OVERVIEW

The Rektober Massacre: An Autopsy Of How Bad It Really Was 😱

October was supposed to be "Uptober" - the month when crypto typically pumps and retail shows up ready to buy. That is, unless, you read the September 30, 2025 newsletter titled, ‘Is It Really Uptober?’. .

In today’s newsletter, we’re going to look at 12 cryptocurrencies. Zcash, Bitcoin, Ethereum Litecoin, TRON, XRP, Stellar, Dogecoin, Quant, Decentraland, Cardano, and VeChain - a good mix of tickers you know, some you don’t, and others you thought probably died off years ago. 

For info on the date ranges, see the Data Sources at the end of this newsletter.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
The Big Picture Of October 2025: This Wasn't Normal 😐️

The Carnage

• 11 out of 12 tokens negative

• 5 tokens posted their worst October EVER

• 4 additional tokens in their bottom 3

• Average performance across all 12: roughly -12% (excluding ZEC's outlier)

The Unicorn

• Zcash: +446.70% - best October in its 9-year history

• More than quintupled in value

• 391% above its historical October average

ZEC was doing ZEC things while everything else collectively forgot how to go up. 🤔 

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TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Breaking Down The Bloodbath 🩸

The "Worst October Ever" Club (5 Members)

CARDANO (ADA): -24.54%

• Rank: #8 out of 8 Octobers (dead last, 0th place, or is it zero-ith percentile, who cares it was just the worst)

• Historical avg: -6.32% (ADA hates October)

• The damage: 18.22% below an already-negative average

• $ADA.X ( ▼ 6.71% ) only has positive Octobers 25% of the time. Still, this was brutal even by ADA standards.

VECHAIN (VET): -28.22%

• Rank: #8 out of 8 Octobers (0th percentile)

• Historical avg: -2.25%

• The damage: 25.97% below average

• $VET.X ( ▼ 5.12% ) typically goes 50/50 positive/negative in October. Not this year.

QUANT (QNT): -20.83%

• Rank: #7 out of 7 Octobers (0th percentile)

• Historical avg: +7.51%

• The damage: 28.34% below average

• $QNT.X ( ▼ 5.32% ) usually squeaks out gains. This was its worst showing since tracking began.

STELLAR (XLM): -16.25%

• Rank: #9 out of 9 Octobers (0th percentile)

• Historical avg: +13.71%

• The damage: 29.96% below average

• $XLM.X ( ▼ 5.99% ) is usually a solid October performer (55.6% positive rate). This broke the pattern hard.

TRON (TRX): -11.22%

• Rank: #8 out of 8 Octobers (0th percentile)

• Historical avg: +7.54%

• The damage: 18.76% below average

• $TRX.X ( ▼ 3.69% ) has a 75% October win rate - the highest in this dataset. For it to post its worst October ever is statistically bonkers. Well, maybe in real world statistics but in crypto statistics this makes perfect sense.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
The "Almost Worst Ever" Crew 😐️

ETHEREUM (ETH): -7.16%

• Rank: #8 out of 10 Octobers (20th percentile - second-worst)

• Historical avg: +3.59%

• The damage: 10.75% below average

• $ETH.X ( ▼ 5.37% )’s worst October was 2016 at -17.59%.

DOGECOIN (DOGE): -19.95%

• Rank: #8 out of 9 Octobers (11th percentile - second-worst)

• Historical avg: +15.87%

• The damage: 35.82% below average

• $DOGE.X ( ▼ 7.57% )’s worst October was 2018 at -35.88%.

LITECOIN (LTC): -10.72%

• Rank: #9 out of 10 Octobers (10th percentile - second-worst)

• Historical avg: +3.65%

• $LTC.X ( ▼ 9.26% ) wins 80% of Octobers. Not this one. Only October 2018 was worse.

DECENTRALAND (MANA): -21.42%

• Rank: #7 out of 8 Octobers (13th percentile - second-worst)

• Historical avg: +37.51% (skewed by one 320% outlier)

• Median: -2.29%

• $MANA.X ( ▼ 4.62% )’s October 2022 at -23.25% holds the worst record by a slim margin.

XRP: -11.85%

• Rank: #9 out of 11 Octobers (18th percentile - third-worst)

• Historical avg: -2.19% (already negative)

• $XRP.X ( ▼ 5.86% ) hates October anyway (only 27% positive rate), but this was still rough.

BITCOIN (BTC): -3.90%

• Rank: #12 out of 16 Octobers (25th percentile - mid-pack terrible)

• Historical avg: +25.66%

• The damage: 29.56% below average

• $BTC.X ( ▼ 2.76% )’s October losses are rare. This snapped a 5-year streak of positive Octobers (2020-2024).

NEWS
The Only Rocket That Wasn’t A Dud 🚀 

ZCASH (ZEC): +446.70% 🚀

While 11 tokens were getting wrecked, $ZEC.X ( ▲ 12.07% ) went from zero to hero and posted the single largest October gain in this entire 12-ticker dataset. 😱 

The numbers:

• Rank: #1 out of 9 Octobers (89th percentile - best ever)

• Historical avg: +55.49% (already volatile)

• Median: -2.71% (most Octobers are actually red)

• This performance: 391% above the average

To put this in perspective - ZEC more than quintupled. Now, there’s a lot of talk on Stocktwits, X, and crypto social everywhere - personally, I’m in the camp that there’s some clear ‘quiet’ conversion of BTC into ZEC and it might explain why the shielded ZEC supply has absolutely boomed at the same time.

But that requires a lot more analysis, time, and space to write about. But here’s your heads up to look for this in the future.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
AI, Stablecoins, & Privacy News 🕵️

📈 PIVX Pops While the Market Naps

I almost forgot about this privacy coin, but while most coins limped through another red week, PIVX spiked from $0.17 to $0.30 and doubled its weekly volume to $131M. Masternode count even rose despite higher costs - conviction, not hopium. Pivx.

🔒 Zcash Builders Double Down on Privacy at Electric Coin Co.

ECC’s keeping privacy alive by reworking Zashi wallet UX, adding rotating addresses, and syncing Keystone multisig for secure Dev Fund access. It’s the boring but vital kind of work that makes privacy actually usable. No hype, no theatrics - just engineers quietly building freedom tech. Zcash.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Real World Asset Tokenization (RWA) News 🪙

🏦 WisdomTree Drops 14 Tokenized Funds on Plume

Here’s another story about Wall Street’s paperwork finally fitting inside a blockchain.WisdomTree’s going full TradFi-meets-chain, launching 14 tokenized funds on Plume, including a money market and private credit fund. Galaxy even tossed in $10M to flex its institutional weight while investors now hold fund tokens directly in their wallets.  Plume Network.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Metaverse, NFT, & Gaming News 🎮️

🎨 Tezos Artists of the Month Keep Crypto Art Human

Tezos Commons spotlighted five creators who actually make NFTs worth looking at - photographers, poets, illustrators, and coders turning pixels into feelings. Highlights include migraine-inspired surrealism, interactive generative pieces, and haunting digital portraits. Proof that amidst the hype, Tezos art is still about heart, not floor price. Tezos.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
DeFi, DEX, & Lending News 🏦

⚙️ Reactive Hooks Into Uniswap’s New Playground, Unichain

Reactive just plugged into Uniswap’s shiny new Unichain mainnet - a DeFi lab where hooks and contracts talk to each other in milliseconds. It means automated limit orders, time-weighted trades, and oracle-based execution all running themselves like clockwork. Reactive Network.

🛡️ 1inch Gets ISO-Certified, Becomes DeFi’s First Adult in the Room

Good new for DeFi: 1inch earned ISO 27001 certification, joining the security club with Binance and Coinbase while showing DeFi can play by TradFi rules without losing its soul. The move signals regulators and institutions that this DEX can be trusted at scale. 1inch.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Protocol News 🏦

🎬 Storj Solves the “Why Is My Upload Suddenly Slower?” Problem

Every editor’s nightmare: same file, same network, wildly different upload speeds - welcome to the joy of centralized clouds throttling you at rush hour. Storj fixes that by splitting and encrypting files across thousands of global nodes, pulling from the fastest every time for consistent, predictable performance. Storj.

🪙 Ontology Locks Supply, Tightens ONG Tokenomics

Ontology just passed a governance vote capping ONG’s total supply at 800M and permanently locking 100M worth to cut float. The emission curve stretches to 19 years (nope, not a typo), rewards get leaner, and liquidity gets scarcer. It’s tokenomics 101: less supply, more sustainability, fewer degens whining about inflation. Ontology.

🧠 Membit Season 1 Cracks Down on Fake Hunters

Real hunters get paid; fake ones get nuked. After ballooning to 95k users, Membit’s new reward rules are filtering out bots, banning sybils, and rewarding active contributors who actually post. Season 1 adds staking, proof-of-humanity, and percentile-based rewards to keep data clean for AI training. Band.

🏷️ SuiNS Airdrops Governance Tokens to Its OG Voters

Sui Name Service is rewarding early DAO voters with staked NS that comes preloaded with voting power. No claim links, no scams, just extra governance weight dropped straight into wallets. Huh? An airdrop that rewards participation instead of mercenaries? Sui.

DATA SOURCES
Data Sources 🔢

Every bit of data is pulled from Investing.com’s historical records, starting from the earliest date available in their dataset.

• BTC: October 2010 - October 2025 (16 Octobers)

• ETH: October 2016 - October 2025 (10 Octobers)

• XRP: October 2015 - October 2025 (11 Octobers)

• DOGE: October 2017 - October 2025 (9 Octobers)

• LTC: October 2016 - October 2025 (10 Octobers)

• ADA: October 2018 - October 2025 (8 Octobers)

• VET: October 2018 - October 2025 (8 Octobers)

• QNT: October 2019 - October 2025 (7 Octobers)

• XLM: October 2017 - October 2025 (9 Octobers)

• MANA: October 2018 - October 2025 (8 Octobers)

• TRX: October 2018 - October 2025 (8 Octobers)

• ZEC: October 2017 - October 2025 (9 Octobers

LINKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

🇫🇷 France takes steps to tax crypto assets as unproductive

🌍️ EU and Asian export giants falter as US tariffs bite

⚠️ Nasdaq issues warning to TON Strategy over $272M Toncoin purchase

🫵 Not all RWA growth is real, and the industry knows it

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Author Disclosure: The author of this newsletter holds positions in ADA, IMX, COPI, MIN, AGIX, ALGO, ZEC, XLM, and NEAR. 📋