Balancer suffered a security breach on November 3, 2025, resulting in approximately $116 million in losses across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism networks. The attack exploited smart contract vulnerabilities to drain wrapped ETH from the decentralized exchange protocol. Ethereum's mainnet accounted for $91 million of the total losses, with the attacker's wallet identified holding multiple versions of unwrapped stolen assets.

Ethereum-based decentralized exchange Balancer experienced unauthorized withdrawals of approximately $88 million across multiple blockchain networks, according to blockchain security firm PeckShield. Onchain data shows large transfers of wrapped ether and liquid staking derivatives from protocol vaults to external addresses. The protocol's native governance token BAL declined more than 4% following the incident.

The European Commission will present a proposal in December to establish a single regulatory authority overseeing cryptocurrency exchanges, stock markets, and clearing houses, similar to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The initiative aims to reduce fragmentation across national supervisors and streamline cross-border operations for financial firms across member states. One option under consideration involves expanding the European Securities and Markets Authority's mandate to cover major cross-border financial entities.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced the x402 protocol on November 2, enabling stablecoin payments to integrate directly with web requests. The protocol's ecosystem has surpassed $1.19 billion in market cap, with transaction volume exceeding 932,000 within one week of launch. Armstrong described the growth trajectory as "crazy," reflecting strong early engagement.

Payment infrastructure leader Stripe has partnered with crypto venture firm Paradigm to launch Tempo, an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible layer-1 blockchain designed for stablecoin operations and payment applications. The network can process approximately 100,000 transactions per second with low fees, according to data from respective block explorers. Tempo raised $500 million in a Series A funding round at a valuation of approximately $5 billion, Fortune reported in October.

A federal appellate court ruled that the Federal Reserve retains full authority to deny master account access to crypto-focused institutions. The Tenth Circuit upheld the Kansas City Fed's rejection of Wyoming-based Custodia Bank, citing operational risks tied to digital asset custody. The decision may deter similar litigation from blockchain-focused institutions seeking direct access to U.S. payment infrastructure.

Web3 companies raised $3.877 billion in October 2025, the second-highest monthly total on record, according to DefiLlama. Three firms—Polymarket, Tempo, and Kalshi—captured over 70% of the capital raised during the month.

Bank Negara Malaysia has launched a three-year program to explore blockchain-based asset tokenization across the country's financial sector. The central bank released a discussion paper inviting industry feedback until March 1, 2026, with pilot testing scheduled to begin in 2026 and expand through 2027.