SideShift.ai Weekly Report | 18th - 24th August 2026

Welcome to the two hundredth and eighteenth edition of the weekly stats report - your one-stop shop for all things SideShift.ai.

Highlights

• Gross volume doubled to $11.55m (+123.8%) on 11,117 shifts, a 2026 count record and the highest since September 2025.
• Average shift size jumped to $1,039 from $671, with shifts above $10k accounting for 55.8% of all volume.
• BTC led top coins at $4.74m (+224.5%), with deposits outpacing settlements at a 2:1 ratio.
• ADA recorded its first $1m week on SideShift at $1.30m, nearly doubling its previous all-time high.
• Affiliate share reached 49.99%, the year's first even split with the site, on a $3.44m week from first place.

General Business News

Months of sluggish summer trading gave way on Wednesday when White House comments regarding U.S. Treasury buybacks and Hyperliquid's domestic onboarding sparked a sharp market pivot. HYPE jumped from $62 to $72, initiating a run that saw $3.1 billion in short liquidations push BTC past a 200-day moving average it had traded beneath since November 2025. That momentum carried BTC to $80k for a +24% weekly gain, its largest single candle since March 2023. Major assets followed suit in equal measure, as Ethereum climbed +31% to $2,500, SOL reclaimed $100, and XRP rallied nearly +50% to $1.48, quickly undoing the prior week's sub-dollar dip. High-beta tokens pushed even further, catapulting market sentiment from 41 to 74 in seven days to condense months of psychological movement into a single week.

Gross volume on SideShift surged +123.8% to $11.55m, crossing eight figures for the first time since June 2nd and lifting the daily average to $1.65m. This stands as SideShift’s fourth-strongest week of 2026, running +58% clear of the year's $7.3m baseline. User shifting generated $9.45m (+122.4%) of that total, bolstered by a $3.44m performance from our top affiliate, which turned in nearly nine times its typical 2026 weekly average. User pairs were headlined by ADA/ETH (ERC-20), which vaulted to $1.09m to easily top last week's $255k leading pair. Because this heavy demand ran largely in one direction, liquidity rebalancing adapted in tandem to hit $2.10m (+130.5%), holding its proportion of overall activity virtually steady at 18.2%. BTC pairs filled out the remaining top spots, led by BTC/USDC (ERC-20) at $704k, BTC/USDT (ERC-20) at $600k, and USDC (ERC-20)/BTC at $360k.

Shift count expanded to 11,117 shifts (+44.5%), setting a daily average of 1,588. That comfortably broke the previous 2026 high of 10,742 logged on February 3rd, marking the platform's busiest week in nearly a year, with the last comparable stretch recorded in September 2025. Last week presented a split where shift count held steady while volume fell by a third. That divergence resolved itself cleanly this period, with user frequency and total volume advancing together.

Average shift size moved to $1,039 from $671, driven by a pronounced return of heavy capital. Shifts exceeding $10k produced $6.45m (+177%), accounting for 55.8% of total volume, while the $50k and above tier nearly tripled to $2.16m on a count of 29. For context, that group averaged just three or four trades a week throughout July. Retail activity also posted its strongest week of the summer, with count for trades under $100 rising +15.5% to 5,639 and generating $163k in volume.

Leading all others, BTC turned over $4.74m (+224.5%), which tripled its previous week and accounted for 41% of everything SideShift handled. The user deposit / settlement split was interesting and measured at a near 2:1 ratio, with a respective $2.35m against $1.21m, pointing squarely at profit taking, or rotating further into the risk curve. ETH ran the same trade from the other side, generating an inflow of $847k against a settlement sum of $1.77m, producing a +352.3% move that outpaced every other settlement within the top five. Its $2.74m was the second-best ETH week of 2026 and the highest since January 13th, capping a climb that had been building since late June. SOL reached $1.52m on the same footing, its third-best of the year and within just $50k of the February mark it had not approached since.

Stablecoins filled out the remaining top five positions. USDT (ERC-20) took second overall at $2.81m (+135.8%), quietly setting its highest weekly mark of 2026, while USDC (ERC-20) reached $2.04m (+153.9%) behind a wave of settlements. USDT (TRC20) held fourth at $2.21m (+72.1%), standing as the sole top five asset to lag the platform's overall growth rate. Further down the table, ADA delivered the week's standout movement. Driven almost entirely by deposits, it jumped from four figures to $1.30m, clearing $1m for the first time on SideShift and comfortably eclipsing its previous six figure record from July 2025. Platform participation was exceptionally broad, with 18 of the top 20 coins posting weekly gains.

Combined volume across non-ETH chains grew +60.5% to $6.58m, but the Ethereum network easily outpaced them with a +169.7% move to $7.97m. That rally snapped a two-week run where alternate chains were gaining ground, pulling their share of combined volume down from 58% to 45.2%. Tron reclaimed the top alt spot at $2.61m (+80.3%), reversing its previous drop, while Solana nearly doubled to $2.25m (+93.0%) for a summer peak. BSC stood out as the lone major chain in the red, slipping -6.5% to $644k. Minor networks all closed green, headlined by Polygon's +71.6% bounce to $479k, with Arbitrum, Base, and Robinhood accounting for the remaining $588k.

Affiliate News

Volume from our top affiliates surged to $5.77m (+243.6%), capturing 49.99% of the gross total and breaking away from the 32% shelf it occupied in recent weeks. That move belonged almost entirely to our top affiliate, which posted a 2026 high of $3.44m (+345.8%) across 1,078 shifts (+69.5%). That single partner accounted for nearly 60% of all affiliate volume and represented 30% of total weekly activity on SideShift. Second place built on its position as well, rising +47.4% to $413k across 397 shifts (+12.8%). In contrast, third place pulled back to $78k (-31.5%), ending three straight weeks of growth though retaining its spot among the top three. 

That’s all for now - thanks for reading and happy shifting.