We skipped a week (the Bulletin was at the pub; the market was not), so here's the short version of what you missed: US spot Bitcoin ETFs hoovered up about $2.39 billion in the week to 25 September — their biggest week since October 2025 — and dragged 2026's year-to-date ETF flows back into the black. Then came this week, and the tap slowed to a dribble: roughly $82.9 million of provisional net inflows for 28 September–2 October. Bitcoin still had a go. It poked its head above $87,000 midweek, got sent back under $84,000, and by the Monday-morning snapshot was sitting around $85,750, up about 2.6% on seven days. Ethereum was near $2,705, up roughly 1.9%, after yet another failed attempt to hold above $2,800. The whole market was worth about $2.90 trillion with Bitcoin dominance near 59.2%, and the Fear & Greed Index read 70 — still "Greed", but down from 74 a week earlier. Greedy, just not as greedy. Like a bloke who's had his fourth sausage roll and is only thinking about a fifth.
The week's real plot twist was Friday's US jobs report: 29,000 jobs added in September, far fewer than expected, with unemployment at 4.2%. In any normal universe that's bad news. In this one, markets cheered, because a wobbly jobs market makes it harder for the Fed to hike again — the odds of an October hike reportedly fell from about 66% to 22% — and Bitcoin briefly popped above $86,000 on the spot. Meanwhile Citigroup lifted its 12-month Bitcoin target from $82,000 to $113,000 (and Ethereum from $2,240 to $3,028), which is a bank's forecast and not a promise — they had the old number too, remember — and Strategy bought another 1,665 BTC to take its stack to 847,666. Somebody's keen.
Seven-day moves among the top 150 coins by market cap, CoinGecko snapshot taken Monday morning 5 October. Different clock, different leaderboard (see Quant above) — these are the ones still standing when the music stopped:
| # | Coin | Price | Move | Poida's take |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NIGHT (Midnight) | $0.0461 | +68.53% | Cardano's privacy sidechain switched on permissionless smart contracts on mainnet and logged a fifth green week running. Still about 61% under its own high, so plenty of people are just getting back to even. |
| 2 | STRK (Starknet) | $0.0584 | +47.65% | Paying the bridge fees on the first 100 BTC into its new strkBTC, with a mainnet upgrade due 5 October. Up 48% and still roughly 99% below its all-time high. Let that one sink in before you call it a comeback. |
| 3 | PUMP (Pump.fun) | $0.00645 | +27.30% | The meme-coin launchpad's revenue went up, so its buyback-and-burn went up. The house wins at the casino. Who knew. |
| 4 | STX (Stacks) | $0.3956 | +20.93% | Founder Muneeb Ali is back in the chair and the Bitcoin-staking product opens its second bonding period on 10 October. Boss comes back, shop gets busy. |
| 5 | AAVE (Aave) | $180.51 | +19.78% | Aave v4 passed $1 billion in deposits and expanded to more chains. An actual lending business with actual deposits — the boring kind of winner, which is the kind I like. |
Same snapshot, same top 150, bottom of the ladder. I've left out anything trading under about $10 million a day — Pearl (PRL) was technically the week's worst at −20.29% but on roughly $2.9 million of volume, which is a puddle, not a market. Two of last issue's winners are on this list. Stops, people (Chapter 4):
| # | Coin | Price | Move | Poida's take |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LIT (Lighter) | $3.74 | −17.18% | Profit-taking after a run to fresh highs — now about 52% under its peak. What goes up on leverage comes down on leverage. |
| 2 | ZEC (Zcash) | $1,317.47 | −15.48% | Grayscale's Zcash ETF had its first losing week ($93.6M out), and the Bitget hackers were reported shuffling stolen ZEC into its privacy pool. Still up about 1,077% in a year, so nobody's passing the hat round. |
| 3 | BTW (Bitway) | $0.9926 | −14.78% | Friday's wrap-ups had it up 52% at $1.41. By Monday it was under a dollar with a reported $140M token unlock coming. A whole round trip in one weekend. |
| 4 | ONDO (Ondo) | $0.4999 | −13.10% | A pullback after a 38% month. Worth knowing: ONDO is a governance token with no direct share of the platform's revenue — the business growing and the token growing are two different things. |
| 5 | ENA (Ethena) | $0.2377 | −12.51% | Winner #4 in issue #6 at +45%. Loser #5 in issue #7. That's the whole lesson, right there in one row. |
Not tips. Not targets. Just three established, heavily-used networks trading a long way below their old highs — the kind of thing a Chapter 6 DCA-and-hold Boganster researches while everyone else chases this week's 68%. The usage data below is not all good news on purpose. Do your own research, size by the 2% rule, and remember: cheap can always get cheaper.
Roughly 45% below its all-time high of $4,946 (August 2025). On the usage side, more than 35% of all ETH is now staked, DeFi value locked on Ethereum is reported up from about $39 billion in June to $54 billion in early October, and about $1.86 billion more ETH left exchanges than arrived over the 30 days to 1 October. The Glamsterdam upgrade hits the Sepolia testnet on 6 October. The honest counterpoints: spot Ether ETFs shed about $118 million over three sessions to 1 October, monthly inflows fell from roughly $1.82 billion in August to $832 million in September, and the price has now failed at $2,800 more than once. Usage is recovering; the buyers haven't proved they're back.
About 59% below its all-time high of $293.31. The network just posted a record quarter — 14.2 billion non-vote transactions in Q3 (actual user activity, not validators talking to each other), up about 45% on Q2 — and US spot Solana ETFs accumulated some 4.37 million SOL between mid-July and 25 September. The catch is this week: ETF inflows reportedly slowed from $188.1 million in the week of 21–25 September to about $800,000 for 28 September–2 October, and the price has been stuck under $125 regardless of the record activity. A busy network and a rising coin are not the same thing — that gap is the question worth researching.
New on the shelf, and about 73% below its all-time high near $52.70. Chainlink is the plumbing — price feeds and cross-chain messaging — underneath a big slice of DeFi and, lately, the banks: it reported about $110 billion of total value secured for Q2, its cross-chain system (CCIP) is reported to secure more than $84 billion of token value as of early October, and it demoed a financing workflow with the DTCC at Sibos. Its own reserve held about 6.12 million LINK. The counterpoint is the same one as Ondo up in the losers table: a network being heavily used does not automatically put money in token holders' pockets, and LINK has spent years proving that usage and price can go separate ways. A watchlist entry, not a conclusion.
Market data: CoinGecko — prices, seven-day moves, market cap and dominance (snapshot Monday 5 October 2026) · Alternative.me — Crypto Fear & Greed Index. News & context: CoinCentral — weekly recap: Bitcoin hits $87,000 · CoinStats — Bitcoin news, ETF flows and jobs data · Spendnode — Bitcoin ETFs post $2.39B weekly inflow · FinanceFeeds — Bitcoin ETFs' biggest week in a year · CoinDesk — SEC maps out crypto custody in new proposal · SEC — custody proposal press release · The Cryptonomist — September 2026 crypto hacks cost $766 million · TRM Labs — the Liquid Network exploit. Winners & losers: CoinGecko — gainers & losers · AMBCrypto — weekly winners and losers, 4 October · FXStreet — top 7 weekly crypto performers · CoinSpectator — Quant jumps 158%, Lighter sinks · The Crypto Times — Starknet jumps as volume surges · Coinpedia — Stacks surges as Muneeb Ali returns · crypto.news — Zcash ETF sees $93.6M exit · 24/7 Wall St — Zcash up 1,077% in a year · Coin Gabbar — Ondo in October 2026. Value Shelf: UseTheBitcoin — Ethereum price analysis, 4 October 2026 · The Coin Republic — Solana: what the charts aren't telling you · Crypto Daily — Solana ETF flows · crypto.news — Chainlink's $110B in value secured · KuCoin News — Chainlink CCIP cross-chain value hits $84B · CoinStats — Chainlink, October 2026. Prices are snapshots and move constantly.
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