Altcoins Surge Past Bitcoin as Celestia Rallies 16% While Warsh Omits Rate Plans

October 16, 2026, 6:41 a.m. EDT

4 min read

Chart showing altcoin, bitcoin movements since midnight. (CoinDesk data) — Celestia leads gains (CoinDesk data)

Summary

Bitcoin showed minimal change since midnight UTC, hovering around $82,100 following a recovery from an earlier drop to near $81,600 close to 03:30 UTC.
Celestia climbed 16%, Injective increased by 7.7%, and LayerZero gained 7.3%, pushing over two-thirds of the CoinDesk 100 assets into positive territory while the CoinDesk 5 remained unchanged.
Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh refrained from giving indications on central bank actions for later this month, causing the probability of an October interest-rate hike to drop from roughly 30% down to approximately 15%.

Bitcoin BTC$82,254.55 stayed mostly flat since midnight UTC, exchanging hands near $82,100 after rebounding from a descent toward $81,600 around 03:30 UTC. It holds comfortably above Thursday’s brief drop under $80,000, which marked its first occurrence in a month.

Alternative cryptocurrencies pushed forward, as ether ETH$2,410.13 picked up 0.5% near $2,450 and the CoinDesk 80 (CD80) advanced 0.46%, while the bitcoin-dominated CoinDesk 5 (CD5) remained stable. Celestia (TIA) surged 16%, Injective INJ$8.6506 rose 7.7%, and LayerZero ZRO$2.0156 added 7.3%, pushing four out of every five members of the CoinDesk 100 Index (CD100) higher and driving CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season gauge up to 60 from yesterday’s reading of 50.

Asian stock markets stabilized following Thursday’s decline, with South Korea’s Kospi finishing 2.05% higher and Japan’s Nikkei advancing 1.39%, whereas S&P 500 futures showed little variation after the index broke a three-day losing sequence.

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh withheld any forecasts regarding the monetary authority’s plans for its upcoming gathering this month during an address at the IMF and World Bank conferences in Bangkok, with the CME Fedwatch tool indicating that expectations for an October interest-rate increase fell from roughly 30% to about 15%. Government bond yields remained largely steady.

Derivatives positioning

Trading volume cools, leverage resets: Futures volume across crypto dropped 20% over a 24-hour window to $200 billion, whereas open interest expanded 2% to reach $142.21 billion. Liquidations declined to $311 million from nearly $1 billion the previous day. Muted trading alongside continuing position buildup indicates forced liquidations have finished.
Sellers ease off: The 24-hour ratio for long-to-short taker volume sits at equilibrium, contrasting with short positions accounting for 52% on the prior day. Aggressive selling pressure has dissipated.
BTC, ETH and SOL gains lack fresh long bets: Bitcoin’s notional open interest increased by merely 0.3% alongside a 1% price rise, indicating a minor decrease in active contracts. Ether and Solana display a similar trend, registering open interest expansions lower than their spot price increases. These movements stem from traders liquidating shorts instead of opening new long positions.
XRP traders are cashing out into the rally: XRP open interest decreased by 1% while its spot valuation rose 1.4%, meaning contracts were closed during the price appreciation. Its 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta—which measures net aggressive buys and sells at market prices rather than passive limit orders—also remains negative. The upward move receives minimal backing from derivatives participants.
ZEC leads with new bullish bets: ZEC futures open interest climbed 14% alongside an 11.5% valuation increase, demonstrating that traders established fresh contracts as prices moved up. Its OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta registers as the highest among major assets, signaling that buyers are taking the aggressive stance. TRX, XAUT, and ETH also display positive metrics, whereas BTC remains neutral and UNI, HBAR, and XRP sit in negative territory.
Funding signals a bullish tilt but no froth: Annualized perpetual funding rates for top tokens fluctuate between 5% and 10%. This reflects a leaning toward long positions without excessive exuberance, showing the market is far from overheated and maintains room for further appreciation.
Implied volatility keeps falling: BVIV, the 30-day implied volatility measure for bitcoin, tumbled to 38% from yesterday’s peak of 42%, while ether’s implied volatility likewise decreased. Options participants are pricing in a calmer marketplace, aligning with the funding rate observations.
Options traders hedge while eyeing ether upside: Decentralized exchange Derive pointed out a substantial bitcoin put spread executed earlier in the week, positioning for a descent to $78,000. The $80,000 put stands as the most actively traded option on centralized derivatives leader Deribit, confirming that certain participants continue acquiring downside insurance. For ether, the $2,600 call represents the highest-volume option over the preceding 24 hours.

Token talk

Celestia (TIA), the token powering the modular data-availability network, climbed 16% to approximately $0.68, marking the top performance in the CD100 and reaching a high for 2026. The asset has gained roughly 59% across four weeks, with this surge aligning with Celestia Fibre achieving 3.07 terabits per second in a benchmark test and the introduction of a proposed economic framework named the Sustainable Blob Economy.
Injective INJ$8.6506, the finance-centric layer-1 cryptocurrency, moved up 7.7% to about $9.19. Although no single dominant narrative drives the movement, three pending exchange-traded fund filings in the United States mention the asset. CoinMarketCap figures display $289.7 million in INJ volume over 24 hours, representing a 128% jump from the day before.
LayerZero ZRO$2.0156, the cross-chain messaging asset, advanced 7.3% to about $2.24, extending an upward trend tied to its ATLAS infrastructure, which channels the majority of its fees into purchasing and permanently removing the token from supply. Ether.fi (ETHFI), representing the liquid restaking token, climbed 4.2%.
Starknet STRK$0.07609 registered as the weakest performer in the CD100, dropping 9.6% to $0.08 after an 11% advance on Thursday, whereas Stacks STX$0.4146, a bitcoin-staking layer cryptocurrency, retreated 4.2%.
Larger-cap assets showed mixed to positive movement, with Solana (SOL) gaining 1.2% to near $107, XRP adding 0.5%, and Monero (XMR) increasing 2.9% to roughly $565, while BNB showed virtually no change.