ZTARKNET, HIP 3 And Bitcoin At 93k: What The Last 24 Hours Really Say About Crypto’s Next Phase

If you only glanced at price charts, the last 24 hours looked like yet another risk off flush. Bitcoin briefly slid below the 93,000 dollar area, wiping out most of its 2025 gains, and roughly 100 million dollars worth of leveraged long positions were forced out of the market in about an hour. Altcoins bled, sentiment sagged and fear gauges pushed back toward extreme readings.

Beneath that surface, however, the tape tells a more interesting story. While traders were watching liquidation dashboards, protocol teams, regulators and large institutions were quietly pushing forward the rails that will define the next phase of digital finance. A proposal to create ZTARKNET as a Starknet style Layer 2 for Zcash, the activation of Hyperliquid’s HIP 3 framework for permissionless perpetual markets, new ETF milestones on assets like SEI, and a visible push toward clearer United States crypto rulemaking all landed within the same 24 hour window.

This is exactly the kind of day that a professional research desk looks at not as a random news dump, but as a structural checkpoint. Prices tell you where capital is scared. The rest of the tape hints at where it may be heading once fear recedes.

1. ZTARKNET: Turning Zcash Privacy Into Programmable Collateral

Start with the most technically ambitious headline: the proposal for ZTARKNET, an L2 design that would let Zcash keep its privacy preserving Layer 1 while gaining Starknet style scalability and programmability.

The core idea, as outlined in Zcash community discussions, is not to rip out Zcash’s existing consensus or monetary policy, but to add a small extension that can verify STARK based proofs. That extension would allow an external validity rollup, modelled on Starknet, to post cryptographic proofs back to Zcash. In practical terms, that would mean:

• ZEC remains the settlement and value anchor on Layer 1, with its strong privacy guarantees intact.
• A Starknet like L2, tentatively named ZTARKNET, handles high throughput transactions, smart contracts and DeFi style applications.
• Users could bridge ZEC into ZTARKNET, use it in applications, and settle back to Zcash without inflating the base asset or compromising its privacy rules.

This is strategically important for at least three reasons. First, it addresses the long standing tension in privacy coins between strong confidentiality and composability. Zcash is excellent at the former, but has historically struggled with the latter. A Starknet inspired L2 offers a way to bolt on composability without weakening the core privacy layer.

Second, it strengthens Starknet’s own narrative. Starknet is already moving to settle not just on Ethereum but, over time, on Bitcoin. Adding a serious privacy chain like Zcash to that universe builds the case that zero knowledge rollups will not just scale Ethereum, they will knit together multiple base layers into a programmable settlement fabric.

Third, it hints at where governance power will sit in this emerging stack. In the current proposal, Zcash governance would only need to approve a minimal verification extension; most experimentation – new apps, new risk models, new DeFi primitives – would live on ZTARKNET. That keeps the conservative monetary and privacy core insulated while still giving developers a sandbox with far more freedom to iterate.

From an investor perspective, this is not a short term price catalyst so much as a roadmap marker. If ZTARKNET or a similar design moves from forum post to funded build, you are looking at a world where ZEC, STRK and potentially BTC interact in a more tightly coupled rollup ecosystem. That is a very different landscape from the isolated privacy coin market of the last cycle.

2. Policy And Politics: Trade Deals, Rule Books And Seized Bitcoin

At the same time as engineers are designing new rollup layers, policy makers are busy reshaping the environment in which those layers will live.

Reports circulating on social and market channels over the weekend suggest that the United States is working to finalise a trade deal with China before Thanksgiving. The specifics are still thin and, as always, early headlines need to be treated with caution. But even the possibility of a near term de escalation in United States China trade tensions has implications for global risk appetite, the dollar and, by extension, crypto. A cleaner trade backdrop tends to reduce tail risks and can make it easier for central banks to focus on domestic inflation and employment, rather than geopolitical shocks.

More directly relevant for digital assets, the new chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has been using recent speeches to distance the agency from the prior era of regulation by enforcement and to emphasise the need for a clearer, dedicated rule book for crypto. The stated goal is to replace ad hoc case driven actions with a simpler, more predictable framework for token offerings, trading venues and disclosures.

If that shift is sustained, it could have two opposing effects for markets. In the short run, explicit rules sometimes feel harsher than ambiguous enforcement risk, especially for borderline projects. In the medium run, however, clarity is almost always bullish for serious players. Large institutions, public companies and registered funds can live with tough rules; they cannot live with an unpredictable enforcement lottery. ZTARKNET, HIP 3 and ETF products all become more investable if counterparties can plug them into a known regulatory schema.

Across the Atlantic, a very different kind of legal milestone is playing out. The United Kingdom High Court is holding a hearing on the disposition of roughly 60,000 BTC seized from a Chinese national convicted in a major fraud case. The size is staggering: at current prices, the stash is in the multi billion dollar range. The hearing will determine how and when those coins can be disposed of or redistributed.

For a professional desk, the key here is not to dramatise the case, but to map its mechanical impact. If the court orders an auction style sale, the overhang becomes a medium term supply event, similar to historical Silk Road or Mt Gox distributions. If the resolution spreads sales over time or uses institutional block transfers, the market impact is more manageable. Either way, it is a reminder that legacy enforcement actions can unexpectedly intersect with current liquidity conditions, especially when the broader market is already under pressure.

3. ETF Pipelines: From Bitcoin To SEI And Possibly ADA

While courts wrestle with historic holdings, the bridge between token markets and traditional wrappers keeps expanding.

On the infrastructure side, the Canary Staked SEI ETF has appeared on the DTCC platform under the ticker SEIZ, in the active and pre launch category. Listing at the clearing house level does not mean the fund is live or approved for all investors; it simply indicates that the operational plumbing is being put in place so that, if and when final approvals arrive, secondary market trading can function smoothly.

In parallel, the chief executive of the Cardano Foundation has confirmed that the organisation is actively working on an ADA ETF in the United States. No filing date or structure is guaranteed, but the intent is clear: the post Bitcoin and Ether ETF world is gradually expanding into other large cap networks that can plausibly clear regulatory and liquidity hurdles.

The structural message is straightforward. Even while spot prices correct, more of the market’s beta is migrating into regulated wrappers. That tends to compress fee revenue for pure play crypto funds, but it also de risks access for pensions, advisers and institutions that cannot hold tokens directly. For protocols like SEI and Cardano, getting a foot in that door can, over time, change the profile of their holder base and their sensitivity to market cycles.

4. Flow Signals: Hayes De Risking, Circle Minting, Aster Delaying Dilution

Zoom in from the ETF and rulemaking level and you find a cluster of flow signals that do not sit neatly in a bullish or bearish box, but together describe an active, adaptive market.

First, Arthur Hayes, one of the most followed traders in the space, has been tracked moving size out of several positions: roughly 2.4 million ENA (around 650 thousand dollars at recent prices), alongside notable sales of ETH, LDO, AAVE and UNI. In a vacuum, that is simply one wallet trimming risk. In the current context – rising rates expectations, falling BTC, heavy liquidations – it reinforces the idea that even long term operators are happy to lighten up and reload lower rather than ride every drawdown.

Second, Circle continues to behave as one of the system’s key liquidity valves. On chain data shows a fresh 750 million USDC minted on Solana within a very short time window, part of a broader wave of billions in new stablecoins issued across networks since the October market shock. Some of that minting reflects simple treasury operations and migration between chains. But the timing, clustered around deep corrections, suggests that at least part of it is demand driven, as trading firms and whales bring fiat onto chains to buy discounted assets or to maintain collateral buffers.

Third, the tokenomics story is not universally grim. Aster, a derivatives focused DeFi project, has delayed multiple large unlocks that were originally scheduled for 2025, pushing them into 2026 and, for some tranches, as far as 2035. Markets rewarded that decision immediately: ASTER rallied roughly 10 percent after the new schedule was communicated clearly, and open interest in the token rose as traders positioned for a more favourable supply profile.

This trifecta – a high profile trader taking chips off the table, a stablecoin issuer stepping in to meet fresh demand, and a project delaying dilution rather than forcing it through a weak tape – encapsulates the messy but healthy process of price discovery in a maturing market. There is no single directional signal, but there is evidence of rational behaviour on all sides.

5. Hyperliquid’s HIP 3: The Perpetuals Lab Goes Permissionless

Another structural step forward came from the derivatives infrastructure camp. Hyperliquid has now activated HIP 3, its builder deployed perpetuals framework, and the first wave of markets using it has gone live through teams such as TradeXYZ, Ventuals and Felix Protocol.

HIP 3 is more than just an incremental upgrade. By allowing builders who stake a substantial amount of HYPE to deploy their own perpetual markets directly on chain, Hyperliquid is effectively turning itself into an open derivatives lab. Builders define oracle sources, contract specs, margin parameters and can earn a share of fees. The protocol enforces risk constraints through staking and potential slashing, but does not pre approve each listing.

For traders, this means a much faster pipeline for novel markets: tokenised equities, thematic baskets, niche altcoins and eventually non crypto underlyings can all be spun up without waiting for a central listing committee to sign off. For regulators, it raises familiar questions about who, if anyone, is the accountable gatekeeper. For crypto as a whole, it shows how far on chain market structure has come from the days when a single centralised exchange defined what could or could not be traded.

Importantly, HIP 3 and proposals like ZTARKNET rhyme. Both move complexity and experimentation to higher layers while trying to keep a smaller, ossified base layer underneath. That is the same design instinct that made Ethereum rollups viable, now being re applied to privacy and derivatives.

6. Grand Narratives: Robots Ending Poverty, Saylor Buying The Dip

No 24 hour window in crypto would be complete without a big narrative headline, and this one delivered two.

On the technology side, Elon Musk has been telling both shareholders and his followers that Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, could eliminate poverty and enable what he calls universal high income. In his telling, a world saturated with advanced robots and AI systems would be able to produce far more goods and services with far less human labour, forcing societies to rethink how income and ownership are distributed.

For digital assets, this is not just a sci fi side note. If Musk’s automation vision plays out even partially, the demand for programmable, borderless financial infrastructure to route capital, ownership and income will only grow. Privacy oriented L2s like the proposed ZTARKNET, permissionless derivatives frameworks like HIP 3, and high bandwidth stablecoin rails all fit that future far better than legacy banking stacks do.

On the market side, Michael Saylor once again played his now familiar role as Bitcoin’s chief maximalist. As BTC slid below key levels and rumours swirled about his company’s balance sheet, Saylor reiterated publicly that his firm has been buying more coins and has no intention of selling. Separate interviews and social posts have hinted that he is far from finished and still views Bitcoin as structurally undervalued at current prices.

Whether you agree with him or not, Saylor’s messaging matters because it anchors one end of the investor spectrum: the highly leveraged, corporate, long horizon holder who treats Bitcoin as a non negotiable treasury asset. When that cohort is still adding during a 20 plus percent drawdown, it helps explain why every deep flush in this cycle is met with at least some opportunistic demand.

7. Bitcoin Under 93k And 100 Million In Longs: Noise Or Regime Change?

With all that context, how should an informed reader interpret the short term price action – the break below 93,000 dollars, the roughly 100 million dollars in liquidated longs and the third straight red week for BTC?

First, it is important to separate mechanics from macro. On the mechanical side, weekend order books were thin, perpetual funding had already flipped negative and a meaningful chunk of open interest was sitting on the long side. Once price broke through the high 90,000s, a cascade of liquidations was almost guaranteed. That has more to do with leverage and margin rules than with ZTARKNET, HIP 3 or trade headlines.

On the macro side, the same forces that have been knocking crypto lower for several weeks are still in play. Expectations for a December United States rate cut have faded as more hawkish Federal Reserve voices push back, spot Bitcoin ETF flows have turned negative and risk appetite across tech has cooled. Add in uncertainty around trade negotiations and seized coin disposals and you have a textbook environment for lower liquidity and fatter tails.

Second, regime change is better measured in structure than in single prints. If this were merely a speculative blow off top followed by a collapse back into obscurity, you would not expect to see serious conversations about privacy L2s, new derivatives frameworks, ETF pipelines and stablecoin supply growth happening on the same day as the selloff. The fact that they are is a strong argument that the long term arc of crypto adoption is intact, even if the market is currently digesting overextended positioning.

Third, for a professional desk, the practical response is neither to panic nor to ignore the move. The right question is how to size risk and where to allocate research bandwidth. Days like this argue for less leverage, longer time horizons and more attention to structural signals such as protocol roadmaps, legal precedents and funding conditions. ZTARKNET’s design details, the enforcement outcome for the 60,000 BTC case, and the concrete shape of any new SEC rule book will matter far more over the next three years than whether the local low in this correction was 92,500 or 93,000.

8. What This 24 Hour Tape Really Tells Us

Pulling the threads together, the last 24 hours do not describe a market that is dying. They describe a market that is maturing under stress. On one side, you have an increasingly professionalised infrastructure stack: privacy aware L2 proposals, permissionless perps, ETF plumbing, carefully managed tokenomics and large scale stablecoin operations. On the other, you still have thin weekend liquidity, reflexive liquidations and an investor base that can swing from euphoria to despair in a matter of days.

The value of a serious news and analysis platform is not to cheerlead one side or the other, but to keep readers focused on the structural signals amid that noise. Today’s signals say that builders and policymakers are quietly laying the foundations for a more programmable, more regulated and more interconnected financial internet, even as prices remind everyone that volatility is the entry fee for being early.

Whether Bitcoin’s dip below 93,000 turns out to be a generational buying opportunity or just another stop on the way to lower levels, the developments around ZTARKNET, HIP 3, ETF pipelines and on chain liquidity will still be there tomorrow. For investors who think in cycles rather than in candles, that is where the real work – and the real edge – now lives.