Despite one of the harshest market pullbacks of the year, a new Santiment report highlights a cluster of tokens posting massive trading-volume spikes while the broader crypto market remains under pressure.
These surges don’t necessarily signal immediate price breakouts, but they often reveal where trader attention, and early liquidity, is rotating during periods of volatility.
Santiment’s screener identified 10 assets that saw some of the strongest volume expansions this week, with several projects more than doubling their weekly trading volumes even as Bitcoin and Ethereum slumped.
The Standout Risers
According to Santiment, the top-volume gainers include:
- Kelp DAO Restaked ETH (rsETH) – +455%
- Ethena Staked USDe (sUSDe) – +362%
- RZcoin (RZ) – +233%
- Starknet (STRK) – +198%
- Pi (PI) – +192%
- Cosmos (ATOM) – +130%
- Jewelry Token (JEWELRY) – +115%
- Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) – +104%
- Aster Coin (ASTER) – +45%
- Zcash (ZEC) – notable double-digit growth
These tokens span multiple categories, restaking, stablecoin infrastructure, AI, Layer-2 scaling, interoperability, DeFi, and privacy, showing that pockets of the market remain active even as liquidity thins elsewhere.
⬆ While crypto has pulled back in November, pay attention to projects seeing significant spikes in trading volume. Here are the top 10 volume risers this week:
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) November 21, 2025
1) @kelpdao$RSETH
2) @ethena_labs$sUSDe
3) @rzcoin$RZ
4) @starknet$STRK
5) @picoreteam$PI
6) @cosmos$ATOM
7) … pic.twitter.com/BqfgswAVRr
Why Volume Spikes Matter In A Downtrend
Volume expansions during market stress often reveal accumulation zones, speculative rotations, or heightened narrative interest. For example:
- •rsETH and sUSDe benefited from growing attention on restaking and synthetic-yield strategies.
- •STRK gained momentum as Layer-2 ecosystems continued attracting developer activity.
- •FET saw renewed interest as AI-linked assets remained one of the few resilient narratives in Q4.
- •ZEC, a long-dormant privacy coin, saw traders reposition as regulatory debates around privacy tech re-enter public discourse.
While these spikes are not guarantees of trend reversals, they highlight where smart money and speculative traders are concentrating liquidity during choppy conditions.
The Bigger Picture
With Bitcoin trading near two-month lows and ETF outflows accelerating, the market remains in a risk-off posture. Yet the tokens above demonstrate that individual narratives are still drawing capital, and that selective volatility, not uniform capitulation, is shaping the current landscape.
Santiment’s data suggests that when the broader market stabilizes, these early-volume leaders may be among the first to benefit from returning liquidity.