4 Altcoins Defy Early October Crypto Slump With Big Gains

While much of the cryptocurrency market slid as October got underway, Pump.fun (PUMP), Aave (AAVE), Worldcoin (WLD), and Sky (SKY) moved in the opposite direction.

Santiment links three of these rallies to project-specific developments, such as token buybacks, growth in Aave's lending, and a move by Galaxy Digital.

What's Behind the 4 Altcoin Rallies

Over the last seven days, the total crypto market cap dipped just 0.30%, as per BeInCrypto Markets.

On Friday, Bitcoin jumped from $84,000 to $87,000 before quickly retreating to its earlier levels. Sentiment around ETH and XRP turned bearish as October began.

AAVE, meanwhile, recorded a 20% gain, with a 7% rise on Friday alone. The surge is mostly attributed to the Aave protocol hitting the $1 billion mark in user deposits.

In September, V4 launched on Arc and Base. On Base, an Equities Hub permits eligible non-US users to borrow USDC (USDC) using 7 Coinbase-tokenized US stocks as collateral.

Pump.fun also saw a 30% weekly increase, driven mainly by reductions in the token's supply.

“Pump.fun is directing roughly half of net protocol revenue into PUMP buybacks and burns, with daily purchases topping $1M several times in late September,” the firm said.

Along with Hyperliquid, Pump.fun accounted for nearly 90% of the record $638 million in token buybacks, as reported by BeInCrypto in August.

Santiment attributes SKY's 14% weekly rise to growing institutional interest. Last month, Galaxy Digital revealed it had added $100 million of sUSDS, Sky's yield-bearing savings token, to its treasury.

Galaxy also approved sUSDS as collateral throughout its institutional trading operations and acquired an undisclosed amount of SKY. Worldcoin rounded things out with a 15% gain this week, though Santiment did not point to any specific catalyst for that move.

Quant Pulls Back From Its Clearing House Rally

Santiment listed Quant (QNT) among the hardest-hit tokens in early October. The altcoin fell 7% on Friday, which the firm chalked up to profit-taking following a steep climb.

From its late September peak, QNT has dropped over 32%. Still, it is up 152% over seven days, trading at $252.55, according to BeInCrypto Markets data.

Santiment described the red week as a test of traders' willingness to buy early October dips. Next week's action will reveal whether the selloff persists or the market reverses.