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Bitcoin ether (ETH), XRP (XRP), solana (SOL) and other top 10 coins have had a rough time lately, with each of them down at least 2% in the past seven days. Still, there’s always a bull market somewhere, and several crypto subsectors have made impressive gains.
Coins associated with derivative protocols, especially those focused on perpetual futures such as HYPE and LIT, have increased by 40% or more.
HYPE has been building since Trade.xyz, a trading interface based on the Hyperliquid blockchain, listed the Space pre-IPO perpetual contract on Monday, valuing the company at $1.78 trillion. Trading volume on the contract topped $30 million on its first day. The protocol consistently earns millions in fee revenue per week, accounting for over 40% of total market-wide fee income, according to data source DefiLlama.
And it’s not just Hyperliquid; investors also trade in other venues. According to CoinGecko, the monthly average volume of the top 12 decentralized perpetual futures exchanges has increased to $612 billion in 2026 from $532 billion in 2025.
Privacy and quantum resistant coins such as Zcash (ZEC), Quantum Resistant Ledger’s QRL, Qubitcoin’s QTC and Starknet’s STRK are also rising, with gains between 6% and 25%.
Data shows that investors are willing to overlook macro and geopolitical concerns and deploy capital, but only in coins with strong use cases and narratives.
Privacy is the flavor of the season, and fund managers like Arthur Hayes say it’s a basic necessity as advanced artificial intelligence, big tech companies and government surveillance rapidly erode privacy. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin on Wednesday outlined the steps taken to bring privacy features to Ethereum, the world’s largest smart-contract blockchain.
As for quantum risks, Google researchers have already warned that a sufficiently powerful quantum machine could theoretically attack a massive blockchain like Bitcoin with significantly fewer resources than previously estimated.
Bitcoin itself is struggling to regain what it lost in the past seven days, and is currently trading around $77,300.
“Softening in the final stages” of US-Iran talks “removes some inflationary pressure from the band and gives risk assets room to bounce,” analysts at Marex said.
However, this does not feel like a pure resumption of the bull trend, they said, but more like a bid for relief in a market still constrained by rates.
In traditional markets, NVDA closed flat on Wednesday despite a quarterly earnings report, while oil fell to $98 a barrel. barrel. Pay attention!
Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today. For a comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
What is trending
Today’s signal
Ether’s price has fallen below the trend line connecting the March and April lows. This trend line represented the recovery.
The breakdown therefore suggests an end to the price rally and may invite more selling pressure from momentum traders, potentially leading to a deeper price drop.
The $1,937 low from which prices turned higher in late March is the key support now. A breach that would reveal levels below $1,800.
