Gate Decentralized Finance Daily ( October 22 ): Ethereum Fusaka upgrade enters final testing; Jupiter launches prediction market.

On October 22, the DeFi market experienced a short-term rebound after a big dump in gold, which could not be sustained, leading to the total TVL across the network falling below $150 billion to $149.885 billion, a 24-hour decrease of 2.12%; the 24-hour trading volume on DEX was approximately $18.252 billion. On-chain, the Ethereum Fusaka upgrade has entered the final Testnet phase, becoming a technical focus; Jito announced that it will use 100% of network revenue for JTO buybacks (having previously executed buybacks of about $2.5 million), indicating that on-chain projects are accelerating their actions in terms of revenue buybacks. Uniswap, Hyperliquid, and Jupiter continue to remain active in the protocol fee rankings, while short-term market fluctuations and structural differentiation continue to manifest.

DeFi Market Overview

(Source: DeFiLlama)

Total DeFi TVL across the network: Today (October 22), the crypto market welcomed a rebound after a big dump in gold, with BTC briefly rising to $114,000. However, this trend could not be sustained, and as of the time of writing, BTC has pulled back to around $108,000, while ETH hovers around $3,850; the total DeFi TVL across the network has fallen below the $150 billion mark, currently at $149.885 billion, a decrease of 2.12% in the last 24 hours.

DEX 24-hour volume: approximately $18.252 billion, a week-on-week decrease of 28.79%; the top three are: Uniswap ($5.467 billion), PancakeSwap ($2.598 billion), HumidiFi ($1.157 billion).

Popular Protocols and On-Chain Performance

Based on TVL, the top ten DeFi protocol data is as follows:

(Source: DeFiLlama)

The data performance of the top-ranked protocols are as follows:

Aave: TVL approximately $38.161 billion, 24-hour fall of 2.2%;

Lido: TVL approximately 32.814 billion USD, 24-hour fall of 0.52%;

EigenLayer: TVL approximately 16.271 billion USD, 24-hour fall 0.68%;

Ethena: TVL approximately 11.38 billion USD, 24-hour fall of 3.26%;

Spark: TVL approximately 10.022 billion USD, 24-hour increase of 9.19%;

Sky: TVL approximately 6.75 billion USD, 24-hour increase of 10.09%.

In addition, the top ten projects by protocol fees in the past 24 hours are as follows:

(Source: DeFiLlama)

Among them, Uniswap's protocol fees in the past 24 hours reached 7.9 million USD, ranking third, just behind Tether (23.18 million USD) and Circle (7.94 million USD); Hyperliquid's protocol fees in the past 24 hours reached 5.42 million USD, ranking fourth; Jupiter ranked fifth with 3.55 million USD.

Project News Review

1. 1inch announced the integration of Flowdesk to provide liquidity parsing services for the EURCV and USDCV stablecoins issued by Société Générale. The liquidity for EURCV and USDCV will be provided by Flowdesk, a liquidity provider registered with the French Financial Markets Authority (a public institution responsible for regulating financial markets and protecting investors). Flowdesk has joined the 1inch parser network to handle orders for EURCV and USDCV, providing liquidity and order processing services as a parser.

2. Jito officially announced that 100% of the Jito network revenue will be used for the continuous repurchase of JTO tokens, with $2.5 million repurchased from August to date. Since the approval of JIP-24, 100% of Block Engine fees and future BAM fees will flow into the DAO treasury. Starting today, 100% of the revenue generated by the DAO will be used for the continuous repurchase of JTO tokens, with the monthly repurchase amount matching the revenue generated in the previous month, and will continue indefinitely (subject to DAO approval).

On September 4th, the Jito Foundation announced the completion of the first round of $1 million JTO buyback and future plans: it completed a buyback of $1 million worth of JTO in four installments within ten days. Today, it was clearly stated that the buyback ratio of network revenue is 100%.

3. The winners of the main track of the ETHShanghai 2025 Hackathon have been officially announced:

First Prize: Yield Market (DeFi x Infra track), prize of 2000 US dollars.

Second Prize: awarded by VRF using EIP 2537 (Chain for Good track) and Wandfi (DeFi x Infra track), with a prize of 1500 dollars each.

Third Prize: awarded to Ponymarket (DeFi x Infra track) and Foxhole (AI × ETH track), with a prize of 1000 dollars each.

4. The cross-chain aggregation DeFi platform Infinex announced that the on-chain card trading game Bullrun will soon be suspended, with the 403rd round being the last daily round for now. Infinex will finalize the distribution method of Bulls to ensure that real players receive rewards, not bots.

Bulls will be able to redeem rewards in the upcoming “Treasure Chest” event, with details to be announced soon. The Bullrun card game will also return after a pause, bringing new game modes and rewards.

5. Solana ecosystem DEX Jupiter announced the launch of the beta version of the prediction market “Jupiter Prediction Market”, supported by liquidity from Kalshi.

6. According to feedback from several community users, the Monad ecosystem liquidity staking protocol aPriori has reportedly registered subdomains related to airdrop claims through Tokentable.

7. Ethereum is entering the final Testnet phase before the Fusaka upgrade scheduled for December 3. This upgrade introduces a single transaction Gas limit of about 16.78 million units to improve block efficiency and prepare for parallel execution on the network, which has now been activated on the Holesky and Sepolia testnets. The Gas limit restricts the processing capacity that can be used for a single transaction, ensuring that no single transaction can monopolize an entire block, allowing the network to handle activities more evenly.

The next phase of the Fusaka upgrade is scheduled for deployment on the Hoodi Testnet on October 28, with the mainnet expected to go live in December 2025. The Fusaka upgrade (EIP-7825) is an important part of the Ethereum roadmap, following the Dencun upgrade in March 2024 and the Pectra upgrade on May 6, 2025. This upgrade introduces several changes: raising the default block gas limit for Ethereum to 60 million, setting a gas limit of 16.77 million for single transactions (EIP-7825), and launching PeerDAS— the core feature of this upgrade. PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling) allows Ethereum nodes to store only a small random portion of the second layer “data blocks” instead of the entire dataset. This approach reduces hardware requirements while maintaining network security and enables cheaper and higher throughput scaling for second layer networks.

8. Base ecosystem DEX protocol Aerodrome announcement, soon launching the token issuance platform Aero Launch, providing liquidity pool creation in easy mode, 100% of transaction fees to liquidity providers, as well as liquidity pool locking and permissionless token issuance features.

9. The Perp DEX protocol Ethereal has officially launched the mainnet Alpha version, which will support leveraged trading using USDe as margin. With the launch of the mainnet, Season 1's Epoch 1 phase will also come to an end, but until 23:59 UTC on October 29, eUSDe holders will continue to receive Ethereal points. From Epoch 2 onwards, points distribution will be conducted weekly.

10. Arthur Hayes stated on social media that HYPE faces the risk of valuation multiple compression. Annual revenue has nearly returned to historical highs, but the coin price is much lower. In the increasingly competitive environment of perpetual contract decentralized trading platforms (Perp DEX), speculators are unwilling to pay excessive premiums for uncertain future income.

Overview of Major Leading DeFi Projects

Ethereum DEX 24-hour volume ranks first, at approximately 4.748 billion USD, with the top three projects being:

Uniswap ($3.15 billion), Fluid ($695 million), Curve Finance ($412.45 million);

Solana DEX has the highest 24-hour trading volume, approximately 4.418 billion USD, with the top three projects being:

Meteora ($1.16 billion), HumidiFi ($908.62 million), Orca ($679.98 million);

BNB Chain DEX ranks third in 24-hour trading volume, approximately 3 billion USD, a week-on-week decrease of 40.21%; among them, the top three projects are:

PancakeSwap (2.073 billion USD), Uniswap (759.09 million USD), four.meme (117.35 million USD).

Gate DeFi Sector Token Market Data

According to the data from the Gate market page, the price performance of the top ten tokens in the DeFi sector is as follows:

(Source: Gate DeFi market data)

As of October 22, at the time of publication, the cryptocurrency market has once again fallen after a brief rebound, with tokens in the DeFi sector experiencing more declines than gains. Specifically:

UNI is currently reported at 6.15 USD, with a 24-hour increase of 0.21%;

AAVE is currently reported at 216.75 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 1.44%;

WLFI is currently priced at 0.1238 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 2.2%;

MORPHO is currently priced at 1.82 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 2.91%;

INJ is currently priced at 8.25 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 1.05%;

MYX is currently reported at 2.75 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 4.1%;

CRV is currently reported at 0.5216 US dollars, with a 24-hour fall of 1.58%;

SYRUP is currently priced at 0.3467 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 0.85%;

FF currently reported at 0.1487 USD, with a 24-hour increase of 8.17%.

Market Trend Interpretation

On October 22, the DeFi market showed significant signs of cooling due to macro fluctuations and the adjustment of mainstream coins. According to DeFiLlama data, the total DeFi TVL across the network is reported at 149.885 billion dollars, a decrease of 2.12% in 24 hours, marking the first time in nearly a month that it has fallen below the 150 billion dollar mark. Mainstream protocols generally declined, with Aave and Lido falling 2.2% and 0.52% respectively, while EigenLayer decreased by 0.68%, indicating an increase in short-term risk-averse sentiment.

It is worth noting that the two major protocols, Spark and Sky, have risen against the trend, with a 24-hour increase of 9.19% and 10.09% respectively, indicating that some medium-sized protocols still have structural capital inflows. Analysis suggests that these types of protocols typically possess innovative yield models or high liquidity incentives, making them more attractive to speculative funds in the short term.

In terms of trading, the overall trading volume of the DEX market has significantly decreased, with a 24-hour trading volume of $18.252 billion, a week-on-week decline of 28.79%. Uniswap still leads with $5.467 billion, but PancakeSwap and HumidiFi in the Solana ecosystem follow closely with $2.598 billion and $1.157 billion respectively. The trading volume of the Solana DEX ecosystem remains high ($4.418 billion), with Meteora and Orca showing high activity, indicating that the trading momentum in the Solana ecosystem is relatively robust.

The DeFi sector tokens continue to show weakness overall. UNI slightly increased by 0.21%, AAVE fell by 1.44%, and WLFI and MORPHO dropped by 2.2% and 2.91% respectively, indicating that blue-chip tokens are significantly impacted by macro fluctuations. In contrast, FF experienced an increase of 8.17%, becoming one of the few projects that moved against the trend, possibly related to the enthusiasm for short-term trading and on-chain events.

Overall, the market is currently in a mainstream correction and innovative resilience phase: despite the overall tightening of capital, there have been frequent on-chain ecological innovation events (such as the stablecoin on-chain by a subsidiary of Société Générale, and the advancement of Ethereum upgrades), providing mid-term support for the market.

Analyst Viewpoint

Analysts believe that the current adjustment in the DeFi market is a healthy pullback, and there has not been a systemic withdrawal of funds. Key points include:

Macroeconomic factors dominate short-term fluctuations: The rapid volatility of gold and U.S. Treasury prices triggers short-term risk aversion, putting pressure on the DeFi sector, but the TVL pullback of mainstream projects remains within a controllable range.

Traditional Financial Forces Accelerate Penetration into DeFi: 1inch announces the integration of Flowdesk to provide liquidity analysis services for the EURCV and USDCV stablecoins issued by Société Générale, which is seen as a landmark event in “compliant stablecoin on-chain trading.” Analysts point out that this cooperation may become a model for the future integration of TradFi (traditional finance) and DeFi, bringing long-term benefits to the stablecoin market.

Ethereum Upgrade Brings Structural Benefits: The advancement of the Fusaka upgrade testnet marks the beginning of a new phase for Ethereum with parallel execution and Gas limit optimization. Institutional analysis suggests that this will significantly enhance network throughput and data availability, unlocking new growth space for Layer 2 ecosystems and re-staking protocols.

Market structural differentiation is evident: Currently, funds are shifting from high-volatility protocols to projects with stable returns or real income sources, such as Spark, Ethena, and THENA; trading protocols in the Solana and Base ecosystems are relatively robust, indicating that interest in emerging chains is still growing.

Overall, the short-term market is still in a consolidation range, but the combined effect of traditional finance entering the market and technological upgrades may become the key driving force for the next stage of the DeFi market rebound.

Conclusion

The DeFi market experienced a phase of adjustment characterized by both capital withdrawal and innovation on October 22. Although the TVL fell below the psychological threshold of 150 billion USD, the accelerated on-chain adoption of traditional finance and the upcoming Ethereum upgrade have gradually accumulated long-term structural bullish signals for the market. For medium to long-term investors, this period of adjustment may serve as a buildup for a new round of the DeFi cycle.