The crypto market enters October with new ways for big investors to get in, and some sharp reversals along the way. U.S. spot ETFs now cover SOL, NEAR and ZEC, banks are testing tokenized deposits on Quant’s technology, and revenue-linked buybacks are shaping HYPE and PUMP. This month’s list covers those themes, plus AI agent payments, on-chain credit and one tokenized-stock meme token.
Methodology:This list focuses on altcoins with strong fundamentals, favorable market trends, and clear near-term catalysts. We also flag where a recent rally, token unlocks or weak liquidity make a pick riskier. Figures are as of October 3 or 4, 2026, unless stated otherwise.
TL;DR: Top Altcoins to Buy in the Bull Run of October 2026
U.S. spot SOL ETFs saw record weekly inflows in late September, and the Alpenglow upgrade is due this month.
Pump.fun (PUMP)
Meme-coin infrastructure
About half of Pump.fun’s revenue buys and burns PUMP, with roughly $473 million spent so far.
Quant (QNT)
Bank-grade blockchain interoperability
The Clearing House chose Quant on September 24, but the price has swung hard since.
NEAR Protocol (NEAR)
AI-focused Layer 1
The first U.S. spot NEAR ETF launched on September 29, and NEAR Intents volume passed $32 billion.
Morpho (MORPHO)
On-chain lending and credit
More than $500 million in deposits arrived on Circle’s Arc network within about two weeks of launch.
Kite (KITE)
AI agent payments
Mainnet and Agent Passport are live, and the thesis rests on agents paying for services on their own.
Zcash (ZEC)
Privacy coin
The first U.S. spot Zcash ETF is trading, and the price is pulling back from a September peak.
MarsCoin (MARSCOIN)
Tokenized-stock meme token
Holders receive SPCXB, a tokenized SpaceX stock token. It is a high-risk token with no utility.
Unibase (UB)
AI agent memory
A memory layer for AI agents, with most of its supply still locked.
1. Pumpfun (PUMP)
PUMP is the native token of Pump.fun, a platform where anyone can create and trade a token without a traditional exchange listing or complicated liquidity setup. It started on Solana and now earns revenue from several products, including PumpSwap and a trading terminal.
Key Catalyst
The main catalyst is the buy-and-burn program. Pump.fun directs about 50% of its revenue to buying PUMP on the open market and burning it. According to Pump.fun’s own dashboard (data as of October 3), the platform has spent about $473 million on buybacks and burned roughly 170 billion PUMP, or about 17% of the original 1 trillion supply.
The dashboard shows annualized revenue of about $547 million, based on a 90-day average. Revenue now counts activity across Solana, Base, Ethereum and BNB Chain, and recent daily buybacks have been around $1.2 million.
Why PUMP Is a Top Bull-Run Pick
PUMP could be undervalued if the market still sees it as just another meme-related token instead of an asset tied to a heavily used trading business.
The logic is simple: more activity can mean more revenue, and about half of that revenue is turned into PUMP purchases and burns. That is a clearer token link than many apps with fees but no direct token demand.
The risk is that revenue depends on speculative trading. If meme-coin activity cools, buybacks shrink too. At about $1.2 million a day, buybacks are also small next to a fully diluted value that the dashboard lists above $6 billion. PUMP does not give holders a claim on Pump.fun’s revenue or equity, so the buyback should not be read as a dividend.
HYPE is the native token of Hyperliquid, a blockchain built for on-chain trading. Its main product is an exchange for perpetual futures (contracts that let traders bet on price moves with leverage and no expiry date). It also runs spot markets and HyperEVM, which lets developers build apps on the same network.
Key Catalyst
Hyperliquid’s fees feed HYPE demand directly. From January 1 to September 30, the platform handled about $2 trillion in perpetual trading volume and collected about $493 million in protocol fees. Open interest (the total value of open positions) rose from $7.72 billion to $16.4 billion over the same period, according to figures shared by PANews. A designated Assistance Fund uses trading fees to buy HYPE, and tokens held by that fund are burned.
A second income source arrived on October 3. Hyperliquid received its first $14.58 million USDC payment, tied to the yield earned on USDC reserves held on its network, and most of this yield is meant to fund HYPE buybacks. As of October 4, that money had not yet moved into the Assistance Fund, so the buyback effect is still ahead. HYPE traded near $90 on October 4.
Why HYPE Is a Top Bull-Run Pick
HYPE could be undervalued if the market keeps treating it as a trading token instead of a revenue-generating exchange.
Fee income and reserve yield both point toward buybacks, which gives HYPE a clearer link to platform activity than most governance tokens. HIP-3 adds another driver: builders who launch their own perpetual markets must stake HYPE, and Hyperliquid is also expanding into outcome contracts and prediction-style markets.
The case still depends on trading volume staying high. A meaningful part of the 1 billion maximum supply has yet to enter circulation, and rival on-chain exchanges are competing for the same traders.
SOL is the native token of Solana, a fast Layer 1 blockchain used for trading, DeFi, payments, stablecoins, tokenized assets and consumer apps. SOL pays network fees and is staked to help secure the chain.
Key Catalyst
Two things stand out this month. The first is institutional access. U.S. spot Solana ETFs took in a record $188 million in the week through September 25, and all seven funds saw inflows, as reported by Crypto Daily citing CoinDesk. Flows can reverse, though: the funds lost a net $11 million on September 30.
The second is Alpenglow, Solana’s new consensus upgrade. It is due to activate in October with Agave 4.3, at an epoch boundary rather than on a fixed date. It aims to cut finality (the point where a transaction can no longer be reversed) from roughly 12 to 13 seconds to about 150 milliseconds. Transaction V1 also went live on September 15, raising the maximum transaction size about 3.3 times. SOL traded near $121 on October 4 after gaining 14.6% in September. The Solana Foundation says the network now hosts more than $4 billion of institutional real-world assets.
Why SOL Is a Top Bull-Run Pick
SOL could be undervalued if investors still see Solana mainly as a memecoin chain.
Payments, stablecoins, tokenized stocks and real-world assets can create steadier demand for blockspace than short-lived speculation. ETFs add a regulated route for new money, and staking removes part of the supply from the market.
The risks are timing and reliability. Alpenglow is a major change, and any delay or bug could hurt sentiment. ETF demand has also been uneven from week to week.
KITE is the native token of Kite, an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain built for AI agents that pay for things on their own. Its Agent Passport gives each agent a verifiable identity and spending rules set by the user, such as budgets and approved payees.
Key Catalyst
Kite launched its mainnet and Agent Passport on April 30, 2026. The project has raised $35 million in a round led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst. Since launch, it has enabled x402 payments on Solana (June) and joined the Avalanche Payments Collective as its first AI-agent-focused member (July). It is also working toward compatibility with payment standards such as x402 and Google’s AP2.
KITE is used for staking and network participation. Kite’s token model also lets commissions from AI services be converted from stablecoin revenue into KITE before they are shared within the network.
Why KITE Is a Top Bull-Run Pick
KITE could be undervalued if autonomous agent payments become a major crypto use case and Kite ends up as the infrastructure underneath.
AI agents need identity, permissions and payment rails before they can act on their own, and Kite builds these into the chain itself. Our guide to the best AI crypto coins covers how this theme fits with other AI projects.
The main risk is adoption. We did not find fresh usage figures for this update, such as Passport wallets created or stablecoin settlement volume, so check Kite’s public dashboards before acting. KITE also has a large gap between circulating and total supply, and the agent-payments field is crowded.
QNT is the token of Quant Network, which sells Overledger, software that lets banks, payment firms and governments connect different blockchains and older systems. QNT has one of the smallest supplies among large crypto assets, with about 12.07 million in circulation out of a fixed maximum of roughly 14.6 to 14.9 million, depending on the data provider. Our guide to limited-supply crypto explains why that matters.
Key Catalyst
On September 24, The Clearing House, which runs major U.S. payment systems for large banks, selected Quant to power its On-Chain Money Initiative. The network will clear and settle tokenized bank deposits and link them to the RTP and CHIPS payment systems, which together process more than $2 trillion a day. The Clearing House expects it to reach participating institutions in the first half of 2027. On the same day, UK Finance confirmed that seven UK banks had completed live customer transactions on a tokenized deposit platform built by Quant.
The price reaction was extreme. QNT reached a record near $428 and then fell. By October 4, it traded near $251, about a third below its level a week earlier, according to Coinbase data. OKX also launched QNT perpetual futures with up to 50x leverage on October 1, which can speed up moves in both directions.
Why QNT Is a Top Bull-Run Pick
QNT could stay in focus if the bank announcements turn into live transaction volume and that volume creates steady demand for the token.
Quant has added the option to pay Overledger licence fees in QNT, and banks are real, large customers. But Disruption Banking points out that neither bank announcement shows banks paying in QNT. Overledger is the software Quant sells, and QNT is a separate token.
Treat this as a high-risk pick. One analysis cited by Pluang flagged a large share of reported volume on September 27 as wash trading (trades that inflate volume without real demand), and a small float can make price moves sharper in both directions.
MORPHO is the governance token of Morpho, an open lending network. It splits on-chain lending into Morpho Blue (simple, isolated lending markets) and Morpho Vaults, where curators spread deposits across those markets. Fintech and institutional products can use Morpho underneath their own apps, so end users never touch DeFi directly.
Key Catalyst
Morpho’s newest deployment is on Circle’s Arc network, an EVM-compatible Layer 1 that went live in mid-September with Morpho wired in as its core credit layer. More than $500 million in deposits arrived on Arc by October 2, with about $190 million of loans outstanding, mostly from institutional users. Crypto Briefing also reports that Morpho’s wider network held about $16.5 billion in total deposits in early October.
Product progress adds to this. Morpho Midnight, which offers fixed-rate, fixed-term on-chain credit, went live in July, and the Morpho Association raised $175 million in June from investors including Paradigm, a16z crypto and Ribbit.
Why MORPHO Is a Top Bull-Run Pick
MORPHO could be undervalued if the market keeps seeing it as one more DeFi lending app instead of credit infrastructure for institutions.
Fixed rates and fixed maturities are standard in traditional credit, so Morpho’s products are easier to map onto what banks and fintechs already use. Arc gives it a distribution channel with a major stablecoin issuer.
The key limit is token value capture. MORPHO is a governance token, so more deposits do not automatically mean more demand for it. Yields on top Arc vaults were also only about 0.8%, a sign that institutional capital is cautious.
NEAR is a Layer 1 blockchain that has positioned itself around AI agents and what it calls user-owned AI. A key product is NEAR Intents, which lets users and AI agents state the outcome they want, such as swapping one asset for another across chains, and lets the network handle the steps.
Key Catalyst
The Bitwise NEAR ETF (ticker NRR) began trading on NYSE Arca on September 29, the first U.S. spot NEAR ETF. It charges a 0.75% fee, and Bitwise plans to stake the fund’s NEAR to target staking rewards of about 5%. Bitwise also reported that NEAR Intents has processed more than $32 billion in cumulative volume, up from under $1 billion a year earlier. NEAR’s inflation rate recently halved to 2.5%. The token gained about 167% in the 30 days before the ETF launch.
Why NEAR Is a Top Bull-Run Pick
NEAR could be undervalued if AI agents become real, paying users of blockchains and NEAR becomes a default place for them to settle.
Intents volume is concrete usage, not just a story, and the ETF gives U.S. investors a regulated way in. Lower inflation also reduces the new supply entering the market.
The risks are clear. On October 1, NEAR Intents lost about $3.8 million in an exploit tied to a bug in its Omni deposit and withdrawal system. The core NEAR protocol was not affected, and the funds were returned by October 4, but the token dropped about 8% on the news and traded near $4.76 on October 3. After a 167% monthly run, further pullbacks are possible, and security at the app layer will stay in focus.
ZEC is the native coin of Zcash, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency. It has a fixed maximum supply of 21 million, with about 16.9 million in circulation. Users can choose shielded transactions, which hide the sender, receiver and amount. Our guide to privacy tokens compares ZEC with similar coins.
Key Catalyst
Grayscale’s Zcash ETF (ZCSH) began trading on NYSE Arca on August 25, the first U.S. spot ETF for ZEC. ZEC peaked at $1,697 on September 27, then fell about 23% to near $1,330 on October 4. In the same week, ZCSH saw its first weekly outflow, about $94 million, though cumulative inflows since launch were still positive at roughly $213 million, based on SoSoValue data.
The next dated event is a network upgrade. NU7 is expected on testnet on October 6, with a mainnet decision due on October 20.
Why ZEC Is a Top Bull-Run Pick
ZEC could stay in focus if privacy remains a leading theme and the upgrade keeps progressing.
A fixed supply, a regulated ETF route and rising use of shielded transactions all support the story. The pullback has also cleared out some leveraged positions, which can make a base for the next move.
The risks are real. ETF flows can turn into selling pressure, as the latest week showed, and ZCSH charges a 2.5% annual fee. Privacy coins also face more regulatory scrutiny than most assets, which can affect exchange access.
MARSCOIN is a meme token on BNB Chain with a fixed supply of 1 billion. It launched on the Flap platform and trades against SPCXB, a token that tracks the price of SpaceX stock. A 3% tax on buys and sells is used to buy SPCXB, which is then paid out to wallets holding at least 10,000 MARSCOIN.
Key Catalyst
The token has picked up listings on major exchanges, including a KuCoin spot listing in early September. Binance announced that it will distribute SPCXB to eligible MARSCOIN holders, with the first payout planned for early October, and will use 30% of the spot trading fees it earns on MARSCOIN to fund extra SPCXB rewards. Recent snapshots put the market cap at roughly $110 million to $125 million.
Why MARSCOIN Is a Top Bull-Run Pick
MARSCOIN could keep drawing attention while tokenized stocks and BNB Chain memes stay popular. It combines three active stories: meme culture, space and real-world assets.
Treat it as a high-risk watchlist item, not a core holding. Owning MARSCOIN does not give you SpaceX shares or voting rights, as Binance Academy has noted, and the project is not linked to SpaceX or Elon Musk. A Phemex explainer notes there is no audited contract report or named team. SPCXB also carries the issuer risk of its tokenized-equity wrapper, and the 3% tax reduces returns on every trade.
The name is also shared by unrelated tokens, including a legacy 2014 project called Marscoin. Check that you are trading the BNB Chain token paired with SPCXB. As with any low-information token, do your own research before you buy.
UB is the native token of Unibase, a decentralized memory layer for AI agents. Most AI agents forget past interactions and cannot easily share what they know. Unibase offers Membase for long-term agent memory, an agent interoperability protocol (AIP) for agents to find and talk to each other, and a data availability layer to store it all.
Key Catalyst
Unibase renamed its protocol to Agent Internet Protocol in August and added support for Base and BSC, so agents built on those networks can plug into its memory and messaging. Its product line now also includes BitAgent, for launching on-chain agents on BSC and Base, and support for the ERC-8004 identity standard and x402 payments.
Why UB Is a Top Bull-Run Pick
UB could be undervalued if persistent memory turns out to be a missing piece of the AI agent stack and developers build on Unibase to get it.
Memory sits underneath nearly every useful agent, so adoption could grow alongside the whole agent economy. UB is meant to pay for memory use, agent services and staking.
The main risk is supply. According to CoinMarketCap’s AI summary, only about a quarter of the 10 billion maximum supply was circulating in mid-September, so future unlocks can add sell pressure. The idea is also still early and faces competition from other agent frameworks. A separate, inactive token called UbitEx uses the same UB ticker on some platforms, so confirm you are trading Unibase.
Crypto assets are volatile, and several tokens on this list rose or fell sharply in the past few weeks. This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Please do your own research (DYOR) and consider speaking to a qualified financial advisor before investing.
Siri is a writer venturing into the exciting realms of blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and decentralized finance (DeFi), eager to explore the transformative potential of these innovations. She brings a unique perspective that bridges traditional industries and cutting-edge technology, often infused with a touch of humor through memes. She has a rich background in real estate and interior design, having previously contributed to NoBroker, where she crafted blogs and assets on these topics.
