There’s always a bull market somewhere. (Midjourney/Modified by CoinDesk)
What to know:
Tokens tied to perpetual-futures derivatives platforms, led by Hyperliquid’s HYPE, have surged on booming onchain trading volumes and strong fee revenue.
Privacy- and quantum-resistant coins are gaining as investors favor clear use cases amid rising concerns over surveillance, AI and future quantum attacks on blockchains.
Major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ether, XRP and solana are little changed.
Coins associated with derivatives protocols, particularly those focused on perpetual futures such as HYPE and LIT, have surged by 40% or more.
HYPE has been rallying 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 marketwide fee revenue, according to data source DefiLlama.
And it’s not just Hyperliquid; investors are trading on other venues, too. According to CoinGecko, the monthly average volume on the top 12 decentralized exchanges for perpetual futures contracts has risen 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 climbing, 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, with fund managers like Arthur Hayes saying it is a fundamental necessity as advanced AI, large tech firms and government surveillance rapidly erode privacy. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin on Wednesday outlined 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 in theory, attack a massive blockchain like Bitcoin with significantly fewer resources that previously estimated.
Bitcoin itself is struggling to recover the ground lost in the past seven days, currently trading around $77,300.
“Softer on final stages” talks between the U.S. and Iran “takes some inflation pressure off the tape and gives risk assets room to bounce,” analysts at Marex said.
This doesn’t, however, feel like a clean restart of the bull trend, they said, but more like a relief bid in a market that is still constrained by rates.
In traditional markets, NVDA closed Wednesday flat despite a blowout quarterly earnings report, while oil dipped to $98 per barrel. Stay alert!
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.”
Treasury yields resume climb as traders monitor inflation risks (CNBC): Treasury yields resumed their march higher on Thursday, with borrowing costs rising across the curve as investors’ attention returned to the inflationary pressures facing the U.S. economy.
Today’s signal
ETH’s price has dropped below key trendline support. (TradingView)
Ether’s price has dropped below the trendline connecting March and April lows. This trendline represented the recovery rally.
The breakdown, therefore, suggests an end to the price bounce and may invite more selling pressure from momentum traders, potentially yielding a deeper price slide.
The low of $1,937, from which prices turned higher in late March, is the key support now. A violation there would expose levels below $1,800.
Bitcoin rebounded above $77,000, lifting major crypto indexes and some altcoins, even as analysts warned the market remains squeezed between supportive regulation and macroeconomic headwinds.
With bitcoin pinned between its rising 50-day and falling 200-day moving averages, a break above $82,500 or below $76,000 is likely to set the trend…
