Last week, the crypto market broke out of a months-long slump, with August 19 marking a major turning point. On that day, U.S. President Trump convened a White House meeting with crypto executives, regulators, and traditional finance representatives, publicly urging Congress to advance digital asset legislation. Concurrently, the U.S. Treasury also announced that it would at least double the maximum size of each liquidity-support buyback operation for long-term Treasuries, from $2 billion to $4 billion. As policy and liquidity expectations improved in tandem, the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield fell by approximately 9 basis points, supporting a broad-based rally in risk assets, with Bitcoin surging more than 8% within 12 hours.
For the full week, Bitcoin gained about 22%, decisively breaking through the $60,000–$70,000 range it had maintained for much of the year. From August 19 to 22, the total market capitalization of crypto assets excluding Bitcoin grew by approximately $215 billion, reclaiming the $1 trillion mark. According to HTX platform data, assets across multiple sectors strengthened simultaneously from August 17 to 23, with gains particularly concentrated in the Meme and DeFi sectors.
Meme Sector: TRUMP, TUT & PEPE Rally
The Meme sector once again demonstrated its high elasticity during this market move. Such assets are commonly utilized by traders as high-beta instruments for expressing risk sentiment, often outperforming mainstream assets when market sentiment rapidly rebounds.
● TRUMP: Surged 89% this week. TRUMP is a meme asset associated with U.S. President Donald Trump that attracted significant attention amid a week of intensive policy announcements.
● TUT (Tutorial): Rose 75% this week. Issued on the BNB Chain Meme platform Four.meme, TUT originated from a tutorial demonstration video on token issuance.
● PEPE: Up 56% this week. PEPE is one of the market’s long-standing, highly liquid Meme assets that typically reacts early during the onset of sector rallies.
● PUMP: Increased 88% this week. Pump.fun is a Meme launch platform within the Solana ecosystem, rising in step with the broader Meme sector recovery.
It is worth noting that Meme asset prices lack predictable patterns, and downside pullbacks can be as rapid as upward rallies. Market participants should fully understand the associated risks.
DeFi Sector: Yield Incentive Programs Drive Synergy Across PENDLE, AAVE, and MORPHO
The strength in the DeFi sector last week was anchored by concrete business developments. On August 17, Pendle raised the cap on its PT Looping incentive program to $15 million and added two new liquidity pools. Among them, PT-USD3 was deployed on Morpho, while PT-USDG was deployed across both Aave and Morpho, with the incentive window running through August 27. The program directly linked the yield strategies of all three protocols, drawing targeted capital inflows to the related assets during the same timeframe.
● PENDLE: Posted a 48% gain this week. Pendle’s core mechanism splits yield-bearing assets into principal and yield tokens for independent trading. PT Looping builds on this foundation by providing leveraged fixed-yield strategies.
● AAVE: Climbed 22% this week. Aave is currently the largest decentralized lending protocol, serving as the underlying lending layer supporting the aforementioned strategy.
● MORPHO: Rallied 20% this week. Morpho specializes in modular lending market design, allowing isolated risk parameters to be configured specifically for fixed-term principal tokens.
ZEC and XRP Strengthen as Privacy Assets Gain Independent Drivers
● ZEC: Jumped 66% this week. Zcash’s performance last week was driven by independent catalysts outside the broader market trend. On August 18, Grayscale filed Amendment No. 4 to its Form S-3 registration statement with the U.S. SEC to advance the conversion of the Grayscale Zcash Trust into a spot ETF proposed for listing on NYSE Arca. The filing also disclosed that a subsidiary of parent company Digital Currency Group is in non-binding discussions to acquire approximately 200,000 ZEC tokens. Following the announcement, ZEC rallied continuously, breaking above $800 on August 22 to mark a new high since 2018.
The privacy sector finds itself in a fundamentally different position in 2026 than in previous years. As regulatory frameworks have become clearer, the application of privacy technologies has shifted from regulatory evasion toward data protection, reshaping institutional attitudes toward the sector.
● XRP: Up 49% this week. As a leading asset by market capitalization, XRP posted one of the strongest gains in last week’s broad-based rally, reflecting a return of capital to top-tier assets as policy expectations improved.
Conclusion
Last week’s rally covered multiple asset categories from mainstream cryptos to meme coins, presenting a stark contrast to the localized, sector-by-sector rotation observed over previous months. Simultaneous improvements in regulatory and liquidity expectations served as the primary catalysts for the rally, with capital initially concentrating in mega-cap assets before flowing into DeFi, privacy, and meme sectors.
However, market opinions remain divided on the sustainability of this rebound. Although Bitcoin has broken out of its year-to-date consolidation range, it remains well below its early-2026 high. Whether institutional capital inflows can be sustained and whether policy progress can translate into tangible outcomes will require more time to assess. Following the broad-based gains at the start of a market rally, differences in asset performance tend to re-emerge. HTX will continue to monitor market dynamics and sector trends, keeping a close watch on asset-specific developments to ensure a stable trading environment and reliable services for users.
The post first appeared on HTX Square.
