CoinW Research Institute Weekly Report (Period: 2026.5.18-2026.5.24)

Key Points

The total market value of global cryptocurrencies is $2.65 trillion, up from $2.64 trillion last week, an increase of about 0.38% this week. As of publication, the total net inflow of the US Bitcoin Spot ETF has totaled approximately $57.08 billion, with a net outflow of $1.26 billion this week; the total net inflow of the US Ethereum Spot ETF has reached about $11.62 billion, with a net outflow of $0.215 billion this week.

The total market value of stablecoins is $317.6 billion, down from $319 billion last week, a decrease of about 0.43%. Among them, USDT has a market value of $189.48 billion, accounting for 59.65% of the total market value of stablecoins, a decrease of about 0.13% from $189.74 billion last week; followed by USDC with a market value of $76.4 billion, accounting for 24.05% of the total market value of stablecoins, a decrease of about 0.68% from $79.3 billion last week; and DAI with a market value of $5.36 billion (almost unchanged from last week), accounting for 1.68% of the total market value of stablecoins.

According to DeFiLlama data, the total TVL of DeFi this week is $81.455 billion, down from $83.539 billion last week, a decrease of about 2.49%. By public chain classification, the three public chains with the highest TVL are Ethereum, accounting for 52.07%; BNB Chain, accounting for 6.86%; and Solana, accounting for 6.65%.

This week's main public chains performance (Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Ton, Sui, Aptos):

In terms of daily trading volume on Dex, Solana leads with $1.003B, growing 4.48% from last week, Ethereum at $0.82B, up 22.40%, and BNB Chain at $0.549B, up 3.58%; while Aptos trading volume has decreased to $0.007B, a weekly drop of 75.36%. In terms of transaction fees, most public chains maintain low operating costs, with Ethereum ($0.01) and BNB Chain ($0.00001) remaining about the same as last week, while Sui, Solana, and Ton fees decreased by 66.79%, 33.64%, and 8.33%, respectively. In terms of user activity, only Sui (331,000, +14.60%) and Ton (132,000, +5.62%) experienced growth in daily active addresses, while all other mainstream public chains saw a decline. Ethereum's daily active addresses fell to 399,000 (-23.76%), Solana to 1.75 million (-9.79%), while BNB Chain remains the highest with 2.36 million active users. In terms of TVL, Ethereum still leads significantly with $42.46B, followed by BNB Chain and Solana with $5.60B and $5.42B, respectively; where Solana's TVL decreased by 8.45% this week, Ton by 11.10%, and other chains showed relatively limited fluctuations.

New project focus: Tomoland is a 3D sandbox gaming platform that combines AI, UGC (user-generated content), and Web3, positioned as a “mobile-first Web3 creation ecosystem.” Checker Finance is a stablecoin infrastructure and liquidity network for financial institutions, aiming to facilitate global stablecoin payments, foreign exchange, clearing, fund management, and digital asset liquidity services through “a set of APIs.” GAEA is a Web3 project focused on decentralized AI infrastructure (DePIN + AI Infra), with a core direction of building a “human data-driven AI training network.”

Key Points

I. Market Overview

1. Total Market Value of Cryptocurrencies / Bitcoin Market Share

2. Fear Index

3. ETF Inflow and Outflow Data

4. ETH/BTC and ETH/USD Exchange Rates

5. Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

6. On-Chain Data

7. Market Value and Issuance of Stablecoins

II. This Week's Hot Money Trends

1. Top five VC coins and Meme coins by growth this week

2. New project insights

III. New Developments in the Industry

1. Major industry events this week

2. Major upcoming events next week

3. Important financing and investments from last week

IV. Reference Links

I. Market Overview

1. Total Market Value of Cryptocurrencies / Bitcoin Market Share

The global Total Market Value of Cryptocurrencies is $2.65 trillion, up from $2.64 trillion last week, an increase of about 0.38% this week.

Data source: Bitcoin dominance from cryptorank, https://cryptorank.io/charts/btc-dominance

Data as of May 24, 2026

As of publication, Bitcoin has a market value of $1.54 trillion, accounting for 58.11% of the total cryptocurrency market value. Meanwhile, the market value of stablecoins is $317.6 billion, accounting for 11.98% of the total cryptocurrency market value.

Data source: coingecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/charts

Data as of May 24, 2026

2. Fear Index

The cryptocurrency fear index is 29, indicating fear.

Data source: coinglass, https://www.coinglass.com/pro/i/FearGreedIndex

Data as of May 24, 2026

3. ETF Inflow and Outflow Data

As of publication, the US Bitcoin Spot ETF has a total net inflow of about $57.08 billion, with a net outflow of $1.26 billion this week; the US Ethereum Spot ETF has a total net inflow of about $11.62 billion, with a net outflow of $0.215 billion this week.

Data source: sosovalue, https://sosovalue.com/zh/assets/etf

Data as of May 24, 2026

4. ETH/BTC and ETH/USD Exchange Rates

ETHUSD: Current price $2,097.28, historical highest price $4,946.05, down approximately 57.55% from the highest price.

ETHBTC: Currently 0.027249, historical highest 0.1238

Data source: ratiogang, https://ratiogang.com/

Data as of May 24, 2026

5. Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

According to DeFiLlama data, the total TVL of DeFi this week is $81.455 billion, down from $83.539 billion last week, a decrease of about 2.49%.

Data source: defillama, https://defillama.com

Data as of May 24, 2026

By public chain classification, the three public chains with the highest TVL are Ethereum, accounting for 52.07%; BNB Chain, accounting for 6.86%; and Solana, accounting for 6.65%.

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, defillama, https://defillama.com/chains

Data as of May 24, 2026

6. On-Chain Data (Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Ton, Sui, Aptos)

Layer 1 Related Data

This is primarily analyzed from daily trading volumes, daily active addresses, and transaction fees for currently major Layer 1 chains including ETH, SOL, BNB, TON, SUI, and APTOS.

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, defillama, https://defillama.com

Data as of May 24, 2026

On-Chain Dex Daily Trading Volume and Transaction Fees: On-chain Dex daily trading volume and transaction fees are key indicators of public chain activity and user experience. Regarding daily on-chain Dex trading volume, this week Aptos ($0.007B, -75.36%) saw a significant decline, while Ton ($0.0037B, -8.75%) and Sui ($0.048B, -3.2%) showed slight decreases; other chains increased, namely Ethereum ($0.82B, +22.40%), Solana ($1.003B, +4.48%), and BNB Chain ($0.549B, +3.58%). In transaction fees, Ethereum ($0.01) and BNB Chain ($0.00001) remained flat compared to last week; Sui ($0.00066), Solana ($0.001), and Ton ($0.0011) fell by 66.79%, 33.64%, and 8.33%, respectively; Aptos ($0.000001) saw a slight increase of 2.66%.

Daily Active Addresses and TVL: Daily active addresses reflect public chain participation and user retention, while TVL reflects user trust in the platform. For daily active addresses, only Sui (331,000, +14.60%) and Ton (132,000, +5.62%) experienced increases; all other chains saw declines, namely Ethereum (399,000, -23.76%), Solana (1.75 million, -9.79%), Aptos (102,000, -7.22%), and BNB Chain (2.36 million, -3.28%). Regarding TVL, Ton ($0.071B) and Solana ($5.42B) respectively decreased by 11.10% and 8.45%, while other chains changed little from last week, fluctuating between -4% and +1.5%. Ethereum ($42.46B) still leads all chains; followed by Solana ($5.42B) and BNB Chain ($5.60B).

Layer 2 Related Data

According to L2Beat data, the total TVL of Ethereum Layer 2 this week is $33.84 billion, up from $33.30 billion last week, an increase of about 1.62%.

Data source: L2Beat, https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvs

Data as of May 24, 2026

This week, Base and Arbitrum have market shares of 46.20% and 15.45% respectively, ranking first and second.

Data source: CoinGecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/chains/layer-2

Data as of May 24, 2026

7. Market Value and Issuance of Stablecoins

According to Coinglass data, the total market value of stablecoins is $317.6 billion, down from $319 billion last week, a decrease of about 0.43%. Among them, the market value of USDT is $189.48 billion, accounting for 59.65% of the total market value of stablecoins, a decrease of about 0.13% from $189.74 billion last week; USDC has a market value of $76.4 billion, accounting for 24.05% of the total market value of stablecoins, a decrease of about 0.68% from $79.3 billion last week; DAI has a market value of $5.36 billion (nearly unchanged from last week), accounting for 1.68% of the total market value of stablecoins.

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, Coinglass, https://www.coinglass.com/pro/stablecoin

Data as of May 24, 2026

According to Whale Alert data, this week USDC Treasury issued a total of 3.465 billion USDC, while Tether Treasury issued no new USDT this week. The total stablecoin issuance this week was 3.465 billion, an increase of 15.5% compared to last week’s total issuance of 3.0 billion.

Data source: Whale Alert, https://x.com/whale_alert

Data as of May 24, 2026

II. This Week's Hot Money Trends

1. Top Five VC Coins and Meme Coins by Growth This Week

Top five VC coins by growth in the past week

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, coinmarketcap, https://coinmarketcap.com/

Data as of May 24, 2026

Top five Meme coins by growth in the past week

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, coinmarketcap, https://coinmarketcap.com/

Data as of May 24, 2026

2. New Project Insights

Tomoland is a 3D sandbox gaming platform that combines AI, UGC (user-generated content), and Web3, positioned as a “mobile-first Web3 creation ecosystem.” Users can create maps, characters, AI companions, and interactive gameplay on the platform without coding and own and monetize their content through on-chain asset mechanisms. The core narrative of the project is to combine the UGC creation models similar to Roblox, BUD, and Sandbox with the NFT ownership, creator economy, and AI generation capabilities of Web3, to build an “Open Ecosystem of Play + Create + Own.”

Checker Finance is a stablecoin infrastructure and liquidity network for financial institutions, aiming to facilitate global stablecoin payments, foreign exchange, clearing, fund management, and digital asset liquidity services through “a set of APIs.” The project connects exchanges, OTC, banks, and payment institutions to help businesses and financial institutions access the stablecoin system at a lower threshold, enabling cross-border payments and on-chain financial operations. Checker emphasizes the narrative of “Stablecoin Infrastructure for Institutions,” currently supporting 75+ fiat currencies and 50+ liquidity/payment providers, with the official disclosure of handling over $3 billion in transaction volume in the past 12 months and completing a $8 million financing round in 2026, with investors including Galaxy Ventures, Framework Ventures, Bitso, and others.

GAEA is a Web3 project that focuses on decentralized AI infrastructure (DePIN + AI Infra), with a core direction of building a “human data-driven AI training network.” The project collects user behavior and emotion data through distributed nodes and on-chain incentive mechanisms, structuring them into AI training datasets to help optimize the understanding and interaction capabilities of AI models. Its vision is to create a “user-participatory AI training network,” allowing ordinary users to participate in the construction of AI models through data and computing power contributions, receiving token incentive rewards. GAEA also emphasizes privacy protection and decentralized governance of data, attempting to form a new open infrastructure protocol at the AI data collection and training layer.

III. New Developments in the Industry

1. Major Industry Events This Week

On May 19, 2026, Zest Protocol officially completed its TGE and simultaneously launched a community airdrop activity; previously, the project operated a long-term points system, where users could accumulate airdrop eligibility by depositing BTC assets, participating in lending, and inviting others. This airdrop activity was officially opened for claims on May 19, 2026, with some claim windows lasting 24 hours, while community incentive activities will continue until late May, marking ZEST's official entry into the token circulation and ecological expansion stage. Zest Protocol (ZEST) is a native Bitcoin lending protocol focused on the BitcoinFi direction, aiming to build on-chain lending, BTC yield, and collateral financial infrastructure in the Bitcoin ecosystem, allowing users to lend, provide liquidity, and earn returns using BTC, sBTC, and other assets, regarded as a significant project in the current BTCFi track. The project is backed by YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), Draper Associates, Stacks co-founder Muneeb Ali, and others.

On May 20, 2026, Nexus officially launched its TGE, concurrently listing on multiple mainstream trading platforms; at the same time, the project initiated a community airdrop activity, allowing eligible users to claim NEX airdrops through mechanisms like Alpha Points. In addition, Coinbase has previously included NEX in its token listing roadmap, indicating that the project is accelerating its entry into the mainstream market liquidity stage. Nexus (NEX) is a high-performance financial Layer 1 built on zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) and verifiable computation, aiming to provide verifiable computing and settlement infrastructure for on-chain transactions, AI computing, and high-frequency financial scenarios, viewed as one of the popular ZK + AI infrastructure projects recently.

Aster (ASTER) is推进 Stage 6奖励计划，目前仍处于2026 年 5 月 4 日至 6 月 4 日的代币领取窗口期，用户可根据前期交易与资金使用贡献领取 ASTER 空投分配，其中约 50% 奖励已进入可领取或持续释放阶段。Aster（ASTER）是一个去中心化永续合约交易所（Perp DEX），专注于提供高性能链上衍生品交易与流动性深度优化，通过交易激励与资金使用效率机制（如交易量、持仓与资金费率贡献）来分配生态奖励，整体定位对标新一代链上衍生品基础设施。

2. Major Upcoming Events Next Week

The RWA project ATEG Capital will launch a public IDO on Kommunitas Launchpad from May 25 to May 26, 2026, with the token being ATEG and a public offering price of 0.2 USDT. The project plans to raise between about $600,000 to $3 million in this round of financing, with slightly varying data disclosed by different platforms. According to current public rules, 10% of the IDO shares will be unlocked at TGE, followed by a 2-month cliff, and then 6 months of linear release, with about 15% released each month. The project is issued on Ethereum, with a total supply of approximately 165.56 million tokens, of which about 9.06% is allocated for this public offering. ATEG Capital itself is positioned as an RWA (Real World Asset) cryptocurrency ecosystem in compliance with MiCAR, with a core narrative of bringing real estate and energy returns on-chain through its Hybrid Stability Token (ATEG.DV), Monthly Real Value Index, and Burn & Freeze mechanism to build an asset-backed system linked to real housing and energy assets.

Cineflicks (CNF) will open its fifth phase Pre-Sale / IDO from June 18 to July 17, 2026, with a token sale price of 0.003 USDT, planning to sell 2 billion CNF and aiming to raise approximately $6 million. CNF has a total supply of 100 billion tokens, of which 20% is allocated for Public Sale, 30% for the Watch-to-Earn reward pool, and the project reserves portions for airdrops, liquidity, teams, and ecosystem growth. Cineflicks itself is positioned as a “Web3 streaming entertainment platform,” with a core narrative of transforming users' viewing behaviors of movies, series, and digital content into on-chain rewards through the Watch-to-Earn model, allowing them to earn CNF token incentives.

Solstice Finance (SLX) announced that its TGE has been officially rescheduled from May 21, 2026, to May 25, 2026, mainly to optimize liquidity launch conditions, coordinate the onboarding rhythm of 40+ partners, and select a more favorable market window to issue at the beginning of the week. The airdrop has been clarified to be distributed based on the Flares points system, where early participants of the USX staking, eUSX holding, and task interactions will receive SLX airdrop shares after the TGE, with the overall airdrop mechanism strongly tied to protocol TVL and participation, characteristic of the “point-driven Retroactive Airdrop + TGE synchronous release” structure. Solstice Finance (SLX) is a stablecoin yield protocol built on the Solana ecosystem, with core products including the 1:1 collateralized stablecoin USX and yield voucher eUSX, providing institutional-level on-chain yield through a delta-neutral strategy, transitioning traditional market-making and derivatives yield structures into DeFi.

3. Important Financing and Investment from Last Week

AnotherBall announced that it has secured ¥2.5 billion (approximately $15.7 million) in debt financing, led by Japan’s SMBC, with participation from Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Mizuho Bank; following this round of financing, the company's total financing has reached approximately ¥4.7 billion (about $30 million). The official statement said that the funds will primarily be used to drive the overseas market expansion of “Avvy” and team recruitment, currently, overseas users have exceeded half of total users, indicating a significant global growth trend. AnotherBall is a Japanese startup focused on AI virtual characters, VTubers, and digital entertainment ecosystems, with its core product being the VTuber application “Avvy,” which allows users to quickly generate high-quality virtual characters and go live using just a smartphone, aiming to lower the technical and cost barriers for VTuber content creation, targeting the global creator market to build a new generation AI virtual social and content platform. (May 18, 2026)

The AI social application Status AI announced the completion of a total of $17 million in seed and Series A financing, with participating organizations including General Catalyst, Y Combinator, LightShed Partners, Abstract, Union Square Ventures, and others. Status AI's core positioning is as a “gamified AI social media platform,” where users can play any role in a virtual world, create unique identities, and interact with AI-driven characters, plots, and communities, transforming traditional social media from an information feed model into an immersive interactive entertainment experience. The project emphasizes the AI social concept of “live inside stories,” integrating role-playing, fan culture, virtual identities, and AI world generation capabilities. (May 19, 2026)

The cryptocurrency derivative trading protocol Variational has completed $10.3 million in seed funding, co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and Peak XV Partners, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, North Island Ventures, Hack VC, and others. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in George Town, Variational initially started with cryptocurrency market-making but has since shifted to building a peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency derivative trading protocol based on Arbitrum, focusing on perpetual contracts, futures, options, and other customizable derivative trading. Its core products include the Omni platform for retail users, and a future Pro platform targeting institutional users, aiming to provide more flexible on-chain derivative trading infrastructure for retail and institutional clients through on-chain clearing pools, low-latency oracles, and automated risk control engines. (May 20, 2026)

Founded by Sean Neville, the “AI-native bank” startup Catena Labs has completed a $30 million Series A financing round, co-led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto, with participation from Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, QED, and others. Catena Labs focuses on building financial infrastructure for AI Agents, aiming to enable AI to safely execute payments, transfers, fund management, and other financial operations within a regulated framework. The company has applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter to support payment processing and client fund custody and has opened an invitation-only platform allowing users to set spending limits, recipient scopes, and account fund caps for the AI Agent. The project is regarded as an important attempt in the direction of “AI + stablecoins + banking infrastructure,” exploring a financial system where AI Agents autonomously participate in economic activities. (May 20, 2026)