CoinW Research Institute Weekly Report (May 18, 2026 - May 24, 2026)

2026-05-25 15:38:59

Collection

Key Points

The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is $2.65 trillion, up from $2.64 trillion last week, an increase of about 0.38% this week. As of the time of writing, the cumulative net inflow of the Bitcoin spot ETF in the U.S. is approximately $57.08 billion, with a net outflow of $1.26 billion this week; the cumulative net inflow of the Ethereum spot ETF in the U.S. is approximately $11.62 billion, with a net outflow of $215 million this week.

The total market capitalization of stablecoins is $317.6 billion, down from $319 billion last week, a decrease of about 0.43%. Among them, the market capitalization of USDT is $189.48 billion, accounting for 59.65% of the total stablecoin market capitalization, down about 0.13% from $189.74 billion last week; followed by USDC with a market capitalization of $76.4 billion, accounting for 24.05%, down about 0.68% from $76.93 billion last week; DAI has a market capitalization of $5.36 billion (almost unchanged from last week), accounting for 1.68% of the total stablecoin market capitalization.

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 top three public chains by TVL are Ethereum, accounting for 52.07%; BNB Chain, accounting for 6.86%; and Solana, accounting for 6.65%.

Performance of major public chains this week (Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Ton, Sui, Aptos):

In terms of daily trading volume on Dex, Solana leads all chains with $1.003 billion, an increase of 4.48% from last week, Ethereum reached $0.82 billion, up 22.40%, and BNB Chain was $0.549 billion, up 3.58%; while Aptos's trading volume dropped to $0.007 billion, down 75.36% for the week. In terms of transaction fees, most public chains maintain low-cost operations, with Ethereum ($0.01) and BNB Chain ($0.00001) remaining basically unchanged from last week, while Sui, Solana, and Ton's 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%) saw an increase in daily active addresses, while other mainstream public chains experienced a decline, with Ethereum's daily active addresses dropping to 399,000 (-23.76%), Solana to 1.75 million (-9.79%), and BNB Chain maintaining the highest activity at 2.36 million. In terms of TVL, Ethereum still leads significantly with $42.46 billion, followed by BNB Chain and Solana at $5.60 billion and $5.42 billion, respectively, with Solana's TVL decreasing by 8.45% this week, Ton down 11.10%, and other chains showing 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 aimed at financial institutions, with the core goal of connecting 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 the core direction of building a "human data-driven AI training network."

Key Points

I. Market Overview

Total Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization / Bitcoin Market Capitalization Ratio
Fear Index
ETF Inflow and Outflow Data
ETH/BTC and ETH/USD Exchange Ratios
Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
On-chain Data
Stablecoin Market Capitalization and Issuance Situation

II. Hot Money Trends This Week

Top Five VC Coins and Meme Coins by Growth This Week
New Project Insights

III. Industry News

Major Industry Events This Week
Major Upcoming Events Next Week
Important Financing and Investment from Last Week

IV. Reference Links

I. Market Overview

1. Total Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization / Bitcoin Market Capitalization Ratio

The global total cryptocurrency market capitalization 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 the time of writing, the market capitalization of Bitcoin is $1.54 trillion, accounting for 58.11% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization. Meanwhile, the market capitalization of stablecoins is $317.6 billion, accounting for 11.98% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization.

Data Source: coingeck, 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 the time of writing, the cumulative net inflow of the Bitcoin spot ETF in the U.S. is approximately $57.08 billion, with a net outflow of $1.26 billion this week; the cumulative net inflow of the Ethereum spot ETF in the U.S. is approximately $11.62 billion, with a net outflow of $215 million this week.

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

Data as of May 24, 2026

4. ETH/BTC and ETH/USD Exchange Ratios

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

ETHBTC: Currently at 0.027249, historical high at 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 top three public chains by 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

Mainly analyzing daily trading volume, daily active addresses, and transaction fees for the current 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 core indicators of public chain activity and user experience. In terms of daily trading volume on Dex, this week Aptos ($0.007B, -75.36%) saw a significant decline, Ton ($0.0037B, -8.75%) and Sui ($0.048B, -3.2%) saw slight declines; other chains saw increases, with Ethereum ($0.82B, +22.40%), Solana ($1.003B, +4.48%), and BNB Chain ($0.549B, +3.58%). In terms of transaction fees, this week Ethereum ($0.01) and BNB Chain ($0.00001) remained unchanged from last week; Sui ($0.00066), Solana ($0.001), and Ton ($0.0011) decreased 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 the ecological participation and user stickiness of public chains, while TVL reflects user trust in the platform. In terms of daily active addresses, this week only Sui (331,000, +14.60%) and Ton (132,000, +5.62%) saw increases; other chains saw declines, with Ethereum (399,000, -23.76%), Solana (1.75 million, -9.79%), Aptos (102,000, -7.22%), and BNB Chain (2.36 million, -3.28%). In terms of TVL, Ton ($0.071B) and Solana ($5.42B) decreased by 11.10% and 8.45% from last week, respectively, while other chains showed little change 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, this week the total TVL of Ethereum Layer 2 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's market shares are 46.20% and 15.45%, ranking first and second.

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

Data as of May 24, 2026

7. Stablecoin Market Capitalization and Issuance Situation

According to Coinglass data, the total market capitalization of stablecoins is $317.6 billion, down from $319 billion last week, a decrease of about 0.43%. Among them, the market capitalization of USDT is $189.48 billion, accounting for 59.65% of the total stablecoin market capitalization, down about 0.13% from $189.74 billion last week; followed by USDC with a market capitalization of $76.4 billion, accounting for 24.05%, down about 0.68% from $76.93 billion last week; DAI has a market capitalization of $5.36 billion (almost unchanged from last week), accounting for 1.68% of the total stablecoin market capitalization.

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 USDT this week. The total issuance of stablecoins this week is 3.465 billion, an increase of 15.5% compared to last week's total issuance of 3 billion.

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

Data as of May 24, 2026

II. Hot Money Trends This Week

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

The 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

The 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 UGC creation models similar to Roblox, BUD, and Sandbox with Web3's NFT ownership, creator economy, and AI generation capabilities to build an open ecosystem of "Play + Create + Own."

Checker Finance is a stablecoin infrastructure and liquidity network aimed at financial institutions, with the core goal of connecting 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, helping enterprises and financial institutions access the stablecoin system with lower thresholds, enabling cross-border payments and on-chain financial operations. Checker focuses on the narrative of "Stablecoin Infrastructure for Institutions," currently supporting over 75 fiat currencies and more than 50 liquidity/payment providers, with official disclosures indicating that it has processed over $3 billion in transaction volume in the past 12 months, and completed $8 million in financing in 2026, with investors including Galaxy Ventures, Framework Ventures, and Bitso.

GAEA is a Web3 project focused on decentralized AI infrastructure (DePIN + AI Infra), with the core direction of building a "human data-driven AI training network." The project collects user behavior and emotional data through distributed nodes and on-chain incentive mechanisms, structuring it 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 contribute data and computing power to participate in the construction of AI models and receive token incentive rewards. GAEA also emphasizes privacy protection and decentralized data governance, attempting to form a new open infrastructure protocol at the AI data collection and training layer.

III. Industry News

1. Major Industry Events This Week

On May 19, 2026, Zest Protocol officially completed its TGE and simultaneously launched a community airdrop event; previously, the project operated a long-term points system, allowing users to accumulate airdrop eligibility by depositing BTC assets, participating in lending, and inviting others. This airdrop event officially opened for claiming on May 19, 2026, with some activity claiming 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 phase. Zest Protocol (ZEST) is a native Bitcoin lending protocol focused on the BitcoinFi direction, with the core goal of building on-chain lending, BTC yield, and collateral financial infrastructure within the Bitcoin ecosystem, supporting users in lending, liquidity provision, and yield generation through BTC, sBTC, and other assets, regarded as one of the important projects in the current BTCFi track. The project is supported by YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), Draper Associates, and Stacks founder Muneeb Ali.

On May 20, 2026, Nexus officially launched its TGE and simultaneously listed on multiple mainstream trading platforms; at the same time, the project also launched a community airdrop event, where eligible users can claim NEX airdrops through mechanisms such as Alpha Points. In addition, Coinbase has previously included NEX in its listing roadmap, indicating that the project is accelerating its entry into the mainstream market liquidity phase. Nexus (NEX) is a high-performance financial Layer 1 built on zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) and verifiable computation, with the core goal of providing verifiable computing and settlement infrastructure for on-chain transactions, AI computing, and high-frequency financial scenarios, regarded as one of the recent popular ZK + AI infrastructure projects.

Aster (ASTER) is advancing its Stage 6 reward plan, currently still in the token claiming window from May 4 to June 4, 2026, where users can claim ASTER airdrop allocations based on their previous trading and fund usage contributions, with approximately 50% of the rewards already entering the claimable or continuous release phase. Aster (ASTER) is a decentralized perpetual contract exchange (Perp DEX) focused on providing high-performance on-chain derivatives trading and liquidity depth optimization, distributing ecological rewards through trading incentives and fund usage efficiency mechanisms (such as trading volume, positions, and funding rate contributions), overall positioning itself as a new generation of on-chain derivatives infrastructure.

2. Major Upcoming Events Next Week

The RWA project ATEG Capital will launch a public IDO on the Kommunitas Launchpad from May 25 to May 26, 2026, with the token ATEG, and a public offering price of 0.2 USDT. The project plans to raise approximately $600,000 to $3 million through this round of financing, with slight differences in data disclosed by different platforms. According to current public rules, the IDO shares will unlock 10% at TGE, followed by a 2-month cliff, and then a 6-month linear release, releasing about 15% each month. The project is issued based 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 a MiCAR-compliant RWA (Real World Asset) crypto ecosystem, with the core narrative of bringing real estate and energy revenues on-chain, constructing an asset-backed system linked to real housing and energy assets through its Hybrid Stability Token (ATEG.DV), Monthly Real Value Index, and Burn & Freeze mechanisms.

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, targeting to raise approximately $6 million. The total supply of CNF is 100 billion tokens, of which 20% is allocated for Public Sale, 30% for Watch-to-Earn reward pools, and the project has also reserved shares for airdrops, liquidity, team, and ecological growth. Cineflicks is positioned as a "Web3 streaming entertainment platform," with the core narrative of transforming users' viewing of movies, series, and digital content into on-chain rewards through a Watch-to-Earn model, allowing users to earn CNF token incentives by watching content.

Solstice Finance (SLX) has confirmed that its TGE has been adjusted from the originally scheduled May 21, 2026, to May 25, 2026, mainly to optimize liquidity launch conditions, coordinate the launch rhythm of over 40 partners, and choose a more favorable early-week market window for issuance. The airdrop will be clearly distributed based on the Flares points system, with early participants in USX staking, eUSX holding, and task interactions receiving SLX airdrop shares after TGE, with the overall airdrop mechanism strongly tied to the protocol's TVL and participation, representing a typical "points-driven Retroactive Airdrop + TGE simultaneous 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 certificates eUSX, providing institutional-level on-chain yields through delta-neutral strategies, and bringing 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 yen (approximately $15.7 million) in debt financing, led by Japan's Shoko Chukin Bank, with participation from Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Mizuho Bank; after this round of financing, the company's total financing scale has reached approximately 4.7 billion yen (about $30 million). The official statement indicates that the funds will mainly be used to promote the overseas market expansion of "Avvy" and team recruitment, with overseas users now exceeding half of the total user base, showing a clear trend of global growth. AnotherBall is a Japanese startup focused on AI virtual avatars, VTubers, and digital entertainment ecosystems, with its core product being the VTuber application "Avvy," allowing users to quickly generate high-quality virtual avatars and live stream with just a smartphone, aiming to lower the technical and cost barriers for VTuber content creation and build a new generation of AI virtual social and content platforms for the global creator market. (May 18, 2026)

AI social application Status AI announced the completion of a total of $17 million in Seed and Series A financing, with investors including General Catalyst, Y Combinator, LightShed Partners, Abstract, and Union Square Ventures. Status AI's core positioning is as a "gamified AI social media platform," where users can play any role in a virtual world, create exclusive identities, and interact with AI-driven characters, plots, and communities, transforming traditional social media from an information flow 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 crypto derivatives trading protocol Variational has completed $10.3 million in seed round financing, co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and Peak XV Partners, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, North Island Ventures, Hack VC, and others. Variational was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in George Town, initially starting with crypto market-making business, then shifting to build a peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto derivatives trading protocol based on Arbitrum, focusing on perpetual contracts, futures, options, and other customizable derivatives trading. Its core products include the Omni platform for retail users and a future Pro platform for institutional users, aiming to provide more flexible on-chain derivatives trading infrastructure for retail and institutional users through on-chain clearing pools, low-latency oracles, and automated risk control engines. (May 20, 2026)

"AI-native bank" startup Catena Labs, founded by Sean Neville, has completed $30 million in Series A financing, co-led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto, with participation from Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, QED, and other institutions. 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 for a national trust bank license from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the U.S. to support payment processing and client fund custody, and operates an invite-only open platform, allowing users to set spending limits, recipient ranges, and account fund caps for AI Agents. The project is seen 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)