The night after Bitcoin fell below 100,000: who defied the trend and surged? Who got wiped out and went to zero?

On November 5th, the crypto market was heavily impacted, with derivatives liquidations reaching $2.1 billion, and Bitcoin falling below the $100,000 mark. Surprisingly, older coins gained against the trend, and the privacy sector became a key force. The author of this article is Dingdang from Planet Daily (@XiaMiPP). (Background: The night before, Bitcoin dropped below $100,000! It quickly fell 0.8% within an hour.) (Additional context: MicroStrategy Strategy no longer “madly buying,” is this the reason for Bitcoin’s recent decline?) Is the spring of old coins just an illusion?

At 5 a.m. on November 5th, the crypto market suffered a heavy blow. Derivatives liquidations amounted to $2.1 billion, with long positions liquidated at $1.68 billion. Although this figure is far below the over $20 billion “century liquidation” on October 11th, this decline was even more damaging. Bitcoin lost the critical $100,000 level, dropping to a low of $98,944, a 4.8% decline intraday; during the previous flash crash, Bitcoin only dipped to $102,000. ETH and SOL fell by 8.8% and 6.6%, respectively.

In this liquidity-starved moment, who shows the strongest resilience, and who is heading towards “zero”? Based on Bitcoin’s crash timeline and tokens only from Binance exchange, the decline rankings may not seem as explosive, but an undeniable fact emerges: most altcoins have long been drained of liquidity, with chronic bleeding as their norm.

From the data charts, MMT and AIA are the most notable tokens in this market cycle. Both belong to the Sui ecosystem; MMT is the native token of Momentum, a leading DEX on Sui, which just launched on November 4th. MMT performed strongly initially, with significant short-term gains, but as of press time, its price has experienced a clear correction, still falling in line with the pattern of new Binance listings. AIA, focusing on AI infrastructure, has surged over 30 times since launching on Binance on September 25th.

Unexpectedly, during the market decline on November 4th, many coins considered “outdated” suddenly became active. Tokens like XNO, ZEC, ICP, DCR, and AR, “stars of the old era,” rose against the trend during this storm. Since ZEC reignited the privacy narrative, these tokens, once buried by time, seem to have regained their narrative window.

Especially two days after the crash, tracking these tokens shows most still perform well, indicating that the privacy sector remains a core force. ZEC leads the rally, with MINA and ZK also performing well. Meanwhile, XNO, ICP, and DCR, which adhere to the original digital cash philosophy, are trying to patch their deficiencies with different technical approaches outside Bitcoin’s framework. ICP continues to rise strongly, while XNO and DCR have pulled back, entering a stress test phase.

(Personal observation: Currently, liquidity in altcoins has been drained, and governance tokens are basically considered “obsolete,” almost a market consensus. However, since the privacy narrative has warmed again, what we see is mostly old coins rekindling nostalgic hype. The more noteworthy signal might be that funds are shifting towards more “practical” sectors, such as the surge in storage tokens today. In fact, whether in privacy or storage, both are moving towards “practicality.” So I boldly speculate that the next sector to rise could also lean towards “practical” tokens. This is just my personal feeling and not investment advice.)

Below, Odaily Planet Daily highlights some of the most representative projects amid this turbulence and panic:

GIGGLE: A Plaything for Binance

The GIGGLE development team is GiggleFund from the BSC community, inspired by CZ’s (Binance CEO) educational charity project Giggle Academy. On September 21st, Giggle Academy announced it would accept public donations in cryptocurrency to help more children access free, high-quality education. Seizing this opportunity, GiggleFund launched GIGGLE and pledged to donate all transaction fees to Giggle Academy. This strategic move led to a rapid explosion in GIGGLE’s value, with Giggle Academy receiving over $1 million in donations within 12 hours of opening, about 90% of which came from GIGGLE transaction fees. CZ even praised this initiative in a post and later listed GIGGLE on Binance Spot.

GIGGLE holders called on Binance to donate platform transaction fees from GIGGLE spot and futures trading to continue the project’s original vision, which was successfully achieved on November 3rd. Stimulated by this positive news, GIGGLE’s price surged from around $70 to a peak of $113.99, a short-term increase of over 60%.

Perhaps to prevent excessive hype, CZ posted a clarification on November 3rd evening: “GIGGLE is not the official token of Giggle Academy,” which triggered panic selling, causing the price to crash from $230 to $50 (a 78% drop), with market cap evaporating by over 70%.

However, dramatic reversals often come just as suddenly. On the evening of November 4th, CZ quoted an official statement from Giggle Academy and announced that 25% of Binance GIGGLE transaction fees would be burned, and 25% donated to Giggle Academy. Simultaneously, Binance spokesperson He Yi engaged in discussions. This burn narrative shifted market sentiment from panic to FOMO, with GIGGLE soaring 155% in 24 hours.

ZK: Privacy Revival and Buyback Logic

ZK (ZKsync’s native token) is the governance and utility token for ZKsync, an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution. ZKsync uses zero-knowledge proof (ZK-Rollup) technology to achieve high throughput and privacy protection, mainly for DeFi, NFTs, and cross-chain applications. On November 1st, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin praised ZKsync in a tweet, calling it a “quiet but valuable contribution” to the Ethereum ecosystem. This tweet acted as a signal, and amid the renewed privacy narrative, ZK became a focus, with a short-term increase of over 160%.

Although it later retreated, on the evening of November 4th, ZKsync founder Alex released the “ZK Token Proposal Part I,” proposing a major update to the ZK tokenomics: all network revenue would be used for buybacks and burning of ZK tokens, transforming it from a governance token into an asset with value capture capabilities. In the context of a broad market decline, this update caused ZK to rise against the trend.

Of course, not everyone in the community is convinced. Some argue that ZKsync’s revenue is limited and cannot support buybacks. In other words, while the narrative is attractive, whether it can be realized remains to be seen.

EUL: The Disillusion of DeFi “Leverage”

Euler (EUL), as a…