Altcoins led a broad crypto rebound on Friday, with HYPE surging more than 11% to nearly $89 as traders rotated into higher-beta assets. Bitcoin recovered from an overnight low of $75,972 and moved back toward $78,000, extending gains for a third consecutive day. Zcash climbed 8% to around $1,472 and Solana rose 6% to above $106, while Starknet jumped 18%, Arbitrum advanced 17% and Uniswap gained 13% since midnight UTC.
The DeFi Select Index increased 8.3%, the total crypto market capitalization grew about 2% to roughly $2.66 trillion, and CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season index rose to 44 from Tuesday’s low of 32. The advance was broad-based and signaled renewed speculative appetite across major tokens and layer-2 networks.
Macro conditions provided support after a difficult week. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield slipped back below 5%, Brent crude fell below $103 after hitting $109 earlier in the week, and U.S. equity futures moved higher. Those moves followed the Federal Reserve’s quarter-point rate increase, which did not trigger the sustained risk-asset sell-off that many traders had feared. Bitcoin remains about 5% below its September 4 high of $82,284.
Derivatives data showed participation rebuilding without reaching extreme levels. Total crypto futures open interest expanded nearly 5% to $141.2 billion, while Bitcoin open interest rose to 680,000 BTC from 670,000 BTC. The 30-day implied volatility fell to 36%, its lowest area since May. Traders were also closely watching HYPE order book dynamics and whale movements, with attention focused on whether expanding altcoin speculation can coexist with Bitcoin’s push toward the $82,000 upper edge of its range.
