Crypto Weekly: LINK and WLFI Post Double-Digit Gains Amid Market Drop

Bitcoin Leads Mid-August Market Pullback

After finishing the first week of August with modest gains, the cryptocurrency market ended the second week in the red. Bitcoin, which had posted gains exceeding 3%, led the market lower after it tumbled from over $65,000, closing just above $63,200. It could have been worse after the cryptocurrency fell below $62,500 on Aug. 14, but a quick rebound kept bitcoin’s weekly losses capped below 3.2%.

During the week, the latest inflation report and a lull in hostilities in the Middle East did help boost global markets. However, in bitcoin’s case, Strategy’s announcement at the start of the week that it had offloaded 1,690 bitcoins the previous week weighed on the asset. While Strategy attempted to assuage the market with a promise to resume buying, this ultimately failed to nudge bitcoin back to pre-announcement levels.

The top cryptocurrency’s decline alone wiped out more than $30 billion in market capitalisation and left the market with minimal gains midway through August.

Besides bitcoin, several high-cap altcoins also trended downward during the period, led by XRP, which shed nearly 4%. One of the year’s early front-runners, XRP has steadily declined, and on Aug. 11 it briefly dipped below $1 following a sell-off. Although it subsequently reclaimed that threshold, the digital asset remains 69% below its January 2025 peak near $3.30.

XRP’s downward spiral comes even as Ripple continues to secure new partnerships while the digital asset sees increased usage. Still, some observers project XRP will drop further, pointing to $0.95 as the next target.

Meanwhile, XRP’s losses were not the steepest, according to market data. ADA, which had risen since late July, fell 10.6%, marking the largest decline among top-tier digital assets. Bitcoin cash and Zcash also saw notable drops of 6% and 5.6%, respectively. XLM fell 3.2%, WBT dropped 3%, and Ethereum closed 2.1% lower.

While broad-market liquidations sent most digital assets into a tailspin, a select group of outperformers mounted strong counter-trend rallies. Chainlink (LINK) led the charge with a 13% surge, energized by a bullish Standard Chartered forecast projecting the token to hit $200 by late 2030. Hyperliquid (HYPE) also demonstrated resilient buying pressure, climbing 5.8% to move from $54.73 to $57.90 over the six days.

Meanwhile, mid-cap and utility tokens notched double-digit expansions of their own, headed by World Liberty Financial (WLFI) with a 15% rally, alongside Worldcoin (WLD) and OKB, which posted gains of 11.4% and 10.9%, respectively.

Because declining tokens outpaced gainers, the crypto market’s aggregate capitalization dropped from nearly $3 trillion on Aug. 10 to $2.22 trillion at the time of writing (Aug. 16, 1:45 p.m. EST).