Crypto Markets Look To Finish Strong After Sideways October

Ether Is Up 22% In Seven Days

After trading sideways through much of October, crypto markets had their best week since August with the top three digital assets leading the way — Bitcoin is up 8.9%, Ether is up 22.1%, and Binance’s BNB is up 12.5% in the past week, according to The Defiant Terminal. 

ETH Price + BTC Price + BNB Price, Source: The Defiant Terminal

Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, KLAY, the token of the Layer 1 blockchain Klaytn, had the strongest showing, surging over 90% in the past week. 

Dogecoin, likely due to speculation that Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter would lead the entrepreneur to integrate the token with the platform, jumped 42% in that same time frame. 

While crypto was highly correlated with major stock indices like the S&P 500 during the first half of the year, leaders in market capitalization terms like BTC and ETH have outperformed the index since markets bottomed in mid-June. 

That said, the correlation remains solid — with a 3.5% gain, the S&P 500 had a strong week overall despite tech giants like Amazon and Meta dropping by double-digit percentages as quarterly earnings reported lower-than-expected growth. 

DeFi Tokens Rally

Four of the top five DeFi protocols in terms of total value locked (TVL) ended the week up at least 6%, with Uniswap’s UNI leading the pack with a 14.7% gain, according to The Defiant Terminal. Lending giant MakerDAO was the only loser among the five as the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) approved a controversial governance vote.

MKR Price + LDO Price + CRV Price + AAVE Price + UNI Price, Source: The Defiant Terminal

Looking to the week ahead, the U.S. Federal Reserve will next meet on Nov. 2 with the CME FedWatch Tool predicting an 81% chance of another 75 basis point hike.