Fresh All-Time Highs for BTC, Gold and U.S. Stocks – Will Altcoins Follow?

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This Week’s Top Stories

“Luxembourg’s Intergenerational Sovereign Wealth Fund has invested 1 percent of its holdings in Bitcoin ETFs.” – Thursday, 9 October 2025 

• A Luxembourg sovereign wealth fund has invested 1 percent of its holdings into Bitcoin ETFs, making it the first Eurozone sovereign wealth fund to do so. While some European countries hold Bitcoin from criminal seizures, Georgia was until now the only country in the Eurozone to have invested in Bitcoin for investment purposes.
• The Director of the Treasury of Luxembourg said: “Recognizing the growing maturity of this new asset class and underlining Luxembourg’s leadership in digital finance, this investment is an application of the FSIL's new investment policy, which was approved by the government in July 2025.”
• Under the new framework, FSIL will continue to invest in equity and debt markets while also being authorized to allocate up to 15 percent of its assets to alternative investments, leaving room for an even larger Bitcoin ETF position in the future.

“Samsung and Coinbase have announced a partnership to integrate crypto trading, payments, and staking features into Samsung Wallet on Galaxy devices.” – Saturday, 4 October 2025 

• Samsung announced last Saturday that 75 million U.S. Galaxy device owners will get direct access to Coinbase One through a Samsung Wallet integration.
• Additionally, Samsung Pay will be made available as a payment option in Coinbase accounts. Altogether, this partnership represents Coinbase’s largest consumer distribution campaign in history.
• While the rollout starts in the U.S., the two companies plan to expand it to international markets over the coming months.

“Grayscale has launched the first U.S.-listed spot crypto ETFs that enable staking.” – Monday, 6 October 2025 

• On Monday, Grayscale announced that its two spot ETPs ($ETH and $ETHE) have become the first U.S.-listed spot ETPs to enable staking.
• Additionally, Grayscale’s Solana Trust has also enabled staking and, pending regulatory approval of its uplisting as an ETP, would be among the first spot Solana ETPs to offer staking.

A Quick Crypto Overview: A New Bitcoin All-Time High to Start the Week…

The start of the week was as good as one could have hoped for. Bitcoin reached a new all-time high after an explosive last trading week and a strong start into October. But BTC’s fresh all-time high was once more a very short-lived moment of euphoria, as the following trading day was accompanied by large sales and a strong rejection back below the previous trading range. 

While the sales to the downside continued in mid-August after the previous ATH break, this time Bitcoin managed to consolidate and is currently trading around $121’500, just below its August high. This key difference between this month’s ATH break and the one in August should be monitored closely, as it could signal strength and a possible continuation to the upside. 

Taking a closer look at the broader crypto market, one can spot a few outliers such as ZEC (+77 percent on the week), CAKE (+55 percent), MNT (+22 percent), and BNB (+17 percent). Zcash has been the talk of the town over the past few weeks, likely due to its upcoming halving in November, accompanied by network upgrades and possible changes to the block reward distribution mechanism following its third halving. CAKE was able to profit from the current BSC narrative. With CZ back in the trenches, the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem has seen an increase in activity, kicked off by the hype around Aster, the perpetual DEX on BSC. Mantle continues to trade higher, with market participants seeing the possibility of a catch-up trade for Bybit’s pendant to Binance’s BNB, which also reached new all-time highs this week. 

The market continues to shift between narratives almost daily, with Bitcoin being the lone-standing soldier giving its holders steady performance, while altcoin holders are forced to rotate between assets if they want to keep up with Bitcoin.

Chart of the Week: Gold and Bitcoin – Two Stores of Value, One Trend 

Gold is trading at new all-time highs and is up roughly 20 percent since the end of August, sitting on a YTD performance of 50 percent. It remains among the best performing assets this year, compared to 14 percent for the S&P 500, 29 percent for Bitcoin, and 30 percent for Ethereum. 

We have highlighted the gold chart in our Weekly Wraps often and have repeatedly mentioned that Bitcoin appears to be following gold, long before most analysts on X started talking about it. It currently seems that many investors have lost hope regarding the BTC/gold performance. In our view, Bitcoin remains on track, and there is a chance that a shift toward the digital version of gold will once again take place, as in previous BTC/gold mini-cycles. Historically, Bitcoin has followed gold’s surges and experienced periods of massive outperformance versus gold. 

Possible catalysts for such an outperformance could be news regarding the strategic Bitcoin reserve in the U.S., as this topic has completely vanished from public discussion while the government is expected to continue working on such a strategy. It will be important to watch this development, as the possibility of sizable buying by the U.S. government is likely not reflected in today’s BTC price action. 

Additionally, the 13F filings for the last quarter are starting to roll in until mid-November, and there could be new interesting disclosures, especially following Luxembourg’s sovereign wealth fund announcement this week.

What’s Happening Onchain? Monad Airdrop Claim, BSC Season & XPL 

Monad announced this week that the Monad Airdrop Claim Portal will open next Tuesday, October 14, moving one step closer to the much-anticipated mainnet launch. You can watch our interview with Monad CEO and co-founder Keone Hon here to refresh your memory on how Monad aims to challenge scaling efforts across the ecosystem and more. 

The Binance Smart Chain ecosystem has experienced a surge in activity over the past few weeks, with traders aiming to profit from the fresh BNB all-time high and CZ’s increased involvement in the ecosystem following the hype around Aster, the BSC perpetual DEX, which saw a large increase in activity a few weeks ago. DEX trading volume on the BNB Chain reached $6 billion this week, marking the second-highest level of the year, with PancakeSwap capturing most of the share and recording around $4.2 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours. The weekly DEX trading volume on the BNB Chain has reached its highest level since the end of 2021. 

The launch of XPL, the native token of the Plasma chain, has been all over the news since its debut at the end of August and its rise above $1.60 at the end of September in what appeared to be a highly successful launch. The price of XPL has declined ever since and is currently trading at $0.71. Many market participants are starting to question its long-term potential, which, given the major stakeholders backing the project, appears to be price-driven emotional capitulation.

Digital Asset Fund Flows: IBIT is BlackRock’s most profitable ETF & Last Week Saw ATH in Inflows & Polymarket Valued at $9 Billion 

Last week, digital asset investment products saw almost $6 billion in net inflows, marking the highest weekly inflow in history. Bitcoin led the pack with a record high of $3.55 billion in net inflows, followed by Ethereum with $1.5 billion. Interestingly, Solana also saw a record-high weekly net inflow of more than $700 million, while XRP attracted $220 million. 

The interest of investors for the spot ETFs continues this week, as we recorded the highest net inflow day since the elections last November, with U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs attracting more than $1.2 billion in a single day, followed by $875 million on Tuesday, $440 million on Wednesday, and $200 million on Thursday. Ethereum is also sitting on roughly $700 million in net inflows so far this week. 

In this context, Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas pointed out in a recent post on X that IBIT has generated $244.5 million in annual revenue for BlackRock. The fund has already outearned every long-established iShares ETF. 

Polymarket was in the news again as Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, announced a $2 billion investment in Polymarket, valuing the company at a staggering $9 billion. The two companies will also work together on tokenization initiatives, the process of putting financial assets into blockchain wrappers.  

Polymarket, a platform we have discussed since its early days, has officially become one of the hottest startups in the world and has evolved from a niche crypto platform into the realm of TradFi’s central court.  

Polymarket’s CEO, Shayne Coplan (27), who founded the platform in 2020, is currently the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. We have mentioned it before and will do so again: rumors of a Polymarket token are increasing, as Shayne recently tweeted the ticker $POLY in a recent post on X. 

Market Sentiment: U.S. Stock Market at ATHs & Neutral Sentiment 

The U.S. stock market continues to trade at all-time highs, while investor sentiment remains at neutral levels, as shown by the CNN Fear & Greed Index. This continues to confuse many market participants, as such long periods of upward trending price action are usually accompanied by increasing euphoria. The current situation, however, reveals that sentiment in the stock market is still rather muted. This muted sentiment could be due to the high concentration of the Mag-7 stocks, which are keeping the market afloat, while smaller-cap stocks are still lagging. The current price action of the Russell 2000 Index, however, indicates that small caps might finally start to catch up over the coming weeks. 

Crypto market sentiment also remains muted. The Fear & Greed Index sits in “greed” territory at 64 and has not made a new high since December 2024, when it climbed above 90 for the first time since the last bull run in 2021. Funding rates across major crypto assets remain at healthy levels, showing that the last time funding rates were comparably higher was in December last year. 

The AAII sentiment survey this week shows a strong shift toward the bulls, with almost 46 percent of AAII members bullish on the stock market over the next six months. Interestingly, 33.5 percent expect small-cap stocks to outperform, while 29 percent believe large caps will continue to lead the market.

Other Relevant News 

• Walmart-owned fintech platform OnePay will launch cryptocurrency trading and custody features later this year in its mobile banking app. – Link 

• Roger Ver has agreed to pay $48 million under a deferred prosecution deal with the U.S. Department of Justice to settle a tax evasion case. – Link 

• FOMC Meeting Minutes – Link 

• State Street said most institutional investors expect their digital asset exposure to double within three years. – Link 

• The U.S. government shutdown has delayed the SEC’s routine approval process for crypto ETFs. – Link 

Looking Ahead: Record Inflows, New ATH, Gold Ripping – Will Altcoins Follow? 

The crypto market has been difficult to navigate for altcoin holders over the past months and even years. Narratives and attention have shifted from one hot topic to another, and many projects could not sustain their momentum for longer than a few weeks or months. While Bitcoin has traded more in line with the current U.S. stock market or gold, which have both shown solid uptrends over extended periods, many altcoin holders are still waiting for their turn. 

Gold is at all-time highs, the U.S. stock market is at all-time highs, Bitcoin is at all-time highs, yet most altcoins continue to trade far below their historic peaks, with only a few exceptions. Will altcoins finally get their time in the spotlight? It’s hard to foresee a period where altcoins as a whole trend to the upside as they did in previous cycles, and asset selection will likely continue to play a pivotal role going forward. Still, there is a chance that the altcoin market could rally into Q4 and possibly toward year-end. 

It’s important to keep an eye on Bitcoin, as any rally in altcoins would likely need to be accompanied by a sustained uptrend in BTC. President Trump has mentioned the possibility of stimulus checks for U.S. taxpayers funded by tariff income, and rate cuts remain on the table for the remaining two FOMC meetings and well into 2026. 

One big question remains, and views on this are deeply divided: what about the four-year cycle? Timing-wise, we should be nearing the end of the cycle, but many market participants are once again eyeing a super cycle, just as they did in 2021 – when the cycle ended abruptly to everyone’s disappointment. Is this time different? In any case, the coming weeks hold the potential for a sustained uptrend, and the macro backdrop appears supportive of this thesis. 

Below, you can find some of the key data releases and events to watch out for next week. 

Tuesday, 14 October 2025 

Switzerland – PPI 

USA – Fed Chair Powell Speech 

China – CPI, PPI 

Wednesday, 15 October 2025 

USA – CPI, Core CPI (might be delayed due to Government Shutdown) 

Thursday, 16 October 2025 

USA – PPI, Core PPI (might be delayed due to Government Shutdown) 

USA – Retail Sales (might be delayed due to Government Shutdown) 

Eurozone – ECB President Lagarde Speech 

Friday, 17 October 2025 

Eurozone – CPI, Core CPI 

USA – Nonfarm Payrolls (might be delayed due to Government Shutdown) 

USA – Unemployment Rate (might be delayed due to Government Shutdown)