It's not all HYPE: Privacy and quantum-resistant coins advance as bitcoin marks time

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Bitcoin BTC$77,281.05, ether (ETH), XRP (XRP), solana (SOL) and other top 10 coins have had a tough time lately, with each falling at least 2% in the past seven days. Still, there is always a bull market somewhere, and several crypto sub-sectors have chalked up impressive gains.

Coins associated with derivatives protocols, particularly those focused on perpetual futures such as HYPE and LIT, have surged by 40% or more.

HYPE has been rallying since Trade.xyz, a trading interface based on the Hyperliquid blockchain, listed the Space pre-IPO perpetual contract on Monday, valuing the company at $1.78 trillion. Trading volume on the contract topped $30 million on its first day. The protocol consistently earns millions in fee revenue per week, accounting for over 40% of total marketwide fee revenue, according to data source DefiLlama.

And it's not just Hyperliquid; investors are trading on other venues, too. According to CoinGecko, the monthly average volume on the top 12 decentralized exchanges for perpetual futures contracts has risen to $612 billion in 2026 from $532 billion in 2025.

Privacy and quantum-resistant coins such as Zcash (ZEC), Quantum Resistant Ledger's QRL, Qubitcoin's QTC and Starknet's STRK are also climbing, with gains between 6% and 25%.

Data shows that investors are willing to overlook macro and geopolitical concerns and deploy capital, but only in coins with strong use cases and narratives.

Privacy is the flavor of the season, with fund managers like Arthur Hayes saying it is a fundamental necessity as advanced AI, large tech firms and government surveillance rapidly erode privacy. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin on Wednesday outlined steps taken to bring privacy features to Ethereum, the world's largest smart-contract blockchain.

As for quantum risks, Google researchers have already warned that a sufficiently powerful quantum machine, could in theory, attack a massive blockchain like Bitcoin with significantly fewer resources that previously estimated.

Bitcoin itself is struggling to recover the ground lost in the past seven days, currently trading around $77,300.

"Softer on final stages" talks between the U.S. and Iran "takes some inflation pressure off the tape and gives risk assets room to bounce," analysts at Marex said.

This doesn't, however, feel like a clean restart of the bull trend, they said, but more like a relief bid in a market that is still constrained by rates.