Gate Research Institute: Q3 DeFi TVL hits a new high but user activity declines | Flying Tulip public sale Allowlist is now open

Crypto Market Overview

• BTC (-0.73% | Current Price 121,348 USDT): The overall market for BTC is currently in a weak consolidation pattern. The price briefly rose above 126,000 USD on October 8, before quickly retreating. Subsequently, on October 9, it fell below MA30 (approximately 121,800 USD), forming a clear downward structure. If BTC cannot regain a position above MA30 and break through the 122,000 USD area, there is still a possibility of a short-term pullback to the 120,000 USD support level. If this support is lost, attention will turn to the phase low of 119,600 USD. On October 9, the net inflow for BTC ETFs reached 197 million USD in a single day, with BlackRock's IBIT inflowing 255 million USD and Fidelity's FBTC outflowing 13.2 million USD.
• ETH (-1.59% | Current price 4,378 USDT): Recently, the price trend of ETH has shown a structure of "stabilizing and rebounding after a downward fluctuation." Since the high point of around 4,755 USD on October 7, ETH has temporarily fallen below short-term support and touched a low of 4,265 USD, followed by an oversold rebound. The current price is around 4,370 USD. If ETH can break through MA30 with strong volume and stabilize above 4,400 USD, there is a possibility of testing the resistance zone of 4,450–4,500 USD in the short term; on the contrary, if the rebound is weak and falls below 4,320 USD again, caution is needed for the risk of the price falling back to the 4,250 USD area. On October 9, ETH ETF had a net outflow of 8.7 million USD in a single day, among which BlackRock's ETHA had an inflow of 39.3 million USD, and Fidelity's FETH had an outflow of 30.3 million USD.
• Altcoins: Most mainstream altcoins have slightly declined, with market sentiment primarily "neutral" and "buying". The Fear and Greed Index today reports at 64, in the greed range, indicating a relatively aggressive market sentiment.
• Macro: On October 9, the S&P 500 index fell by 0.28%, closing at 6,735.11 points; the Dow Jones index fell by 0.52%, closing at 46,358.42 points; the NASDAQ index fell by 0.08%, closing at 23,024.63 points. As of October 10, 11:30 AM ( UTC+8, the spot gold price per ounce is temporarily reported at 3,972 USD, with a decline of 0.14% over 24 hours.

Popular Tokens on Juejin

RAIL Railgun* (+75.7%, Circulating Market Cap 224 million USD)*

According to CoinGecko data, the current price of RAIL token is $3.92, with a 75.7% increase in the last 24 hours. Railgun is a privacy protocol built on existing public chains that utilizes zero-knowledge proof technology (ZK Proofs) to anonymize on-chain DeFi on chains such as Ethereum, Polygon, and Arbitrum, without the need for bridging or additional validators, enhancing security and decentralization.

After the Ethereum Foundation wallet Kohaku announced its integration with the privacy protocol Railgun, the RAIL token saw a strong surge. In the past 24 hours, RAIL briefly broke its historical high, with a cumulative increase of over 212% in nearly a week. Additionally, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has personally used Railgun multiple times and publicly emphasized that "privacy is normal," believing that the protocol can effectively prevent malicious actors from misusing the flow of funds. The market widely believes that this positive news is expected to boost Railgun to become one of the most promising privacy infrastructures in the Ethereum ecosystem.

ZEC Zcash (+41%, circulating market cap 3.847 billion USD)

According to CoinGecko data, the ZEC token is currently priced at 236.1 dollars, up approximately 41% in the last 24 hours. Zcash (ZEC) is a privacy-focused encryption currency that allows users to choose anonymity when making transactions. It is based on the Bitcoin codebase but uses different hashing algorithms and security protocols. Zcash employs zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) technology to provide "shielded addresses" for transaction anonymity.

Famous angel investor Naval stated on October 1st that ZCash is the insurance for Bitcoin, drawing widespread attention from the market. Stimulated by this statement, ZEC quickly surged, with a cumulative increase of nearly 3 times since the announcement. In the context of a macro environment leaning towards regulation and scrutiny, ZEC is viewed as a "hedging target" against the risks of on-chain transparency, with its rise mainly stemming from investors' repricing of the privacy narrative and potential safe-haven function.

SNX Synthetix (+21%, circulating market cap 450 million USD)

According to CoinGecko data, the current price of the SNX token is $1.31, having increased by about 21% in the last 24 hours. Synthetix is a decentralized synthetic asset protocol running on Ethereum that allows users to mint and trade a variety of synthetic assets (Synths), the value of which is derived from traditional fiat currencies, commodities, stocks, or encryption currencies. Synthetix provides on-chain exposure for synthetic assets using the native token SNX as collateral and plays the role of the liquidity layer in the DeFi ecosystem.

Recently, the price of SNX has significantly strengthened, mainly driven by multiple positive factors. First, Synthetix founder Kain Warwick proposed several governance optimization proposals, including improvements to the governance mechanism and adjustments to the token economic model, enhancing market expectations. Secondly, the recovery of the DeFi sector has led to an increase in demand for synthetic assets, boosting the trading activity and value of SNX. In addition, the technology upgrade plan (such as improving the efficiency of minting and trading synthetic assets) has further strengthened the platform's competitiveness. Technically, SNX has broken through key resistance levels, and there is still upward momentum in the short term, but investors need to pay attention to overall market fluctuations and the flow of funds in the DeFi sector.

Alpha Interpretation

In the third quarter, DeFi TVL broke a historical high, but user activity has significantly declined.

According to the latest data from DappRadar, the performance of the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem showed divergence in the third quarter of 2025. The total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols reached $237 billion, setting a new historical high, indicating active inflow of institutional capital and large funds. However, on-chain user activity showed a clear downward trend, with an average of 18.7 million daily unique active wallets, a quarter-on-quarter decrease of 22.4%. The report analyzes that there is a difference in the participation rhythm between institutions and retail investors: while capital continues to flow into DeFi, the usage frequency of retail investors has significantly weakened, and on-chain transactions and interaction activities have not increased in sync.

Overall, this data reflects the capital-driven characteristics of the DeFi market. Although TVL has reached a new high, the decline in the number of active users indicates that the current growth mainly relies on institutional funds, rather than widespread participation from retail investors. This may lead to a mismatch between ecosystem activity and liquidity, increasing protocol stability and capital concentration in the short term, but it also highlights concerns about weak user growth and insufficient application stickiness. For project teams, attracting retail investors to continue using the platform and enhancing on-chain interaction remains a key direction for future growth, rather than simply relying on capital influx.

Aave has partnered with Blockdaemon to promote institutional access to DeFi services.

The decentralized finance protocol Aave has announced a strategic partnership with institutional-grade staking infrastructure provider Blockdaemon. The two parties will work together to facilitate institutional clients' secure and efficient participation in the DeFi market and expand compliant decentralized yield channels. This collaboration will integrate Blockdaemon's Earn Stack solution with the Aave Vaults feature launched by Aave Labs, providing institutions with a one-stop solution for liquidity management, yield generation, and risk control, accelerating the adoption of DeFi at the institutional level.

The collaboration between Aave and Blockdaemon marks a further integration of DeFi with traditional institutional infrastructure. For Aave, this is a key step towards "institutional-grade DeFi," helping to attract more compliant funds and robust yield demands; for Blockdaemon, it is a natural extension from staking services to a broader DeFi yield ecosystem. This partnership is expected to improve the liquidity and compliance experience of institutional participation in DeFi, and it also signifies that "compliant DeFi" will become a key growth point for the integration of mainstream finance and on-chain finance in the future.

Flying Tulip officially announces the first public offering cooperation platform Impossible, whitelist application officially opened.

The on-chain exchange Flying Tulip officially announced on the X platform recently that Impossible will become its first public offering cooperation platform, with specific details to be announced in the coming days. The whitelist application is now open, and investors can register in advance to participate. Previously, Flying Tulip completed a private fundraising of 200 million dollars and plans to conduct a public offering of 800 million dollars at a valuation of 1 billion dollars, aiming to create a comprehensive DeFi platform covering native stablecoins, lending, spot trading, contract trading, and on-chain insurance.

Flying Tulip, through the early opening of the whitelist and selection of professional platform partnerships, is beneficial in attracting high-quality investors while reducing public offering risks. Combined with previous private financing and high valuation planning, it is evident that the project party has ambitions to build a full-stack DeFi ecosystem. For the market, the emergence of such large comprehensive platforms may trigger a new round of concentrated effects in capital and user attention, but long-term development still relies on the effective implementation of platform functionality, user experience, and compliance management.

**Reference Materials:** - Gate, [https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT](https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT) - Farside Investors, [https://farside.co.uk/btc/](https://farside.co.uk/btc/) - Gate, [https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT](https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT) - Farside Investors, [https://farside.co.uk/eth/](https://farside.co.uk/eth/) - Gate, [https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data](https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data) - Investing, [https://investing.com/indices/usa-indices](https://investing.com/indices/usa-indices) - Investing, [https://investing.com/currencies/xau-usd](https://investing.com/currencies/xau-usd) - CoinGecko, [https://www.coingecko.com/categories](https://www.coingecko.com/categories) - Cointelegraph, [https://cointelegraph.com/news/defi-tvl-record-237b-dapp-wallets-drop-22-q3-2025](https://cointelegraph.com/news/defi-tvl-record-237b-dapp-wallets-drop-22-q3-2025) - Crypto.news, [https://crypto.news/aave-and-blockdaemon-partner-to-advance-institutional-access-to-defi/](https://crypto.news/aave-and-blockdaemon-partner-to-advance-institutional-access-to-defi/) - X, [https://x.com/impossiblefi/status/1976369046640890172](https://x.com/impossiblefi/status/1976369046640890172)
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