Investors have increasingly been focused on privacy-related assets and infrastructure assets for the last week of 2026, as evidenced by the performance of Dash, which posted a 129% increase according to CoinMarketCap. Monero, Internet Computer, Story Protocol, Pump.Fun, and Chiliz also saw their prices rise in double-digit percentages, showing a resurgence of interest in utility-oriented cryptocurrencies.
Privacy Coins Stage Powerful 7-Day Comeback
Privacy tokens are coming back in a big way, with 14 out of the Top 18 coins currently showing gains since January. Dash paved the way by reaching $88.81 after Alchemy Pay expanded its fiat payment options into 173 new countries. Monero (XMR) continues to lead this sector after surging 53%, hitting an all-time high of $798.91, giving it a market cap of $13 billion.
With increasing regulations associated with global surveillance and KYC/AML being put in place, people are turning towards these assets for financial freedom. Investors have started to move away from Zcash and reallocated their investments towards Monero. This reflects a clear trend within the market and that is that default privacy is now not just something that certain people want to be able to do, but rather, that it has become something of great value.
Infrastructure and Emerging Tokens Rally Over 7 Days
Besides privacy-oriented token launches, Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) has seen 45% growth and is now trading at $4.21. This move followed the publication of its MISSION70 whitepaper on January 13, 2021, which outlines plans to reduce the inflation rate from 9.72% to 5.42% by 2027. Since then, the market has been very optimistic about their project; on January 15 they experienced an intraday rise of 34%, and on that same day had a record number of transactions 90 million in one day.
The Story Protocol (IP) saw a jump of 29% last week as a result of being the subject of Grayscale’s Decentralized AI Fund to reach a price point of $2.60. Most trades took place in Asia, with Korean-based Exchange Upbit being the facilitator of 45% of the $272 million of total volume traded.
Solana’s Pump.fun (PUMP) has continued to prove itself as the leading memecoin launchpad with a big, big gain of 28% to $0.0029. Following closely behind: Chiliz (CHZ), which experienced an influx of $14.6 million in open interest in future positions as people prepare for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Conclusion
This week’s top gaining assets feature a wide breadth of assets, which indicates that investment decisions were made based on more in-depth fundamental analysis, rather than just buying Bitcoin. Privacy coins make economic adjustments to regulations, Infrastructure Tokens place emphasis on economic discipline and Fan Tokens are cycled in accordance with real-world cycles. In the past week capital has shifted from asset to asset, which is going in the direction of ventures that have constant utility with economic tokenomics.
