Bitcoin climbed about 3.8 percent this week as US spot ETFs pulled in 2.39 billion USD, but the real action was further down the charts: Quant jumped 61.8 percent, Ethena gained 54.1 percent, and Bitway rose 48 percent to lead the 100 largest crypto assets over seven days.
By Yasmin Al-Rashid | September 26, 2026
According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin traded near 84,077 USD on September 26, with the total crypto market value standing near 2.98 trillion USD. Bitcoin touched 87,392 USD on September 21 – its highest level in eight months – before retreating toward 84,000 USD. Each of the week’s three biggest movers has a fundamentally different story behind its rally, and very different odds of keeping the gains.
The Backdrop: ETF Money Kept Flowing In
The broad market’s foundation this week was institutional demand. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows on all five trading days from September 21 through September 25, according to Farside Investors, starting with 999 million USD on Monday and finishing with 134.5 million USD on Friday – about 2.39 billion USD in total.
Spot Ether ETFs added 689.8 million USD and Solana funds drew 188.1 million USD over the same stretch. Wojciech Kaszycki, a strategy adviser at BTCS S.A., told crypto.news that cash entering spot funds supported the initial price rise while futures positions also increased, and put the next major test for Bitcoin near 90,000 USD if buying continued. The backdrop matters for altcoins: when Bitcoin attracts steady money, investors tend to get braver about smaller tokens.
Quant: A 62 Percent Week Built on Real Bank Contracts
Quant (QNT) traded near 104.48 USD after ranking first among the top 100 seven-day gainers at 61.8 percent. The catalyst was concrete: on September 24, The Clearing House – the US banking industry’s payments association – announced it had selected Quant to power its On-Chain Money Initiative in the United States.
Quant will provide the technology connecting banks for the clearing and settlement of tokenized-deposit transactions, linking into payment systems financial institutions already use, including RTP and CHIPS. The service is expected to become available to participating banks in the first half of 2027. The selection followed separate work in Britain, where six UK institutions including Barclays, Lloyds, and NatWest completed live customer transactions through the Great British Tokenised Deposit initiative, which Quant supported alongside EY and Linklaters.
On the TradingView daily chart, QNT broke through the psychologically important 100 USD level and reached 108 USD intraday before easing to trade around 104.57 USD. Its Average Directional Index stood at 39.13, indicating a strong underlying trend. A move back above 106.25 USD would put 112.50 USD and then 118.75 USD in focus; a fall below 100 USD would bring 93.75 USD into play. The bank partnership is real revenue potential, but with a 2027 launch, much of the news is already in the price.
Ethena: Rally Meets a Red-Hot Momentum Gauge
Ethena (ENA) traded near 0.2781 USD after gaining 54.1 percent in seven days. The driver was the protocol’s September 25 announcement that it would add tokenized US stocks and equity perpetual futures on Binance to the strategy backing its USDe synthetic dollar. Founder Guy Young called it the most significant expansion of USDe’s funding mechanism since the protocol started, and the company said its Risk Committee approved a framework for the trades.
The technical picture is stretched. ENA traded well above every major moving average – its 20-day at 0.1808 USD, its 50-day at 0.1491 USD, and its 200-day at 0.1082 USD – and its daily relative strength index reached 79.85, well above the 70 level that chart watchers read as overheated. A push above 0.2807 USD would extend the breakout; the first support sits at the day’s 0.2632 USD low, with the earlier 0.22 to 0.23 USD area below that. When RSI runs this hot, rallies often pause before continuing – or hand back a chunk quickly.
Bitway: The Cautionary Tale of the Three
Bitway (BTW) is the wildcard. It traded near 0.9032 USD, up 48 percent on the rolling week, but the daily chart shows a violent round trip: a spike to 1.3661 USD followed by a slump to roughly 0.90, with a session low of 0.7620 USD.
On-chain analyst Ai Yi reported that a new address withdrew 5 million BTW, worth about 3.71 million USD at the time, from Gate.io during the rally, with other reports putting combined withdrawals by three fresh addresses at 15 million BTW within three hours. The transactions alone do not establish who controlled the wallets or why the price rose. Bitway is also running a staking program from September 1 to October 1 offering an 8 percent stated annual rate on USDT plus 3 percent in BW Points – incentives that can pump short-term demand without changing fundamentals.
Technically, BTW sits below its Bollinger upper band near 1.1513 USD but above the middle band near 0.7121 USD. Regaining 1.00 USD would reopen the 1.30 to 1.37 USD area; losing the 0.7620 USD low would likely mean a test of 0.7121 USD.
The Verdict: Three Rallies, Three Different Survival Odds
Not all green candles are created equal. Quant’s rally rests on signed bank partnerships with a 2027 timeline – slow-burn, credible, but largely priced in. Ethena’s move reflects a genuine strategy expansion but momentum is running hot by every conventional gauge. Bitway’s chart shows what happens when a speculative spike meets heavy token movements: a 34 percent round trip inside a week.
With Bitcoin holding near 84,000 USD after its own eight-month high, the market’s risk appetite is intact. But rolling seven-day rankings can and do change over the weekend. Chasing the top of the gainers list after a 50-plus percent week is how retail investors become exit liquidity for earlier buyers. If you believe in the fundamentals – bank rails for Quant, yield innovation for Ethena – the levels to watch are the ones above: 100 USD for QNT, 0.2632 USD for ENA, and 0.7620 USD for BTW. Below them, the story changes.
The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
61.8 percent on QNT off actual bank adoption for tokenized deposits, not some listing rumor. rare to see fundamentals pump this hard
QNT up 62 percent on bank tokenized deposit headlines, literally the 2021 Overledger playbook again. i rode it then, im not chasing now
difference is actual bank pilots instead of partnership tweets. your 2021 trauma is showing lol
which banks though. the piece names tokenized deposits pilots but Overledger still has to settle real volume before it counts. pilot isnt production
Ethena 54 percent while everyone was watching ETF flows lol. that funding rate machine prints when vol comes back
Ethena gaining 54 percent in the same week BTC did 3.8 tells you where the risk appetite went. altseason crumbs at best
bitway +48 and i still couldnt tell you what it does without googling. classic top gainer behavior
remember these are 7 day numbers, half of you will buy monday and give it all back by wednesday
you are not wrong but QNT held most of its 2021 spike for weeks after the top. the give it all back crowd buys the wick not the close
2.39B into spot ETFs and everyone is yelling about QNT. the boring BTC inflow number is the one that compounds, top gainers rotate every week