SideShift.ai Weekly Report | 10th - 16th March 2026

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

Highlights

• Gross volume recovered to $6.08m (+4.9%) following two consecutive weeks of decline, with BTC dominating the top user pairs as price broke to 40-day highs.
• BTC claimed the top coin at $2.59m (+39.5%), its strongest week in over a month, while USDT(TRC-20) held as the most settled coin on SideShift for the fourth consecutive week.
• USDC(ERC-20) jumped to third at $1.09m (+53.5%), with settlements more than tripling deposits on the week.
•  AVAX posted its strongest network showing in months at $246k (+239.2%), fueled by mid-sized AVAX/BTC shifts on site.
• XAI staking distributed 180,672.92 XAI ($16,158.35) at a 6.88% average APY, with the peak day hitting 9.17% on March 11th.

General Business News

BTC broke convincingly through $70k this week, touching $75k on Tuesday, its highest point in 40 days, with Strategy continuing their aggressive accumulation by adding 22,337 BTC to their treasury in their fifth largest weekly purchase ever. ETH wasn't far behind, posting a strong +12.9% over the past seven days to reclaim the $2.3k range. HYPE continued to build momentum that started at the beginning of the month, once again drawing heavy perps volume on oil and gold. Quietly tucked into the week was a genuine milestone — the 20 millionth Bitcoin was mined, leaving just one million left to ever enter circulation.

SideShift recorded $6.08m in gross volume, a +4.9% recovery following two consecutive periods of decline, with user shifting ($4.56m, +4.9%) and liquidity shifting ($1.51m, +5.1%) moving in lockstep. The liquidity side continued to be driven by the imbalance between BTC deposits and stablecoin settlement demand, a theme consistent with the top user pairs this week — BTC/USDC(ERC-20) led at $453k, followed by USDT(BSC)/BTC at $248k and BTC/USDT(TRC-20) at $191k. Worth noting is the shift in character from the last report, where USDT(BSC) had claimed the top user pair for three straight weeks running. This time, BTC asserted itself on both sides of the table, reflecting the more active price environment.

Shift count came in at 6,602 (−10.4%) for a daily average of 943, the divergence from volume suggesting average shift sizes stepped up this week. Sub-$100 shifts climbed to 60.8% of total count, their highest proportion in months, while the >$10k band recovered to 148 from last week's year-low of 101, with the bulk of that sitting in the mid-$10k range. The >$50k band dropped to just 6 shifts, its lowest of the year, so whatever momentum returned to the larger shift sizes stopped well short of the top end.

BTC reclaimed the top spot convincingly at $2.59m (+39.5%), its strongest performance in over a month. User deposits came in at $1.31m against settlements of $650k, suggesting users were taking the opportunity to sell into the upward price movement rather than adding exposure. The destinations weren't limited to the usual stablecoins either — XLM quietly pulled in $186k in settlements, much of it sourced from BTC, a reminder that the selling pressure was spread across a wider range of coins this week. USDT(TRC-20) held second at $1.48m despite slipping -19.9%, and for the fourth consecutive week it was the most settled coin on SideShift, a streak that has quietly persisted through varying market conditions. The standout was USDC(ERC-20) jumping to third at $1.09m (+53.5%), driven by site volume strength, with $524k in user volume settled against just $169k deposited, a lopsided split that signaled purposeful demand for USDC specifically this week.

USDT(ERC-20) rounded out the stablecoin sweep in fourth at $851k (+19.0%), with deposits and settlements more balanced than its peers. L-USDT slipped to fifth at $689k (-28.6%), while USDT(BSC) was notably absent after occupying the top spot for over 20 straight days, as a pullback in integration volume saw it fall to $649k (-48.3%) and out of the top five entirely. ETH at least showed some life at $681k (+32.8%), a quiet recovery consistent with its positive price performance, though SOL continued sliding to $328k (-13.6%), its lowest in months and a curious disconnect for a coin that also finished the week in the green.

Alt networks collectively pulled back to $4.47m (-8.7%), with the Tron network remaining the largest despite slipping -20.8% to $1.58m, and BSC following a similar pattern, down -25.7% to $1.06m. The two have been the backbone of alt network volume for months, so their combined retreat this week narrowed the gap with the Ethereum network, which climbed +21.5% to $2.58m on the back of the ERC-20 stablecoin activity covered above. The Solana network bounced back to $1.14m (+41.2%), with USDC(SOL) volume doubling to $518k, continuing the broader stablecoin theme of the week. AVAX was the standout, jumping +239.2% to $246k, its strongest showing in months outside of a one-off spike in early February, driven by a steady stream of mid-sized AVAX/BTC shifts on site. Arbitrum held relatively steady at $142k (+15.9%), Polygon slipped to $201k (-24.2%), and Base fell sharply to $93k (-53.3%).

Affiliate News

Affiliate volume pulled back to $1.56m (-9.9%), with all three top affiliates running lighter. First place held its ground relatively well at $619k (-5.6%), though its shift count climbed to 155 (+38.4%), a notable shift in character from the consistently low count and high average shift size it had been posting in recent weeks. Second place slipped to $243k (-16.9%) with 302 shifts (-3.2%), nothing particularly notable. Last week's third place, which had made a strong return to form at $231k, couldn't sustain the momentum and stepped back, making way for a new entrant at $89k with 273 shifts, its presence here more a reflection of the top affiliates slowing than a breakout of its own. Worth a mention further down the table, the high count partner from last week saw its shifts roughly halve to 569, a drop that fed directly into the broader platform count decline covered earlier.

Combined, the top affiliates accounted for 25.7% of platform volume, down from 35.5% last week, affiliates giving back share on a week where platform volume itself recovered.

XAI Weekly Performance & Staking

XAI closed the period at $0.0896 (+1.8%), with its market cap following suit at $14.08m (+1.68%). A total of 180,672.92 XAI ($16,158.35) was distributed to stakers this week, with the average APY inching upwards to 6.88% from last week's 5.97%, picking up alongside the general volume uptick. The peak came on March 11th, when 34,062.38 XAI was sent to the staking vault at an APY of 9.17% against $1.29m in daily volume, representing the strongest single day of the week.

Additional XAI updates:

Total Value Staked: 142,030,806 XAI (+0.1%)
Total Value Locked: $12,739,547 (+0.9%)

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