Hot Tokens Learning Week 7: Privacy Coins Rally in Rotation, with RIVER Standing Out as 2026’s Surprise Performer

Overview

On-chain activity on the Solana network saw a significant rebound in early 2026, with active addresses increasing by 56% over the past week. However, short-term price action remains susceptible to broader market pressure, so cautious investment is advised.

The privacy + payments narrative has been the primary catalyst driving rotation and substantial price gains in privacy coins such as DASH and XMR.

River has emerged as an early breakout under the triple narrative of Arthur Hayes + chain abstraction infrastructure + explosive liquidity.

Story Protocol ($IP) is a dedicated Layer-1 blockchain focused on Intellectual Property (IP) within the crypto sector.

SOL

Introduction

Solana is currently one of the highest-performing public blockchains in crypto. It utilizes a hybrid consensus mechanism combining Proof of History (PoH) with Proof of Stake (PoS) to deliver extreme speed, low fees, and high throughput, making it especially suited for payments, DeFi, stablecoins, RWAs (real-world assets), prediction markets, and other high-frequency use cases.

On-chain Data

On-chain activity on Solana rebounded notably in early 2026. Over the past week, weekly active addresses increased by 56%, with user engagement and transaction volumes surging, which indicates renewed genuine demand rather than purely speculative behavior.

Community Views

Current sentiment in the Solana community maintains a neutral to bullish lean, though short-term performance is still influenced by macro volatility (such as BTC flash crashes and modest ETF outflows). Others remain cautious. Compared to late-2025 excitement around “beta completion”, discussions have shifted toward pragmatism: Despite Firedancer going live, increasing institutional flows, and surging RWA/stablecoin usage, price still needs additional catalysts to break above the $150+ resistance level.

DASH

Introduction

Dash (DASH), short for Digital Cash, is one of the earliest representative crypto projects focused on practical payments. It was launched in January 2014 by Evan Duffield (initially named XCoin, later Darkcoin, and finally rebranded as Dash in 2015). Dash is effectively a fork of Bitcoin/Litecoin but innovates with a dual-tier network architecture (miners + Masternodes) to address pain points of BTC including slow transaction speeds, high fees, and insufficient privacy. It positions itself as “true digital cash” with instant, private, low-cost, and scalable payments.

Ecosystem Development

In early 2026, Dash experienced an explosive rally of 90%–130%, becoming one of the earliest leaders in this altcoin season’s privacy + payments narrative. The primary catalysts were:

1. Major payment integrations (Alchemy Pay, AEON Pay, etc.) in Q1 2026 enabled Dash to be accepted at over 50 million real-world merchants across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa, moving Dash from "concept" to "practical payment utility".

2. Rotation in privacy coins: Regulatory tightening (such as DAC8) and surging user demand for privacy have driven capital into the sector, with Dash being rediscovered as a "legacy privacy + payments" project that emphasizes practical payment utility more than Monero or Zcash.

3. Ongoing tech upgrades: Dash Platform v2.x has been completed in 2025 and supports fungible tokens and creator attribution. Key focuses in 2026 include the listing of DashPay iOS wallet and Evolution Platform (smart contract VM, IBC cross-chain compatibility, decentralized storage), expanding Dash beyond pure payments into DeFi and cross-chain ecosystems.

4. Market sentiment: Short-term squeezes and leveraged long positions fueled aggressive buying, triggering massive 24-hour liquidations that pushed prices higher but also increased pullback risks.

Community Views

In January 2026, Dash saw explosive rebounds from the low-$30s to $80–90+ (weekly gains of 115%+, with intraday spikes of 10–20%), outperforming other privacy coins such as XMR and ZEC. Community sentiment shifted from viewing Dash as a dormant legacy project to a mix of high excitement and pragmatic caution. Many see Dash’s return as a strong privacy + payments narrative, while some warn of overextension risk.

XMR

Introduction

As the most well-known privacy coin in crypto, Monero (XMR) was launched on April 18, 2014 as a fork of Bytecoin using the CryptoNote protocol. Its core mission is default privacy, complete untraceability, and true fungibility. Unlike Zcash (optional privacy) or Dash (partial privacy), Monero enforces privacy by default: All transactions hide senders, receivers, and amounts by default, making the chain entirely opaque on-chain.

Ecosystem Highlights

In January 2026, Monero’s on-chain metrics (hashrate, difficulty, transaction volume) remained strong, and the ecosystem is focused on privacy upgrades such as FCMP++. A beta stressnet has already been under test in early 2026 with plans for a mainnet launch in Q2–Q3. XMR’s price, though corrected from all-time highs, still shows a healthy structure—with tighter regulation often interpreted by supporters as increasing privacy value.

Community Views

The overall sentiment is strongly bullish and conviction-driven, though some foresee short-term cooling after overheated moves. The privacy narrative dominates, but regulatory pressure (e.g., Dubai bans, EU DAC8, exchange delistings) is seen by parts of the community as a bullish catalyst, with some community users branding XMR as an “ultimate safe asset” or “anti-surveillance tool” that surpasses competitors like ZEC and DASH in core privacy confidence.

RIVER

Introduction

River (RIVER) is an emerging chain-abstraction stablecoin protocol in 2025, originally launched as Satoshi Protocol (started in the Bitcoin ecosystem before pivoting to the stablecoin track). Its core goal is to solve multi-chain liquidity fragmentation, allowing users to collateralize, mint stablecoins, earn yields, and leverage across chains without bridging, wrapping assets, or switching networks.

Community Views

In January 2026, River emerged as an early breakout under the triple narrative of Arthur Hayes + chain abstraction infrastructure + explosive liquidity. After a sharp short-term rally, RIVER is likely to enter a period of consolidation and corrective base formation, with support around the $20–$25 range. However, community opinions vary: Some saw River as one of the most undervalued infrastructure-level players in the current DeFi cycle. Although leveraged traders chased the rally aggressively, many cautioned against FOMO-driven buying and recommended waiting for a pullback to form a base before entering.

IP

Introduction

Story Protocol ($IP) is a dedicated Layer-1 blockchain focused on Intellectual Property (IP) within the crypto sector. It aims to bring $80 trillion of global IP assets (creative works, art, music, brands, AI training data, real-world data, etc.) on-chain in a programmable, transparent, and monetizable way and fundamentally solve core challenges in provenance, rights attribution, automated licensing, and royalty distribution in the age of AI content explosion.