Cardano's native token ADA rose 10 percent over the past 24 hours to more than 27 cents, reaching its highest level since May, according to CoinDesk data. The move contrasted with modest gains of 1 percent for Bitcoin and 0.5 percent for Ether, which remained confined to a $84,000-to-$87,000 trading range.

The price jump appears tied to growing interest in Cardano's RealFi institutional-credit product, launched on October 1, which enables stablecoins to be routed into credit instruments offering up to 9 percent annual yields. Market attention also focuses on the network's upcoming Dijkstra scalability upgrade, scheduled for initial Phase 1 deployment between late December 2026 and early 2027. This phase will introduce Linear Leios and nested transactions designed to increase transaction throughput.

Bitcoin's open interest eased slightly to $22.0 billion from $22.4 billion, while funding rates remained elevated at 4–10 percent annualized across derivatives venues. The 3-month basis held steady in the 5–6 percent range. Options activity stayed call-skewed, with a 24-hour put/call ratio of 87/13 and a 1-week 25-delta skew of -7 percent.

Liquidation data from Coinglass showed $174 million in 24-hour liquidations, with $74 million tied to Bitcoin and $31 million to Ether. Binance's liquidation heatmap identifies $87,150 as a key level if price advances further.

Among other tokens, Sui's SUI rose nearly 7 percent to $1.85, while Ethena's ENA fell 9 percent to $0.24 ahead of a 3.03 billion token unlock scheduled for early October. Solana (SOL) and Uniswap (UNI) each slipped about 0.4 percent, and BNB held near $788. Monad (MON) declined over 4 percent despite announcements of stablecoin integration by Singapore-based fintech StraitsX.

The U.S. Dollar Index climbed to 102.53, its highest level since April 2025, though analysts note limited historical correlation between a strong dollar and cryptocurrency price movements.