Altcoin Spot Trading Volume Has Spiked to Levels Not Seen Since September 2025. Here Are 3 Altcoins to Put on Your Investment Radar.

On Sept. 28, altcoin spot trading volumes hit nearly four times Bitcoin's, the highest reading of that ratio since 12 months ago, and by Oct. 6, volumes were still highly elevated. In the past, such spikes in altcoin trading activity have portended the onset of "alt seasons," which are exciting periods of crypto market activity lasting a quarter or two that typically see dozens of altcoins skyrocketing, with a couple of the biggest winners often then entering the ranks of the major cryptocurrencies.

At least, that's the hopeful reading of the altcoin volume data. CryptoQuant counted 78,000 altcoin deposits to exchanges in the week through Sept. 28, and coins sent to exchanges are often coins about to be sold. So with these possibilities of the market's future in mind, let's take a look at three of the most promising altcoins in the market right now: NEAR Protocol (CRYPTO: NEAR), Chainlink (CRYPTO: LINK), and Monero (CRYPTO: XMR).

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NEAR's buybacks quadrupled over two quarters this year

NEAR is an altcoin that's worth knowing about because it offers exposure to the next generation of cross-chain infrastructure.

Its unique Intents system lets users pick a goal, like doing a cross-chain token swap without the use of a crypto bridge, and then the competing market makers in NEAR's system work to fill the request. While that might not sound like anything so special, given that crypto bridges already exist for the purpose of transiting value across blockchains, its advantage is that it enables users to move their funds while paying as little as possible to the often-pricey tollbooths in between destinations while also minimizing the risk of something serious going wrong along the route.

Per DefiLlama, NEAR's Intents processed $4.6 billion of token swaps in the 30 days ending on Oct. 6, and $1.9 million of its $7.5 million in fees in that period was used for buying back NEAR on the open market. Those buybacks have climbed from $760,308 in Q1 of this year to reach $3.1 million for Q3, so it's reasonable to say that the project is gaining traction.

Moving forward, it'll likely be handling more and more automated traffic from AI agents looking to move their money from network to network. If that happens, NEAR will be worth a lot more in the future compared to today.

Chainlink's value is plugged directly into the tokenization trend

Chainlink is another blockchain interoperability project that offers exposure to tokenization, which is the recording of assets like bonds on a blockchain.

Its main line of business is its data oracle, which feeds outside information like prices and economic data into smart contracts, for a small fee. In the third quarter of 2026, those fees were worth $15.2 million, up from $9.5 million a year prior.

It converts a large portion of those fees into buying LINK, which is then sequestered in a reserve. At the coin's September 2026 prices, the pace of LINK buybacks is about 0.5% of Chainlink's value yearly, so there's real pressure on its supply.

Moreover, the trend toward tokenization of assets is especially beneficial for Chainlink, as institutional investors who are managing their tokenized assets will typically prefer to do so algorithmically or with the help of AI agents, both of which will need the reliable structured data feeds that the platform provides.

Monero could still have its time in the sun

Monero is a privacy coin, and it's the riskiest of the three discussed here.

It offers a way for investors to get exposure to the demand for financial privacy, as its network is private by default, with senders, receivers, and transaction amounts all being occluded. Its next planned upgrade would make it even harder for an outsider to unmask the identities of transactors by hiding each payment among 150 million past outputs instead of just 16, and it launch on the chain's test network on Oct. 5.

Once that launches on the mainnet, it could be a decent catalyst, as users will have a much higher standard of proof that their transactions will be private. Notably, it'd also help to differentiate Monero from its biggest competitor, Zcash, which doesn't activate its privacy features by default.

The risk for those who buy Monero today is that centralized crypto exchanges (or entire countries) may try to ban it again, as has been attempted in the past. If that happens, it'll be hard to sell, and the coin will probably lose a lot of its value.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin, NEAR Protocol, and Zcash. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Chainlink, and NEAR Protocol. The Motley Fool recommends Monero. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.