Crypto's Buying Power Drained $5B This Week, Ethereum Barely Blinked

Stablecoin supply bled out every day last week. DefiLlama pegs the total at $293.25 billion, down by $4.99 billion, or 1.7%, from $298.24 billion a week earlier and $293.86 billion just a day before. Sentora's weekly tracker calls it even worse — a $6.02 billion decline that leaves its own total at $293.69 billion, with the two trackers simply counting differently.

Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) has hardly noticed. The token trades at $2,232, off just 1% on the week, even though it holds the biggest share of the decentralized apps those dollars feed. By DefiLlama's count, Ethereum accounts for $43.51 billion of the $81.23 billion locked in DeFi — a 53.6% slice.

Circle's own numbers lean the same way. A DefiLlama Research report dated November 6 shows Circle minted $24.3 billion of USD Coin (CRYPTO:USDC) on Ethereum over the past month while burning about $27.4 billion, a net outflow of $3.1 billion. Mints beat burns on only 8 of 31 days, meaning customers pulled dollars off the chain most days.

The exit wasn't uniform. Tether (CRYPTO:USDT) shed about $720 million in a single day, leaving its supply at $176.78 billion, while Sky Dollar (CRYPTO:USDS) slid to $5.59 billion from $6.48 billion as DeFi savers yanked deposits. Ethena USDe (CRYPTO:USDE) went the other way, growing by $360 million to $4.92 billion — proof some traders are still chasing yield.

Not all burns mean panic. Market makers regularly redeem idle cash, and funds park money in Treasury bills instead. Other chains are soaking up fresh supply too: Whale Alert flagged 250 million USDC minted on Solana on November 6. And plenty of buying never touches the blockchain, happening inside exchange order books where supply data reads identically whether traders swap for ETH or sit still.

The harder signals are elsewhere. U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs bled $365.3 million in the week ending November 6, with only four inflow sessions since October 8, dragging cumulative net inflows down by $1.4 billion to $11.92 billion. The VIX, Wall Street's volatility gauge, shot up to 28.18 on November 5 after sitting near 16.61, and risk appetite for assets like ETH tends to shrink when it spikes. Sentora also shows high-risk DeFi loans down $123 million to $5.95 billion, which could mean fewer forced sellers if ETH dips again — a small mercy, since ETH is down 9.7% over 30 days and trading under its 30-day low close of $2,236. 247wallst.com says a bounce is possible but doesn't expect a durable rally while stablecoin supply keeps contracting. The checklist: supply back above $298.24 billion, a full week of ETF inflows, and ETH closing above its 20-day average near $2,333, then its 50-day at $2,499. Fall below the 200-day average at $2,156 with supply still shrinking, and January 2026 — when ETH ran to $3,352 before fading to $2,143 — starts looking familiar.