In the third week of May, the crypto market witnessed a long-awaited concentrated explosion of profit effects. Bitcoin fluctuated repeatedly in a key range, with rippling emotions activating the altcoin market. The three most significant main lines this week are: The privacy coin sector represented by ZEC collectively surged against the backdrop of marginally improving regulatory expectations; the PerpDEX narrative led by HYPE received continuous funding attention; and NEAR demonstrated an independent trend supported by AI infrastructure fundamentals. According to data from the Huobi HTX platform, assets that performed well in the past week (May 18—May 24) covered multiple core sectors like privacy, AI, DeFi, and PerpDEX, among which the newly launched asset ZEST made a strong weekly increase of 131%, becoming the most outstanding dark horse of the week.

PERP DEX Sector Heats Up, BTCFi and DeFi Catch Up: Strengthening On-chain Derivatives Narrative

One of the most representative main lines this week is the decentralized perpetual contract (PERP DEX) sector centered around HYPE. With market volatility increasing, user demand for high efficiency, high leverage, and low slippage trading environments has intensified. The market is re-pricing the direction of "on-chain financial infrastructure." As BTC Layer2, staking yields, re-staking, and on-chain asset expansion continue to advance, BTCFi is becoming an important incremental direction following the ETH ecosystem DeFi.

• HYPE (Hyperliquid): Increased by 38% over the week, currently an important representative of on-chain derivatives trading infrastructure. Hyperliquid is a high-performance L1 optimized from scratch, aimed at creating a fully on-chain open finance system.
  
• ZEST (Zest Protocol): Newly launched asset, surged by 131% within the week, becoming the project with the highest growth. Zest Protocol is a Bitcoin lending protocol. As a new coin in the BTCFi direction, ZEST's explosion reflects the market's sustained enthusiasm for the narrative of Bitcoin's financialization (Bitcoin Finance).
• ONDO (OndoFinance): Increased by 28% weekly, representative asset of RWA/DeFi. ONDO is considered a key representative of real-world assets (RWA) and on-chain yield protocols, providing infrastructure for the tokenization of securities and developing protocols that support these assets (e.g., Flux Finance).

Privacy Sector Recovers: ZEC and NIL Strengthen, Funds Reassess "Anonymous Value"

Another highly identifiable main line this week is the overall recovery of the privacy sector. As on-chain regulation, asset traceability increases, and user demand for privacy protection grows, the market is beginning to refocus on the values of anonymous transactions, zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), and privacy infrastructure.

• ZEC (Zcash): Weekly increase of 22%, an established privacy asset. Compared to lower market cap speculative assets, ZEC has a more complete technical accumulation and market recognition, and thus benefited first in the early stage of the privacy narrative recovery.
  
• NIL (Nillion): Increased by 60% within the week. Nillion is a private computing and storage network oriented towards AI and data. This network utilizes PETs (Privacy-Enhancing Technologies) to compute and store data while protecting privacy, enabling various scenarios like personalized AI, encrypted databases, and other privacy-protecting applications.

Continued Heat in AI Sector: NEAR Leads, Infrastructure-type AI Assets in High Demand

AI is undoubtedly one of the strongest ongoing main lines in the current market. Based on performance over the past few weeks, the AI sector remains one of the high-frequency appearance segments on the Huobi HTX growth list, with its endurance significantly stronger than short-cycle hotspots. As concepts like AI Agents, on-chain computing resources, and decentralized inference networks continue to spread, the market is increasingly paying attention to "who can realize the true landing of AI applications."

• NEAR (NEAR Protocol): Weekly increase of 56%. NEAR is a composite asset with public chain attributes, a development ecosystem, and AI infrastructure narrative. The NEAR Protocol serves as the foundation for an open network, providing a decentralized application platform that offers a simple and friendly user experience for developers and users.
  
• GENIUS (Genius): Increased by 54% within the week, Genius Terminal is the first private and ultimate on-chain terminal designed for professional users, aimed at providing services for those seeking DeFi functionalities but who are frustrated with its complex interaction experience.

Quality Assets Continue to Emerge, Huobi HTX Helps Users Capture Structural Trends

From this week's market view, it is evident that the market has shifted from single topic speculation to a stage of "multiple main lines operating in parallel, structured capital allocation." The on-chain derivatives infrastructure represented by HYPE, the recovery of the privacy sector led by ZEC, and the revaluation of large market cap AI assets driven by NEAR together constitute the most core bullish logic of the week.

As a world-leading digital asset trading platform, Huobi HTX continues to pay attention to market trend evolution, focusing on key sectors like AI, BTCFi, DeFi, RWA, and privacy infrastructure, continuously launching quality assets and high-potential projects, helping users capture structural opportunities more efficiently in complex markets. As the market enters a new round of narrative rotation cycles, quality assets with real long-term value and ecological support may become the core direction of capital attention in the next phase.

About Huobi HTX

Huobi HTX was established in 2013. After 13 years of development, it has transformed from a cryptocurrency exchange into a comprehensive blockchain business ecosystem covering digital asset trading, financial derivatives, research, investment, incubation, and other businesses.

As a global leading Web3 portal, Huobi HTX adheres to global expansion, ecological prosperity, wealth effect, and safety compliance development strategies, providing comprehensive, secure, and reliable value and services to virtual currency enthusiasts worldwide.

For more information on Huobi HTX, please visit https://www.htx.com/ or HTX Square, and follow X, Telegram, and Discord. If you have further questions, please contact glo-media@htx-inc.com.