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TRILLIONS Talk - Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay vote sparks ‘TRILLIONS’ token frenzy.
ETF Inflows - US spot bitcoin ETFs see $240 million in inflows, ending six-day outflow streak.
Stablecoin Momentum - Japan’s largest banks get greenlight for Stablecoin trial, plan March 2026 launch.
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Messari's protocol reports give you a deep dive on the foundation and state of top crypto protocols, including key metrics and notable events. See the complete list of protocol reports here and get a preview of our latest report below.
NEAR’s market cap rose 24% QoQ to $3.3B, supported by a 533% surge in DEX volume and a 28% jump in stablecoin market cap
Intents framework evolved into a multichain coordination layer handling 2.3M swaps ($234.9M volume)
This enabled AI agents and users to perform autonomous, cross-chain transactions
Upgraded from 8 to 9 shards, boosting throughput by 12.5% and expanding validators to 500, improved state sync, data recovery, and performance
DePIN focused on geospatial and positioning data
GEODNET generated $1.2M in quarterly revenue (+27.9% QoQ), bringing annualized revenue to ~$5M
1,778 new Satellite Miners, expanding coverage to 5,037 cities across 148 countries — world’s largest decentralized RTK network
Collaborations with RTKsub, ROVR Network, and the AI Unbundled Alliance expand enterprise and AI-integrated geospatial use cases
Solana’s DeFi TVL increased 32.7% QoQ to $11.5 billion
The Application Revenue Capture Ratio (Chain GDP divided by Real Economic Value) grew from 222.8% to 262.8%
Stablecoin market cap on Solana grew 36.5% QoQ to an all-time high of $14.1 billion
SOL finished Q3 2025 with a market cap of $113.5 billion, a 37% QoQ increase
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Ripple (XRP) raised $500 million at a $40 billion valuation in the first week of November 2025, signaling an aggressive push into stablecoin and payments infrastructure. The strategic round was led by Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities and follows Ripple’s attempted $1 billion buyback earlier this year at the same valuation. The use of proceeds is centered on institutional payments, custody, and scaling of RLUSD, Ripple’s USD stablecoin, following record payment throughput and a growing product set spanning brokerage, treasury, and custody.
The successful raise is timely as Western Union’s move to Solana raised the stakes for cross-border stablecoin rails and potentially threatens XRP’s stablecoin market share. Western Union announced USDPT at the end of October 2025, a Solana-based stablecoin and a “Digital Asset Network” built in collaboration with Anchorage, with a rollout targeted for 2026. The problem with this for Ripple is that it puts a leading cross-border payments network on low-cost, high-throughput rails and positions stablecoins directly inside remittances. Ripple’s raise appears to be a preemptive scale-up to maintain competitive enterprise distribution and liquidity depth as incumbents enter the crypto-denominated settlement market.
The $500 million raise marks a turning point for Ripple, as it funds key components that enable the company to compete against major players like Western Union in cross-border payments, including banking integrations, cross-border network licensing, and on- and off-ramp distribution. This capital will let Ripple seed deeper RLUSD liquidity, establish market-making across key FX pairs, and pre-fund its treasury for instant payouts, which will shorten settlement times and improve quote quality. It also supports enterprise sales and compliance buildouts with custodians and payout partners, expanding coverage where remittance volumes are concentrated. Western Union brings brand, retail reach, and agent networks, but Ripple can compete by focusing on regulatory preparedness, routing capacity, and reliable throughput, so RLUSD becomes a default settlement rail rather than a second-choice option. In short, the round buys the distribution and liquidity needed to convert product fit into more market share.
