[비즈한국] This week, the rise of coins with individual positive news was amplified by a market-wide rebound in the latter half of the week. The U.S. Treasury's expansion of long-term Treasury buybacks and expectations for relaxed digital asset regulations stimulated risk appetite. As Bitcoin surged between August 19 and 20, large-scale short position liquidations occurred. Assets like Ethena and pump.fun reflected this trend, with a significant portion of their weekly gains concentrated in the final 24 hours.
According to the global cryptocurrency market tracker CoinMarketCap, Ethena ranked first among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization from 6:00 on August 14 to 6:00 on August 21, recording a 30.44% increase. Its current price is 154 KRW, with a 19.37% rise in the last 24 hours.
pump.fun ranked second with a 28.88% rise to 5.19 KRW, also gaining 17.28% in the last 24 hours. Hyperliquid ranked third, up 28.16% to 102,627 KRW, with a 24-hour growth rate of 4.40%. Ether.fi placed fourth, up 24.89% to 747 KRW, with a 5.56% increase in the last 24 hours. SPX6900 came in fifth, rising 24.65% to 541 KRW, with a 9.06% gain over 24 hours.
Following them were Ripple, up 23.15% to 1,732 KRW; Ethereum, up 22.99% to 3,231,695 KRW; Chainlink, up 20.17% to 14,793 KRW; Pepe, up 19.58% to 0.004454 KRW; and Arbitrum, up 19.52% to 124 KRW.
From Ethena’s Institutional Lending to pump.fun’s Token Burn… Top Performers Driven by ‘Individual Catalysts’
Ethena (1st) is a DeFi protocol that issues a synthetic dollar called USDe. Its structure combines crypto assets with opposite positions in derivatives to offset price volatility while generating revenue from managing reserve assets. On August 19, digital asset prime broker FalconX announced the creation of a $1 billion collateralized institutional lending facility with Ethena. This is an attempt to utilize USDe reserve assets for over-collateralized institutional loans to secure revenue sources beyond traditional crypto basis trading. Ethena surged 19.37% in the final 24 hours alone, with its gains magnified by the subsequent market-wide rebound following the announcement.
pump.fun (2nd) is an issuance platform on Solana that allows anyone to create and trade tokens. Recently, its structure of allocating about half of its platform revenue to buying back and burning PUMP tokens has directly influenced its price supply and demand. Platform revenue hit a seven-month high between August 10 and 16, and over $5 million worth of PUMP was bought and burned during the week. On the 13th, the platform introduced ‘Callout Rewards,’ which compensate users based on the trading volume of tokens they introduce. The 17.28% rise in the last 24 hours indicates strong buying interest late in the week.
Hyperliquid (3rd) is a decentralized exchange that processes perpetual futures trading via an order book on its own Layer 1 blockchain. On August 19, when U.S. President Donald Trump mentioned that the CFTC is working to bring Hyperliquid into the U.S. in a legal and compliant manner, the price reacted immediately. However, since U.S. service has not yet been approved, it remains to be seen whether an actual regulatory path will be established.
Ether.fi (4th) is a non-custodial protocol that allows users to stake ETH while utilizing eETH/weETH in other DeFi services. In the ‘ether.fi Summer’ initiative unveiled on August 13, the platform combined tokenized stock and metal trading, Aave-based lending, and fiat currency deposits/withdrawals into one app. Essentially, it has expanded its business scope from a staking service to a self-custodial on-chain financial platform.
SPX6900 took 5th place. This rise is best viewed as a result of both meme coin rotation and the market rebound in the latter half of the week.
Ethereum Rises Over 20%… A Rebound Extending Beyond ‘Altcoin Rotation’ to the Entire Market
In the 6th to 10th rankings, Ripple (focused on international remittance and payment infrastructure), Ethereum (smart contract platform), Chainlink (external data delivery), Pepe (meme coin), and Arbitrum (Ethereum Layer 2) all rose by more than 19%. It is notable that buying interest was not concentrated solely in DeFi or specific infrastructure sectors, but extended to large-scale platforms, oracles, Layer 2s, and meme coins.
In particular, given that Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, rose 22.99% and made it into the top 10, it is difficult to explain this week simply as a rotation of mid-sized altcoins. From August 19 to 20, over $2.7 billion in crypto short positions were liquidated as Bitcoin broke out of its six-week price range and surged. The U.S. Treasury's expanded buybacks and the SEC's moves toward relaxing crypto regulations revived risk appetite, creating a structure where forced short position liquidations further fueled price increases.
However, the market did not rise evenly throughout the week. Of Ethena's 30.44% weekly gain, 19.37% occurred in the final 24 hours, and 17.28% of pump.fun's 28.88% weekly gain was also concentrated in the final day. Capital moved into DeFi and trading infrastructure coins with individual news early in the week, and by the end of the collection period, shifts in the macroeconomic environment and short squeezes spread the rebound across the entire market, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. The 34th week can be summarized as a "market where gains centered on individual catalysts spread to a recovery in risk appetite across the entire market in the latter half of the week," rather than the dominance of a specific altcoin theme.
※ This article was written by Bizhankook and MetaVX's generative AI.