Most altcoins spent the week drifting lower. According to Delphi Digital’s sector dashboard, only 34% of tracked tokens posted gains as of October 16, 2026.
A handful of names ignored the gloom. Celestia (TIA), ZKsync (ZK), EigenLayer (EIGEN), Kamino (KMNO) and Pyth Network (PYTH) topped the leaderboard.
The scoreboard: one breakout, one strong runner-up, three steady climbers
TIA led the pack with a +45.0% weekly move. ZK came second with a +23.7% gain. EIGEN, KMNO and PYTH followed, each landing in a range between +13.6% and +14.4%.
Market breadth measures how many assets take part in a move, not only how far the leaders run. The 34% breadth figure means that while five tokens posted double-digit gains, roughly two-thirds of the dashboard lost ground.
The divergence happened while major crypto assets were cooling, according to the research findings. Money appears to have rotated toward a few specific stories rather than the market as a whole.
Why Celestia and ZKsync caught a bid
Celestia (TIA). The token’s run was part of a multi-week rally that peaked at approximately $0.633 on October 11. Per the research findings, that was TIA’s highest price of the year.
Network news helped fuel the climb. Celestia reported a data throughput benchmark of 3.07 Tb/s on October 2. It also gained adoption by new platforms in early October that are using it for scalability.
Celestia’s network uses a modular design focused on data availability, separating data availability from execution and settlement tasks to enhance scalability and efficiency for other blockchains that rely on it.
Trading volumes and open interest in TIA were elevated during the gains, according to the research. Open interest counts the derivatives contracts still outstanding, so a rise suggests more traders were placing leveraged bets on the token’s direction.
ZKsync (ZK). The ZK move followed an October 13 announcement from the ZKsync team. It picked up further momentum when Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin publicly praised the project on October 15.
Buterin’s attention went to Airbender Prime, ZKsync’s prover, which showed strong performance validating Ethereum blocks in real time. A prover generates cryptographic proofs that a batch of transactions was processed correctly, allowing others to verify the result without redoing all the work.
The rest of the leaderboard
EIGEN, KMNO and PYTH did not have a single headline catalyst in the research findings. Their returns were close together, with all three landing between +13.6% and +14.4%.
What a narrow altcoin rally tells traders
The research describes the action as a possible shift in sentiment toward smaller-cap tokens while major assets cool, potentially indicating a new market rotation.
The 34% breadth figure is the counterweight to the headline gains. When most tokens are falling, a few big winners can make the market look healthier than it is. The research also warns that volatility may rise if the broader crypto mood shifts fast.
Elevated open interest in TIA means more traders are positioned with borrowed money, which can sharpen a reversal when positions get forced to close.
Both TIA and ZK rallied on specific, checkable technical developments: a throughput benchmark and new adoption for Celestia, a fast prover and a high-profile endorsement for ZKsync.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.