AAVE, PUMP, WLD and SKY Rally as Crypto Market Slips

Most cryptocurrencies struggled for momentum entering October, but several altcoins bucked the broader market trend. Pump.fun (PUMP), Aave (AAVE), Worldcoin (WLD) and Sky (SKY) recorded strong weekly gains, supported in some cases by project-specific developments.

The total crypto market capitalization declined about 0.30% over the past week. Bitcoin briefly surged from around $84,000 to $87,000 on Friday before quickly retreating, while sentiment surrounding Ethereum and XRP weakened as October began.

AAVE emerged as one of the strongest performers, gaining roughly 20% over the week and climbing 7% on Friday alone. Santiment linked the rally partly to Aave reaching $1 billion in user deposits.

Aave V4 also expanded to Arc and Base in September. Its Base deployment includes an Equities Hub that allows eligible users outside the United States to borrow USDC against seven Coinbase-tokenized U.S. stocks.

Pump.fun's PUMP token gained approximately 30% during the week as its token supply reduction strategy attracted attention. According to Santiment, Pump.fun is allocating about half of its net protocol revenue toward PUMP buybacks and burns, with daily purchases exceeding $1 million several times in late September.

SKY advanced 14% over the same period amid growing institutional adoption. Galaxy Digital disclosed last month that it had added $100 million worth of sUSDS, Sky's yield-bearing savings token, to its treasury. Galaxy also approved sUSDS as collateral for its institutional trading operations and purchased an undisclosed amount of SKY.

Worldcoin's WLD gained about 15% for the week, although Santiment did not identify a specific catalyst behind the rally.

Meanwhile, Quant (QNT) moved in the opposite direction. QNT fell 7% on Friday as traders took profits following its sharp late-September surge. The token has dropped more than 32% from its recent high but remained up 152% over seven days at $252.55.

The contrasting performances highlight how token-specific catalysts continue to drive individual altcoins even as the broader crypto market enters October with weaker momentum.