Bitcoin traded near $84,600 on Oct. 3 as Quant and Midnight led the week’s top crypto gainers, rising 158.3% and 96.5%, respectively. Lighter fell 28.7%, while MemeCore, Ethena and Zcash posted double-digit losses. Summary Quant led weekly gains following its selection for The Clearing House’s U.S. tokenized deposit network. Midnight nearly doubled as its network opened smart contract deployment to more developers. Lighter led losses after Robinhood outlined a U.S. derivatives rollout involving Bitstamp. Original X posts show bullish views on Quant and Midnight, with valuation concerns around Zcash. CoinGecko’s seven-day top-100 rankings for Oct. 3 placed Bitway and Pump.fun behind Quant and Midnight among the leading gainers. Its separate Bitcoin data showed BTC up about 0.6% over seven days, against a 0.3% decline across the broader crypto market. AssetPriceSeven-day changeQuant (QNT)$261.42+158.3%Midnight (NIGHT)$0.04988+96.5%Bitway (BTW)$1.44+66.7%Pump.fun (PUMP)$0.005462+19.5%Lighter (LIT)$3.49−28.7%MemeCore (M)$1.03−16.7%Ethena (ENA)$0.232−14.7%Zcash (ZEC)$1,313.37−14.4%Prices and weekly changes: CoinGecko, Oct. 3. Quant leads crypto gainers after U.S. payments deal Quant’s rally followed The Clearing House’s Sep. 24 announcement that it had selected the company to power its On-Chain Money Initiative, a network for clearing and settling tokenized commercial-bank deposits. The payments operator said the network would connect with existing U.S. infrastructure, including RTP and CHIPS. Availability for participating financial institutions is expected in the first half of 2027. Gold analyst Jan Nieuwenhuijs posted on X on Sep. 26 that buying one QNT carried the risk of losing $120 against the potential to earn $10,000. His post did not set a date for that outcome. The comment came before the Oct. 3 price of $261.42 and represents a speculative upside view rather than a forecast for the next few days. The Clearing House announcement concerns infrastructure for bank deposits. Its planned first-half 2027 launch is the next dated milestone in the payments operator’s release. Midnight nearly doubles as mainnet access expands Midnight rose 96.5% to $0.04988, with approximately $124.9 million in displayed trading volume. The network’s latest development update confirmed that permissionless smart contract deployment was live on mainnet. Developers can deploy directly without a mandatory security review on the Preprod testing network, while applications can deploy contracts for users. Midnight also reported wallet improvements, including Gero Wallet’s support for shielded balances and sponsored transaction fees. Crypto commentator David Gokhshtein said on X on Sep. 29 that he believed NIGHT could follow Zcash’s rally. He based that view on the different uses of privacy: private payments for Zcash and private smart contracts and applications for Midnight. “I keep saying I believe $NIGHT is going to pull a $ZEC,” he wrote. Gokhshtein’s post did not specify a price target or a deadline. Midnight’s development update said later roadmap milestones would expand protocol capabilities and increase decentralization. Bitway nears its peak as Pump.fun buybacks continue Bitway gained 66.7% to $1.44 during the final week of its Binance Wallet Booster Season 5 campaign, which ran through Oct. 2. The campaign offered incentives to eligible participants staking through Binance Wallet. Bitrue listed an Oct. 2 release of 101.62 million BTW, equivalent to about 1.02% of total supply. The scheduled release and the campaign’s expiry both fell at the end of the reporting week. CoinGecko’s table placed Bitway at rank 33, with approximately $17.9 million in displayed trading volume. Its weekly gain was below Midnight’s 96.5% advance but more than three times Pump.fun’s 19.5% increase. Pump.fun gained 19.5% to $0.005462 as the platform continued purchasing and burning PUMP. Its dashboard reports completed buybacks and the tokens permanently removed from supply. In its Sep. 30 coverage, crypto.news tracked continued buybacks, including $1.02 million spent on Sep. 29 and $1.21 million a day earlier. Pump.fun’s dashboard says historical discretionary purchases are not a commitment that future purchases will continue. Its buyback records identify completed token purchases and burns, while future spending depends on the program’s rules and platform decisions. Lighter falls 28.7% as Robinhood expectations unwind Lighter traded at $3.49 after the largest weekly decline in the table. The decline followed Robinhood’s announcement of a U.S. perpetual-futures rollout involving Bitstamp. Bitstamp announced its multi-asset perpetual-futures offering as Robinhood expanded its derivatives plans. The U.S. rollout gives eligible customers a new route to crypto derivatives. Lighter’s $3.49 price in CoinGecko’s weekly rankings came alongside approximately $98 million in displayed trading volume. MemeCore fell 16.7% to $1.03 during a week that included a scheduled token release. Bitrue listed an Oct. 2 unlock of 56.11 million M, equivalent to about 2.46% of circulating supply. Bitrue’s schedule divided the release among the community, investors, foundation and team, with the community receiving the largest allocation. The scheduled tranche represented approximately $57 million at the prices used in its Oct. 1 report. Ethena approaches an unlock as Zcash falls 14.4% Ethena dropped 14.7% to $0.232 ahead of an overhaul to its investor vesting schedule. The Block reported that the Ethena Foundation and lead investors agreed to release all remaining original investor tokens from Oct. 5, ending monthly investor unlocks. Team tokens remain on their existing schedule. Research provider Unlocks estimated the accelerated investor release at approximately 1.41 billion ENA. Its analysis said the foundation’s earlier purchases of locked investor tokens meant some of the release would be held by the foundation itself. Zcash fell 14.4% to $1,313.37, with about $726.7 million in displayed trading volume in CoinGecko’s weekly rankings. Trader Crypto with Haris posted on X on Oct. 1 that comparisons with Zcash’s launch-era price needed to account for its larger circulating supply. He estimated that ZEC at $2,000 would require a market capitalization near $34 billion, while $5,000 would require about $85 billion. Those figures were valuation scenarios in his post, rather than dated price predictions. His argument focused on the amount of capital implied by higher ZEC prices after more tokens had entered circulation.
