Midnight tops this ranking: its swap count on ChangeNOW rose 33 times between early August and 11 October. Starknet led on price, up 97.7%, and its swaps picked up ten days before the attention did.
Zcash, NEAR, Stacks, Dogecoin, SUI, Starknet and Midnight drew the most attention this fall. We ranked all seven by how their swap counts changed over those ten weeks, with price alongside for context. Only Midnight and Starknet saw price and swaps climb together.
Market figures are as of 13 October 2026; swap data runs through 11 October.
What Is Happening in the Altcoin Market in Fall 2026?
The altcoin season index reads 45 out of 100 on 14 October. In early August it reached about 67, close to the threshold. An altcoin season is counted when at least 75% of the 50 largest cryptocurrencies outperform Bitcoin over the previous 90 days.
Blockchaincenter uses that definition, and CoinMarketCap applies the same threshold to its top 100.
| Date | Index | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Early August | ~67 | Close to the threshold |
| Late August | 33-41 | Sharp fall |
| 2 September | 34 | Flat at the bottom |
| 19 September | 48 | Recovering |
| 25 September | 56 | Highest reading |
| 14 October | 45 | Back to neutral |
The chart below is live, from TradingView. It shows the share of the total crypto market held by coins outside the top ten. A rising line means money is moving into smaller altcoins. This is a different measure from the altcoin season index in the table above, so the two will not match.
Talk of a season already underway rests on that August peak. The index fell after it and has stayed neutral for two months, while Bitcoin dominance slipped only from 59.25% in late August to the high 58% range.
The calendar keeps the talk alive too. Bitcoin has closed October higher in 10 of the 13 years since 2013, and November carries a mean near 42% on the CoinGlass heat map. The median for November is 8.81%: one year, 2013, gained 449% and carries the reputation of the whole month.
None of this adds up to an altcoin season. Bitcoin dominance has barely moved. The index has stayed below 75 for two months. November looks strong only because of one year, 2013.
Money still moved this fall. Three of the seven coins below had several times more swaps on ChangeNOW than in July. The wider market numbers stayed flat through all of it. The index covers fifty coins at once, so a jump in three of them barely shows. That is why this page looks at each coin on its own.
Seven Talked-About Altcoins, Ranked by Swaps
| Coin | Price 13 Oct | Since 30 Sep | Market cap | Swaps by 11 Oct | AltRank 14 Oct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midnight (NIGHT) | $0.045 | +14.9% | $748M | x33 | 316, down 128 places |
| NEAR | $5.04 | -5.6% | $6.66B | x6.7 | 40, up 449 places |
| Starknet (STRK) | $0.0853 | +97.7% | $632M | x6.5 | 737, down 259 places |
| Sui (SUI) | $1.047 | -9.7% | $4.23B | x1.55 | 79, up 230 places |
| Dogecoin (DOGE) | $0.0843 | -10.6% | $12.84B | x1.04 | 53, up 351 places |
| Zcash (ZEC) | $1,217.90 | -15.3% | $19.8B | x1.03 | 10, up 56 places |
| Stacks (STX) | $0.434 | +16.9% | $0.77B | x0.67 | 13, up 133 places |
How to Read This Table
- Swaps by 11 Oct shows how many times the swap count for the week of 5-11 October differs from the late-July level. x6.5 means six and a half times as many swaps as in late July.
- AltRank 14 Oct is LunarCrush's attention score, where a lower number means more attention: 10 is loud, 737 is quiet.
- Market cap places each coin by size, from Zcash at $19.8 billion down to Midnight at $748 million.
For scale: in the overall ChangeNOW top ten that same week, USDT on TRON took 23.18% of swaps and Bitcoin 22.01%.
Historical prices: CoinGecko for ZEC, NEAR, STX, DOGE, SUI, STRK and NIGHT.
1. Midnight (NIGHT): Swaps Jumped the Week Hoskinson Posted
NIGHT swaps rose 430.8% in the week of 28 September, the week Charles Hoskinson wrote that Midnight would be "bigger than Zcash." The following week added 43.5%. Both moves clear the significance test.
- The July exploit: attackers drained roughly 515 million NIGHT from the Wanchain bridge between Cardano and BNB Chain on 21 July. BlockSec traced it to a signature flaw in the TreasuryCheck validator. Wanchain disabled the bridge, the Midnight and Cardano core networks were untouched, and NIGHT fell more than 30% within a day.
- What ships next: Foundation CTO Sebastien Guillemot said on 30 September that private smart contracts switch on with the next major release, v8. A composability upgrade, v9, could arrive in 2026, with no date set.
- Also this fall: Google Cloud runs a validator, NIGHT began trading on OKJ in Japan, and Hoskinson criticised the Cardano Foundation over its distance from Midnight.
Important Note: NIGHT trades on about $19.92 million a day, and its swap counts on ChangeNOW are small. The confidence intervals show it: in August they ran from -74% to +173%, wide enough that the direction could not be read at all. Read the NIGHT percentages as a signal of direction with little precision behind them.
2. NEAR: Swaps Multiplied While the Price Stood Still
September gave NEAR five significant up weeks in a row, including 127.7% and 115.3% back to back. Swap counts rose 445.85% over the month. The price went nowhere across that same September and slipped from $5.34 to $5.04 between 30 September and 13 October.
- Liquidity: around $1.1 billion traded a day, the deepest pool in this group after Dogecoin.
- The ETF: Bitwise listed its NEAR ETF (NRR) on NYSE Arca on 29 September and plans to stake the fund's tokens, targeting around 5% a year.
- Where the money came from: market maker Wintermute described money leaving DeFi and large-cap tokens for AI names in its 12 October update, with NEAR holding up better than the rest. It named a short squeeze and new quantum-resistant features as possible causes, and could not confirm either.
- The pullback: swaps fell 48.7% in the first week of October.
3. Starknet (STRK): The Swaps Came Ten Days Before the Hype
Starknet swaps accelerated two weeks running: 104.3% in the week of 28 September and 192.7% in the week of 5 October. The price almost doubled over the same stretch, up 97.7%. Through all of that STRK held the lowest social reading of these seven coins. On 15 October that reversed.
Is Starknet Moving to Layer 1?
- The proposal: StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson argued at Token2049 for moving Starknet off Ethereum as a layer 2 and onto its own first-layer chain, with full quantum resistance targeted for 2027. The idea reached the market on 8 October.
- The volume: trading reached $741 million on 12 October, above the coin's entire market cap a week earlier.
- The vote: a non-binding Snapshot poll opened on 15 October and runs seven days, to 22 October. Stakers and delegators pick between backing further research, rejecting it, or staying neutral. A yes authorises nothing on its own: separate proposals and binding votes would follow, and no timetable exists.
- Before the news: through September, STRK swap changes stayed inside the margin of error.
- The attention arrived last: on 15 October, the day the poll opened, STRK reached AltRank 2, up 766 places, with 5,400 mentions. Ten days earlier, when its swaps peaked, it sat at 737.
4. Sui (SUI): Price Down, Swaps Up
SUI lost 9.7% since 30 September while swaps in the week of 5 October rose 25.1%. The interval runs from 14.2% to 37.1%, so the move is significant.
- Samsung Wallet: on 8 October Sui and Samsung announced USDC support in Samsung Wallet for Galaxy owners in the US. Sending USDC needs no SUI balance because the network covers gas, and the SUI token itself is absent from the wallet at launch. Neither company named a launch date.
- The DATA deal: on 12 October the Sui Foundation announced a $30 million investment in DATA Network, which records where AI training data came from and has logged more than 250 million contributions.
- On the roadmap: native post-quantum authentication on mainnet is targeted for the first quarter of 2027 in the project roadmap.
5. Dogecoin (DOGE): A Flat Line
Dogecoin swap counts came back to where they started: 1.04 times the late-July level after ten weeks. Individual weeks moved both ways, and the week of 5 October fell 11.7%. The price lost 10.6% over the same stretch.
- The ETF is closing: Bitwise is liquidating its US Dogecoin ETF (BWOW). Trading ended on 14 October and shareholders are paid out in cash on 22 October. The Dogecoin network itself is untouched.
- What is being built: DogeOS opened its public testnet on 30 September, which lets Ethereum-style apps run on Dogecoin. No mainnet date has been given.
- How people use the coin: our earlier study, Is DOGE a Good Investment?, found its share of our swap volume grew from 2.5% to 3.9% between June and September, and more than 15% of outgoing DOGE swaps went to Bitcoin. People pass through DOGE on the way to something else.
6. Zcash (ZEC): The Attention Stayed, the Swaps Left
Zcash swaps peaked in the week of 31 August at 3.5 times the July level. The price peak of $1,653 arrived on 26 September, nearly a month later. By 11 October swaps had returned to July levels, roughly 70% below their own high.
- The decline: three consecutive down weeks, -40.7%, -31.0% and -18.4%.
- The attention stayed: ZEC takes 2.41% of all cryptocurrency social conversation, more than any other coin here. LunarCrush puts the correlation between engagement and the ZEC price at 43.6%, with engagement leading by about a day.
- What started the run: Grayscale listed the Zcash ETF (ZCSH) on NYSE Arca on 25 August, which Grayscale calls the first product worldwide to offer spot exposure to ZEC.
- Off the peak: by 13 October the price sat 26% below its 26 September high, and it fell a further 12.05% on 14 October, to $1,113.63, on a hotter-than-expected US inflation reading. Every other figure on this page is from 13 October.
When Is the Zcash NU7 Upgrade?
NU7 comes next and cuts the time between blocks from 75 seconds to 25. The schedule sits in the NU7 thread on the Zcash forum.
- 6 October: the testnet activation date set by developers.
- 20 October: developers decide when it goes live on mainnet.
- 5 November: provisional date for mainnet.
Arguments from both camps sit in our Zcash price prediction piece, and Zcash Labs spoke to us about quantum risk at Token2049 Singapore.
7. Stacks (STX): Price Up, Swaps Down
Stacks is the only coin here with fewer swaps than in late July: 0.67 times the level. The week of 5 October fell 52.9%, with an interval from -63.5% to -39.4%. The price rose 16.9% over the same stretch. No September week produced a significant change either way.
- What moved the price: Stacks Labs said on 12 October that the second Bitcoin Staking Bond filled its 500 BTC cap, with more than 6.7 million STX locked alongside it and a 3% target yield paid in BTC. A third bond opens around 10 November.
- Where the swaps went: our pair data for 5-11 October shows a tilt toward Ethereum, with 53% of outgoing STX swaps going to ETH against 25% the week before. Incoming swaps split evenly between NOW to STX and BTC to STX at 23.5% each.
Where the Hype Matched the Swaps, and Where It Split
| Coin | Social attention | Swaps | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZEC | AltRank 10 | x1.03 | Talked about everywhere, swapped at July levels |
| STX | AltRank 13 | x0.67 | Second for attention, last for swaps |
| DOGE | AltRank 53 | x1.04 | Attention climbed 351 places, swaps flat |
| NEAR | AltRank 40 | x6.7 | Swaps rose first, attention followed |
| SUI | AltRank 79 | x1.55 | Both moved, neither sharply |
| NIGHT | AltRank 316 | x33 | Swaps multiplied while attention slipped |
| STRK | AltRank 737 | x6.5 | Quietest here on 14 October, second in all of crypto by 15 October |
The pattern runs in both directions. Zcash and Stacks hold the top two places for social attention in this group and sit at the bottom for swaps. Starknet sat last of the seven for attention while its swaps rose 192.7% in a single week. Ten days later, with the layer 1 poll open, it was the second most discussed coin in crypto.
"I focus on real trading behaviour. Three main signals I look at: where money is flowing, whether swap volumes are increasing, and how widespread that activity is. For example, if we see a sustained rise in swaps from USDT or BTC into SOL, with larger transaction values, and similar patterns across other altcoins, that's a stronger signal of capital rotating into alts. The key is distinguishing real, sustained demand from short-term hype." — Martin Masser, Director of Strategic Partnerships at ChangeNOW
By that third test, this fall does not qualify. Three of the seven coins moved and the other four stayed where they were, which is a rotation into individual names rather than into altcoins as a whole. We ran a similar comparison for Hyperliquid in HYPE vs Reality.
AltRank, LunarCrush graphics.
How to Swap Altcoins While the Market Pulls in Different Directions
All seven cryptocurrencies in this ranking sit in one interface on ChangeNOW. The catalogue holds close to a thousand assets across networks, so a swap between two altcoins runs directly, with no stop at an exchange in between.
Before you confirm an order, the service shows the final amount and the receiving network. That matters for DOGE in particular: a second token carries the same ticker in the catalogue. STRK and NIGHT each have two versions on different networks, so check the network before sending.
The rate can be locked when you create the order or left floating. Our guide to fixed and floating rates covers which suits which situation.
Which Dates Belong in the Calendar
| Date | Coin | Event | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 October | DOGE | Last trading day for the Bitwise ETF, cash paid out 22 October | Announced |
| 20 October | ZEC | Decision on when NU7 goes live | Announced by developers |
| 22 October | STRK | Poll on exploring an independent post-quantum layer 1 closes | Open since 15 October, non-binding |
| 5 November | ZEC | NU7 activation on mainnet | Provisional date |
| Around 10 November | STX | Third Bitcoin Staking Bond | Expected |
| No date | NIGHT | Version v9 with composability, possibly in 2026 | Flagged by the CTO, not scheduled |
| Q1 2027 | SUI | Post-quantum authentication on mainnet | Target date |
| 2027 | STRK | Full quantum resistance | Stated goal |
| No date | SUI | USDC launch in Samsung Wallet | Date not given |
| No date | NEAR | Cross-shard contract calls | Date not given |
How We Built the Ranking
We counted swaps for each coin on ChangeNOW week by week from 3 August to 11 October 2026 and multiplied the weekly changes. The result, how much busier a coin is than in late July, sets the order.
Each weekly figure carries a 95% confidence interval, because a week with few swaps can swing on chance alone. Where that range covers both growth and decline, we say nothing about the week. It is a few percentage points wide for Zcash and runs into the hundreds for Midnight.
Price, market cap and AltRank are context, not part of the order. AltRank comes from LunarCrush and blends social and market activity over seven days; the figures were taken on 14 October.
Sources: CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, CoinDesk, CoinGlass, LunarCrush.
Is It a Good Time to Buy Altcoins in October 2026?
The broad market has not turned, which leaves seven separate cases rather than one trend. Stacks rose 16.9% on fewer swaps than it had in July, while Zcash lost 15.3% with more attention than any coin here. Anyone weighing an entry looks at liquidity, dated events and how much of the move has already happened. This page records what the data showed. The decision stays with the reader.