CoinW Research Institute Weekly Report (August 17, 2026 - August 23, 2026)

CoinW Research Institute

Key Points

The global total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is $2.7 trillion, up from $2.24 trillion last week, reflecting an increase of approximately 20.54% this week. As of publication, the total net inflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the US is about $53.71 billion, with a net inflow of $1.92 billion this week. The total net asset value stands at $96.07 billion, up about 25.4% from last week's $76.61 billion. The total net inflow of Ethereum spot ETFs in the US is about $12.15 billion, with a net inflow of $697 million this week, and a total net asset value of $14.29 billion, up about 35.84% from last week's $10.52 billion.

The total market capitalization of stablecoins is $30.5 billion, down approximately 0.49% from last week's $30.65 billion. Among these, USDT has a market capitalization of $18.32 billion, accounting for about 60.07% of the total market capitalization of stablecoins, a slight increase of about 0.15% from last week's $18.29 billion; USDC has a market capitalization of $7.357 billion, representing approximately 24.12%, up about 2.38% from last week's $7.186 billion; DAI has a market capitalization of $4.57 billion, accounting for about 1.5%, which remains unchanged from last week.

According to data from DeFiLlama, the total TVL of DeFi this week is $91.922 billion, an increase of approximately 23.08% from last week's $74.685 billion. In terms of public chains, the three public chains with the highest TVL are Ethereum, accounting for 53.01%; BNB Chain, accounting for 11.01%; and Solana, accounting for 6.08%.

This week, the performance of major public chains (Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Gram, Sui, Aptos): the trading activity of mainstream public chains has significantly rebounded overall this week, with significant increases in trading volume for Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain. Meanwhile, the overall Gas fees across all chains remain low, with only Sui and Gram experiencing increases. In terms of daily transaction volume on on-chain Dex, there have been increases across all chains this week, with Sui ($0.07B, +483.33%) showing the largest increase, while Ethereum ($1.12B, +246.75%) and Solana ($3.32B, +213.50%) both seeing more than double growth; Gram ($0.005B, +150%), BNB Chain ($1.41B, +55.80%), and Aptos ($0.02B, +53.85%) also experienced noticeable increases. In terms of transaction fees, Sui and Gram increased, while Solana decreased; Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Aptos remained the same as last week. The overall user activity of mainstream public chains has rebounded, with Solana and Sui showing notable increases; TVL has generally grown, with BNB Chain showing a significant scale jump, and Ethereum continuing to maintain an absolute lead. Regarding daily active addresses, this week all chains except Aptos have increased, with Sui (144,900, +60.10%) and Solana (2.76 million, +41.54%) showing significant increases.

New project highlights: Core Automation is an AI research and infrastructure company co-founded by former OpenAI research vice president Jerry Tworek, aiming to create a highly automated AI laboratory. Trajectory is a company focused on AI continuous learning and model post-training infrastructure. Trajectory converts user modifications, retries, rejections, re-promptings, and task trajectories generated during the real use of AI products into training signals, helping companies continuously optimize models, Prompts, and Agent Harness, allowing deployed AI Agents to improve continuously based on actual usage. Trasia is an on-chain perpetual contract trading platform targeting the Asian market, built on Hyperliquid, primarily providing perpetual contract trading of crypto assets for Asian users in a non-custodial manner, and plans to leverage Hyperliquid HIP-3 infrastructure to further launch perpetual contract markets related to real assets such as Asian stocks.

Key Points

I. Market Overview

1. Total Market Capitalization of Cryptocurrencies / Bitcoin Market Capitalization Proportion

2. Fear Index

3. ETF Inflow and Outflow Data

4. ETH/BTC and ETH/USD Exchange Rates

5. Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

6. On-chain Data

7. Stablecoin Market Capitalization and Issuance Status

II. Hot Money Trends This Week

1. Top Five VC and Meme Coins by Percentage Increase This Week

2. New Project Insights

III. New Developments in the Industry

1. Major Industry Events This Week

2. Major Upcoming Events Next Week

3. Important Investments and Financing from Last Week

IV. Reference Links

I. Market Overview

1. Total Market Capitalization of Cryptocurrencies / Bitcoin Market Capitalization Proportion

The global total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is $2.7 trillion, up from $2.24 trillion last week, reflecting an increase of approximately 20.54% this week.

Data source: Bitcoin dominance from cryptorank, https://cryptorank.io/charts/btc-dominance

Data as of August 23, 2026.

As of publication, Bitcoin's market capitalization is $1.56 trillion, accounting for 57.71% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization. Meanwhile, the market capitalization of stablecoins is $30.5 billion, accounting for 11.27% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization.

Data source: CoinGecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/charts

Data as of August 23, 2026.

2. Fear Index

The cryptocurrency fear index is 67, indicating greed, which is up approximately 123.33% from last week's 30.

Data source: Coinglass, https://www.coinglass.com/pro/i/FearGreedIndex

Data as of August 23, 2026.

3. ETF Inflow and Outflow Data

As of publication, the total net inflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the US is about $53.71 billion, with a net inflow of $1.92 billion this week. The total net asset value stands at $96.07 billion, up approximately 25.40% from last week's $76.61 billion; the total net inflow of Ethereum spot ETFs in the US is about $12.15 billion, with a net inflow of $697 million this week, and a total net asset value of $14.29 billion, which is up about 35.84% from last week's $10.52 billion.

Data source: Sosovalue, https://sosovalue.com/zh/assets/etf

Data as of August 23, 2026.

4. ETH/BTC and ETH/USD Exchange Rates

ETHUSD: Current price $2,450.97, historical highest price $4,946.05, down approximately 50.50% from the highest price.

ETHBTC: Currently at 0.031666, historical highest at 0.1238.

Data source: Ratiogang, https://ratiogang.com/

Data as of August 23, 2026.

5. Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

According to DeFiLlama, the total TVL of DeFi this week is $91.922 billion, representing an increase of approximately 23.08% from last week's $74.685 billion.

Data source: Defillama, https://defillama.com

Data as of August 23, 2026.

By public chain, the three public chains with the highest TVL are Ethereum, accounting for 53.01%; BNB Chain, accounting for 11.01%; and Solana, accounting for 6.08%.

Data source: Defillama, https://defillama.com/chains

Data as of August 23, 2026.

6. On-chain Data (Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Gram, Sui, Aptos)

Layer 1 Related Data

This analysis focuses on daily trading volume, daily active addresses, and transaction fees for major Layer 1s including ETH, SOL, BNB, GRAM (formerly TON), SUI, and APTOS.

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, Defillama, https://defillama.com

Data as of August 23, 2026.

On-chain Dex Daily Trading Volume and Transaction Fees: Daily trading volume and transaction fees on on-chain DEXs are important indicators of public chain ecosystem activity and user trading experience. From this week’s data, the trading activity of mainstream public chains has shown a clear rebound overall, with significant increases in trading volume for Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain, with Solana regaining its leading advantage in trading scale; meanwhile, Gas fees across all chains remain low, with only Sui and Gram seeing increases. In terms of daily transaction volume on on-chain Dex, every chain has shown growth this week, with Sui ($0.07B, +483.33%) experiencing the highest increase, while Ethereum ($1.12B, +246.75%) and Solana ($3.32B, +213.50%) both increasing over double; Gram ($0.005B, +150.00%), BNB Chain ($1.41B, +55.80%), and Aptos ($0.02B, +53.85%) also saw noticeable increases. Regarding transaction fees, Sui ($0.0006, +100.00%) and Gram ($0.0011, +37.50%) increased, while Solana ($0.0008, -33.33%) decreased; Ethereum ($0.01), BNB Chain ($0.00001), and Aptos ($0.000001) remained the same as last week.

Daily Active Addresses and TVL: Daily active addresses reflect the ecological participation and user retention of a public chain, while TVL reflects user trust in the platform. This week’s data shows an overall rebound in user activity for mainstream public chains, with significant increases for Solana and Sui; general growth in TVL, with BNB Chain showing significant capital scaling jumps, while Ethereum continues to maintain its absolute leading position. Regarding daily active addresses, this week, all chains except Aptos have seen growth, with Sui (144,900, +60.10%) and Solana (2.76 million, +41.54%) showing pronounced increases; Gram (135,600, +15.29%), Ethereum (478,400, +10.57%), and BNB Chain (2.13 million, +10.36%) also increased, whereas Aptos (36,600, -2.77%) saw a slight decrease. In terms of TVL, all chains achieved growth this week, with BNB Chain ($10.13B, +107.71%) growing more than double; Ethereum ($48.76B, +18.76%) continues to rank first, with Solana ($5.59B, +16.92%) and Sui ($0.47B, +16.92%) experiencing concurrent growth; Gram ($0.06B, +7.14%) and Aptos ($0.06B, +3.45%) also saw slight increases.

Layer 2 Related Data

According to L2Beat, the total TVL of Ethereum Layer 2 this week is $518 million, down about 68.98% from last week's $1.67 billion.

Data source: L2Beat, https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvs

Data as of August 23, 2026.

This week, the market shares of Base and Arbitrum are 55.87% and 14.52%, ranking first and second, respectively.

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

Data as of August 23, 2026.

7. Stablecoin Market Capitalization and Issuance Status

According to Coinglass, the total market capitalization of stablecoins is $30.5 billion, down approximately 0.49% from last week's $30.65 billion. Among these, USDT has a market capitalization of $18.32 billion, accounting for about 60.07% of the total market capitalization of stablecoins, a slight increase of about 0.15% from last week's $18.29 billion; USDC has a market capitalization of $7.357 billion, representing approximately 24.12%, up about 2.38% from last week's $7.186 billion; DAI has a market capitalization of $4.57 billion, accounting for about 1.50%, remaining unchanged from last week.

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, Coinglass, https://www.coinglass.com/pro/stablecoin

Data as of August 23, 2026.

According to Whale Alert, USDC Treasury issued a total of 3.35 billion USDC this week, and Tether Treasury issued a total of 3 billion USDT this week. The total issuance of stablecoins this week is 6.35 billion, an increase of approximately 154% from last week's 2.5 billion.

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

Data as of August 23, 2026.

II. Hot Money Trends This Week

1. Top Five VC and Meme Coins by Percentage Increase This Week

The top five VC coins by percentage increase in the past week

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, CoinMarketCap, https://coinmarketcap.com/

Data as of August 23, 2026.

The top five Meme coins by percentage increase in the past week

Data source: CoinW Research Institute, CoinMarketCap, https://coinmarketcap.com/

Data as of August 23, 2026.

2. New Project Insights

Core Automation is an AI research and infrastructure company co-founded by former OpenAI research vice president Jerry Tworek, aiming to build a highly automated AI laboratory. Core Automation first utilizes AI Agents for automating model research, experiment design, and infrastructure optimization, further exploring novel learning algorithms, continuous learning mechanisms, and model architectures beyond traditional large-scale pre-training and reinforcement learning.

Trajectory is an AI continuous learning and model post-training infrastructure company founded by researchers from Google DeepMind, Apple, and Windsurf. Trajectory converts user modifications, retries, rejections, re-promptings, and task trajectories generated during the real use of AI products into training signals, helping companies continuously optimize models, Prompts, and Agent Harness, allowing deployed AI Agents to improve continuously based on actual usage. Currently, the company has partnered with AI companies such as Clay, Harvey, Decagon, Mercor, and Rogo. Trajectory completed a $15 million seed round of financing in May 2026, led by Conviction, with participation from Bessemer, Radical Ventures, and BoxGroup.

Trasia is an on-chain perpetual contract trading platform targeting the Asian market, built on Hyperliquid, primarily providing perpetual contract trading for crypto assets to Asian users in a non-custodial manner, and plans to further utilize Hyperliquid HIP-3 infrastructure to launch perpetual contract markets related to real assets such as Asian stocks. Trasia was co-founded by Mable Jiang and Edison Chen, with Mable Jiang previously serving as a partner at Multicoin Capital and chief revenue officer for the STEPN development team Find Satoshi Lab, and the team has strong resources in the Asian Web3 market and trading business. Currently, Trasia has launched a web trading terminal and plans to further release a mobile client and an Asia Points user incentive system.

III. New Developments in the Industry

1. Major Industry Events This Week

The decentralized AI inference network DGrid AI opened a DGAI airdrop eligibility inquiry and claiming channel on August 17, with the claiming window continuing until August 22. Eligible users can check airdrop eligibility through the official platform, choose a claiming option, and bind their exchange account, with tokens directly distributed to the bound account on the day of TGE. According to previous arrangements, tDGAI obtained through Premium mining will be converted to DGAI airdrop distribution at a ratio of 1:1. DGrid AI mainly addresses decentralized AI inference infrastructure scenarios, and this airdrop holds direct claim value for early participants of the Genesis program, Premium mining, and related ecological activities.

The ZK validation layer project Aligned officially launched ALIGN on August 20 and opened Genesis Drop airdrop claims. The total fixed supply of ALIGN is 10 billion, with 8.74% allocated for airdrop distribution, targeting the crypto, Ethereum, and ZK communities; approximately 44.36% of the airdrop portion will unlock at TGE, equaling about 3.88% of the total supply. Eligible users can check and claim tokens through the official airdrop portal; Aligned primarily provides ZK proof validation infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem.

The fixed rate lending protocol TermMax opened TMX distribution query and claiming option selection this week, allowing users to connect the wallets previously involved in TermMax to view TMX distribution and confirm claiming options before August 23. According to official instructions, distributions below the qualification threshold can be claimed directly, or users can choose to stake for 3 months or 6 months to receive bonuses; users above the threshold can choose immediate collection of 30% and forgo the remaining 70%, or receive 15% and have the remaining portion vest over 3 months or 6 months. If users do not confirm before the deadline, the system will default to the longest lockup option. TMX will have TGE on August 25, and XP, AP, MP, and other points or rewards will enter the claimable phase after TGE, making this week’s confirmation of claiming options time-sensitive for early interacting users.

2. Major Upcoming Events Next Week

The DAPPOS (DOS) related rewards event will enter the deadline window on August 24. The DAPPOS Airdrop event runs from August 10 to August 24, allowing users to participate by making deposits, engaging in spot trading challenges, and contract challenges to share a reward pool of $60,000 worth of DOS and a $10,000 USDT trial contract. DAPPOS positions itself as a Web3 AI operating system, with DOS used for accessing premium services, paying transaction fees, participating in staking, and governance of the protocol.

The Metaplex digital economy platform for the Solana ecosystem will launch the next Spotlight Launch on August 25, featuring the token HEEBOO from the entertainment launch platform HEEBOO. The public sale will last 48 hours, with a total supply of 1 billion HEEBOO tokens, of which 50 million will be sold to the public, accounting for 5% of the total supply. This sale will be a Launch Pool; participants who engage within the first 24 hours will receive a 25% bonus; additionally, 20% of sales revenue will be allocated to the Raydium CPMM liquidity pool to support subsequent on-chain liquidity.

The public sale of the AI-oriented Layer 1 project Orbition Network's OBN will end on August 25. The selling price for this round of public sale is $0.0005/OBN, with participation using USDC on the Ethereum network, with a minimum purchase amount of 10 USDC and a maximum of 10,000 USDC. The total allocation of this round is 100 million OBN tokens, which will unlock 100% at TGE with no vesting period. The Orbition Network focuses on supporting AI Mining, EVM/SVM/zkEVM compatibility, and application ecosystem development as an early public chain project.

3. Important Investments and Financing from Last Week

The global cross-border payments and digital asset infrastructure company Ripple announced the completion of a $275 million private placement of senior unsecured notes by its prime brokerage platform Ripple Prime. This issuance scale has expanded from the original plan and has received a BBB investment-grade rating from KBRA, with Piper Sandler serving as the primary placement agent. Ripple Prime was formerly known as Hidden Road, acquired by Ripple for $1.25 billion in 2025, primarily providing multi-asset clearing, prime brokerage, and financing services to institutional clients; Ripple itself builds institutional-level digital asset infrastructure around cross-border payments, digital asset custody, RLUSD stablecoin, and XRP Ledger, among others. (August 18, 2026)

The AI and Web3 trading infrastructure project NeoSoul announced the completion of a $11 million Pre-Series A round of financing, with investors including Amber Group, MH Ventures, ArkStream Capital, CatcherVC, Kirin Capital, and 0G Foundation. NeoSoul focuses on building trading and financial infrastructure for AI Agents, meeting the needs of stakeholders through a versatile automated trading workspace that enables AI Agents to engage in market analysis, strategy execution, and on-chain financial operations. This round of funding will mainly be used to advance the development of AI Agent trading infrastructure and related ecosystem expansion. (August 20, 2026)

The privacy blockchain ecosystem Beldex announced the completion of $8 million in funding, with participation from NewTribe Capital, NxGen, Digital Consensus Fund, and EAK Ventures, bringing the total to $36 million. Beldex is a Layer 1 blockchain ecosystem focused on privacy, constructing a suite of privacy applications around BChat, BelNet, Beldex Browser, Beldex Privacy Protocol, and Beldex Bridge, covering scenarios like encrypted communication, decentralized VPN, private browsing, and cross-chain. This round of financing will mainly focus on further developing privacy infrastructure for Web3 and AI, along with privacy-oriented smart contracts, encrypted identities, and AI Agent privacy. (August 20, 2026)