The rally accelerates

Bitcoin gained roughly 8% to trade near $75,600, extending the previous session's move, while ether added close to 5% to around $2,370.

Altcoins followed with force. XRP rose almost 19%, cardano gained around 14% and dogecoin advanced roughly 11%.

The breadth of the move marked a shift from the narrow, bitcoin-dominated tape that had defined the preceding weeks.

Ether ETFs post their longest streak in months

Spot ether ETFs recorded an eighth consecutive session of net inflows, reported as the longest such run since October 2025.

Bitcoin ETF trading volume reached approximately $5.3 billion, with around $4.44 billion of that going through BlackRock's product.

The pattern is notable because ether funds have historically lagged bitcoin products in flow consistency; a sustained streak suggests allocators are treating ETH as a separate allocation rather than a beta trade.

Positioning drove the size of the move

Derivatives data pointed to a squeeze rather than pure spot demand.

Roughly $477 million in liquidations were recorded across major assets, with around 89% hitting short positions.

The mechanics are familiar:

• shorts accumulate during a prolonged downtrend
• a catalyst pushes price through clustered stop levels
• forced buying adds demand into thin order books
• rising funding rates attract momentum traders
• the move overshoots what spot flows alone would justify

Squeeze-driven rallies move fast and retrace faster.

Sentiment flipped violently

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index rose roughly 41 points over seven days to 71, firmly in greed territory, after sitting in the mid-20s earlier in the month.

Swings of that magnitude in a single week are unusual, and they typically mark the point at which late positioning becomes the dominant risk rather than the earlier bearish exhaustion.

Protocol work continued in the background

Two infrastructure developments ran alongside the price action.

Bitcoin Core v32 entered feature freeze, with release targeted for October 10, 2026, moving the reference implementation into its testing and stabilization phase.

Separately, Ethereum addressed a critical libp2p gossipsub vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-34219, affecting validator networking.

Neither made headlines against an 8% price move, but both matter more to network integrity than a week of flows.

Token unlocks added supply

Scheduled unlocks continued to release supply into the rally.

Notable events included LayerZero distributing roughly 25.71 million tokens worth around $22.68 million, and Kaito unlocking approximately 32.6 million tokens valued near $11.35 million, alongside multiple new exchange listings.

Rising markets absorb unlocks more easily than falling ones, which is why issuers frequently cluster them into strength.

Why this matters

This matters because a sustained ether ETF inflow streak alongside a broad altcoin rally suggests institutional demand is widening beyond bitcoin for the first time in months.

The risk is that the same move was amplified by short covering, which supports price without adding durable holders.

The clean takeaway

Bitcoin rose about 8% to roughly $75,600 and ether gained close to 5%, with spot ether ETFs recording their longest inflow streak since October 2025 and around $477 million in liquidations, 89% of them shorts. The Fear & Greed Index jumped to 71, deep in greed territory.