Litecoin, Cardano, Stellar, and Chainlink All Outperformed Bitcoin This Week. Which Rally Has the Strongest Support?
Four altcoins crushed Bitcoin's gains this week, but the catalysts driving each rally tell very different stories about which one actually deserves its new price.
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In the week leading up to September 25, 2026, Litecoin (CRYPTO:LTC), Cardano (CRYPTO:ADA), Stellar (CRYPTO:XLM), and Chainlink (CRYPTO:LINK) all outperformed Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC). Their gains ranged from 16.7% to 28.7%, while Bitcoin rose 8.4%. Different news drove each rally, including a Litecoin fund filing and a Chainlink partnership with IT company Infosys.
Among these four altcoins, Litecoin had the biggest gain at 28.7%, climbing to $71. Cardano rose by 17.9% to reach $0.25, Stellar increased by 16.9% to $0.22, and Chainlink jumped 16.7% to $14. So, which of these rallies has the most support behind it?
Litecoin Gained the Most, but Its ETF News Brings Little New Money
Litecoin’s impressive gain largely stems from a fund filing. On September 11, Grayscale submitted a request to convert its Litecoin Trust, which has been trading over the counter since 2018, into an ETF on NYSE Arca. However, the SEC must still approve the conversion.
While converting the trust allows its existing Litecoin, worth around $82 million as of June, to trade as an ETF, it does not bring in new buyers just yet. The first U.S. spot Litecoin ETF, launched by Canary, has traded since October 2025 but had only about $7 million in it by early September.
Despite this, traders have pushed Litecoin’s price up, with it swinging between $62 and $80 on September 24 before closing near $72. Over the past month, it has gained 41.7%.
Stellar and Cardano Rallied on News That Barely Touches Their Tokens
Stellar’s main catalyst emerged around September 22, when BVNK, a stablecoin payments firm set to be acquired by Mastercard, announced it would support Stellar payments in over 130 markets. IBM’s September 24 announcement, by contrast, had no link to Stellar, since its custody platform connects to SWIFT’s shared ledger, a separate blockchain.
Stellar charges a minimal fee of 0.00001 XLM per transaction, meaning high payment volumes require very little of its token. Trading volume also dropped, with around 88 million XLM, worth about $19 million, changing hands on September 24—down from 131 million, worth about $29 million, on September 21. XLM is currently trading slightly below its recent high of around $0.225 on September 23.
Cardano’s news is even less substantial. While Fireblocks, a custody platform widely used by banks and trading firms, included ADA in its offerings back in 2021, its recent update on September 24 announced support for Cardano Native Tokens, which are coins issued by other projects on Cardano, and is set to take effect by March 2027. ADA is still down about 25% this year and a staggering 89% over the past five years.
Chainlink Fell on Its Infosys Deal, Then Led the Market Two Days Later
Chainlink made headlines on September 22 with the announcement that Infosys, an IT firm catering to 1.7 billion customer accounts through its banking software, will standardize six Chainlink services. Initially, this news caused LINK to drop by 4.4% within 24 hours since the deal did not specify which banks would be involved, the timeline, or the associated fees.
However, buyers quickly returned, lifting LINK’s price from around $12 after the initial drop to $14, with a notable 12.2% gain in the 24 hours leading up to September 25—the largest daily increase among the top 26 cryptocurrencies. Notably, the Infosys partnership follows a previous deal with Bottomline, a major SWIFT service provider that deals with $16 trillion annually for over 600 banks.
LINK is up about 9% for 2026, making it one of only two of the four coins in positive territory this year, alongside Stellar, which is up about 11%. However, LINK remains down about 43% from a year ago.
Which Rally Has the Strongest Support?
Chainlink’s rally appears to have the most substantial backing. It secured two banking technology partnerships in a month and has also shown an upward trend for 2026, with buyers returning after the initial dip. Stellar comes in second because its live payment support requires very little XLM.
While Litecoin achieved the highest percentage gain, it does so with the least convincing evidence, as converting the fund alone does not attract new investors. Cardano’s updates mainly focus on support for other tokens rather than ADA itself.
The key takeaway is that for these deals to translate into meaningful value, they need to drive real-world token usage. If a bank announces a live Chainlink rollout with a clear timeline, it could widen Chainlink’s lead. Likewise, if the SEC approves Grayscale’s Litecoin fund and it generates consistent inflows, Litecoin’s rally could gain the support it currently lacks.
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Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst and the editor of 24/7 Wall St.'s Crypto Desk, where he covers Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, Solana and the altcoins investors search for most. His work focuses on price levels, spot ETF flows, on-chain data and the regulatory decisions that move crypto markets, written so a first-time buyer and a seasoned trader can both use it.
Sam has written about crypto professionally since 2019 and has published more than 2,000 articles. Before joining 24/7 Wall St., he wrote for crypto media outlets and Web3 companies and ghostwrote for crypto founders and token launches. His analysis is syndicated on Yahoo Finance, MSN and AOL and has been cited by other crypto news sites. He also founded MacLabs Marketing, a content and personal branding agency for crypto founders and executives.
When he isn't reading charts, Sam is usually at the gym or watching One Piece, a series he maintains has better tokenomics than most altcoins.
