SideShift.ai Weekly Report | 28th April - 4th May 2026

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

Highlights

• Gross volume of $5.58m (-21.4%) alongside a shift count of 5,895 (-10.1%), settling back to mid-range of the year after last week's cbBTC-driven surge.
• 180,446 XAI ($16,086) distributed to stakers at a 6.81% average APY, peaking at 8.11% on May 4th.
• Three of the top four pairs featured BTC on the settle side, a quiet accumulation theme running through the week.
• ETH cracked $1m for the first time in months at $1.03m (+23%), with SOL also surging +51.9% to $677k.

General Business News

BTC's back-to-back green months carried straight through $80k in the opening days of May, a level it had not traded above since January. The +12% April close was only its second positive month since September 2025, with May already adding another ~7% in its first few days. TON made a quiet but significant move as Pavel Durov confirmed a sixfold fee reduction to near-zero under the MTONGA roadmap, with fully feeless transactions set to follow. LAB was the week's most talked-about mover, swinging over +500% to an all-time high before shedding more than -80% within hours, with a +7,500% spike in derivatives volume doing much of the talking.

SideShift recorded $5.58m in gross volume (-21.4%), a step back from last week's cbBTC-fueled $7.09m and a return to the middle of the road this year after a few weeks of gradual upward movement. User shifting came in at $4.24m (-14.4%) with liquidity shifting at $1.33m (-37.6%), combining for a daily average of $797k. Three of the top four pairs featured BTC on the settle side, a quiet accumulation pattern running underneath the cooler headline figure. USDT(TRC20)/BTC led at $393k as users routed Tron stables straight into BTC, cbBTC(ERC-20)/BTC carried through some of last week's energy at $342k, and ETH/BTC took fourth at $236k as ETH holders rotated up the stack. BTC/USDT(TRC20) was the only pair pulling the other way in third at $333k, the lone exit ramp in an otherwise one-way week.

Gross shift count came in at 5,895 (-10.1%) for a daily average of 842. The $1k-$10k band carried the week, contributing $1.75m in volume and barely flinching from the levels it has held across the surrounding weeks, with mid-tier participants quietly anchoring the platform while activity slowed at both extremes. The $10k+ band came down to $3.05m across 113 shifts after last week's 161-shift, $4.71m peak, and the $50k+ band landed at $883k across 13 shifts versus last week's 22 and $1.6m — but the average shift size within the band stayed firm at ~$68k against last week's ~$73k, a sign that whales scaled back their frequency rather than the size of their bets. At the other end, sub-$100 shifts fell to 3,406, the lowest count in roughly two months.

BTC sat comfortably atop the table at $3.08m (+0.4%), the headline volume holding flat while user deposits ticked up to $898k (+7%) and settlements held at $1.26m (+0.2%). The narrowing gap between the two pointed to users banking some profits into the rally even as fresh BTC accumulation continued to dominate. USDT(TRC20) followed in second at $1.69m (+5.2%), with deposits more than doubling to $614k (+112.4%) while settlements fell to $598k (-22.9%), a clean inversion that matches the broader pair theme of users moving USDT into BTC. The deeper stablecoin picture broke sharply the other way, with last week's catch-up rally fully unwinding — L-USDT shed -59.3% to $545k after last week's $1.34m surge, USDT(ERC20) gave back -60% to $521k, and USDC(ERC20) followed at $497k (-58%). Those three coins alone shed roughly $2.3m of platform volume week-on-week, more than accounting for the entire $1.5m decline in gross volume.

ETH cracked $1m for the first time in months at $1.03m (+23%), with deposits at $413k (+21.2%) outpacing settlements at $293k (-19.5%), users opting to part with ETH despite a steady +4% climb on the price chart. SOL was the standout mover at $677k (+51.9%) and the only top 5 coin where settlements dominated at $394k (+46.4%) against deposits of $219k, a clear preference for accumulation that ran contrary to the rest of the leaderboard. The top 5's growing share of platform volume reflected exactly that polarization — capital was concentrated in the leading coins while the mid-table stables hollowed out beneath them.

Alternate network volume to ETH combined for $4.08m (+21.4%), recovering some ground after last week's $3.37m though sitting well off the $5m+ pace that defined late Q1. The Tron network held the top post at $1.74m (+5.5%) with Solana running behind at $1.03m (+9.6%), each finding their level in the platform's typical pecking order as of late. The more revealing moves came one rung lower, where BSC and Polygon both posted +50%+ gains for different reasons — BSC's $485k (+65.6%) was carried almost entirely by BNB shift volume nearly quadrupling to $294k, while Polygon's $406k (+52%) traced back to USDC(Poly) climbing to $399k as some of the stablecoin activity exiting Ethereum found a cheaper home. Arbitrum followed in step at $146k (+54.7%) and Base held flat at $103k (-5.2%). Avalanche stood out with a $168k showing against last week's $5k, the entirety traced back to one-off AVAX/BTC shift activity.

On the listing side, Three fresh additions hit the SideShift this week: LAB and BILL on BSC, as well as the stablecoin USX on Solana.

Affiliate News

Our top affiliate volume combined for $1.05m (-21.2%), tracking the platform's gross volume decline almost step for step. Our first placed affiliate dropped -49.5% to $243k after last week's elevated figure, with our second place affiliate also coming back -34.1% to $145k from a similarly inflated week. Our third place affiliate stood out with $128k (+16.9%), the only podium finisher to post a gain and a continuation of the steady, near-metronomic output it has put up week after week through 2026. On the count side, our second place affiliate again led at 505 shifts (-12%), with our first and third place both holding flat near 340 — again a reflection of the differing shift size profiles across our top affiliates.Combined affiliate share of platform volume held steady at 18.9% versus last week's 18.8%.

XAI Weekly Performance & Staking

XAI stakers received 180,446.59 XAI ($16,086) to the staking vault over the week at an average APY of 6.81%, with the high mark of 8.11% landing on May 4th off the back of $941k in daily shift volume. XAI's own price held steady through most of the week before a sharp pullback in the final 24-48 hours dragged the 7-day figure to -4.2%, closing at $0.0856 with market cap at $13.69m (-4.09%).

Additional XAI updates:

Total Value Staked: 142,987,434 XAI (+0.13%)
Total Value Locked: $12,442,791 (-2.00%)

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