The rally that broke out a week ago carried through Monday's push above $86,000 before today handed most of it back — a sharp, broad-based pullback that hit the altcoins far harder than Bitcoin itself, the classic shape of risk appetite draining out of the riskiest end of the complex first. Bitcoin closed $84,273.65, down 2.2% today but still up 10.67% on the week and 19.1% above its 200-day average. Avalanche and Strategy both remain the standout movers of the past thirty days — Avalanche up 36.34% and Strategy up 32.27% — even after both fell more than the market today (Avalanche -8.87%, Strategy -3.07%).

This scan reports the settled tape as a risk-appetite gauge. A separate desk lane is writing what caused the underlying rally; today's specific pullback has no cause on file and that gap is stated explicitly below rather than filled in.

The week started with Bitcoin clearing $86,000 for the first time since January, and today gave back part of that move. CNBC reported Bitcoin's move above $86,000 on Monday, September 21, framing the debate over whether "crypto winter is over" — a framing Yahoo Finance repeated on September 22 in its own chart-of-the-day piece. Bitcoin closed today at $84,273.65, down 2.2% on the day but still up 10.67% on the week and 6.72% on the month; its one-year deficit narrowed further to -24.77% from -30.69% a week ago, the shallowest in this tier by a wide margin. Its nearest support shelf on record, $79,138.49, is roughly 6% below today's close — the pullback has not yet tested it.

Strategy's bitcoin purchase is a dated, sourced driver behind part of this week's move — and the stock still fell hardest of the two bellwethers today. Bloomberg reported on September 21 that Michael Saylor's Strategy Inc. bought $75.7 million of Bitcoin, its first purchase since August, as part of an effort to rebuild investor confidence and reshape its balance sheet. Strategy closed today $162.20, down 3.07% on the day but still up 28.55% on the week and 32.27% on the month — one of the two names flagged this session as an outsized thirty-day mover. It remains death-crossed on the long-run moving-average signal (its 50-day sits below its 200-day even as price trades 18.6% above the 200-day itself) and is still -50.52% on the year, an improvement from -55.91% but still deeply negative. Coinbase moved similarly: $198.13, -1.46% today, +20.44% on the week, one-year deficit narrowing to -38.10% from -43.39%.

Avalanche is the other name flagged this session, and its move is the largest and least explained on this board. It closed $10.28, up 37.62% on the week and 36.34% on the month — comfortably over the 30%-in-30-days threshold that flagged it — but fell 8.87% today, the second-largest single-day drop in this scan. Its one-year deficit is still the deepest in the coin tier at -69.45%, though that improved from -76.53% a week ago, and its 200-day cushion widened sharply to +28.2% from +3.7%. No dated news item in this desk's corpus covers Avalanche specifically this week; its own news pull is stale from July 14. The move sits alongside the broader rally context above, not confirmed as caused by it.

Today's session hit the altcoins far harder than Bitcoin, which is the clearest risk-appetite read this scan can offer. Dogecoin fell 10.00% today, Polkadot 10.66%, XRP 5.73%, Chainlink 6.22%, Ethereum 2.95%, Solana 3.71% — all considerably worse than Bitcoin's -2.2%. Every one of these names is still up on the week (DOGE +12.5%, DOT +6.86%, XRP +13.85%), so this reads as profit-taking inside a still-positive week rather than a trend change, but it is the first time in this scan's tracked window that the alts have sold off this much harder than Bitcoin on a single day.

The miner cohort held its structure through today's pullback better than the coins did. Marathon fell only 2.05% today (still +20.92% on the week), Riot fell 0.96% (+21.33% on the week) and is now the only name in this scan positive on both its one-year return (+44.64%, up from +35.64%) and its 200-day position (+29.1%, up from +25.1%). CleanSpark was the exception, down 4.49% today against a still-positive +13.06% week.

Six new names joined this watchlist this week, and one of them is worth an explicit caution. Bakkt (BKKT) was added September 19 after a mover the desk's coverage had missed; ZCSH, BHYP, HYPG, ETHB and GLNK were added September 22. ZCSH's first read shows an RSI of 78.5 — overbought — a one-year return of +2,632%, and a position 245.9% above its 200-day. There is no news file on record for this name and no history in this desk's corpus to evaluate what it is or why it moved. That combination — an extreme, undocumented, newly-covered mover — is treated here as a speculative, lottery-shaped situation rather than a pick, and it is excluded from the tier tables below pending verification.

Prior-week figures are from the September 18 edition of this scan.

Crypto is read here as a risk-appetite gauge first and as an asset class second: when the whole complex moves together, it says something about how much risk the market wants, and when the riskiest names inside the complex move first and hardest — as the alts did today relative to Bitcoin — that is a cleaner signal than the headline price alone. Three windows are kept visible on every row because they routinely disagree: the daily and weekly changes are the news, the 200-day position is the structure, and the twelve-month return is the memory — in this universe still deeply negative everywhere even after a strong month. A coin above its 200-day with a deeply negative year is a bottoming attempt, not a restored trend. The spot funds carry no independent flow data in this desk's price record — they are price proxies for their underlying coin. Nothing in this scan attaches a specific cause to today's pullback; the dated items on file describe the rally that preceded it, not the reversal itself.

Capitulation (RSI below 25): None.

Oversold (RSI 25-40): None. For a third straight week, nothing in the specified tiers is oversold, even after today's sharp pullback.

Neutral / Strong (RSI 40+): All nineteen names in the specified tiers. The board compressed into a 54.8-to-67.4 band — narrower than last week's 55.8-to-69.2 — and nothing reached 70. Today's pullback cooled the board without breaking any name's structure.

Bitcoin outright led today's session in relative terms — its -2.2% drop was the mildest of any name in the coin tier, while Dogecoin (-10.0%) and Polkadot (-10.66%) took the worst of it. On the week, the alts still lead: Avalanche +37.62%, Solana +15.68%, Ethereum +10.56% roughly matching Bitcoin's +10.67%, with Cardano +20.00% and XRP +13.85% ahead of it too. On the month the spread favors the alts more clearly — Avalanche +36.34%, Polkadot +21.11%, Solana +15.78% against bitcoin (BTC-USD)'s +6.72% — Avalanche's month is now the largest of any name in this scan's tracked coins.

What held through today is the same pattern from last week: bitcoin (BTC-USD)'s -24.77% one-year deficit remains the shallowest by a wide margin, while the alts still run -43.27% (LINK) to -72.54% (DOT). Today's session, where the alts fell two to five times harder than Bitcoin, is the clearest read yet that this scan's "alt leadership" has been a bounce funded by risk appetite — the first name to feel that appetite pull back is the alt tier, not Bitcoin.

The four spot funds tracked here still carry price only in this desk's record, not independent flow data — they remain proxies for their underlying coin and each moved within 0.7 of a percentage point of Bitcoin or Ethereum today. No dated flow figure for this specific week is on file; the last flow number in this desk's corpus is the $450 million of Bitcoin ETF outflows Yahoo Finance reported on September 16, which predates this week's rally and pullback both. Every fund's 200-day cushion widened again this week regardless — IBIT to +13.9% from +9.3%, GBTC to +13.2% from +8.7%, ETHE to +17.0% from +15.0%, BITO to +11.2% from +6.6% — price evidence of continued strength that this desk cannot independently confirm against flow data.

The miner cohort absorbed today's pullback better than the coins or the two bellwethers. Marathon (-2.05%), Riot (-0.96%) and BitQ (-2.39%) all fell less than half as much as Bitcoin's alt peers; CleanSpark was the softest of the four at -4.49%. Riot is now the standout on structure in this entire scan — the only name positive on both its twelve-month return (+44.64%, up from +35.64% a week ago) and its 200-day position (+29.1%, up from +25.1%). Marathon's cushion widened further to +21.8% from +20.9%, and its one-year deficit narrowed to -24.62% from -28.43%. BitQ closed $27.78, clearing further above the $27.12 pivot flagged last week after its seven-week base.

The two bellwethers diverged today after agreeing upward for two straight weeks. Strategy fell 3.07% — the larger drop of the two — even with a dated, sourced tailwind behind it: Bloomberg reported September 21 that Michael Saylor's company bought $75.7 million of Bitcoin, its first purchase since August, explicitly framed as an effort to rebuild investor confidence. That purchase sits alongside a 32.27% thirty-day gain and a 28.55% seven-day gain, both large enough to flag this name as an outsized mover this session. Coinbase fell a milder 1.46% and is up 20.44% on the week.

Three things still temper the read. First, Strategy remains death-crossed on the long-run moving-average signal — its 50-day trails its 200-day even with price 18.6% above the 200-day itself. Second, the twelve-month damage is still deep: Strategy -50.52%, Coinbase -38.10%, both improved from a week ago but neither close to flat. Third, today's -3.07% session in the name flagged as the week's biggest 30-day mover is exactly the pattern this scan is built to catch: the largest gainers are giving the most back first.

Support shelves on record this week: Bitcoin $79,138.49 (roughly 6% below today's close), Ethereum $2,386.37, Solana $86.21, Chainlink $9.45, Avalanche $8.84 (newly identified after this week's rally), XRP $1.39. Polkadot, Cardano and Dogecoin still carry no shelf on record. Funds: IBIT $45.02, GBTC $59.64, ETHE $18.50, BITO $8.69. Equities: Strategy $134.95, Coinbase $188.43, Marathon $11.91, Riot $22.09, CleanSpark $13.53, BitQ $24.98.

None of these levels were tested today — every name in the specified tiers remains comfortably above its shelf and its 200-day average despite the pullback. The 200-day lines crossed two weeks ago (Strategy's $137.04-area, Coinbase's $189.22-area) continue to hold as support rather than resistance.

Read purely as a measure of appetite for risk, this week is a strong rally followed by the first clean give-back this scan has recorded. Monday's push above $86,000 and the "crypto winter is over" framing that followed (CNBC, September 21; Yahoo Finance, September 22) describe genuine strength earlier in the week; today's session — every coin and both bellwethers red, the alts falling two to five times harder than Bitcoin — is the tell that the riskiest end of the complex is where appetite comes off first. Nothing in the specified tiers is oversold or broken; this reads as profit-taking inside a positive week, not a reversal, but it is the cleanest single-session risk-off read this scan has shown since the rally began.

One name deserves an explicit flag rather than a read: ZCSH, added to this watchlist September 22, posted a first-read RSI of 78.5, a one-year return of +2,632%, and a position 245.9% above its 200-day, with no news file and no history on record. That is an extreme, undocumented, speculative-shaped mover — not evidence of anything about the broader crypto tape, and not a name this scan treats as verified or tradeable. The broader macro backdrop is also worth naming: CNBC reported September 22 that state and federal regulators are rushing to write crypto rules after the Clarity Act market-structure bill stalled in the Senate — a regulatory vacuum that is context for the whole sector, not a cause assigned to any single move above.

• Does today's pullback extend or stop here? The alts fell far harder than Bitcoin today; whether that gap widens tomorrow or the whole complex stabilizes together is the next read.
• Bitcoin's $79,138.49 shelf, roughly 6% below today's close. It has not been tested by this pullback; a test would be the first real structural question this rally has faced.
• Avalanche and Strategy's next move, both flagged this session as outsized 30-day gainers and both leading today's decline. Whether they continue giving back the move or stabilize is the cleanest read on whether this was profit-taking or a trend change.
• ZCSH and the five other new entrants. No news file and no history exist for most of them; verification, not price-chasing, is the next step before this scan can say anything more about them.
• The regulatory vacuum after the Clarity Act's stall. CNBC's September 22 report on state and federal regulators moving to fill the gap is a dated fact on this desk's record; whether it becomes a market-moving event is not yet answerable from the price tape alone.

Sources: crypto (all 26 rows, latest bar 2026-09-23 — every price, momentum, moving-average, support-shelf and return figure above; the specified nine coins, four funds and six equities are tabulated, the six newly-added names are cited in prose only); market-pulse (today's broad-market reference); 2026-09-18-crypto-scan (prior-week comparison values); CHANGELOG (BKKT added 2026-09-19; ZCSH/BHYP/HYPG/ETHB/GLNK added 2026-09-22); dated corpus items, cited as record and not as established cause for any single move — 2026-09-21-cnbc-bitcoin-hits-highest-level-since-january-at-86-000-as-the-ma-108365511, 2026-09-21-bloomberg-strategy-makes-first-purchase-of-bitcoin-since-august-tlpqqmt9njlt00, 2026-09-22-yahoofinance-crypto-winter-is-over-analyst-says-as-bitcoin-tops-86-000-ch-y-124006079-html, 2026-09-22-cnbc-u-s-regulators-rush-to-write-crypto-rulebook-after-clarity-a-108365078; news receipts checked and found to predate today's pullback — latest (pulled 2026-09-19), .../MSTR/news/latest.json and .../COIN/news/latest.json (both 2026-09-18); no news file exists for ZCSH; research/stock-events/ checked and holds no 2026-09-23 entries for any name in this scan.