Bitcoin Price Crash
Over the past 24 hours, the price of Bitcoin has fallen more than 7%, briefly dropping to $82,000—its lowest since April. Since its all-time high of $126,000, the asset has lost almost a third of its value. According to XWIN Research, the decline is due to the capitulation of short-term holders (STH), rather than a mass exit of long-term investors (LTH). The main blow to the price was inflicted by traders holding coins for less than three months, especially those using leverage. Selling was panicky and often loss-making.
While LTH has also been taking profits since September, their actions are consistent with typical behavior in the middle of a bullish cycle, not the final stages of a rally. New funds continued to flow into the market, but they were insufficient to prevent the price from correcting. Analysts believe this was a localized decline within an uptrend, caused by a surge in selling by "weak hands."
Cloudflare Outage
On November 18, internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare experienced a major outage, causing widespread 500 errors and disruptions to websites and applications worldwide. The issues affected Cloudflare's frontend, API, and control panels. Outages were also observed at major services such as X, OpenAI, Spotify, AWS, Uber, and League of Legends, as well as in the crypto industry, affecting Coinbase, the L2 Base network, Robinhood, and Ledger. BitMEX announced it had launched its own investigation into the incident.
Ethereum Foundation Proposes Solution to Unify All L2 Networks
The Ethereum Foundation has revealed details of the launch of the Interop Layer (EIL), a protocol designed to connect Ethereum's disparate Layer 2 networks into a unified ecosystem. EIL offers a "wallet-centric" approach: users sign a single transaction for cross-network interactions, without the need to trust intermediaries. The solution is based on account abstraction and ideas from the "Manifesto of Trust."
Fragmentation is a side effect of scaling through rollups. Currently, users are forced to manually manage assets across different networks and select bridges. EIL eliminates this complexity by turning the wallet into a universal access point with automatic support for compatible networks. The EF compared EIL to HTTP for the web: just as browsers unified servers, the Interop Layer aims to unify rollups, accelerating their adoption and making life easier for developers. The protocol is now available for testing by wallets, dapp platforms, and Layer 2 teams.
El Salvador Adds 1,090 BTC to Reserve
On November 18, the Salvadoran government increased its Bitcoin reserves by purchasing 1,090 BTC worth approximately $101 million, according to President Nayib Bukele. The state now holds 7,474 BTC, worth over $688 million. Earlier in August, the government transferred these assets to 14 new addresses, citing potential risks associated with the development of quantum technologies. The purchase was announced amid a Bitcoin price decline below $90,000.
Bitcoin Miners Have Mined 95% of the Total Supply
On November 17, the supply of Bitcoin exceeded 19.95 million—95% of the 21 million limit set by Satoshi Nakamoto. With each halving, the issuance rate slows: miners have less than 1.05 million BTC left to mine.
Following the April halving, the block reward fell from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC. Currently, approximately 450 coins are mined daily—half the previous rate. The next halving is expected in 2028. Mining of the final 5% of coins will stretch out over 115 years, until 2140.
This slowdown is part of the network's well-designed security architecture. As block rewards disappear, the key incentive for miners becomes fees that maintain the hash rate and protect the network from attacks.
Difficulties are already mounting: the figure has reached a record 152.27 T. To maintain profitability, miners are forced to upgrade equipment, optimize costs, and seek alternative avenues—for example, in AI infrastructure.
Mastercard Merges with Mercuryo and Polygon Labs
Mastercard, in partnership with Polygon Labs and Mercuryo, expanded the Crypto Credential system to non-custodial wallets. Users can now use short pseudonyms instead of long addresses to verify transactions.
In this partnership, Polygon is responsible for the blockchain infrastructure, Mercuryo is the first issuer, providing user onboarding and KYC checks, and Mastercard provides its own verification platform.
Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron called this a step toward simplifying self-custody of assets, emphasizing that blockchains provide the scale and reliability required by financial services.
Mercuro is confident that the implementation of this technology will make cryptocurrencies more accessible to a wider audience. Mastercard, in turn, emphasized the Crypto Credential's compatibility with Web3 applications thanks to its expanded partner network.
