On September 28, altcoin spot trading volumes reached nearly four times that of Bitcoin, marking the highest ratio observed in a year. By October 6, trading volumes remained significantly elevated. Historically, such spikes have been indicators of "alt seasons," periods characterized by increased activity in the cryptocurrency market where many altcoins tend to rise dramatically.
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According to CryptoQuant, there were 78,000 altcoin deposits to exchanges during the week ending on September 28, suggesting that investors may be preparing to sell their holdings. In light of the current altcoin volume data, three promising altcoins have been highlighted: NEAR Protocol, Chainlink, and Monero.
NEAR Protocol has garnered attention due to its innovative cross-chain infrastructure. Its unique Intents system allows users to execute cross-chain token swaps without utilizing crypto bridges, potentially lowering costs and minimizing transaction risks. In the past 30 days, NEAR's Intents facilitated $4.6 billion in token swaps, and the project generated $1.9 million from fees, which was used for purchasing NEAR on the open market. The buybacks have increased significantly, from $760,308 in the first quarter to $3.1 million in the third quarter of this year.
Chainlink, another interoperability project, benefits from the growing trend of asset tokenization. As a provider of data oracles, Chainlink feeds crucial external information to smart contracts for a fee. In the third quarter of 2026, fees amounted to $15.2 million, up from $9.5 million the previous year. Chainlink uses a portion of these fees to buy its own token, LINK, which is held in reserve, thereby applying pressure on its supply. The increasing tokenization across industries is favorable for Chainlink, as institutional investors are likely to require reliable data feeds.
Monero, recognized for its privacy features, presents the highest risk among the three. As a privacy coin, Monero obscures sender and receiver identities as well as transaction amounts. An upcoming upgrade aims to enhance privacy by hiding each payment among 150 million past outputs instead of 16, with testing launched on October 5. Once implemented on the mainnet, this improvement could position Monero favorably in the market. However, there are risks associated with potential bans from centralized exchanges and governments, which could hinder its liquidity and value.