Altcoin deposits to exchanges jump 160% in two weeks to their highest count since October 2025

Divide CryptoQuant's deposit count by its address count and the rise turns out to come from more senders, each sending slightly less. On Sept. 14 about 17,600 addresses made about 29,800 deposits, roughly 1.7 each. By Sept. 28, 51,600 addresses had made 78,000, roughly 1.5 each ^[2][3][1][1]. Senders grew faster than sends. CryptoQuant called the rise broad-based ^[4], and Crypto Briefing puts weekly averages above 22,700 on Binance and above 8,300 on Coinbase ^[9].

"When holders move coins to exchanges, they usually intend to sell," CryptoQuant wrote in its weekly report ^[13]. The reports do not give the value of the coins deposited, so 78,000 transfers could be a large block of supply or a modest one. The only dollar figure on offer is for Total2: Crypto Briefing says the measure has absorbed more than $371 billion of inflows since June, a 45% rise ^[5]. A 45% gain of that size implies a starting value near $824 billion and a current one near $1.2 trillion ^[3]. That $371 billion is a change in price carried across the whole supply of coins, a paper gain, and the deposits are the first sign of how much of it holders want to turn into cash.

Crypto Briefing also reports that daily deposits peaked at nearly 45,000 in July 2026 and that current activity remains below that level ^[8]. The 78,000 seven-day count works out to about 11,100 a day, roughly a quarter of the July peak ^[2]. Both reports still call the current count the highest since October 2025 ^[1]. The two statements fit together only if July was a burst of a day or two that never lifted the seven-day total past 78,000. The venue figures add a second wrinkle: 22,700 on Binance, 8,300 on Coinbase and roughly 32,000 elsewhere sum to about 63,000, some 15,000 short of CryptoQuant's weekly total ^[10][4].

The case for a short-term top rests on more than deposits. Total2 has made higher highs while its relative strength index made lower highs, a bearish divergence ^[7]. Coins outside the top 10 reached 9% of total crypto market value on Sept. 27, their largest share since February ^[14]. Julio Moreno, CryptoQuant's head of research, has flagged that similar deposit spikes preceded significant volatility, including before bitcoin declines earlier in 2026, according to Crypto Briefing ^[11].

If the deposits are the start of distribution, the seven-day count keeps climbing toward July's daily rate while Total2 rolls over. Should they level off instead, Crypto Briefing's alternative holds, and this is profit-taking inside an uptrend ^[16]. A third possibility is that a value series eventually shows the transfers were small, and the spike measured the number of wallets moving coins more than the amount of coin being moved.

I think the deposit counts show more holders getting ready to sell, and show it clearly; they make a weaker case for a top. Selling intent is spreading to more wallets and thinning per wallet, and at about a quarter of July's daily peak the deposit rate is high mainly against a quiet mid-September ^[1][2]. The stronger evidence for a top is in price, in the RSI divergence and in breadth, with 87% of Binance-listed coins already above their 200-day averages ^[6]. Breadth can widen by at most 13 more points ^[5]. I would be wrong about the pause if next week's seven-day count rises again from 78,000 while Total2 falls, since two rising weeks of deposits into a falling market would be holders selling, and no longer just getting ready to.