The total crypto market cap rose 39.6% in the third quarter, ending three straight quarters of declines. August delivered more than half of the gain, but trading volumes kept falling while open interest on perpetual futures climbed.
The total crypto market cap increased by $840 billion, or 39.6%, to close the third quarter at $3 trillion, per CoinGecko data, ending three straight quarters of declines.
It was the largest quarterly rise since the fourth quarter of 2024, but prices outpaced participation, with trading volumes still falling.
August delivers more than half of the quarter's gain
Market cap peaked near $3 trillion on September 21 before closing the quarter at $2.96 trillion, which is still 4% lower year to date.
August did the heavy lifting, with a 21.8% jump worth $490 billion that followed a US Treasury announcement to at least double its planned buybacks of long-dated bonds, plus steady net inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs. Then a Senate procedural vote on the CLARITY Act failed on September 15 and barely slowed the climb.
Ethereum beats Bitcoin as its volume falls
Ethereum gained 71% to $2,684, beating Bitcoin and every other major coin, helped by net inflows of $3.1 billion into US spot ETH funds that erased all the outflows from the first half of the year.
However, its trading volume fell 23.2% to $11.5 billion. Glamsterdam, the network upgrade already delayed in Q2, missed mainnet again and is still reaching test networks. Sepolia was activated on October 6.
Open interest climbs while volume slides
Average daily volume fell 8.6% from Q2 to $73.3 billion, a third consecutive quarterly decline. Spot volume at the top ten centralized exchanges slid 14.2% to $1.65 trillion.
But leverage came back faster than buyers did. Open interest on perpetual futures, which counts the value of contracts still open, rose 40.6% and closed above $100 billion for the first time since the third quarter of 2025.
Source: CryptoPotato
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