Altcoin Rally Explodes: NEAR, ARB, AVAX, INJ, UNI Lead As Kevin O’Leary Says Ethereum May No Longer Rule

Kevin O’Leary said he no longer expected Ethereum to become the main blockchain for crypto.

• Near Protocols led the seven-token rally over this week, while Arbitrum, Ethena, Avalanche, Uniswap, Zcash, and Injective also posted strong weekly gains.
• Analysts highlighted ARB, UNI, and ZEC and pointed to separate developments around those tokens.
• Injective gained 32% over the week as the Securities and Exchange Commission received an amended filing for the proposed 21Shares Injective ETF.

Altcoins rallied sharply over this week, with Near Protocol (NEAR) leading the group after gaining over 60%, Arbitrum (ARB) followed with a gain of over 54%, among others, as industry figures pointed to technical breakouts, token-specific developments, and broader interest across several crypto sectors.

Ethena (ENA) rose nearly 49%, and Avalanche (AVAX) added over 40%. Uniswap (UNI) climbed 38%, Zcash (ZEC) gained nearly 33%, and Injective (INJ) rose 32% over the week. 

The rally spanned both larger and smaller altcoins, while market capitalization and trading volume showed where activity was concentrated. ZEC remained the largest of the seven by market cap at $24.56 billion. UNI and NEAR followed, with market capitalization of $5.37 billion and $4.86 billion, respectively. AVAX held a $4.56 billion market cap, while ENA’s market cap stood at $2.1 billion. INJ and ARB were smaller, at $774.9 million and $1.43 billion, respectively.

NEAR, AVAX Lead Altcoin Gains As Retail Sentiment Turns Extremely Bullish

NEAR’s price was up over 3%, while AVAX’s price was up over 15%. Meanwhile, ENA was up over 1% over the past 24 hours. 

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for NEAR and AVAX remained in ‘extremely bullish’ territory, while ENA’s sentiment dipped to ‘neutral’ territory over the past day.

Analysts Spotlight ARB, UNI And ZEC

Several traders and industry figures highlighted individual tokens as the rally developed. Analyst Michaël van de Poppe pointed to Arbitrum's breakout on Friday, calling the move “very clear.” He said the trend continued to point higher. 

Arbitrum’s price was trading up over 0.1% over the past 24 hours. On Stocktwits, the real sentiment around ARB dipped to ‘neutral’ from ‘bullish’ territory, with chatter at ‘high’ levels over the past day. 

Uniswap also drew attention after Hayden Adams, the protocol's founder, highlighted a comment letter from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce. The letter said truly decentralized systems driven by autonomous software did not need a security exemption. Adams called it “the most bullish automated market maker (AMM) news” of the day, referring to automated market makers.

Uniswap’s price was down over 4% over the past 24 hours. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment remained in the ‘bullish’ territory, with ‘high’ chatter levels over the past day.

Zcash Catches Arthur Hayes’ Eye

Additionally, Arthur Hayes, CEO of FLOP Labs, commented on Zcash, asking, “Should I top blast $ZEC?” after the token posted a strong weekly gain. Separately, Hayes also predicted Ethena could reach $0.50, which is more than double the roughly $0.21 level shown in his post.

Separately, Michaël van de Poppe pointed to Zcash as an example of capital rotating into altcoins, saying liquidity could move across different crypto narratives over time. Van de Poppe said these narratives could include decentralized finance, layer-1 networks, real-world assets, and artificial intelligence (AI) tokens. He argued that some of these sectors could outperform for periods as liquidity moved through the market.

Zcash’s price was down over 5% over the past 24 hours. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around ZEC remained in the ‘bullish’ zone, while chatter around it stayed at ‘high’ levels over the past day.

Injective Rally Comes With Fresh ETF Development

Injective’s 32% weekly gain came alongside a fresh token-specific development. The SEC received an amended Form S-1/A filing for the proposed 21Shares Injective exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Friday. 

The fund would trade on Nasdaq (NDAQ) under the ticker “TING” and track INJ through the FTSE Injective Index. The filing also allowed the fund to stake part of its holdings, meaning the investors would get exposure to Injective while also allowing the fund to earn staking rewards on part of its INJ holdings.

Injective’s price was up over 3% over the past 24 hours. On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment rose to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘bullish’ territory, with chatter at ‘extremely low’ levels over the last day.

O’Leary Moves Beyond Ethereum

Kevin O'Leary, popularly known as “Mr Wonderful,” explained on Thursday at the Avalanche Summit that he had moved away from his earlier strategy of holding only Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). O'Leary said he once expected the market to standardize around Ethereum. “That has not happened,” he added.

He added that, in his view, Ethereum was no longer fast or secure enough for every use case. O’Leary said different sectors could instead choose different blockchains and added that adoption by a major exchange could send the value of the selected token “through the roof.”

His comments come as Ethereum’s price was down over 2% over the past 24 hours. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around ETH dipped to ‘neutral’ territory, with chatter at ‘normal’ levels over the past day.

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