The crypto market is entering a new round of "structural activity period." In the past week (May 4 to May 10), Bitcoin has risen back above $80,000, hitting a new high since January 2026. At the same time, driven by continued inflows into spot ETFs and improvements in macro liquidity, Ethereum and major altcoins have also shown significant catch-up growth, with the overall market sentiment shifting from a defensive wait-and-see stance to a more aggressive buying approach.

According to data from the Huobi HTX platform, the TON ecosystem and privacy track showed particularly strong performance in the past week. Specifically, TON increased by 104%, and ZEC rose by 80%. From a market structure perspective, this week's market is no longer a simple emotional rebound, but rather an advance layout of funds around core narratives for the future.

TON Ecosystem Heat Surges, Web2 Traffic Entry Logic Repriced

The most noteworthy track this week is undoubtedly the TON ecosystem. With Telegram continuing to promote on-chain payments, Mini Apps, and Web3 ecosystem integration, TON is gradually evolving from a "social public chain" into a true super entry point for traffic. Compared to traditional public chains that rely on external customer acquisition, TON's greatest advantage lies in its large user base from Telegram, prompting the market to reassess the long-term value of the TON ecosystem.

• TON (TONCOIN): This week it increased by 104%, becoming one of the star assets in this market cycle. TON is a Layer1 blockchain deeply integrated with Telegram and built on a PoS algorithm. The market generally believes that TON's core competitiveness lies in its inherent ability to connect Web2 and Web3.
• BLUM (Blum): This week it increased by 38%, gaining community attention as a TON ecosystem application. Blum is a hybrid exchange that provides universal token access through gamification in Telegram mini apps. As the popularity of the TON ecosystem continues to spread, related application layer projects are also starting to attract fund interest.
  Huobi HTX has also launched the "Spot Trading Party" event, covering popular assets such as TON, ONDO, and SOL. Starting from now until May 18, 18:00 (UTC+8), users participating in spot or grid trading can share a reward of 30,000 USDT, and new users signing up can also receive a 5 USDT spot grid trading experience bonus, further promoting trading enthusiasm in the TON ecosystem.

Privacy Track Fully Erupts, ZEC Becomes Market Focus Again

The privacy track has become another core storyline this week. With the arrival of the AI era, data privacy, on-chain anonymity, and information security issues are re-entering the market's view, and more funds are starting to refocus on the underlying demand for "privacy protection." Notably, the rise of the privacy track this time has a clear correlation with the development of AI. As AI's capability to utilize data continues to grow, user demand for data ownership, privacy protection, and anonymous interaction is rapidly increasing. In future scenarios where AI and blockchain are deeply integrated, privacy technology may become one of the core infrastructures.

• ZEC (Zcash): This week it increased by 80%, becoming the leading asset in the privacy track. As one of the most representative privacy coins in the crypto industry, ZEC has long been regarded as an important practical project for anonymous technologies. The current rise is due to the market's reassessment of the value of privacy assets.
• FHE (Mind Network): Increased by 68%. Mind Network is promoting the development of the next generation zero-trust internet transmission protocol (HTTPZ) and, using fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) technology, enables quantum resistance and fully encrypted data transmission along with AI computation.
• DASH: Increased by 61%, is an open-source peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency that provides instant transactions, anonymous transactions, and alternative currency functions. The entire privacy sector shows significant interconnected effects.
  It is worth noting that Huobi HTX has also launched the "Spot Hot Coin Trading Carnival" event, covering popular privacy assets such as XMR, DASH, ZEC, and FHE. From now until May 16, 18:00 (UTC+8), users participating in spot trading of designated cryptocurrencies can share airdrop rewards totaling $50,000, further increasing market attention in the privacy track.

DeFi Continues to Recover, Institutional Finance Narrative Warms Up Again

In addition, the DeFi track has also maintained a high level of activity this week. Overall, the DeFi track is gradually recovering from previous lethargic phases, with "real yields," "on-chain cash flow," and "institutional participation" becoming important keywords in this funding rearrangement.

• LAYER (Solayer): Increased by 54%. Solayer is the first blockchain accelerated by hardware, offloading some components of the blockchain to programmable chips, aiming for a transaction processing capacity exceeding one million transactions per second (1MM+ TPS) and network bandwidth above 100 Gbps, achieving near-zero latency use cases.
• ONDO (OndoFinance): Increased by 35%. As one of the representative projects for RWA, ONDO has recently garnered continued attention from funds. The market generally believes that as traditional financial institutions accelerate the exploration of on-chain asset issuance and stable return products, RWA is expected to become an important bridge connecting traditional finance and the crypto market.

AI Heat Continues, PAYAI Becomes the Strongest Asset

The AI track has gradually shifted from early "concept hype" to the "application imagination competition" stage. Areas such as AI Agents, on-chain AI collaboration, computational networks, and AI payments are becoming new focal points in the market.

• PAYAI (PayAI Network): With a weekly increase of 248%, it has become the strongest performing asset on the platform this week. PayAI is an open-source, decentralized AI agent marketplace—agents work around the clock for each other. Built on ElizaOS, libp2p, IPFS, and Solana.
• SAHARA (Sahara AI): Weekly increase of 23%. Sahara AI is the first "AI-native" full-stack blockchain platform where anyone can create, contribute, and monetize AI development results, making future AI more open, inclusive, and fair. As an important project in AI infrastructure direction, SAHARA has maintained high popularity recently.

Structural Market Deepens, Market Enters "Main Narrative Rotation" Phase

Overall, the most significant feature of the market this week is that funds have started to concentrate around "core narratives." The TON ecosystem represents the Web3 traffic entry logic, the privacy track addresses the data security needs of the AI era, DeFi corresponds to the trend of institutional finance, while AI continues to play the role of the long-term growth narrative. The active participation across multiple directions also indicates that the market is gradually transitioning from the previous emotional recovery phase to a deeper structural market stage.

As a leading global digital asset trading platform, Huobi HTX is committed to discovering quality assets with long-term potential worldwide and providing users with more diversified investment options through continuous new offerings and ecological construction. In the face of the current strong narrative-driven and fast-paced rotation phase in the crypto market, Huobi HTX will continue to strengthen its capability to discover quality assets, accompanying users in capturing the next core growth opportunities.

About Huobi HTX

Huobi HTX was founded in 2013 and has developed from a cryptocurrency exchange into a comprehensive blockchain business ecosystem covering digital asset trading, financial derivatives, research, investment, incubation, and other businesses over 13 years.

As a leading global Web3 portal, Huobi HTX adheres to a development strategy that promotes global expansion, ecological prosperity, wealth effects, and safe compliance, providing comprehensive, secure, and reliable value and services for virtual currency enthusiasts worldwide.

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