S&P Global Downgrades Tether's $USDT

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ S&P Global $SPGI downgrades Tether’s $USDT to “5 (weak)”; cites increase in higher-risk assets in its reserves; Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino responded with "We wear your loathing with pride..."

• Polymarket receives US CFTC approval for intermediation; to open US retail access & operate as a fully regulated US exchange.

• Texas buys $5M of BlackRock's Bitcoin $BTC ETF (IBIT); becomes first US state to buy Bitcoin.

• Bitwise Dogecoin $DOGE ETF (BWOW) begins trading; Grayscale Dogecoin Trust ETF (GDOG) also began trading earlier this week.

• Grayscale files Form S-3 with US SEC to convert Zcash $ZEC Trust (ZCSH) into an ETP; ZCSH currently has over $196M in assets under management.

• Cap launches as an EigenLayer $EIGEN AVS with slashing & redistribution; Flow Traders is now accessing USDC liquidity secured by EigenCloud through Cap.

• Kraken launches Krak debit Card; offers 1% cashback on every spend, fee-free spending, & more; powered by Mastercard $MA.

• Paxos acquires Foredefi for over $100M; Fordefi to continue operating independently while Paxos works to integrate its tech & operations.

• MoonPay receives NYDFS authorization to operate MoonPay Trust Company in New York; enables digital asset custody and OTC trading for its financial infrastructure.

Alpha

• ⭐️ Fogo launches mainnet genesis; no dapps are live, though USDC transfers are open; infrastructure & validators are currently preparing for Fogo public launch.

• MetaMask $MASK launches 100% points boost for trading perps; also recently launched 50% points boost for swapping into MetaMask mUSD.

• Socket posts "▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░ 76%" on X; to potentially launch mainnet, tge, and/or airdrop soon.

• Blockscout to launch Merits bonus for every badge held; to launch Merits bonus in the first week of January 2026 with snapshot on January 1st.

• Coinbase $COIN Ventures shares list of ideas it is excited for in 2026: RWA Perpetuals, Specialized Exchanges & Trading Terminals, Next-gen DeFi, and AI + Robotics.

Airdrops

• Irys $IRYS launches airdrop claim; Irys Genesis NFT holders, Discord & Telegram community members, & more were eligible to register.

• Huma $HUMA launches season 2 airdrop claim; Huma users are eligible; to launch season 3 airdrop ~three months from now.

• Espresso $ESP announces another path to ESP airdrop eligibility; Caffeinated Creators to be eligible.

• ICYMI Monad $MON launches mainnet, tge, & airdrop; tokens automatically distributed to wallets; 5.5K community members & 220K onchain were eligible to register.

Finance News

• September PPI inflation rises to 2.7%, in-line with expectations of 2.7%; Core PPI inflation falls to 2.6%, below expectations of 2.7%.

• Tether becomes the largest independent holder of Gold $XAU; holds 116 tonnes of gold (~$14B); only central banks own more.

• Robinhood introduces new futures & derivatives exchange and clearinghouse; partners with SIG to acquire 90% of MIAX Derivatives Exchange.

• CleanSpark $CLSK reports FY 2025 earnings; reports revenue of $766.3M (+102% YoY), net income: $364.5M, & more.

• SpaceX transfers 1,164 Bitcoin $BTC (~$105M) to new addresses.

• US Bancorp $USB tests its own stablecoin on Stellar $XLM; cites capability to freeze assets & online transactions for choosing Stellar.

• ⭐️ Klarna $KLAR announces KlarnaUSD stablecoin; powered by Bridge's Open Issuance; to launch on Tempo in 2026.

• Upexi to raise up to $23M via private placement offering; to use proceeds for working capital, general corporate purposes, & to buy more Solana $SOL; currently holds 2,106,989 SOL (~$301M).

• Reliance Global Group $RELI consolidates Digital Asset Treasury into Zcash $ZEC; cites privacy architecture as ideal for institutional strategy.

Security and Exploits

• ⭐️ Irys $IRYS distributes 20% of airdrop to single entity; the sybil used 897 different addresses.

• Edel $EDEL snipes 30% of its own token; team attempted to hide it behind a maze of wallets and liquidity positions.

• Revoke[.]cash launches support for Monad $MON; revoke approvals for Monad.

• Vitalik Buterin donates 256 Ethereum $ETH (128 each) to Session & SimpleX Chat, two encrypted messaging apps.

• Tor introduces new Counter Galois Onion relay encryption algorithm; prevents attackers from tampering with encrypted traffic, adds forward secrecy, & brings Tor's encryption up to modern standards.

• GrapheneOS shuts down operations in France; says "France isn't a safe country for open source privacy projects" citing demands for backdoors & harassment against its team.

Token Unlocks

• Humanity $H / ~$8M / NOV 25th
• Plasma $XPL / ~$18M / NOV 25th
• Jupiter $JUP / ~$14M / NOV 28th
⭐️• Hyperliquid $HYPE / ~$357M / NOV 29th
• Optimism $OP / ~$10M / NOV 30th
• Kamino $KMNO / ~$14M / NOV 30th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• SpaceComputer raises $10M in Seed funding led by Maven11 & Lattice.

• Pruv Finance raises $3M in Pre-Series A funding led by UOB Venture Management.

• CreatorFi raises $2M in Strategic funding from Aptos $APT.

The Degen Farmer