Friday’s crypto tape finally looked like a risk-on party again. Bitcoin punched above $78,000 during the European morning—up about 2.1% since midnight UTC—while the real fireworks sat one layer down: Starknet (STRK) ripped roughly 18%, Arbitrum (ARB) about 17%, and Uniswap (UNI) around 13%, with CoinDesk’s DeFi Select Index up roughly 8.3% on the day and ~16% over 24 hours.
CoinDesk’s markets desk, via Oliver Knight and Omkar Godbole, frames it as a clean rotation. Thursday belonged to privacy and “haven” betas (hello, Zcash). Friday handed the mic to layer-2 and DeFi names as post-Fed hike nerves faded. Nearly the entire CoinDesk 100 went green—98 of 100 constituents advancing—so this wasn’t a two-ticker meme day. It was breadth.
Macro finally stopped yelling
The catalyst wasn’t a surprise airdrop; it was softer rates-and-oil vibes. The 10-year Treasury yield slipped back under 5%, and Brent eased to under $103 after tagging ~$109 earlier in the week—cooling the inflation scare that rode in with the Fed’s first hike since 2023. Equity futures joined the shrug: S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures were modestly higher, while gold and silver added roughly 1.1% and 2.8%.
That backdrop matters because crypto has been trading like a high-beta equity sleeve all week. When yields and crude give back their scare premium, alt beta usually wakes up first—and L2/DeFi tokens are the loudest speakers in that room.
Who actually led
On the DeFi side, UNI did the heavy lifting: about 13% since midnight UTC and ~25% over 24 hours, with Ethena (ENA) roughly +9.6% and Lido (LDO) about +6.6%. Layer-2 matched the energy—STRK at multi-month highs (highest since mid-June in CoinDesk’s telling), ARB back to prices last seen in January, with Stacks and Optimism also solidly green.
Solana itself added ~4.5% toward ~$106, but the juicier move was ecosystem DEX beta: Raydium jumped ~16% while liquid-staking name Jito lagged—classic “DEX volume narrative” split, not a blanket SOL beta bid. Thursday’s star, Zcash, mostly consolidated near ~$1,490 after its rip; privacy’s day in the sun didn’t reverse, it just stopped being the only story.
Derivatives: conviction, not FOMO chaos
Futures open interest expanded nearly 5% to about $141.2 billion even as daily volume dipped ~3%—the kind of mix that looks more like positional rebuilding than pure momentum chasing. Bitcoin OI edged higher alongside price (long-building vibe), though still well below early-year peaks. UNI futures OI flirted with a record as spot ripped ~30% over the broader window, which CoinDesk ties partly to optimism around friendlier SEC/CFTC coordination after the Clarity Act flop.
Implied vol also chilled: bitcoin’s 30-day implied vol index dropped toward ~36%—a floor zone since May—after Clarity, the Fed, and BoJ were all in the rearview. Short-dated options skews for BTC and ETH flipped more call-friendly. Translation: traders priced calmer near-term weather and started leaning long again, carefully.
Geeknewz take
This is the market telling you the Fed hike didn’t kill risk appetite—it just reshuffled the cast. Privacy coins stole Thursday; L2/DeFi stole Friday. BTC reclaiming $78K with alt breadth this wide is healthier than a lonely bitcoin melt-up, but UNI OI near records plus a regulatory-relief narrative is also how you get overextended DeFi weekends. Watch whether STRK/ARB keep leading after the European open fades—and whether ZEC’s ETF flow story resumes when L2 beta cools.
Until then: majors set the floor, L2s set the vibe, and DeFi is dancing like Clarity never died in the Senate.
Source: CoinDesk — Layer-2 and DeFi tokens lead broad crypto advance (Oliver Knight, Omkar Godbole, Sep 18, 2026).