Not gonna lie, when I pulled up the calendar for next week, my first reaction was "oh great, all of this is happening at once."
Biggest thing by far is the Fed. They meet October 27-28, and the actual decision drops Wednesday at 2pm ET. Right now the market's leaning toward them holding rates where they are, but honestly that can flip in a day depending on what inflation or jobs data comes in before then. We've already seen this month how twitchy Bitcoin gets around this stuff, so I'm not expecting a calm week.
Right before that, on October 26, Ethereum's pushing its Glamsterdam upgrade live on the Hoodi testnet. It's not mainnet yet, so don't expect fireworks, but it's one of the bigger upgrades on Ethereum's roadmap and a smooth testnet run is usually a decent signal things are on track. I'll be watching how ETH reacts even though it's early days.
Then October 30 we get the monthly options expiry for both Bitcoin and Ethereum. These always seem to bring some extra chop to the market, so if price starts acting weird that day, that's probably why.
Outside of BTC and ETH, I've had my eye on Solana and XRP lately. Both have been outpacing Bitcoin recently, Solana riding continued ETF inflows and XRP riding speculation about a possible ETF approval sometime in 2026. None of it's confirmed yet, but these are exactly the kind of stories that can send a coin flying the second something official actually happens.
Now here's the part that honestly makes me a little more nervous than the Fed stuff, token unlocks. There's a few coming up that are worth knowing about before they happen, not after.
Sign (SIGN) unlocks on October 28, around 290 million tokens, worth roughly $12 million. Doesn't sound huge, but that's over 21% of its entire circulating supply hitting the market in one shot. That's the kind of number that can actually move a token.
Zora (ZORA) and Kamino (KMNO) both unlock on October 30. Zora's dropping about 167 million tokens, close to $16 million, around 4.5% of supply. Kamino's releasing roughly 229 million tokens, about $14 million, just under 6% of its supply.
And SUI closes things out on November 1 with around 44 million tokens unlocking, worth about $113 million. Sounds like a lot, but it's actually only about 1.2% of SUI's circulating supply, so the impact there should be a lot lighter than the others.
None of this automatically means these tokens are about to crash. Sometimes the market's already priced the unlock in way before it happens, and sometimes demand just soaks it up fine. But low liquidity plus a sudden jump in supply is usually a good recipe for extra volatility, so I'd rather flag it now than act surprised later.
Honestly, with the Fed decision, the Ethereum testnet update, options expiry, and this pile of unlocks all landing in the same stretch, next week's got a lot going on at once. I'm not predicting anything, I'm just going in paying attention and watching how things react as each date hits.
Sources:
Coingape – "Top 3 Crypto Events that Could Impact the Market in October 2026" — https://coingape.com/markets/top-3-crypto-events-that-could-impact-the-market-in-october-2026/
Crypto.com – "Best Crypto to Watch in October 2026" — https://crypto.com/en/market-updates/best-crypto-to-watch-october-2026
RoboForex – "Crypto Market Outlook for the Week of 19–23 October 2026" — https://roboforex.com/beginners/analytics/forex-forecast/cryptocurrency/cryptocurrencies-forecast-2026-10-19/
Decrypt – "Altcoins Defy Bitcoin Slump as XRP, Solana Notch Double-Digit Gains" — https://decrypt.co/354116/altcoins-defy-bitcoin-slump-xrp-solana-double-digit-gains
MEXC News – "Data: SUI, GRASS, EIGEN and Other Tokens Set for Large-Scale Unlocking Next Week" — https://www.mexc.com/news/data-sui-grass-eigen-and-other-tokens-will-usher-in-large-scale-unlocking-next-week-of-which-sui-unlocking-value-is/142854
