SideShift.ai Weekly Report | 17th - 23rd February 2026

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

Highlights

• Gross volume ended at $7.88m (−13.8%) across 7,161 shifts (−2.7%), despite volume from shifts >$20k rising to $4.23m (+3.4%).
• 154,795 XAI ($16.7k) was distributed to stakers at a 5.86% APY, as price held near $0.1086 and market cap increased +0.63% to $16.87m.
• Activity rotated away from the Ethereum network (−30.5%), as alternate networks climbed to $6.80m (+29.8%) led by Tron (+55.8%) and BSC (+76.6%).
• USDT (BSC) surged +138.1% to $2.14m, leapfrogging Ethereum-based stablecoins and expanding more than tenfold from its early-year baseline.
• Affiliate volume rose to $2.02m (+8.9%), driven by a $1.20m (+158.1%) first-place performance that lifted affiliate share to 29.5%.

XAI Weekly Performance & Staking

XAI spent the past stretch doing very little in structural terms. The token is currently priced at $0.1086, with price action largely confined to familiar territory despite a slight attempt to lean higher over the past seven days. Market cap now sits at $16.87m, marking a +0.63% lift from $16.76m previously. The move is incremental, but it does halt the mild pullback noted in the last report. 

Staking rewards came in lighter again, following the strength seen during the first half of the month. A total of 154,794.76 XAI was distributed directly to the staking vault, worth $16,737, with the average APY landing at 5.86%. Two weeks ago, that figure was closer to 19%, so the slowdown over the past few updates has been clear. Payouts continued to track platform activity closely — volume opened at a decent clip before settling into a steadier rhythm, and yields followed that pattern without much deviation. The busiest day fell on February 21st, when 26,785.60 XAI was sent to the staking vault at a 7.14% APY, backed by $1.31m in daily volume.

Additional XAI updates:

Total Value Staked: 141,913,178 XAI (+0.1%)
Total Value Locked: $15,400,317 (+1.2%)

General Business News

Crypto markets remain under heavy pressure as total market capitalization has fallen back to roughly $2.3T, effectively wiping out the entire 2024/2025 advance. Sentiment has deteriorated alongside price action, with the Crypto Fear & Greed Index now at 8, marking a 26-day stretch in Extreme Fear — the longest run since the Terra–LUNA unwind in 2022. BTC is now trading near $63k, breaking lower after spending most of February holding closer to $68k, while ETH followed suit and stepped down towards $1.8k.

SideShift recorded $7.88m in gross volume, a −13.8% decline from the prior report. The pullback was driven primarily by slower user activity, with user shifting totaling $5.35m (−20.5%), while liquidity shifting rose to $2.53m (+4.7%). The divergence suggests that a large portion of shifts were uneven and concentrated, which increased the need for internal rebalancing. Top user pairs reflected this trend. USDT (BSC)/USDT (TRC-20) led at $718k, followed by BTC/PAXG at $683k, and USDT (BSC)/BTC at $264k, activity that was largely integration-driven and skewed in one direction.

A total of 7,161 shifts were completed, a −2.7% change from last week. On a daily basis, that worked out to 1,023 shifts alongside $1.13m in volume, though the pullback was not evenly distributed across all shift sizes. Shifts valued between $10k-$20k declined −32% by count and −15.3% by volume, pointing to a clear drop in mid-sized whale activity. By contrast, volume in the >$20k bracket actually rose +3.4%, meaning that while fewer five-figure transfers occurred overall, the largest transactions continued to move.

BTC generated $3.08m in total volume (−20.3%), retaining first place but with noticeably lighter engagement on the settlement side. User deposits came in at $1.48m (−8.5%), while settlements fell more sharply to $532k (−31.4%), marking a third consecutive weekly decline in settlement activity. As BTC drifted from the ~$68k range, users showed little urgency to step in and catch the falling knife, with selling holding far steadier than buying.

Stablecoins promptly filled the next three positions, but the reshuffle was concentrated outside the Ethereum network. USDT (TRC-20) climbed to second at $2.40m (+46.5%), while USDT (BSC) surged to $2.14m (+138.1%), both leapfrogging Ethereum-based counterparts and aligning with the week’s leading coin pair. The move in USDT (BSC) was particularly striking — volume expanded more than tenfold relative to its early-year baseline, driven largely by deposits ($1.08m, +267.9%), a pattern consistent with the coin's tendency to move in sudden and intense bursts rather than gradual build-ups. In contrast, USDC (ERC-20) retraced to $1.08m (−61.6%), and USDT (ERC-20) slipped below $1m for the first time this month, falling to sixth place. The shift away from Ethereum-based stablecoins was decisive, reinforcing how activity became increasingly concentrated on alternative networks as markets weakened.

ETH recorded $930k in total volume (−42.0%), with deposits declining to $250k (−56.2%) and settlements easing to $443k (−42.0%). After being the only top coin to expand in the prior report, activity has now pulled back on both sides, placing it fifth overall and narrowing the gap with assets further down the rankings. By comparison, SOL continued its February slide, falling another −22% to $431k and barely holding onto 10th place — a steady unwind from its early-month highs near $1.6m. Meanwhile, PAXG (ERC-20) surged to $684k, finishing sixth after a near-absent showing previously. Its volume typically tends to concentrate in a handful of larger shifts, and this stretch followed that familiar rush pattern.

Alt network positioning shifted meaningfully this week. While the Ethereum network itself declined to $4.64m (−30.5%), alternate chains collectively expanded to $6.80m (+29.8%), reclaiming the majority share of non-BTC activity. The move was led by sustained strength in BSC, which climbed to $2.49m (+76.6%), alongside a firm rebound in the Tron network to $2.93m (+55.8%), the highest among non-ETH chains. Both firmly centered around the stablecoin-heavy rotation noted earlier in the report. Conversely, the Solana network continued its breakdown to $774k (−20.2%), while Polygon fell to $183k (−41.2%) and Arbitrum declined to $123k (−51.8%), reflecting overall lighter engagement across most L2s.

Affiliate News

Affiliate volume rose to $2.02m (+8.9%) after last week’s pullback, with the increase concentrated almost entirely at the top of the table. First place recorded $1.20m (+158.1%), marking its strongest showing in nearly five months and accounting for the clear majority of the weekly affiliate total. By comparison, second and third place came in at $180k (−70.1%) and $67.6k (−43.4%), respectively. As a result, overall affiliate growth was effectively driven by a single contributor, which also meaningfully lifted the group’s share of platform activity.

All together, top affiliates accounted for 29.5% of platform activity, a +6.8% increase from last week.

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