[비즈한국] This week was characterized less by rotation among individual altcoins and more by a broader recovery in risk appetite across the cryptocurrency market, leading to significant gains for high-volatility assets. The U.S. Treasury’s expansion of long-term bond buybacks stimulated dollar weakness and Bitcoin purchases, while U.S. President Donald Trump's call for the passage of the CLARITY Act—a bill for crypto market structure—further boosted investor sentiment. Bitcoin surpassed $80,000 mid-week, with large-cap altcoins following the upward trend.
According to global crypto market data site CoinMarketCap, Stacks led the top 100 assets with a 79.40% gain between 6:00 on August 21 and 6:00 on August 28. Its current price is 350 won, down 4.91% over the last 24 hours. TrumpCoin ranked 2nd with a 55.28% increase to 3,546 won, rising 14.83% in the last 24 hours. SPX6900 followed in 3rd, rising 51.55% to 813 won with a 3.47% increase over the last 24 hours. Ethena took 4th place, up 51.05% to 231 won, with a 21.53% jump in the last 24 hours. The 5th, Zcash, rose 41.29% to 1,127,641 won, adding 4.06% in the last 24 hours.
The following assets included Lighter up 40.27% to 5,147 won, VeChain up 38.72% to 9.81 won, LayerZero up 35.56% to 1,626 won, Pudgy Penguins up 34.45% to 13 won, and Polygon up 32.96% to 149 won.
Stacks: Bitcoin Staking Gains Institutional Infrastructure
Stacks is a project that implements smart contracts and DeFi on a network linked to Bitcoin, utilizing sBTC, which is pegged 1-to-1 to Bitcoin. STX is used for network fees and stacking. Recently, institutional infrastructure has been added in succession ahead of the launch of "Bitcoin Staking," which allows users to earn yields while holding their Bitcoin without delegating it elsewhere.
On August 24, institutional wallet provider Fordefi announced support for the first institutional staking program, "Genesis Bond," and on the 25th, digital asset custodian BitGo began supporting the storage and transfer of sBTC. On the 27th, HashKey Cloud announced its participation in the first Genesis Bond. With the program's September launch approaching, the custody and signing infrastructure for institutions to actively manage Bitcoin is being established. However, following a 79.40% weekly surge, the asset saw a 4.91% decline in the final 24 hours, signaling some short-term profit-taking.
2nd-place TrumpCoin is a political-themed meme coin issued on Solana. Its rise is better understood as a result of political/policy news and derivatives market activity rather than new utility or product launches. Between August 22 and 23, massive liquidation of TRUMP short positions amidst the crypto market rebound drove prices and trading volume sharply higher. Subsequently, on the final day of the reporting period, buying pressure returned after the project announced its participation in Korea Blockchain Week (KBW), contributing to its 14.83% rise in the last 24 hours.
3rd-place SPX6900 is a meme coin that satirizes traditional finance by parodying the S&P 500. The official website explicitly states it is an entertainment token with no business roadmap or intrinsic value. No specific new business announcements have been identified to drive the price in the last one to two weeks. Instead, trading volume, which was low until mid-August, surged alongside the market rebound, showing the strong influence of meme coin rotation.
From Meme Coins to DeFi and Privacy... Market Rebound Meets Individual Catalysts
4th-place Ethena is a DeFi protocol that operates the synthetic dollar USDe by combining spot crypto/staking assets with inverse positions in derivatives. The direct catalyst this time was a token supply/demand restructuring announced on the final day of the period. The Ethena Foundation stated on August 27 that it had repurchased, over-the-counter, unvested tokens from early investors who had previously sold ENA on the market, and decided to change the monthly investor vesting schedule. Simultaneously, it introduced a "fee switch" proposal for governance voting, which would use most of the protocol's net profit to buy ENA once USDe supply reaches a certain level. Buying pressure flooded in immediately after the announcement, driving the 24-hour gain to 21.53%. However, the buyback mechanism is not fully active yet, as it remains subject to meeting conditions and governance votes.
5th-place Zcash is a privacy coin that applies zero-knowledge proofs to allow selective concealment of transaction amounts or counterparty information. This week, the direct catalyst was Grayscale filing an amended document to convert its existing Zcash Trust into an ETF listed on a U.S. exchange. Derivatives trading surged on ZEC, which was already rising before the announcement, amplifying the price gain. However, the price increase was also amplified by leverage, as futures trading made up a much larger portion of the volume than spot trading.
Ranking 6th to 10th were decentralized derivatives infrastructure Lighter, enterprise and supply chain-oriented VeChain, inter-blockchain messaging network LayerZero, PENGU from the NFT brand-turned-token Pudgy Penguins, and the Ethereum expansion network Polygon. Given the presence of trading infrastructure, multi-chain/layer-2 solutions, as well as meme and NFT-based assets in the top ranks, it is difficult to conclude that a single technological theme dominated the market.
This week, the scope and scale of the gains exceeded simple altcoin rotation. Bitcoin itself surpassed $80,000 mid-week, and market analysis showed that most major altcoins with high liquidity participated in the Bitcoin rally. On top of that, assets with clear catalysts—such as Stacks' institutional Bitcoin staking, Ethena's token restructuring, and Zcash's ETF push—alongside high-volatility assets like TrumpCoin, SPX6900, and PENGU, saw even larger gains.
Therefore, describing this as mere "altcoin rotation" is insufficient. U.S. bond market and crypto policy changes lifted Bitcoin and restored risk appetite across the market; the increased liquidity manifested as greater price elasticity in assets with individual catalysts and meme themes. However, the signs of leverage and short-term speculative buying are evident, as seen in Stacks' intraday reversal after a 79.40% weekly gain and the massive short squeeze in TrumpCoin. It is most appropriate to view this as a week where both a total market rebound and a concentration of capital in high-volatility altcoins occurred simultaneously.
※ This article was written by BizHankook and MetaVX's generative AI.