Crypto slides as institutional expansion meets market pressure

Crypto’s week brought a sharp contrast between falling token prices and expanding institutional activity. Bitcoin was down 5.57% over seven days, while Ethereum lost 7.10%, with widespread declines across major assets. Yet the business headlines centred on access to securities through blockchain infrastructure, stablecoin payments for banks and broader custody services. Security vulnerabilities and data breaches complicated that progress, while the FOMC decision and a large Bitcoin options expiry kept macroeconomic and derivatives risks in focus. The result was a week in which commercial developments offered little reassurance about immediate market direction.

Total crypto market capitalisation stood at $2.71 trillion, down 4.32% over 24 hours, with trading volume of $253.7 billion. Bitcoin accounted for 57.0% of the market and traded at $76,830.42, a daily fall of 5.89%. Ethereum was at $2,228.65 after losing 5.77%. A separate report described Bitcoin rebounding towards $81,000 alongside gains in the Nasdaq and KOSPI, with fears of an FOMC rate rise still in focus. That rebound narrative contrasted with the weaker prices recorded in the market figures.

Losses extended well beyond the two largest cryptocurrencies. BNB fell 6.81% over the week to $696.13, XRP declined 4.96% to $1.2409 and Solana dropped 9.09% to $94.77. Cardano and Near Protocol suffered double-digit weekly declines of 10.63% and 10.33%, respectively, while Chainlink lost 7.80%. Rain Protocol’s 23.48% weekly fall was particularly severe. These moves showed that weakness was broad rather than confined to Bitcoin or Ethereum.

There were exceptions. Hyperliquid gained 18.13% over seven days, although it fell 1.85% in the latest 24 hours. TRON rose 2.08% for the week and 1.55% for the day, while LEO Token gained 4.19% over seven days. Bitcoin Cash and Zcash retained modest weekly gains of 0.32% and 0.16%, respectively, despite Zcash’s 7.75% daily decline. Among stablecoins, Tether traded at $0.998, USDC at $0.9998 and Dai at $0.9997.

The biggest institutional story was Canton Network and DTCC opening access to $30 trillion in eligible securities. The distinction matters: eligible securities are not the same as assets already tokenised or money newly invested in crypto. Even so, the development placed the scale of traditional financial markets at the centre of the blockchain adoption debate. Tokenisation also featured in the account of RWA WEEK Singapore, which brought institutional investors, financial institutions and digital asset businesses together on 5–9 October.

Payments and custody supplied another strand of that institutional story. Polygon and Solana joined forces to connect Solana’s stablecoin activity with Polygon’s banking, wallet and payment infrastructure. Ripple was approaching $1 billion in annualised revenue as BNY expanded XRP custody. Together, these developments highlighted efforts to make digital assets more useful within financial services, although they did not establish a direct relationship between expanding services and rising token prices.

Security remained a substantial counterweight. Google MPC’s push into institutional custody coincided with attention on a vulnerability in Fireblocks MPC. Separately, the Coinbase data breach and incidents involving Ledger underlined the limits of treating self-custody as a complete security solution. Risks extend beyond control of private keys, and banks face similar challenges. For institutions considering digital assets, custody technology and protection of customer information remain central questions rather than secondary operational details.

Trading and product news added further detail. BTCC reported $387 billion in total futures volume for Q3 2026, alongside $16.3 billion in TradFi volume and $121 million in trader savings; TradFi volume rose sixfold. Grvt bought back and burned 1.1 million GRVT, close to 1% of circulating supply, ahead of four planned product milestones leading to Grvt 2.0. Sony Soneium launched an incubation programme focused on PlayStation games, anime, digital collectibles and fan communities.

What it adds up to is a widening gap between the industry’s commercial narrative and its immediate market performance. Tokenisation access, payment connections and custody expansion point to broader infrastructure, but the weekly losses show that those developments do not automatically translate into stronger prices. Bitwise’s raised Bitcoin forecast of $1.6 million by 2036, based on institutional demand, limited supply and market growth, belongs to that longer-term argument. It remains a forecast, not a measure of current demand.

Next week, the central market question is whether Bitcoin and Ethereum can stabilise and whether relative strength in assets such as Hyperliquid and TRON persists. The aftermath of the FOMC decision and the $11 billion Bitcoin options expiry will also warrant attention. Call-heavy positioning framed expectations for a potential rally, but positioning alone does not establish an outcome. Beyond prices, follow-through on payments, tokenisation and custody initiatives—and further clarity on security risks—will help test whether the institutional narrative is becoming tangible progress.