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Went Against the Market. Top 5 Best-Performing Cryptocurrencies of the Week
e explain which cryptocurrencies from the top 100 grew the most during the week ending November 15 and what events accompanied their rise. The seven-day period up to November 15 saw overall negative market dynamics. Total crypto market capitalization fell by about 7% to $3.25 trillion. Bitcoin and Ethereum prices dropped to $96.4K and $3.18K, losing 5% and 7% respectively.
Around 80% of major cryptocurrencies declined by up to 40%. At the same time, some coins demonstrated significant growth during the same period.
Here is our regular selection of the five cryptocurrencies with the strongest weekly performance. The list is based on percentage gains over the past seven days (data from open sources), and the assets are taken from the top-100 by market cap on Coinmarketcap.
Almost every coin’s growth was accompanied by some positive news background, but many other market factors may influence prices as well.
Starknet (STRK)
Seven-day growth: 35%
Starknet was developed by Israeli startup StarkWare Industries to scale Ethereum. The project raised $287 million from Vitalik Buterin and major funds such as Sequoia Capital, Pantera Capital, Paradigm, Coinbase, Founders Fund, and others.
Its main feature is a proprietary programming language, different from competitors and from Ethereum itself. This created compatibility challenges but allowed developers to embed any business logic without protocol limitations.
Growth momentum coincided with the introduction of the “Ztarknet” initiative — a proposal to build a scalable privacy-preserving solution for Zcash (ZEC) on Starknet, with the key feature of allowing network fees to be paid in ZEC. The proposal was supported by Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox and Starknet co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson.
STRK began trading in early 2024 with an initial peak around $3.6. The price subsequently fell for many months. The bottom was reached in October 2025 at around $0.046. Since then, the token has risen more than 450%.
Zcash (ZEC)
Seven-day growth: 30%
Zcash is the largest privacy coin by market cap ($11.2B) and ranks 12th on Coinmarketcap. Like Bitcoin, it operates via mining.
For years, ZEC was in a downtrend, but since late September 2025 it has shown one of the sharpest rallies among major cryptocurrencies — over 1100% since January, without clear news. Zooko Wilcox stated he does not know the reasons for the surge.
Positive context this week is again limited to the Starknet proposal.
The all-time high was above $2,500 in 2016. A local high near $800 was reached in January 2018. As of November 15, the price was about $700. Growth since September — nearly 1700%.
Uniswap (UNI)
Seven-day growth: 25%
Uniswap is the world’s largest decentralized exchange with nearly $100B monthly volume. Among centralized exchanges, it would rank fifth.
Launched in 2018 by Hayden Adams, the protocol is developed by Uniswap Labs, pioneers of AMM-based DEX trading. The exchange operates in over 35 networks with TVL above $4.5B.
UNI surged after the publication of the “UNIfication” proposal — a major tokenomics overhaul with a token burn mechanism. Developers also plan to shift from decentralized governance to an operational company model focused on profit.
Experts note that this could position Uniswap as the first “blue-chip” DeFi asset based on real protocol revenue.
UNI peaked at $45 in May 2021. This year’s low is around $2. As of November 15, it traded near $7.5. Despite weekly gains, the token is down over 40% YTD.
World Liberty Financial (WLFI)
Seven-day growth: 17%
The project launched with involvement from the Trump family. Donald Trump is listed as the project’s “chief human rights advocate.” His sons Eric and Donald Jr. are Web3 ambassadors, and Barron is named a DeFi visionary.
Initially intended as a lending protocol, the team pivoted to speculative crypto operations and launched the WLFI token. The project is also the issuer of USD1, the sixth-largest stablecoin with a $2.8B market cap.
WLF has tight connections with Binance: the exchange was an early supporter of USD1, and Binance developers contributed to the stablecoin’s code.
No notable news accompanied WLFI’s growth this week. The token’s high was $0.46; the low in October was $0.07. On November 15 it traded around $0.142.
Monero (XMR)
Seven-day growth: 14%
Monero was long the largest privacy cryptocurrency (cap ~$7.7B) but was overtaken by ZEC in October.
Due to its strong privacy features, regulators in various countries restrict its use. As a result, Binance, OKX, Bybit and others delisted XMR. Unlike XMR, ZEC offers optional privacy, which avoids some regulatory pressure.
XMR trading is limited to fewer exchanges and its volumes are much lower than ZEC’s.
As in previous weeks, no specific news accompanied its rise.
XMR’s all-time high is $520 (2021). As of November 15 — around $420. Growth since September — 60%, YTD — about 125%.
See also: "The Bitcoin Market Remains Under Pressure: Large Investors Show Caution and ETFs Record Outflows"
