Crypto today outpaces stocks as privacy tokens and DeFi steal the spotlight
Stimulus talk and easing shutdown fears send Bitcoin soaring. Can altcoins keep up this week?
Key Takeaways
Why was crypto up today?
The combination of a potential end to the government shutdown and Trump’s “tariff dividend” payments proposal sparked bullish short-term sentiment.
Which sectors and assets were the major winners?
ZCash and XRP were some of the standout large-cap performers in the past 24 hours, and the privacy sector was firmly bullish.
The crypto ecosystem saw strong gains in the early hours of the 10th of November.
Bitcoin [BTC] surged by 4% from $101.9k to $106k. The rest of the market followed, with varying magnitudes of green.
The reason behind these gains was likely down to two things.
The first was the rise in stock futures prices in recent hours. CNBC reported that the S&P Futures gained 0.76%, and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 0.24%, while Nasdaq-100 futures rallied 1.29%.
As the clouds of uncertainty began to lift, hope emerged on the horizon for an end to the government shutdown. Investors were monitoring lawmakers’ efforts to pass a federal funding bill that would end the shutdown.
A bipartisan bill was being debated in the Senate, which would reopen the government and also reverse some of the recent mass federal layoffs.
Another reason was President Trump’s post on Truth Social, speaking of sending money directly to Americans to the tune of $2,000, labeled as a “tariff dividend”.
Memes stay in the background, privacy sector surged ahead
These factors helped explain the boost in short-term bullishness.
Ripple [XRP] was one of the top gainers among assets with $20+ billion market cap, up 8.59% in 24 hours compared to Ethereum’s [ETH] 5.31% and Solana’s [SOL] 4.4%.
Data showed that zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs) were some of the top gainers, making a 12.5% gain on average, led by the insurmountable ZCash [ZEC].
Additionally, DeFi tokens also saw growth. The lending protocols saw a 6.6% gain, led by Aave [AAVE], which rallied 10.3%. This could be because of expectations of fresh liquidity.
The last time the U.S. government handed its citizens money directly was the COVID stimulus package, which was followed shortly by a DeFi summer in 2020.
Other sectors steady but lagging
The Layer-1 and memecoin sectors made decent gains of 4.1% and 3.8% respectively, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Still, sector rotation suggests that capital inflows were selective, favoring privacy and lending tokens. Investors may continue watching sector-specific flows to gauge where relative strength builds next.
