Huobi HTX New Asset Weekly Review (5.4—5.10): PAYAI Soars 248%, TON and ZEC Become the Strongest Market Lines

The crypto market is entering a new round of "structural activity." In the past week (from May 4 to May 10), Bitcoin has once again crossed the $80,000 mark, reaching a new high since January 2026. Meanwhile, driven by continuous inflows into spot ETFs and improvements in macro liquidity, Ethereum and mainstream altcoins have also shown significant rebound trends, with overall market sentiment shifting from a defensive wait-and-see approach to actively going long.

According to data from the Huobi HTX platform, the TON ecosystem and privacy sector performed particularly strongly in the past week. Among them, TON rose by 104%, and ZEC rose by 80%. From the market structure perspective, this week’s market is no longer just a simple emotional rebound, but more like a preemptive layout of funds around future core narratives.

The popularity of the TON ecosystem surges, and the logic of Web2 traffic entry is re-priced

The most market-attended sector this week is undoubtedly the TON ecosystem. As Telegram continues to advance on-chain payments, Mini Apps, and Web3 ecosystem integration, TON is gradually evolving from a "social public chain" into a truly super traffic entry. Compared to traditional public chains that rely on external customer acquisition, TON's biggest advantage lies in its vast Telegram user base, which has led the market to re-evaluate the long-term value of the TON ecosystem.

• TON (TONCOIN): This week it rose by 104%, becoming one of the star assets in this round of market activity. TON is a Layer 1 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 rose by 38%, a TON ecosystem application that has recently gained community attention. Blum is a hybrid exchange that provides access to universal tokens through gamification in Telegram mini-apps. As the popularity of the TON ecosystem continues to spread, related application layer projects are also beginning to attract funding attention.

Huobi HTX has simultaneously launched the "Spot Trading Party" event, covering popular assets such as TON, ONDO, and SOL. From now until May 18 at 18:00 (UTC+8), users participating in spot and grid trading can share a reward of 30,000 USDT. New users can also receive a 5 USDT spot grid trading experience bonus, further promoting the trading enthusiasm of the TON ecosystem.

The privacy sector fully erupts, ZEC becomes the market focus again

The privacy sector has become another core mainline this week. With the arrival of the AI era, issues of data privacy, on-chain anonymity, and information security are re-entering the market's view, and more funds are beginning to refocus on the underlying demand for "privacy protection." It is noteworthy that the recent rise in the privacy sector is clearly related to AI development. As AI's ability to access data continues to strengthen, user demand for data ownership, privacy protection, and anonymous interactions is rapidly increasing. In the future scenario where AI and blockchain are deeply integrated, privacy technology may become one of the core infrastructures.

• ZEC (Zcash): This week it rose by 80%, becoming the leading asset in the privacy sector. As one of the most representative privacy coins in the crypto industry, ZEC has long been regarded as an important practical project for anonymous technology. The recent rise is backed by the market's re-evaluation of the value of privacy assets.

• FHE (Mind Network): Rose by 68%. Mind Network is promoting the development of a new generation of zero-trust internet transmission protocols (HTTPZ), making quantum-resistant and fully encrypted data transmission and AI computation possible through fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) technology.

• DASH: Rose by 61%, is an open-source peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency that can provide instant transactions, anonymous transactions, and alternative currency functions. The entire privacy sector shows a clear interconnected effect.

It is worth noting that Huobi HTX has simultaneously launched the "Spot Hot Currency Trading Carnival" event, covering popular privacy assets such as XMR, DASH, ZEC, and FHE. From now until May 16 at 18:00 (UTC+8), users participating in designated currency spot trading can share a reward of $50,000 in airdrop rewards, further driving the market's attention to the privacy sector.

DeFi continues to recover, institutional finance narrative heats up again

In addition, the DeFi sector also maintained high activity this week. Overall, the DeFi sector is gradually recovering from its previous sluggish phase, with "real yield," "on-chain cash flow," and "institutional participation" becoming important keywords for this round of capital reallocation.

• LAYER (Solayer): Rose by 54%. Solayer is the first blockchain that offloads some components to programmable chips through hardware acceleration, aiming to achieve transaction processing capabilities exceeding one million transactions per second (1MM+ TPS) and network bandwidth of over 100 Gbps, thus enabling near-zero latency use cases.

• ONDO (OndoFinance): Rose by 35%. As one of the representative projects of RWA, ONDO has recently received continuous funding attention. The market generally believes that as traditional financial institutions accelerate the exploration of on-chain asset issuance and stable yield products, RWA is expected to become an important bridge connecting traditional finance and the crypto market.

AI enthusiasm continues, PAYAI becomes the strongest asset of the week

The AI sector has gradually moved from the early stage of "concept hype" to the "application imagination competition" stage. Directions such as AI Agents, on-chain AI collaboration, computing power 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 are employed around the clock and work 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 one of the important projects in the AI infrastructure direction, SAHARA has recently maintained high popularity.

Structural market deepens, market enters "mainline rotation" phase

Overall, the biggest characteristic of the market this week is that funds have begun to concentrate on "core narratives." The TON ecosystem represents the logic of Web3 traffic entry, the privacy sector meets 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 mainline. The simultaneous activity in multiple directions also indicates that the market is gradually moving from the previous emotional recovery phase into a deeper structural market phase.

As a global leading digital asset trading platform, Huobi HTX is committed to discovering high-quality assets with long-term potential globally and providing users with more diversified investment choices through continuous new listings and ecosystem development. In the face of the current crypto market's strong narrative-driven and fast-paced rotation new phase, Huobi HTX will continue to strengthen its ability to discover quality assets and accompany users in capturing the next round of core growth opportunities.

About Huobi HTX

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

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

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