme ($32.49 million).

Gate DeFi zone token market data

According to the data from the Gate market page, the price performance of the top ten tokens in the DeFi zone is as follows:

(Source: Gate DeFi zone market trends)

As of November 3, the cryptocurrency market has overall fallen, with significant declines in the DeFi zone tokens, specifically:

UNI is currently priced at 5.39 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 7.66%;

AAVE is currently priced at 213.05 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 4.55%;

WLFI is currently priced at $0.124, with a 24-hour fall of 9.02%;

MORPHO is currently reported at 1.89 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 4.89%;

INJ is currently at 7.23 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 9.61%;

MYX is currently reported at 1.9 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 16.16%;

CRV is currently reported at 0.4423 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 7.62%;

SYRUP is currently reported at 0.4104 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 10.52%;

2Z is temporarily reported at 0.1661 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 6.95%.

Market Trend Interpretation

On November 3rd, the overall DeFi market continued to show weak fluctuations, with BTC falling below $108,000 and ETH stabilizing above $3,700. The total DeFi TVL across the network dropped to $146.448 billion, with a 24-hour decline of 2.39%, the lowest level in nearly two weeks.

From the zone structure perspective, leading protocols are generally under pressure:

• Lido and EigenLayer fell by 4.84% and 4.82% respectively, reflecting a short-term liquidity withdrawal in the LSD and re-staking zones;
• Aave and Spark fell by 3.05% and 3.55% respectively, indicating that the lending market is significantly affected by market fluctuations;
• Relatively speaking, Ethena performed strongly, with a slight fall of 0.14%, maintaining stable capital inflow in the yield rate zone.

In terms of trading activity, DEX trading volume has significantly decreased, with a 24-hour trading volume dropping to $12.424 billion, a decline of over 35% compared to the previous period. Uniswap and PancakeSwap remain in the top two positions, but their trading volumes have decreased by nearly 30% compared to the previous day. Meteora, from the Solana ecosystem, became the only major protocol with a quarter-on-quarter increase in trading volume for the day (+15.3%), indicating a short-term risk-averse tendency of funds on high-performance public chains.

At the same time, the concentration of protocol revenue has further increased. Tether and Circle still dominate the protocol fee rankings, with Uniswap and Aster closely following, recording protocol revenues of 7.53 million USD and 3.77 million USD respectively. Analysis suggests that this indicates that during market correction periods, stablecoin issuers and liquidity-dominating protocols remain the main sources of cash flow.

Analyst Insights

Analysts generally believe that the current downturn in the DeFi market is influenced by a decrease in macro market risk appetite and is closely related to the frequent occurrence of on-chain security incidents.

• Security incidents undermine market confidence. Balancer suffered an attack exceeding $116.6 million, becoming the first major security incident since November. Although protocols like Lido were not directly affected, this event exposed the potential risks of cross-protocol liquidity pools, leading to a more cautious approach to market funding in the short term.
• Token economic reforms become a market highlight. The Sky protocol has completed the adjustment of its staking reward mechanism and buyback scale, marking the transition of DeFi projects from “expansion period incentives” to a “self-circulating revenue” model. The price range buyback proposal (initiating buybacks below $3) put forward by Ether.fi also reflects the intention of project parties to stabilize token value.
• Market sentiment leans towards defense. Against the backdrop of declining TVL and DEX trading volume, funds are more inclined to flow towards protocols with stable income models, such as Aster, Uniswap, Tether, etc. At the same time, CZ's public disclosure of ASTER Holdings has brought short-term attention, but has not changed the overall downtrend.

Analysts point out that if BTC and ETH cannot stabilize in the short term, the DeFi zone may further adjust to a support area near 140 billion USD. However, from a medium-term perspective, with the token buybacks and incentive mechanism reforms of projects such as Sky and Ether.fi being implemented, the fundamentals of mainstream protocols may gradually improve, laying the foundation for subsequent capital inflows.

Conclusion

Overall, the DeFi market entered a phase of cooling in early November, with both TVL and trading volume falling, reflecting an increase in risk-averse sentiment. In the short term, attention should be paid to the continued impact of security incidents on confidence; in the medium to long term, protocol self-repair and economic model optimization will be key to restoring growth.