SideShift.ai Weekly Report | 29th September - 5th October 2026

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

Highlights

• SideShift matched its longest run of 2025 with a fourth straight week above $10m and 10,000 shifts, posting $10.94m (+4.0%) across 11,250 shifts.
• September was SideShift's busiest month since January 2025, closing with 46,370 shifts and $42.8m in volume.
• Nine coins cleared $1m in volume, the most in a week since February, including record weeks for DEPIX and USDC (Base).
• The Base network went from under 4% of alt network volume to nearly 17%, posting its best week of 2026 at $1.15m (+383.6%).
• The top three affiliates carried around 60% of affiliate volume, with third place logging its busiest week yet at 1,260 shifts.

General Business News

Wall Street and the bond market both hit extremes last week, the Nasdaq closing at a record while the 10-year US Treasury yield climbed to its highest level since 2002, usually bad news for risk assets. Crypto sat somewhere in between, BTC holding above $83k and finishing near $86k (+2.7%), with its 2026 opening price of around $87k acting as short-term resistance for a second straight week. Some altcoins found their own way out of the chop, with PUMP up +26.9% as Pump.fun kept recycling about half its revenue into buybacks (now over $466m in total), and NEAR, which finished at $5.26 (+10.1%) after its first US spot ETF drew $35.5m on day one, despite a $3.8m exploit on NEAR Intents.

SideShift ran a fourth straight week above both $10m and 10,000 shifts, matching the longest such stretch it managed at any point in 2025. Gross volume climbed +4.0% to $10.94m, the highest of the four weeks, with user shifting leading the way and confidently rising +10.8% to $8.71m, while liquidity rebalancing fell -16.4% to $2.23m on a more balanced mix of shifts. September as a whole closed at $42.8m, the second-best month of 2026 and up +17.6% from August. ADA/ETH (ERC-20) made a sudden return to the top of the pairs at $834k across just 71 shifts, ending a three-week run at the top for USDT (Liquid)/USDT (ERC-20), which fell back to $680k. However, with USDT (Liquid)/BTC third at $280k, the Liquid network still managed to clear $4m for a fourth straight week.

Shift count dipped just -1.5% to 11,250, barely off last week's peak, and the run behind it powered September to its busiest month since January 2025. The month closed on 46,370 shifts, up +15.2% from August, the sharpest monthly climb SideShift has posted so far this year. This week, fewer shifts carried more value, led by mid-sized shifts above $1,000, which grew for a fifth straight period to 1,453 (+2.4%). The smallest shifts kept their footing too, with those under $100 staying above 6,000 for a fourth consecutive week at 6,300 (-1.2%).

The momentum carried up into bigger tickets, with 199 shifts above $10k (+7.6%) moving $5.67m (+5.5%) and the sharpest climb coming above $20k, where the count jumped +30.4% to 120 and volume rose +11.2% to $4.54m. Only the very top cooled, 22 shifts above $50k producing $1.69m (-22.2%), which left that band with 15.4% of the week's volume, back near its 2026 average after two weeks above 20%.

Among individual coins, the three biggest all lost ground, though at $2.91m (-28.7%), USDT (Liquid) has now held the top spot for a month running. Users have been heavily shifting USDT out of Liquid since early September, though the pace slowed this time around, with users depositing $1.35m (-25.9%). Still, the contrast to user settlements remained stark, with the latter receiving just $180k. USDT (ERC-20) and BTC followed it lower at $2.38m (-19.3%) and $2.20m (-19.4%), however BTC's buying lean of the past two weeks faded, with a deposit sum of $892k just slightly outdoing a demand of $863k settled. Across stablecoins as a whole, net flow ended at +$276k, indicating users continued to send more stablecoins to SideShift than they received amidst the expanding market, and the positive run stretched to its longest of 2026. The inflow came from five chains this time, with USDC on Base the biggest single contributor despite ranking only ninth among coins.

While the top three shed $2.27m between them, six coins below them added $4.34m. ETH led the way, more than doubling to $1.90m (+103.1%) to rejoin the top five as its user settlements nearly tripled, with USDT (Tron) close behind at $1.59m (+21.5%). Three quarters of ETH's settling came through the ADA pair mentioned above, and ADA itself jumped from $7k to $1.20m. It was one of three coins to clear $1m from under $400k a week earlier, alongside DEPIX on Liquid, which more than tripled to a record $1.24m, and USDC on Base, which posted its first-ever $1m week at $1.09m. That put nine coins above $1m, the most in a week since February.

Across alternate networks to Ethereum, the headline belonged to Base, which went from under 4% of the group's volume to nearly 17% in seven days. This move climbed four places into third at $1.15m (+383.6%), and represented its best finish of 2026, lifted by the USDC record noted above. Solana still held first at $1.95m (-8.3%), though a week after pulling clear of the pack it saw the Tron network close to within $162k on a +25.0% rebound to $1.79m. BSC dropped from second to fourth at $859k (-43.4%), with its three-week run above $1.3m coming to an end. Finally, Polygon added +22.9% to $471k, while Robinhood fell -39.0% to $342k and Arbitrum -35.5% to $248k, leaving the group as a whole at $6.83m (+1.4%).

Affiliate News

Top affiliates accounted for $3.72m (-3.7%), or 34.0% of the week's total, with the same three partners in the same order and still carrying ~60% of that sum between them, even as all three cooled after a busy September. First place slipped -25.5% to $1.10m on 934 shifts, while second place dropped -39.7% to $726k. Third place came off its run of records at $360k (-21.7%), yet its shift count climbed +9.9% to 1,260, ending with its busiest week yet, and once again more than any other partner.

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