Crypto Rundown: Bitcoin's Uptober Rally Has Started: What Altcoins Will Follow?!

Bitcoin rose 44% over the past three months and gained 6.33% in September, while Ethereum advanced 71.2% in its strongest quarter on record. The hosts described crypto as the quarter’s top-performing asset class, ahead of oil and software stocks in the Magnificent Seven. Brian McNutt said Bitcoin’s average October return is around 19–20% and expects a strong month, citing improving sentiment, a better macro backdrop, renewed ETF demand, and early signs of retail activity. Another speaker cited roughly 15 years of data, estimating an October average return near 18% and a median near 12%; the hosts cautioned that seasonality alone is not a reason to buy.

The hosts said broad retail FOMO has not returned: Bitcoin search interest was 21 on Google Trends, versus a calendar-year average of 36 and a January peak of 100. McNutt put the Fear and Greed Index at 69, indicating greed but not extreme greed, and total crypto market capitalization at about $2.9 trillion. Bitcoin dominance remained around 59–60%. They characterized conditions as an early bull-market stage, with crypto activity and speculative assets picking up while retail interest stayed limited. They also recalled that a similar year-end rally setup last year preceded five consecutive down months, underscoring that past performance does not guarantee another advance.

Altcoins are participating more, but the hosts said altseason has not arrived. McNutt argued that conditions would become more favorable if Bitcoin continued rising and then consolidated while its market dominance rolled over. The episode also discussed ARO and VELO being unified into one protocol. ARO is set to launch across seven chains, including Base and Robinhood Chain, on October 21; the Robinhood Chain deployment is on-chain, not a Robinhood brokerage listing. Coinbase is expected to support an early-November migration that converts existing ARO one-to-one into the new ARO.

NEAR Intents suffered an exploit involving about $3.8 million. McNutt said the team patched the vulnerability and planned to reimburse affected users, emphasizing that the problem involved NEAR Intents’ deposit and withdrawal infrastructure, not a hack of the NEAR blockchain. Bitwise’s newly launched NEAR ETF attracted about $50 million in its first two days, and McNutt said later fund flows would be worth watching as a reason to look more closely at NEAR.

Robinhood is bringing crypto perpetual futures to U.S. retail users, with up to 10x leverage on Bitcoin and Ether and 3x on other listed assets, including Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Cardano, Chainlink, and HYPE. The speakers warned that leveraged perps can result in severe losses. They also described Robinhood and Coinbase as expanding across crypto, stocks, derivatives, tokenized assets, and round-the-clock markets, blurring the line between crypto exchanges and traditional brokerages. Coinbase is expanding perp-futures access, with single-stock perps said to be coming; one speaker said Coinbase appears to have approval for Coinbase Clearing LLC to operate as its own derivatives clearing organization. The hosts said both companies can succeed and that competition benefits the space.

Meme coins are expanding beyond price speculation into access, events, experiences, and distributions of other assets, with Pudgy Penguins and Pepe cited as examples of coins moving as the market heated up. Pump.fun reportedly generated about $2.6 million in revenue over 24 hours, including roughly $1.2 million attributed to token buybacks. McNutt called it a substantial revenue engine, said it generates tens of millions of dollars in monthly revenue, and expressed a bullish view of its token. A tokenized-stock platform also reportedly exceeded $1 million in daily revenue during a run the previous week, illustrating the potential of market “picks and shovels” plays.

A Trump meme-coin event was described as scheduled for November 22, with the top 185 registered investors qualifying and the top 29 invited to a VIP reception. The speakers also discussed pairing digital representations with physical collectibles as a way to make trading cards easier to trade and reduce counterfeits and disputes, while predicting that physical collectibles will remain popular. Coinbase has hinted at an on-chain component for its collectible-card offering, but the blockchain, pricing, launch date, and official Pokémon licensing were not confirmed.