Bitcoin exceeds $80,000 and leads the market, driven by the performance of Litecoin and Cardano

You don't teach old monkeys to make faces. On Friday, Bitcoin crossed $80,000 and dragged almost the entire market with it. The total capitalization of crypto has gained 5.02% over the last seven days, reaching $2.75 trillion this Saturday morning, according to TradingView.

But to reduce the week to this training effect would be to miss the point. Ethereum (+2% over seven days) and XRP (+1%) barely moved, almost statistical noise compared to the rest of the table. The two real movements of the week are playing out elsewhere: Litecoin, which has just signed its best sequence in months, and Cardano, which broke resistance faster than expected. We take stock.

Litecoin, the veteran who stands out from the crowd

Litecoin, launched in 2011, jumped 7.9% on Friday, its third positive session in a row, for a gain of almost 20% over thirty days. The token is now trading around $56.

Two drivers explain this renewed interest. First the Litecoin spot ETF from Canary Capital, listed under the ticker LTCC since the end of October 2025. The outstanding amount remains tiny, barely 5 to 7 million dollars according to the latest market data, incommensurate with the flows garnered by Bitcoin or Ethereum ETFs. A detail. For the first time, an institutional investor can gain exposure to Litecoin without touching a wallet.

Then, the LitVM project: a layer 2 (layer 2 in English, id is an infrastructure built on top of the main blockchain to make it faster) compatible with smart contracts and based on zero-knowledge proofs. The testnet, online since April, has already received tens of millions of transactions. The mainnet is targeting the fourth quarter of 2026, provided that the current security audits are completed on time. For a network often reduced to its image as the “little technical brother” of Bitcoin, this is enough to change the mechanics, even if nothing has yet been delivered.

Cardano, the breakout that no one expected so quickly

Cardano did better than hold its place, with +8% over the week and a marked acceleration on September 19. The next hurdle to watch is resistance at $0.23, with $0.30 as the target for a breakout.

The token is already moving at this level. The resistance identified the day before fell in less than 24 hours, a pace that even the most recent analysis had not anticipated.

And meanwhile, Monero and Bitcoin Cash remain docked

The rebound is not uniform, and this is what makes it a real market picture rather than a straight line. BNB is moving more slowly, with +4% weekly and support at $690 reconfirmed. Nothing exuberant. We can see it as a $900 target, but this is a technical reading, not an acquired level. Monero and Bitcoin Cash, for their part, are evolving without particular brilliance this Friday, despite the general increase.

As for Hyperliquid, it also broke a record this week, at $90.92, a new all-time high. The subject deserves an article in its own right: it is not a historical value, and its engine, the redemptions of tokens financed by platform fees, has nothing to do with what drives Litecoin or Cardano.