Morning Minute: Uptober Off to a Green Start

Crypto markets started October with broad upside as Bitcoin rose to roughly $86,500 on Sunday and most major tokens traded positive. Over the past month BTC has gained about 8.6% while Ethereum is up roughly 11% and sits near $2,720. Market commentators noted that nearly everything in the top ten by market cap was green, a pattern investors have nicknamed “Uptober.” ETF flow data for the first days of October showed spot Bitcoin funds taking in about $134.4 million so far for the month, following two consecutive days of inflows after September ended with net outflows. Analysts in the newsletter suggested the recent quiet ETF flow week combined with widespread token gains points to crypto-native funds rather than large institutional buyers as the likely proximate driver. Activity among altcoins and revenue-generating protocols was especially notable. Pump.fun and LayerZero posted double-digit weekly gains, and several protocols that run token buyback programs were among the leaders. The SEC clarified recently that token buybacks do not automatically render a token a security if the network is operational, a development observers say could ease investor access to on-chain revenue models. On the news front, a number of material events were flagged: Blast announced it will shut down and urged users to withdraw funds before October 26 after once holding over $2 billion in TVL; Hyperliquid received a large USDC payment that it can use for HYPE buybacks; and Polymarket’s CEO teased a potential token announcement. Separately, Chainalysis attributed a $387 million Bitget hack to North Korean actors, and the NEAR team reported recovering $3.8 million from an incident. These operational updates and corporate actions could affect liquidity and investor focus in the near term.