Bitcoin’s stuck, alts look worse, but DeFi activity just hit a record high with DEX volumes through the roof. We’ll dive into how traders are active but in a different game, plus in this issue:
- Privacy coins are ripping, and the major that might be next.
- Trump’s China deal and the US rare earths plan.
- A sudden rush of AI-related corporate mega-deals.
- And a micro-cap uranium and rare earths-linked stock ticker.
Chart of the Day
Historically, this month is no slouch when it comes to stock market returns, as according to the data in this chart, November ranks as one of the strongest months of the year, with:
- Average return: +1.61%
- Median return: +2.04% (the highest of any month on the calendar)
It’s part of a broader Q4 momentum pattern that often kicks off in October and runs through to year-end, (following on from September’s typical weakness as it has the worst returns), and marking a seasonal turning point for risk assets.
So with earnings season in full swing, macro obstacles easing, and strong year-to-date gains already in place, there are tailwinds aligned for another potential November rally, especially if fund managers start chasing performance into year-end.
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Trade of the Day
Today’s trade is ETH, as it tapped horizontal support four times, and then broke below the fifth time, also dropping below the EMA 200. This happened decisively on high volume, and the horizontal level acted as prior resistance in late July, making the breakdown more significant as support possibly turns to resistance.
OBV has been declining since August, suggesting distribution over the last two months, and a move down from here can give a target of $2,800 if the path of least resistance is down.
A swift reclaim of the $3,600 to $3,650 level on strong volume could invalidate this, turning the breakdown into a bear trap, but that might require a strong positive catalyst.
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Alpha Leaks
- Tom Lee joined a webinar with Virtuals Protocol co-founder and CEO Jansen Teng on Monday to talk AI agents and crypto infra. This provided increased exposure for VIRTUAL, with Lee predicting that the agentic economy goes mainstream in 2026.
- The Chainlink SmartCon event is running from November 3rd to 7th, with speakers from Swift, Robinhood, Consensys, and many other major crypto and finance names. Keep tabs on it for announcements and potential enterprise partnerships, as there could be narrative movers for LINK.
- Ethereum Layer-2 Linea will next week start using 20% of gas fees to burn ETH, and 80% to burn its native LINEA token. This mechanism is designed to increase scarcity and apply price pressure.
- Perps DEX Lighter is launching spot trading this month. The move broadens its product beyond just perpetuals, potentially boosting volume as it competes with Hyperliquid and prepares for token launch.
- Bitcoin miner and data center operator Cipher Mining (CIFR) unveiled a 15-year, $5.5 billion AI lease deal with Amazon Web Services, and a joint venture for a 1-gigawatt Texas site named Colchis, pushing shares up despite a $3 million Q3 net loss.
- Microsoft (MSFT) has signed a five‐year, $9.7 billion deal with data center specialist IREN (IREN), that gives Microsoft access to Nvidia GB300 chips, and other AI equipment, hosted at IREN’s facilities.
- Amazon (AMZN) has signed a 7-year, $38 billion, cloud deal with OpenAI, meaning it will provide access to hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs on AWS, to be used by OpenAI for training its models.
Looking for more in depth Alpha? Go Premium to read this week’s stock report on QUALCOMM and why we’re so bullish on it!
News Roundup
DeFi Booms While Alts Tank
Altcoins might be creaking, but DEX volumes hit a record high in October, with over $614 billion moved across DEXes. This is the most ever in a single month, with the previous ATH set in January this year.
That’s a significant rise from the $500 billion notched up in September, with activity led by Uniswap and PancakeSwap, while newer protocols such as Hyperliquid and Pump are also putting in the numbers.
Clearly then–with most tokens chopping or bleeding–this activity is not driven by bullish price action, but rather it may in part reflect traders rotating into yield strategies and airdrop farming, with DeFi presenting opportunities to profit, even if price action is brutal.
Additionally, the DEX-to-CEX spot trade volume ratio climbed to over 20%, showing that while CEXes also saw large volumes, traders are increasingly transacting onchain, and there are strong positives to take from all this, as liquidity is staying within crypto during an overall down period.
Privacy Coins Outperform
One feature of this cycle is that even during periods of negative sentiment, there may be a specific sector rallying on its own, and that’s been the case lately with privacy coins, which are bucking the trend and making major gains.
The privacy sector’s total market cap surged last week and is now approaching $24 billion, daily trading volume is, at the time of writing, around $3.2 billion, and the price action has been wild, with, over the last seven days, ZEC up 43%, and DASH up 184%.
And behind the scenes, the Zcash team (ECC), which also develops the Zashi wallet, just dropped its Q4 roadmap, while the levels of shielded ZEC tokens (those that have been moved to one of the protocol’s privacy pools) continues to grow, now hitting almost 5 million ZEC, or around 30% of supply.
One privacy coin that hasn’t yet rallied is Litecoin, perhaps because it isn’t widely recognized as privacy-related. However, its 2022 MimbleWimble upgrade enabled optional private transactions, and LTC could potentially run as a catch-up trade–keeping in mind also that it has an ETF in action–although this is far from a certainty.
Bessent: America to Go “Warp Speed” on Rare Earths
The US and China struck their major trade agreement last week and markets absorbed the news, but following on from China lifting its rare earth export controls, it appears that the US is not content to remain reliant on overseas critical minerals.
This was made as clear as possible by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who recently explained in a CNN interview how the US (along with its allies) will form its own supply chains, stating,
“They [China] have been putting this [rare earth] plan together for 25, 30 years, and the US has been asleep at the switch, and now this administration is going to go at warp speed over the next one, two years, and we’re going to get out from under this sword the Chinese have over us.”
As mentioned last week, US-aligned rare earth companies such as MP Materials (MP) and USA Rare Earth (USAR) are selling off on confirmation of the US-China deal, but Bessent’s comments indicate that stocks in this sector can have long-term value after they have bottomed.
Degen Play of the Day
Snow Lake (LITM) is a micro-cap critical-minerals explorer (market cap is around $30 million) spanning lithium, uranium, and now rare earths through a strategic stake in Commerce Resources, which owns a Quebec rare-earth deposit.
The company is also in a definitive agreement (so it’s not yet fully finalized) to acquire Global Uranium & Enrichment in order to form a US-focused nuclear fuel cycle venture, tying it further into the energy-security story.
However, this is still a pre-revenue explorer with typical risks: dilution, permitting, and long development timelines. That all makes LITM a high-volatility narrative trade with low float, high leverage to sector momentum, and potential story-driven upside in the right conditions, so for the moment, treat it as a small-cap lottery ticket.
Legal Disclaimer
Wealth Mastery (Lark Davis, and the Wealth Mastery writing team) are not providing you individually tailored investment advice. Nor is Wealth Mastery registered to provide investment advice, is not a financial adviser, and is not a broker-dealer. The material provided is for educational purposes only. Wealth Mastery is not responsible for any gains or losses that result from your cryptocurrency investments. Investing in cryptocurrency involves a high degree of risk and should be considered only by persons who can afford to sustain a loss of their entire investment. Investors should consult their financial adviser before investing in cryptocurrency.
You can find a full disclosure of all my crypto & venture investments here.
Hi! My name is Lark Davis!
I’m a cryptocurrency investor with years of experience and I’ve been making consistent profits in the crypto space.
I’m passionate about helping others do the same, so I run multiple educational channels on crypto investing.
