SideShift.ai Weekly Report | 19th - 25th May 2026

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

Highlights

• Gross volume of $4.24m alongside a shift count of 6,292, with count holding up firm at -1.9% against the broader platform pullback.
• 144,870 XAI ($12,461) distributed to stakers at a 5.42% average APY, with the 7-day high of 7.07% landing on May 21st.
• The Telegram Bot logged its strongest weekly volume since launch at $153k, ranking #1 of 80 active weeks.
• USDT(BSC) climbed +144.9% to $501k, the lone top 5 coin to post a positive week.
• Combined affiliate share climbed to 26.9% from 22.5%, a second consecutive week of affiliates outpacing the broader platform.

General Business News

BTC continued to fade from the $80k reclaim it briefly held earlier in the month, drifting through the $76k–$78k zone for most of the week and closing without any real attempt to make a sustained move. The real action sat in a narrow pocket of names: HYPE printed a fresh all-time high of $64.27 on Sunday off of a +46% week, NEAR ran roughly +80% on renewed AI-narrative buying, and ZEC tacked on another 40%+ as Grayscale's spot ZCSH filing kept institutional flows in focus — all three coins that Arthur Hayes had dubbed his "holy trinity". The Fear & Greed Index, meanwhile, sat around 30 every single day of the week, an unbroken stretch of "Fear" that sat against the powerful rallies that unfolded for a handful of alts.

A quiet performance followed last week's pullback, with SideShift logging $4.24m in gross volume (-23.6%) as user shifting eased to $3.36m (-22.6%) and liquidity shifting came in at $886k (-27.0%). What stood out was the lack of any meaningful concentration among the user pair leaderboard, with TRX/BTC leading at $194k, BTC/USDT(TRC20) trailing just behind at $190k, and ETH(base)/USDT(BSC) following at $101k. For context, the YTD average for the week's top user pair currently sits at $598k, placing this week's leader at roughly a third of that figure and making clear just how diffuse the weekly activity was. The $10k+ band landed at $1.59m, well off the $2.81m it posted last week and the lightest sum across the recent ten-week window, while the $50k+ band told the same story in starker terms, recording zero shifts on the week against a recent average closer to 13. One bright spot emerged from the Telegram Bot, which finished with $153k in volume across 57 shifts. This was its strongest showing since launch, landing #1 of 80 active weeks, and driven by an average shift size of $2,675 that ranked second-highest on its all-time list.

Gross shift count came in at 6,292 (-1.9%), barely budging from the last report and looking robust in comparison to the volume decline. The sub-$100 band swelled to 61% of all activity from 59.4% the week prior, a small move on the surface but its highest share in recent months and representing an ever steady stream of user activity. Average shift size slid for a third consecutive week to $674, continuing a downwards run that began at $1,254 fourteen days ago. The $10k+ band fell to 69 shifts from 100, and the $20k+ tier to 27 from 55, both the lightest readings across the recent ten-week stretch. The $50k+ band, meanwhile, recorded zero shifts  — the first time that's happened in over two years.

The top 5 absorbed the brunt of the week's pullback, with BTC headlining the decline at $1.38m (-34.8%), one of its three weakest performances of 2026 and roughly 56% below its YTD weekly average. User deposits finished at $704k (-20.4%) and settlements at $417k (-19.4%) both contracting in step, leaving the BTC flow looking smaller across the board with the general shape of activity broadly preserved. Stablecoins occupied the remaining four spots, which is striking in its own right and points to a stretch where almost nothing else generated enough volume to break in. USDT(TRC20) sat at $897k (-10.9%) and quietly landed at its softest YTD mark despite the modest WoW decline, with USDT(ERC-20) at $656k (-20.4%) and L-USDT at $633k (-36.1%), both also landing among their slowest weeks of 2026. USDT(BSC) was the lone green mark at $501k (+144.9%), though it was mainly the result of one-sided, settle-heavy shifts rising +172% to $246k, while user deposits actually dipped -12.6%. 

Outside the top 5, the picture splintered in both directions. ETH dropped to $499k (-57.2%), tying USDT(TRC20) for the weakest YTD week and marking a sharp reversal from the steady $1m+ baseline it had established in early spring. Further down, a handful of names posted eye-catching gains from modest bases. TRX climbed to $425k (+115%) on the back of TRX/BTC claiming the top user pair, an order of magnitude north of the $40-80k range it had occupied through April. ETH(BASE) tripled to $230k as the other half of the ETH(base)/USDT(BSC) pair filtered through, while LTC returned at $164k after two null weeks and XLM jumped to $135k from just $5k. These figures are interesting on their own terms but speak to where the week's energy was scattered, with none carrying the weight to offset the softness up top.

Alternate network volume combined for $3.45m (+6.4%), the only meaningful corner of the platform to gain some ground. BSC led the gainers at $638k (+117.6%) on the back of the USDT(BSC) jump, with the Base network close behind at $303k (+121.3%) tied to the ETH(BASE) action. The Tron network held steady at $1.32m (+9.8%), continuing to bounce within the familiar $1.2–1.5m corridor, while the Solana network eased slightly to $811k (-11.8%) and Polygon fell to $205k (-40.7%. Avalanche collapsed back to tally just $2,442 (-99%) as the prior week's AVAX/BTC activity unwound entirely — a near-identical reversal to the cbBTC pattern from two weeks back. The Ethereum network itself dropped to $2.12m (-31.8%), tracking the ETH and ERC-20 stablecoin weakness from the top 5 picture, though still comfortably the largest single network on the platform.

Affiliate News

Top affiliate volume came in at $1.14m (-8.7%), with combined share lifting to 26.9% from 22.5%, a second straight period of affiliates holding up better than the broader platform. Our first place affiliate gave back -30.8% to $216k, its weakest week since early April after holding the $300k+ range through most of May. Second place climbed to $140k (+11.6%), extending the slow, methodical build it has recently strung together, while third place eased to $122k (-20.2%) yet remained close enough to keep the top three within roughly $90k of each other — the tightest spread among the leaders in recent weeks. On the count side, second place held top spot at 483 shifts (+2.1%), with third close behind at 352 (-2.8%) and first slipping to 273 (-18.3%).

XAI Weekly Performance & Staking

XAI stakers received 144,870.47 XAI ($12,461.39) to the staking vault over the week at an average APY of 5.42%. The 7-day high landed on May 21st at 7.07% APY against $827k in daily shift volume, delivering 26,839.99 XAI on the day. XAI's price held quietly at $0.0851, with market cap closing the week at $13.59m (-2.13%).

Additional XAI updates:

Total Value Staked: 143,523,878 XAI (+0.10%)
Total Value Locked: $12,183,463 (-2.09%)

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