Kaiko acquired Amberdata to expand its institutional crypto data platform with derivatives analytics, onchain tools and AI-powered research.

Paris-based crypto data platform Kaiko acquired Amberdata, a US-focused digital asset data provider, as institutional investors demand broader market, derivatives and onchain analytics for digital assets.

Kaiko said the deal will expand its institutional data stack and help the combined company serve banks, asset managers, hedge funds, exchanges and trading firms that need cleaner data across fragmented crypto markets, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The acquisition adds Amberdata’s derivatives analytics and artificial intelligence-powered research tools, including the GVOL options analytics platform, which Kaiko said had been one of the most requested capabilities from institutional clients.

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HIVE reduced its Bitcoin holdings to 150 BTC while annual revenue climbed to $297.8 million, driven by growth in mining and AI computing.

Canadian Bitcoin miner HIVE Digital Technologies’ Bitcoin holdings fell by 331 BTC in the latest quarter, even as the miner reported a sharp rise in annual revenue from Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing (HPC).

The company reported holdings of 150 Bitcoin (BTC) in its fiscal year update on Monday, down from 481 BTC at the end of Q4 2025, according to company figures and CoinGecko data. The 331 BTC reduction represents about $23 million in value at current prices, with Bitcoin trading roughly 21% lower year-to-date.

HIVE did not explicitly say it sold Bitcoin. The company mined 2,885 BTC during fiscal 2026 and generated $297.8 million in revenue, up 158% from a year earlier, driven largely by expanded Bitcoin mining capacity and HPC revenue.

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NEAR has rebounded from a key historical support zone, reviving a bullish fractal that preceded 2,375% and 900% rallies in previous cycles.

NEAR, the native token of the AI- and privacy-focused Near Protocol, has been an outlier in the broader crypto market, outperforming top coins such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) in recent weeks.

As of Tuesday, NEAR traded as high as $2.75, marking a nearly 20% rebound in the last 24 hours. In comparison, the crypto market capitalization dropped by 3.7% in the same period.

NEAR/USD four-hour chart. Source: TradingView

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XRP trades below key macro support, but analysts say reclaiming it could trigger one of the biggest bear traps.

XRP (XRP) dropped to $1.25 on Tuesday after a market-wide sell-off, erasing all the gains made since early February. 

Key takeaways:

Data from TradingView shows that the XRP price opened June at $0.33, just below the 50-month exponential moving average (EMA).

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MoneyGram launched MGUSD, a dollar stablecoin on Stellar, as the remittance company deepens its push into blockchain-based global payments.

MoneyGram launched MGUSD, a US dollar stablecoin on Stellar, as the remittance company deepens its push into blockchain-based cross-border payments.

The company said Tuesday that MGUSD will be integrated into the MoneyGram app through a self-custodial wallet, allowing users to hold dollar-denominated balances, move funds globally and convert into local currencies. The stablecoin initially launched in the US market, with plans to scale worldwide. 

MGUSD is backed by a notable infrastructure stack. The tokens are issued by Bridge, Stripe’s stablecoin platform, which received conditional approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to operate as a federally chartered national trust bank in February. 

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Onchain investigator ZachXBT claims decentralized exchange edgeX insiders controlled nearly the entire supply with a thin float.

Decentralized exchange edgeX has attributed a more than 40% collapse in its EDGE token to ‘deliberate’ market manipulation by an unnamed external party, a claim that onchain investigator ZachXBT has dismissed.

Data from CoinMarketCap shows edgeX (EDGE) plunged from roughly $1.20 to an intra-day low of $0.3663 on Tuesday, a drop of around 70%. The token is currently trading at $0.6474, down by around 45% over the past day.

In a post on X, the edgeX team acknowledged the sudden collapse in its native token, telling its community it had “observed a sudden and irregular price movement” and was actively investigating.

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Capital B is asking shareholders to approve up to $122 billion in capital-raising authority to accelerate its Bitcoin treasury strategy.

France-listed Bitcoin treasury company Capital B is asking shareholders to approve a massive new delegation of fresh capital-raising instruments, seeking authority to issue new equity and credit instruments to accelerate Bitcoin acquisitions.

Capital B submitted a new proposal to the board of directors seeking to allow the establishment of up to 5 billion euros ($5.8 billion) in capital increase through 125 billion shares at current nominal value and $116 billion in credit instruments, said Alexandre Laizet, the board director of Bitcoin Strategy at Capital B, in a Monday X post.

Shareholders can cast their votes online until the company's combined general meeting on June 17. 

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Bitcoin slips below $70,000 as rising losses, exchange inflows and extreme fear signal a renewed distribution phase.

Bitcoin (BTC) sellers took control during the European trading session on Tuesday as the BTC/USD pair slipped below the $70,000 mark for the first time since April.

Analysts said that Bitcoin has entered another distribution phase due to high selling pressure and investors realizing losses.

Key takeaways:

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Bitcoin treasury firms made up nearly all May inflows, but BTC-linked capital formation also dropped sharply from April.

Monthly inflows into digital asset treasury (DAT) companies fell to $180 million in May, the lowest level since October 2024, according to DefiLlama data. 

The May total was down 95% from April's $4.4 billion and about 93% below the monthly average for January through May. The drop followed two strong months for DAT inflows, with data showing $4.2 billion in March and $4.4 billion in April. 

Bitcoin treasury companies accounted for nearly all of May's DAT inflows, with $177 million (about 98%) of the monthly total. However, Bitcoin inflows were also down sharply from their $3.8 billion recorded in April. 

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Mt. Gox moved $739 million in Bitcoin for the first time since March, raising speculation about imminent creditor distributions.

Defunct Japanese crypto exchange Mt. Gox moved roughly $739 million worth of Bitcoin from its cold wallets early Tuesday, its first onchain movement in over two months, according to Arkham Intelligence data.

Blockchain data shows the exchange transferred 10,306 Bitcoin (BTC), worth approximately $730.8 million, from its cold wallet to an unmarked address at 4:47 am UTC. The transferred Bitcoin is currently marked as “unspent” by Arkham. The exchange also made a separate transfer of 116.3 BTC, worth around $8.25 million, to its hot wallet at the same time, which is marked as “spent.”

The transferred Bitcoin being marked “unspent” means the funds are sitting in the new address and have not yet been sent anywhere further. On the other hand, “spent” means those funds have already been moved on again to another address.

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Bitcoin fell to fresh two-month lows as BTC price weakness accelerated and analysis targeted its 200-day moving average trend line.

Bitcoin (BTC) traded below $70,000 for the first time in two months on Tuesday as sellers stayed in control.

Key points:

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Robinhood will enter Canada after its WonderFi acquisition brought local crypto exchanges Bitbuy and Coinsquare under its control.

Stock and crypto trading platform Robinhood has entered the Canadian market after closing a $180 million stock acquisition of local crypto technology company WonderFi, gaining the company’s licenses and regulatory approvals in the country.

Robinhood said on Monday that the acquisition marks the platform's entry into Canada and will see crypto exchanges Bitbuy and Coinsquare come under the company’s banner.

Bitbuy and Coinsquare are among Canada's largest crypto exchanges. WonderFi disclosed in March that the platforms generated combined revenue of $49.8 million in 2025.

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Santiment says that “the gap between traditional equities and crypto has become increasingly difficult for traders to ignore.”

Bitcoin fell to its lowest level in almost two months on Tuesday as cryptocurrencies continue to diverge from traditional equity markets.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell to a low of $70,023 on Coinbase early on Tuesday, its lowest level since April 7, marking a daily decline of more than 4% and a weekly loss of 8%, according to TradingView. Bitcoin is down 44% from its October peak of $126,000. 

US stock markets such as the S&P 500 have meanwhile hit a record high of just over 7,600 points on Monday, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq peaked at over 27,000 points.

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Grayscale proposed a fee of 0.29% on its Hyperliquid ETF, which “slightly undercuts” rivals 21Shares and Bitwise that carry respective fees of 0.3% and 0.34%, says analyst James Seyffart.

Crypto asset manager Grayscale could launch its exchange-traded fund tied to the Hyperliquid token in the US as soon as this week after it amended a regulatory filing for the fund, an analyst says. 

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart posted to X on Monday that the launch of Grayscale’s ETF was “likely imminent” and was “expecting the launch this week” after the company amended the fund’s filing for the sixth time to add its ticker and fee.

Grayscale’s amended filing added that the ETF would trade under the ticker HYPG with a 0.29% management fee, which Seyffart noted “slightly undercuts” rival Hyperliquid (HYPE) ETFs from 21Shares and Bitwise that launched in mid-May.

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Telegram founder Pavel Durov says it is “returning to our roots — and starting a new chapter” by rebranding Toncoin to Gram.

The Open Network says it is planning to rebrand its Toncoin (TON) token to Gram (GRAM), the original name of the network’s cryptocurrency in its first white paper.

“Gram was the original name of TON’s currency in the first white paper,” Telegram and TON founder Pavel Durov posted to Telegram on Monday. “We’re returning to our roots — and starting a new chapter.”

The rebranding will “pave the way for what comes next,” and the transition will take around three weeks, he added. 

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Bitmine is aiming to hold 5% of the total circulating supply of 120.6 million Ether tokens and is about 90% of the way to its target after its latest purchase.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies has purchased another $52 million worth of Ether (ETH), with its chair, Tom Lee, saying that the token’s price isn’t yet reflecting the Ethereum blockchain’s strengths.

“Over the past week, we acquired 26,497 ETH,” Lee said in a statement on Monday. “In our view, ETH prices are not reflecting the strengthening of Ethereum fundamentals, but then again, this is not surprising given we are in the early stages of crypto spring.”

Bitmine is the largest Ether treasury company with 5.4 million ETH worth more than $10.5 billion. It had slowed its pace of buying earlier this month after scooping up more than 100,000 Ether a week for three straight weeks.

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A clash has erupted among Polymarket users over the timing and disclosure of a recent Bitcoin sale by Strategy, with more than $80 million traded on the disputed outcome.

Polymarket users who bet on when Michael Saylor’s Strategy would sell Bitcoin are in dispute with the prediction market platform over the timing and disclosure of the company’s recent sale.

More than $80 million has been wagered on whether Strategy would sell Bitcoin (BTC) by May 31, with users able to buy odds on “Yes” or “No.”

Strategy said in a regulatory filing that it sold 32 Bitcoin (BTC) between May 26 and May 31, but the disclosure of the sale was made on Monday, June 1, leading the market to resolve to “No,” causing confusion among users.

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Radiant says its frontend and smart contracts will remain accessible and users will still be able to withdraw, repay, and manage their positions.

Crypto lending protocol Radiant Capital says it will start closing down as it failed to establish a “viable path forward” after North Korea exploited it for $50 million in October 2024.

Radiant’s decentralized autonomous organization said in a blog post on Monday that its inability to recover the stolen funds, secure new capital and maintain a runway to continue operating responsibly forced it to wind down.

It added on X that contributors and community members had helped maintain the protocol under “increasingly difficult conditions,” but it was not enough to sustain the protocol “without recovery, capital, or growth.”

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Selling from all angles pushed Bitcoin below $71,000 at the weekly open, but early bullish positioning in BTC derivatives may signal the start of a recovery.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped below $71,000 on Monday for the first time in seven weeks, liquidating $276 million in leveraged bullish positions as traders reduced their positions amid renewed military action between the US and Iran. Despite this heightened risk aversion, whales and market makers increased their bullish exposure in the Bitcoin derivatives markets.

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Selling from all angles pushed Bitcoin below $71,000 at the weekly open, but early bullish positioning in BTC derivatives may signal the start of a recovery.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped below $71,000 on Monday for the first time in seven weeks, liquidating $276 million in leveraged bullish positions as traders reduced their positions amid renewed military action between the US and Iran. Despite this heightened risk aversion, whales and market makers increased their bullish exposure in the Bitcoin derivatives markets.

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The integration gives fintech and institutional platforms a new pathway to evaluate DOGE amid signs of slowing crypto adoption.

The Dogecoin Foundation’s corporate arm has partnered with Paxos to integrate DOGE across its brokerage and custody infrastructure, potentially expanding access to the memecoin through regulated financial channels.

According to a Monday announcement, Dogecoin (DOGE) will become available through Paxos’ brokerage and custody platform, allowing the company’s fintech, payments and institutional clients to evaluate support for the memecoin.

Paxos provides crypto infrastructure for several major fintech and brokerage platforms, including PayPal, Venmo, Interactive Brokers and Mercado Libre. 

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Many Democratic lawmakers have said that they will not support any version of a crypto market structure bill without provisions on ethics to address potential conflicts of interest by elected officials.

US Senate consideration of the Digital Asset Clarity (CLARITY) Act is likely to resume as members reconvene this week after an extended Memorial Day holiday.

Many US lawmakers and crypto industry leaders are pushing for consideration of the CLARITY Act, a crypto market structure bill introduced by Republicans and passed by the House of Representatives in July 2025.

The bill, expected to give more authority to the federal commodities regulator over digital assets, passed two crucial committees before the one-week break. It has been debated in Congress amid pushback from industry and banking representatives over stablecoins, tokenized equities and other issues.

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Bitcoin’s sharp volatility decline coincides with a 114-day trading range, setting the stage for a potential 10% to 20% price move, but the direction remains uncertain.

Bitcoin's realized volatility has fallen to 17.2%, one of its lowest levels in recent months. Multiple Bitcoin analysts have said that long periods of price compression, alongside declining volatility, have historically preceded double-digit rallies. 

Bitcoin researcher Axel Adler Jr. said that BTC’s one-week realized volatility, smoothed over a 30-day period, has fallen to 17.2% from 39% this quarter, a 56% decline.

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The Parliamentary Association for the Promotion of Blockchain delivered recommendations to Japan’s finance minister on crypto and blockchain.

A group of lawmakers within Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are seeking reforms to the country's cryptocurrency taxation system, as well as support for initiatives for the development and adoption of yen-denominated stablecoins.

According to a Monday Nada News report, the LDP’s Parliamentary Association for the Promotion of Blockchain delivered recommendations to Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama, including provisions on stablecoins, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and applications for blockchain technology.

The document proposes doubling the leverage cap for retail cryptocurrency derivatives trading and establishing a framework for ETFs tied to digital assets.

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Strategy’s 32 BTC transaction has sparked debate over how investors value Bitcoin treasury companies as capital structure and liquidity considerations evolve.

Shares of Michael Saylor’s Strategy fell Monday after the company disclosed its first Bitcoin sale since adopting a “never sell” philosophy, prompting fresh scrutiny of the corporate Bitcoin treasury model.

Nasdaq-traded MSTR stock was down more than 6.5% to start off the week before paring back some of that decline by early afternoon on Monday.

Although short-term price action rarely determines broader trends, Strategy’s sale of 32 Bitcoin (BTC) last week challenged the long-held perception that the company would only accumulate BTC and never liquidate its holdings, according to digital asset research and advisory firm Delphi Digital.

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Bitcoin fell to its lowest levels since mid-April as chances of a US-Iran peace deal seemed to fade and oil prices spiked.

Bitcoin (BTC) hit new seven-week lows on Monday amid a collapsing peace deal between the US and Iran.

Key points:

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Long-term whales have cashed out millions of dollars from Ethereum following the recent sell-off, potentially putting ETH at risk of further losses.

An early Ether (ETH) investor sold their ETH holdings over the past week as the price headed toward $2,000, sparking fears of further losses. However, onchain data tells a different story as traders speculate where ETH/USD might bottom.

Key takeaways:

An old Ethereum whale, an early investor holding tokens since the network’s first years, sold 55,000 ETH worth about $112.25 million and 9,442 ETH worth roughly $24 million over the past week. 

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HYPE has entered the breakout stage of its prevailing bull pennant setup with an upside target near $105, with strong fundamentals backing the bullish case.

Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, has rallied more than 30% in five days to a record high near $74, with a bullish chart breakout now pointing to a potential move above $100.

HYPE/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView

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The Kelp DAO exploiter laundered about $220 million worth of remaining stolen funds in a bid to make them untraceable, excluding the $71 million frozen by Arbitrum’s Security Council.

The hacker behind the $293 million Kelp DAO exploit has laundered nearly all of the unfrozen stolen funds, or about $220 million, in just six weeks, according to Arkham data and onchain analysts.

The Kelp DAO hacker-tagged wallet appears to have laundered nearly all the stolen funds, with just $1.7 million remaining traceable in the wallet, according to blockchain data provider Arkham. The malicious actor drained 116,500 Kelp DAO restaked ETH (rsETH) on April 18, pushing the total amount stolen from crypto hacks to $630 million for April.

The funds were laundered in two layers: bridging to Bitcoin using crypto mixer Wasabi and then returning to Ethereum before withdrawing and depositing via mixing protocol Tornado Cash, according to onchain analyst Specter.

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The world's largest public Bitcoin holder reduced its stash to 843,706 BTC, while raising $128.3 million through Class A stock sales.

[Update 1:57 P.M. UTC, June 1 -- Updates third paragraph with share price decline in Monday morning trading.]

Strategy sold 32 BTC last week, its first reported Bitcoin sale since a 2022 tax-loss transaction, as the company moved to fund preferred stock distributions.

Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin (BTC) for $2.5 million at an average price of $77,135 per BTC, reducing its holdings from 843,738 BTC to 843,706 BTC, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

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The world's largest public Bitcoin holder reduced its stash to 843,706 BTC, while raising $128.3 million through Class A stock sales.

Strategy sold 32 BTC last week, its first reported Bitcoin sale since a 2022 tax-loss transaction, as the company moved to fund preferred stock distributions.

Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin (BTC) for $2.5 million at an average price of $77,135 per BTC, reducing its holdings from 843,738 BTC to 843,706 BTC, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Proceeds from the Bitcoin sale are expected to be used to fund distributions on preferred stock, the company said.

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Gnosis Pay faces an active exploit in its delay module as co‑founder Martin Köppelmann walks back a warning urging users to withdraw funds and vows to repay those affected.

Update (June 2 at 10:30 am UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from a spokesperson at Gnosis.

Gnosis is working to contain an exploit Monday affecting its Gnosis Pay product after co-founder Martin Köppelmann acknowledged an active hack involving the system’s delay module and said the project would cover user losses.

Köppelmann initially urged users to withdraw funds, a warning quickly amplified by blockchain security firm PeckShield, which said users were strongly advised to withdraw all funds (EURe and GNO) and check exposure.

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MEXC, a leading 0-fee cross-asset trading platform, today announced the official launch of 'RealStocks.'

Mutsamudu, Comoros, June 1, 2026 – MEXC, a leading 0-fee cross-asset trading platform, today announced the official launch of 'RealStocks.' This innovative equity product is now accessible to eligible users globally. The product seamlessly integrates real ownership rights of traditional financial assets with the low-friction experience of a crypto platform, further expanding MEXC's 0-fee cross-asset trading ecosystem.

For a long time, investors looking to enter the U.S. stock market were limited to two less-than-ideal options. The first was trading through traditional brokerages, which requires enduring tedious currency exchange and deposit processes. The second was trading synthetic assets or tokenized products on crypto platforms, which often comes with drawbacks like poor liquidity and a lack of dividend payouts. The launch of 'RealStocks' breaks this deadlock, seamlessly bridging the gap between both worlds.

Building on a highly successful Beta phase validated by over 20,000 early users, the official launch ensures a seamless, battle-tested trading experience. Through MEXC’s licensed broker partner, Atomic Vaults, eligible users can purchase shares in real U.S.-listed companies, eligible users can purchase shares in real U.S. listed companies, with genuine market exposure and liquidity consistent with traditional U.S. equity markets. Where applicable, users are entitled to dividends or distributions on their holdings. The entire trading flow is integrated into MEXC’s existing interface. Users transact in USDT, making the experience of buying U.S. stocks similar to buying crypto in practice. Trading hours follow Nasdaq market sessions, and zero platform trading fees apply during the launch period, keeping costs to a minimum. The product has been validated by over 20,000 users during the Beta phase.

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Crypto ETPs see $1.67 billion in outflows as the US dominates selling, Bitcoin funds log a record 2026 exit, and altcoin participation narrows sharply across markets, according to CoinShares.

Crypto investment products extended losses to three straight weeks last week amid ongoing selling pressure in markets and limited institutional demand.

Crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) recorded $1.67 billion in outflows last week, the second-largest weekly withdrawal of 2026, CoinShares reported on Monday.

The fresh outflows bring three-week losses to $4.21 billion, with total assets under management dropping to $141 billion, the lowest level since early April.

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Binance launched US equities trading for eligible users and plans tokenized stocks as crypto exchanges expand into broader financial markets.

Binance has launched US equities trading for eligible users and plans to add tokenized stocks as part of a broader push to expand beyond crypto.

Users will be able to trade more than 7,000 stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with zero commission, buy fractional shares from $5 and access select equities on a 24/5 basis, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The exchange said it is also planning to introduce tokenized stocks as part of its vision for a “multi-asset financial super app.”

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ECB board member Isabel Schnabel warned that stablecoins could bring money-market risks into tokenized finance and reinforce US dollar dominance.

European Central Bank (ECB) Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel said stablecoins could bring old financial-market vulnerabilities into tokenized finance, while strengthening the case for central banks to modernize public money through tools such as the digital euro and tokenized central bank settlement.

In a Monday speech at the 2026 Bank of Korea International Conference on Central Banks and the Future of Money in Seoul, Schnabel compared stablecoins with money market funds, arguing that both can offer useful financial innovation while also creating risks around bank disintermediation, runs, fire sales and monetary policy transmission.

Schnabel also warned that stablecoins could reinforce the US dollar’s global role as tokenized finance develops. “The growing use of stablecoins may further cement the international dominance of the U.S. dollar,” she said, adding that “virtually all stablecoins in circulation are denominated in dollars, with other currencies playing a negligible role.”

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Coinbase has switched on direct rupee bank transfers in India via IMPS, letting users move funds between local bank accounts and the exchange for spot and futures trading.

Coinbase has enabled direct rupee bank rails in India, making it easier for local customers to move money between bank accounts and crypto markets on the exchange as the company deepens its push into one of the world’s fastest-growing digital asset markets.

Indian users can now deposit and withdraw Indian rupees via the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) instant payments network and access spot markets, perpetual futures and the company’s Advanced Trade interface through a single platform, according to a company blog post published Sunday.

The move marks Coinbase’s latest push to expand its presence in India since a troubled 2022 debut and follows the company’s registration with India’s Financial Intelligence Unit, giving it a formal regulatory footing in the market.

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Bitcoin price headed below $72,000 on Iran woes as US President Donald Trump told observers to "sit back and relax" with a ceasefire still unresolved.

Bitcoin (BTC) heads into June with new local lows as the US-Iran war drives crypto market nerves.

News of strikes on Iranian targets keep the Middle East conflict firmly on the radar as a source of crypto market volatility this week.

Exchanges of fire meant that BTC price action quickly came under pressure following the monthly close, dropping below $73,000.

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NYDIG’s Greg Cipolaro says a sale below market price and giving up millions of dollars for immediate execution indicates a large directional holder exited a trade on BlackRock’s IBIT last week.

A $1.26 billion block trade in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) made last week was likely a whale making a quick exit on a directional trade, says Greg Cipolaro, the head of research at financial services company NYDIG.

On Tuesday, an unknown trader sold 29.2 million shares of BlackRock’s IBIT on a dark pool, a private trading platform that institutions use to discreetly make large trades outside public markets, sparking speculation about who made the trade and why.

Cipolaro said in a research note on Friday that several indicators were “consistent with a large directional holder exiting a concentrated position rather than a contemporaneous basis-trade unwind.”

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The transition gives the asset manager control of a tokenized fund that combines crypto carry trades with Treasury and digital asset exposure.

Bitwise completed its takeover of Superstate's Crypto Carry Fund (USCC), giving the asset manager control of a tokenized investment vehicle that uses market-neutral crypto trading strategies to generate yield.

Bitwise said on May 7 it would assume management of the fund from Superstate as the infrastructure company shifted its focus toward FundOS, its tokenized fund platform. 

The fund is available to qualified purchasers and seeks to generate yield through crypto cash-and-carry trades, a strategy that captures the premium between cryptocurrency futures and spot prices. It retains the USCC token ticker and existing smart contracts following the transition.

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The crypto bank's new CMS platform lets institutions trade on crypto venues while keeping assets in regulated custody and reducing pre-funded accounts.

Anchorage Digital launched a settlement platform that allows institutions to trade on crypto venues while keeping assets in custody at its federally regulated bank, which it said will help manage counterparty and operational risks.

According to Monday’s announcement from the company, Coordinated Multiparty Settlement (CMS) connects trading venues, prime brokers and institutional clients through a shared settlement layer while keeping assets at Anchorage Digital Bank throughout the trade lifecycle.

Anchorage said CMS verifies funding obligations and coordinates settlement across participants, reducing the number of asset transfers needed to complete trades. The company said the system is designed to reduce the need for pre-funded exchange accounts, a common practice in crypto markets.

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The Sui Network's first two outages were caused by bugs introduced in its 1.72 update, while an interim fix deployed to restore the blockchain triggered the third.

The Sui Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the Sui Network, says it has made a “major upgrade” to address issues that caused three recent outages and left the blockchain down for more than 15 hours across two days.

Sui experienced an outage on Thursday that lasted nearly six hours and two more on Friday. The first lasted eight hours and 25 minutes while the second lasted 43 minutes, according to the Sui network's uptime dashboard. All systems are listed as operational as of Monday.

The Sui Foundation said in a blog post on Sunday that it applied an upgrade to fix the bugs that caused the outages. It also flagged several issues for improvement, such as better failure containment, end-of-epoch resilience and further investment in artificial intelligence agents, which helped with diagnoses, querying validator logs and assembling metrics.

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CertiK says May is the third month so far in 2026 to record crypto losses under $100 million.

Losses from exploits of crypto platforms fell to $68.3 million in May, down almost 90% from the $650 million lost in April, says crypto security company CertiK.

“After a particularly bad April, May is now the third month of 2026 to record losses under [$100 million],” CertiK posted to X on Sunday. 

Around $2.6 million of the total crypto stolen in May was due to phishing attacks, while roughly $9.4 million was recovered or returned, it added.

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Cardano Foundation has failed at its second attempt to secure funding from Cardano’s community to fund its annual conference.

The Cardano Foundation has canceled its 2026 annual conference after its governance community shot down a revised proposal seeking to fund the event with treasury tokens.

“Governance requires not only participation, but also a commitment to accept collective decisions. The Cardano community has spoken and we respect the outcome,” the foundation posted to X on Saturday after voting closed on Friday.

The proposal sought to use 7.8 million Cardano (ADA) tokens worth $1.84 million to fund the event. 65.2% of votes were cast in favor of the proposal, which was just short of the 66.67% threshold needed to pass. 

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Wintermute said it will provide “two-sided markets across event contracts on leading venues,” but did not specify what platforms it was trading on.

Crypto liquidity provider and trading company Wintermute says it is providing liquidity on prediction markets as the industry continues to expand.

The firm, which handles $3.5 trillion in annual trading volume, said on Friday that it is extending its institutional trading to prediction markets and would provide “two-sided markets across event contracts on leading venues,” without specifying the platforms. 

Jake Ostrovskis, head of OTC trading at Wintermute, said prediction markets have the “demand profile” of a major asset class but the liquidity profile of an “early-stage one.”

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A white-hat hacker has helped the creators of Hong Coin by showing them how to exploit a flawed admin function on a smart contract and ultimately refund investors after a decade.

A pseudonymous white hat hacker has helped recover $2 million worth of Ether locked in a faulty initial coin offering (ICO) smart contract for almost a decade.

In a post to X on Sunday, the white hat, known as “0xflorent,” said they helped recover about 1,003 Ether (ETH) from 48 investors who participated in the Hong Coin (HONG) ICO, a decentralized venture capital fund that never launched due to it failing to reach its funding goal.

“The contract held all the investors' ETH and was supposed to auto-refund them,” 0xflorent said. However, “a bug in the refund function quietly broke that, and the funds got stuck.” 

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Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller told a conference on Sunday that stablecoins expand the reach of US policy while the Bank of England’s Megan Greene expects their popularity will soon fade.

US Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said Sunday that the growing use of dollar-backed stablecoins could bolster the global influence of US monetary policy.

Waller told participants at the 32nd Dubrovnik Economics Conference that countries that increasingly rely on stablecoins backed by the US dollar may effectively import US monetary conditions, Bloomberg News reported Sunday.

“I've always just looked at ​stablecoins as a payment instrument; there's nothing evil about it, nothing dangerous about it,” Waller said. “They ​are just bringing competition into the payments world,” Reuters reported.

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Strategy may be set to announce it has resumed buying Bitcoin after pausing in recent weeks as the biggest crypto looks poised to close out the month down more than 3.5%.

Strategy chairman Michael Saylor on Sunday signaled the Bitcoin treasury company would be announcing fresh purchases of the cryptocurrency in the coming days.

The social media post comes just days ahead of a proxy vote that depends in large part on retailer shareholders to enable semi-monthly dividend payouts on the company’s STRC perpetual preferred stock.

“Working Better” was Saylor's tweet late Sunday morning to accompany a bubble chart tracking Strategy’s Bitcoin (BTC) purchases over the past nearly six years. That chart, from Iceland-registered StrategyTracker.com, has been consistently posted by Saylor in the days ahead of news of a purchase by the biggest publicly traded Bitcoin holder.

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In the wake of CFTC approval of perpetual futures contracts tied to the spot price of Bitcoin, Kraken expects to offer those to US institutional clients within "the next month."

Kraken said late Friday that it expects to launch CFTC-regulated perpetual futures contracts in the US in the next 30 days, hours after the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved the instruments.

The exchange said when it gains approval, the contracts will be listed on Bitnomial Exchange, a CFTC-regulated exchange recently acquired by Kraken's parent company, Payward.

Payward said on April 17 that it was acquiring crypto derivatives platform Bitnomial for as much as $550 million, aimed at providing Kraken Pro customers with access to Bitnomial's perpetual futures offering.

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In the wake of CFTC approval of perpetual futures contracts tied to the spot price of Bitcoin, Kraken expects to offer those to US institutional clients within "the next month."

Kraken said late Friday that it expects to launch CFTC-regulated perpetual futures contracts in the US in the next 30 days, hours after the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved the instruments.

The exchange said when it gains approval, the contracts will be listed on Bitnomial Exchange, a CFTC-regulated exchange recently acquired by Kraken's parent company, Payward.

Payward said on April 17 that it was acquiring crypto derivatives platform Bitnomial for as much as $550 million, aimed at providing Kraken Pro customers with access to Bitnomial's perpetual futures offering.

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Bitcoin faced ending May lower by around 3%, with the possibility of US PMI data giving BTC price action a boost next week.

Bitcoin (BTC) circled $73,500 on Sunday as bulls stared down 3% BTC price losses for May.

Key points:

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Bitcoin’s bounce from a key holder cost-basis level has improved the case for further upside, with historical data pointing to $101,000 as a potential best-case target.

Bitcoin (BTC) is rebounding from a key on-chain support zone, putting the $78,000 level back in focus for bulls.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin rebounded roughly 2.5% over the weekend to reach $74,000 on Sunday, with the recovery beginning near $72,500.

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Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance has proposed letting SMEs use digital assets, virtual assets and intellectual property as loan collateral.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance has proposed letting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use digital assets, virtual assets and intellectual property as collateral for bank loans.

The proposal is part of a draft revised Law on Support for SMEs, which is open for public consultation, according to a Friday report by Vietnam News. Under the framework, businesses could secure loans using future-formed assets, property rights, intangible assets and digital or virtual assets.

SMEs and household businesses account for more than 98% of all enterprises in Vietnam, yet outstanding loans to the segment represent only around 20% of total bank credit in the economy, per the report. The Ministry attributed the imbalance to a lack of eligible collateral, limited financial transparency and the small capital base of most SMEs.

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Gravity Bridge was drained of roughly $5.4 million in a suspected signing key compromise, prompting validators to halt the bridge while an investigation is underway.

Gravity Bridge, a decentralized blockchain facilitating cross-chain transfers between Ethereum and Cosmos, was reportedly drained of roughly $5.4 million, prompting validators to halt the bridge.

Onchain analyst Specter first flagged the unusual outflows in a Saturday post on X, revealing that the bridge contract key may have been compromised. “It appears the Gravity Bridge contract key may have been compromised, resulting in the theft of $5.4M,” Specter wrote.

Security firm PeckShield also confirmed the exploit in a post, breaking down the stolen assets as approximately $4.3 million in USDC (USDC), 274 Wrapped Ether (WETH) worth roughly $553,000, $434,000 in USDt (USDT) and 14.164 PAX Gold (PAXG) tokens worth about $64,000.

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Crypto sentiment platform Santiment warned that the two biggest spikes in social media bullishness around Bitcoin have previously been followed by short-term price pullbacks.

The feeling toward Bitcoin on social media has reached its most bullish level of the year, even as the overall crypto market is down, according to crypto sentiment platform Santiment.

“Sentiment on Bitcoin has spiked to 2.23 bullish comments for every bearish one — the most lopsided positive ratio of 2026,” Santiment said in a report published on Saturday.

“The previous two biggest positive-ratio days of the year preceded short-term price pullbacks, while severely negative readings marked local bottoms. The current euphoria contrasts sharply with the bearish ETF flow picture and warrants caution," Santiment said. Spot Bitcoin ETFs logged their tenth consecutive trading day of outflows on Friday, with total net redemptions exceeding $2.97 billion since May 15.

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Bitcoin dip buyers are present near range lows, and new leveraged longs opened in the zone but the volumes lack the size needed to reverse the downtrend.

Bitcoin ETF selling overwhelmed markets again after last week’s $1.42 billion outflow followed the previous week’s $1.26 billion outflow. 

BTC’s subsequent fall to $72,500 raised concerns that the price would slip back into the $60,000 to $70,000 range that BTC was locked in during February through April, but Cointelegraph's reporting showed spot volumes kicking in to defend the $70,000 support. 

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While Bitcoin is hovering around $73,000, a crypto trader says the current setup is “different from the previous breakdown in February.”

Bitcoin could fall toward its February yearly low if it fails to maintain support above the $70,000 level, according to a crypto analyst.

“Bitcoin is at a pivotal level, and if it doesn't hold, we're buying at <$65K,” MN Trading Capital founder Michael van de Poppe said in an X post on Saturday. Bitcoin (BTC) reached a yearly low of $60,000 in early February before recovering to $73,873 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.

It comes as crypto market participants are divided over whether Bitcoin's early February price of $60,000 marked the bottom of the cycle, or if further downside still lies ahead.

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The Senate Banking Committee voted to advance the CLARITY Act in May, but it must still pass both chambers of Congress before heading to the president's desk.

The United States will lose its leadership position in crypto to other countries, including China, if US lawmakers fail to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY), a crypto market structure bill, according to Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis.

Passing a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework would “ensure” that other countries “do not write the rules of the next financial era,” Lummis said. She added in a separate X post:

In May, the Senate Banking Committee voted to advance the CLARITY Act after the legislation had stalled for months, reviving crypto industry hopes that the bill might be codified into law in 2026.

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The Senate Banking Committee voted to advance the CLARITY Act in May, but it must still pass both chambers of Congress before heading to the president's desk.

The United States will lose its leadership position in crypto to other countries, including China, if US lawmakers fail to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY), a crypto market structure bill, according to Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis.

Passing a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework would “ensure” that other countries “do not write the rules of the next financial era,” Lummis said. She added in a separate X post:

In May, the Senate Banking Committee voted to advance the CLARITY Act after the legislation had stalled for months, reviving crypto industry hopes that the bill might be codified into law in 2026.

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The $12.6 million in USDC was likely frozen in connection with an ongoing but unrelated civil court case, according to onchain sleuth ZachXBT.

Stablecoin issuer Circle on Saturday froze $12.6 million in USDC dollar-pegged tokens linked to privacy protocol Zama’s confidential USDC smart contract, according to onchain sleuth ZachXBT.

The smart contract is “publicly labeled” on block explorers and the privacy protocol’s technical documentation, ZachXBT said. 

The exact reason for the freeze is “unclear,” he said, adding that wallets linked to the Overnight Finance decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol deposited $12.4 million into the Zama protocol on May 11, 2026. He said:

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Spot Bitcoin ETFs logged a record 10-day outflow streak totaling nearly $3 billion, while Ether ETFs bled for 14 consecutive sessions.

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have logged outflows for 10 consecutive trading days, with total net redemptions exceeding $2.97 billion since May 15, a streak that one analyst says may signal a market bottom is near.

According to data from SoSoValue, daily outflows ranged from $70 million to $733 million across the period, with the steepest single-day exodus recorded on Wednesday at $733.43 million. Total net assets held across spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs have dropped from $104.29 billion on May 15 to $94.17 billion as of Friday, a decline of roughly $10 billion in two weeks.

The current streak broke the previous record of eight consecutive outflow sessions, which was recorded in early last year and saw $3.2 billion in withdrawals, on Thursday, before extending to 10 days on Friday.

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BSTR co-founder Sean Bill says many Bitcoin treasury companies lack the “ability to actually deploy Bitcoin.”

The Bitcoin treasury company space is becoming more divided between firms with actual financial strategies and those leaning more on promotion, according to one industry executive.

“I think a lot of them don't have the right capital structure, right. They don't have the ability to actually deploy Bitcoin,” Sean Bill — co-founder of Bitcoin treasury company BSTR, alongside Adam Back  — said during an interview with Cointelegraph published to YouTube on Tuesday.

“They're really planning on having Bitcoin do all the talking for them,” Bill said. “I do think that you have a lot of carnival barkers in this space,” Bill said.

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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US has seized roughly $1 billion in Iranian crypto assets, double the figure disclosed in late April.

The United States has seized roughly $1 billion in Iranian crypto assets, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday, adding that some of the wallet owners may not yet know the funds are gone.

“I believe that we have seized about a billion dollars of their crypto,” Bessent said while speaking at the Reagan National Economic Forum. “Just outright grabbed the wallets. Some of them may be typing in right now and not have realized that their wallet had been grabbed,” he added.

Bessent said the seizures are part of the US financial pressure campaign against Iran, known as Operation Economic Fury. Launched in March 2025, the operation has targeted Iranian assets across multiple fronts, seizing cryptocurrency, freezing bank accounts and working with European allies to confiscate properties.

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Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten said it is important to pay attention to retail sentiment around Bitcoin, as ownership is still far from concentrated and “it’s not like Blackrock owns the Bitcoin.”

Despite the growing institutional presence in crypto, retail sentiment is just as important as it was when Wall Street was largely on the sidelines, according to Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten.

“It still does. You have to remember it's not like BlackRock owns the Bitcoin and Fidelity owns the Bitcoin. It's a bunch of retail accounts mostly that actually buy that,” Klippsten said during an interview with Cointelegraph published to YouTube on Tuesday.

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Over $500 million in Bitcoin bids now sit near $70,000, while options traders and futures positions converge around the same level.

Bitcoin (BTC) traders have placed new buy orders near $70,000 as the price approaches a key liquidity zone. Order-book data shows more than $500 million in bid liquidity between $72,000 and $70,000, creating a demand zone that could shape BTC’s next move.

Data from CoinGlass shows dip buyers have placed 6,235 BTC in bid liquidity between $72,000 and $70,000. At current prices, the buy orders are worth roughly $443 million.

The largest cluster sits directly above $70,000, where buyers are positioned to absorb the current selling pressure. Bid liquidity refers to limit buy orders waiting below the market price. When price trades into those orders, it can slow a decline and trigger a sharp rebound if demand absorbs available BTC supply.

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As the CFTC and Gemini work together to seek a court's reversal of a 2025 settlement, one of the agency’s former chairs said the public “deserves a better explanation.”

A former chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) responded to the agency’s move to vacate a $5 million settlement with cryptocurrency company Gemini.

In a Wednesday motion filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the CFTC joined the Gemini Trust Company in seeking relief from the judgment of a case initially filed in June 2022. The company reached a $5 million settlement with the CFTC in January 2025 while the agency was under former US President Joe Biden.

“[T]he CFTC’s action in reversing itself on a settled case is extraordinarily unusual,” Tim Massad, a former CFTC chair and research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, told Cointelegraph. “The explanation seems to be that the staff got it wrong, not that the law was unclear.”

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The CFTC issued notices affecting platforms seeking to offer cryptocurrency perpetual futures contracts, including a no-action position for Coinbase and approval for Kalshi.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) took positions on cryptocurrency perpetual futures contracts and how the industry may be more suited for “24/7 trading, clearing, and settlement.”

In a Friday notice, the CFTC said it had approved perpetual futures contracts tied to the spot price of Bitcoin for prediction markets platform Kalshi. The company announced at about the same time that it would launch the perpetual futures contracts on its platform in a move closer to a derivatives exchange.

“​​The Order was based on representations and submissions made by Kalshi in support of its request for Commission approval, including its explanation and analysis of the BTCPERP Contract’s terms and conditions, the nature of the underlying commodity market, and the BTCPERP Contract’s compliance with applicable provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act and the Commission’s regulations thereunder, including the Core Principles applicable to [Designated Contract Markets],” said the CFTC.

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The outage was caused by the same network update software bug that disrupted the protocol on Thursday, which resulted in nearly six hours of downtime.

The Sui layer-1 blockchain experienced another disruption on Friday, causing a “network stall” that temporarily halted block production, before normal activity resumed, according to the Sui team.

Network activity “may be paused,” the Sui team said. The network disruption lasted for over three hours and 30 minutes at the time of publication, according to the Sui network’s uptime dashboard.

Sui's mainnet validators experienced disruptions on both Thursday and Friday. Source: Sui

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The exchange's integration with Deribit gives eligible US institutional investors access to global crypto options and perpetual futures markets.

Coinbase Financial Markets has begun offering US institutional clients access to global crypto options and perpetual futures markets through a regulated futures commission merchant, including connectivity to Deribit's crypto options platform.

Coinbase said the launch follows guidance from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that allows a regulated futures commission merchant to connect US clients with global crypto derivatives liquidity. The company said Coinbase Financial Markets is the first CFTC-regulated futures commission merchant to offer such access.

Deribit, which Coinbase acquired in August 2025 as part of its expansion into crypto derivatives, is the largest crypto options exchange by open interest.

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Bitcoin saw its lowest levels since the middle of April as BTC price action continued ot diverge from thriving US stock markets.

Bitcoin (BTC) deepened six-week lows at Friday’s Wall Street open as US stock markets diverged to all-time highs.

Key points:

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Former CEO Alex Mashinsky filed documents seeking to vacate his 12-year sentence, which included claims involving FTX and a “hostile takeover” by a former Celsius executive, who was sentenced to time served.

Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of defunct cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius, has filed a motion in a New York court to vacate his 12-year sentence for fraud and market manipulation. 

In a Tuesday filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Mashinsky filed a motion to vacate his 144-month sentence, set by Judge John Koeltl in May 2025. The former Celsius CEO filed the paperwork without additional counsel, having announced on May 5 that he would be proceeding pro se in his case.

Although Mashinsky pleaded guilty to commodities fraud and securities fraud related to “manipulative and deceptive devices,” he filed a motion to vacate on the grounds that he had ineffective counsel and “fruit of [the] poisinous [sic] tree,” a legal doctrine referring to evidence tainted by authorities’ misconduct.

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Analysts warn Ether’s downside risks remain elevated as traders closely watch the $1,800 support zone for stability.

Market analysts say Ether (ETH) still faces “downside pressure” that could trigger another ETH price sell-off as traders shift their focus to support at $1,800. 

Key takeaways:

Analysts have highlighted several reasons for Ether’s potential to drop lower, including an elevated estimated leveraged ratio and positive funding rates amid a “weakening price structure,” according to CryptoQuant analyst PelinayPA. 

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Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a nine-day outflow streak totaling $2.84 billion, surpassing an eight-session outflow run in February 2025.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) posted their longest outflow streak since launch, extending withdrawals as institutional demand for Bitcoin exposure weakened.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded another $223 million in net outflows on Thursday, marking the record nine-day outflow streak since the funds launched in 2024, according to data from Farside Investors.

The latest streak surpassed the previous record eight-session outflow run recorded in February 2025, though its roughly $2.84 billion in cumulative withdrawals remains below the $3.2 billion lost during the earlier selloff.

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XLM rallied after US financial giant DTCC announced a partnership with the Stellar Network, but it still risks a sharp downside in the coming weeks.

Stellar’s native token, XLM, has rallied more than 50% this week, outperforming the broader crypto market, which has declined by nearly 5% in the same period.

Key takeaways:

XLM's price surged after a major institutional partnership announcement by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a US financial giant that clears and settles $10 trillion to $12 trillion in securities transactions daily.

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ICE’s CEO said regulators need to create a “level playing field” for launching 24/7 onchain perps contracts, which are already trading on exchanges such as Hyperliquid.

Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), is urging regulators to allow regulated exchanges to offer 24/7 onchain perpetual futures trading, according to ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher.

Speaking at a Bernstein conference on Wednesday, Sprecher said that he was urging regulators to create a “level playing field” for launching 24/7 onchain perps contracts, arguing that regulators are “prohibiting us from doing this when it's already happening.” 

The CEO said that ICE had multiple exploratory discussions with decentralized exchange Hyperliquid about the synergies between the crypto and traditional finance (TradFi) industries, where ICE sought to “learn” more about onchain perps.

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Bitcoin’s market cap has dropped below $1.5 trillion, pushing it out of the world’s top 10 assets amid AI stock and precious metal rallies.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) latest drawdown to $72,000 has coincided with a sharp drop in its market capitalization, pushing it out of the global top 10 assets by market cap.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin’s price has dropped sharply from around $83,000 in early May to as low as $72,400 on Thursday. This was accompanied by a fall in its market capitalization to $1.45 trillion from $1.66 trillion.

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Strategy’s capital structure may be under pressure as Arca’s Jeff Dorman highlights $15 billion in preferred stock obligations and CEO comments on possible Bitcoin sales.

Strategy is facing renewed scrutiny over its preferred stock financing model as investors question whether dividend obligations could eventually pressure the company to sell some of its Bitcoin.

The Strategy situation has “gotten out of hand,” Arca chief investment officer Jeff Dorman said in an X post on Thursday, referring to its roughly $15 billion in preferred stocks carrying around $1.5 billion in annual dividend obligations.

Dorman warned that the structure may become increasingly difficult to manage if market conditions remain volatile, with Bitcoin (BTC) trading about 16% lower year-to-date at roughly $73,737 at the time of writing.

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Texas is hiring a crypto custodian to move its $10 million Strategic Bitcoin Reserve from BlackRock’s IBIT ETF into directly held coins and build full state‑level BTC plumbing.

Texas is seeking a custody and liquidity provider to help move its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve from BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) into directly held coins, according to a state procurement document.

The move, posted May 7 and announced in a Thursday release from the Texas Comptroller’s office, would move Texas closer to directly held Bitcoin through a third-party custody arrangement rather than relying solely on ETF exposure, marking a shift from ETF exposure to direct onchain ownership.

Texas has allocated $10 million to the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which the state has used to buy IBIT as an interim way to hold the funds before shifting to directly custodied Bitcoin, according to the request for proposals document.

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DxSale was drained for about $7.3 million from BNB Chain liquidity providers, raising fresh concerns over old DeFi locker contracts.

Memecoin launch platform DxSale was drained of $7.3 million in funds in a cyberattack that affected around 1,400 liquidity providers (LPs) on the BNB Chain. 

The attacker's address "0xC457" transferred $1.87 million worth of BNB (BNB) tokens into two main wallets and subsequently deposited them into multiple Binance deposit addresses, according to blockchain data platform PeckShield in a Friday X post.

Back in 2021, DxSale was used to lock in liquidity for tokens launched on the BNB Chain. Blockchain analyst Tahax estimated that the locker still holds liquidity from projects launched years ago and explained that the exploiter wallet was freshly created and funded through crypto exchange Bybit.

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OKX Ventures and KIS to invest $53 million each for a 19.6% stake in Coinone, deepening ties between traditional finance and crypto in South Korea’s tightly regulated market.

South Korean crypto exchange Coinone said Korea Investment & Securities (KIS) and OKX Ventures agreed to invest a combined 160 billion won ($106 million) for a 19.6% stake in the platform.

The investment, which remains subject to regulatory approval, would make KIS and OKX Ventures joint third-largest shareholders in Coinone behind CEO Myung-Hun Cha and existing backer Com2uS Holdings, according to a release shared with Cointelegraph. 

The transaction combines secondary share purchases from existing holders with newly issued shares, while Cha is expected to remain Coinone’s largest shareholder and retain management control.

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Paxos says its approval as a blockchain-focused clearing agency represents a “critical piece of financial market infrastructure” as Wall Street becomes more interested in crypto.

Blockchain infrastructure platform and stablecoin issuer Paxos said it has become the first “blockchain-native” firm that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has granted registration as a clearing agency.

Paxos said on Thursday that its subsidiary, Paxos Securities Settlement Company, has become “the only blockchain-native firm” that the SEC approved to provide clearing and settlement services as a central securities depository in the US.

The approval represents a “critical piece of financial market infrastructure” as blockchain technology and traditional capital markets continue to converge, the company added. 

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CryptoQuant says that the holding structure for large Bitcoin holders is deteriorating, a trend that has historically preceded “sustained price weakness.”

An increasing number of Bitcoin holders are seeing their investments turn red as the holding structure continues to deteriorate across major cohorts, according to CryptoQuant. 

Annual balance growth for whale accounts holding between 1,000 and 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC) has turned negative in the fastest contraction this year, CryptoQuant said in a report on Thursday.

Monthly growth has been flat since February, suggesting a shift from accumulation to mild distribution mirroring the 2022 bear market, it added.

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The Sui mainnet has resumed after a bug in a network update took it offline for 5 hours and 55 minutes.

Sui Network is back online after a nearly six-hour outage on Thursday, which it attributed to a bug introduced by an update, marking the layer-1 blockchain’s second period of downtime in 2026.

Sui posted to X on Thursday that activity on its mainnet had resumed after “a halt due to a crash bug in the gas charging logic introduced by the 1.72 release. A full incident review will be shared in the coming days.”

Sui had earlier shared that the blockchain was “experiencing a network stall” and said that transactions could be paused until a fix is rolled out. 

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Bears hold the upper hand for Friday's $9 billion options expiry, keeping Bitcoin under pressure amid heavy ETF outflows and corporate selling

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin (BTC) retested the $72,500 level for the first time in six weeks on Thursday, triggering $342 million in liquidations for bullish leveraged positions. Despite a subsequent relief bounce to $73,500, traders are worried that bears will keep control due to the upcoming $9 billion monthly options expiry.

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Investors selling across spot, futures and ETF markets pushed Bitcoin into its monthly range lows near $72,000 but data shows retail investors buying the dip and opening longs.

When Bitcoin (BTC) finally escaped from its channel pattern and secured a multiple-day close above the $77,000 resistance, traders rejoiced and declared the downtrend over. 

Fast-forward to the present and BTC has fallen below multiple support levels and appears at risk of retesting $70,000, a 16% decline from its range highs. 

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Gemini is leaning into AI features for its prediction market, following other crypto exchanges in moving beyond crypto trading amid a market slump.

Crypto exchange Gemini has partnered with Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI to launch an artificial intelligence-powered feature for its prediction markets platform that will allow users to curate personalized feeds.

Gemini said on Thursday that its “Command Center” offering would show markets based on users’ open positions and watchlists, and can track crypto, sports, commodities, politics, economics and culture.

“Rather than forcing you to dig through social feeds to find what's relevant, Command Center meets you where you are,” Gemini said. “It learns from your open positions, watchlists, and prediction history to surface the intelligence most likely to inform your next move.”

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Bulls abandon ship as SOL futures open interest dropped 30% in May. With the price weakening near $80, Solana may be destined for new lows.

Solana (SOL) futures dropped sharply in May as traders reduced leveraged exposure across all exchanges. SOL open interest (OI) dropped to $1.90 billion on Thursday from $2.75 billion on May 11, a 30% decline, while funding rates remained close to neutral. The combination points to weakening investor sentiment as SOL eyes a retest of its yearly low at $68. 

The aggregated funding rate for Solana futures held near -0.005, showing balanced positioning between longs and shorts. SOL traders have not built aggressive directional bets despite the recent price slide to $80.

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The investment firm said nation-states and central banks are increasingly turning to assets like Bitcoin and gold as alternative settlement systems outside of US control.

Recent moves by the Iranian government to Bitcoin for oil tolls as gold overtakes US dollar assets in global central bank reserves signals a “shift away from dollar-based systems,” according to Fidelity Digital Assets.

Tehran's acceptance of BTC for oil shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz represents the emergence of “alternative settlement mechanisms,” according to the company’s just-released "Six Key Trends Shaping Digital Assets in 2026" report. 

Accepting Bitcoin for shipping toll payments is evidence that the biggest cryptocurrency could replace the US dollar as the global reserve currency because of its neutral, confiscation-resistant and decentralized properties, supporters of BTC say.

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Kalshi sued Minnesota while the CFTC filed against Rhode Island as legal wrangling with state-level authorities seems likely headed to the US Supreme Court.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and companies behind prediction market platforms are continuing legal fights against state-level authorities, with the latest battlegrounds centered in Rhode Island and Minnesota.

Last week, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a bill into law amending statutes to prohibit advertising, creating, operating or otherwise facilitating prediction market platforms. The move prompted CFTC Chair Michael Selig to file in federal court less than 24 hours later, alleging Minnesota and its officials had enacted the “first outright ban” on prediction markets.

Source: PACER

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The purchase pushed the Nasdaq-listed company ahead of Coinbase Global to become the fourth-largest public corporate holder of Ether, according to CoinGecko data.

Bit Digital purchased $20 million worth of Ether earlier this month, increasing its holdings to roughly 158,462 ETH.

The Nasdaq-listed company said Thursday it acquired 8,568 ETH (ETH) on May 11 at an average price of $2,334.25 per token.

CEO Sam Tabar said the purchase reduced Bit Digital’s average ETH acquisition cost and was part of the company’s strategy to grow net asset value per share through Ethereum accumulation, AI infrastructure and acquisitions.

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The leader of the regulator's Crypto Task Force said privacy-enhancing technologies can strengthen investor protection and urged regulators not to treat them with suspicion.

US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce said financial privacy is becoming increasingly undervalued in US regulation, warning against treating privacy-preserving technologies with suspicion.

Speaking Wednesday at Georgetown Law, Peirce described privacy-enhancing technologies, including cryptographic tools, as legitimate components of modern financial infrastructure rather than tools primarily associated with criminal activity.

Peirce said that protecting financial privacy does not conflict with national security objectives.

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Bitcoin’s slide toward $73,000 triggered active distribution signals, but lowered realized losses and weak spot volumes point to easing sell pressure.

Bitcoin's drop below $73,000 on Wednesday marks a short-term turning point for the market, as multiple BTC distribution signals point toward rising sell-side pressure. 

While the increasing chance of a correction into the $60,000 to $70,000 range remains in play, long-term holder data points to improving investor sentiment, suggesting that traders view the current price as a buying opportunity.

Crypto analyst CryptoOnChain noted that Bitcoin’s drop to $72,500 followed a period of weakening spot demand and unsustainable long positioning in derivatives markets. The Coinbase premium index posted a -1,083% deviation from its three-month average, one of the deepest discounts recorded since 2025.

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Bitcoin’s slide toward $73,000 triggered active distribution signals, but lowered realized losses and weak spot volumes point to easing sell pressure.

Bitcoin's drop below $73,000 on Wednesday marks a short-term turning point for the market, as multiple BTC distribution signals point toward rising sell-side pressure. 

While the increasing chance of a correction into the $60,000 to $70,000 range remains in play, long-term holder data points to improving investor sentiment, suggesting that traders view the current price as a buying opportunity.

Crypto analyst CryptoOnChain noted that Bitcoin’s drop to $72,500 followed a period of weakening spot demand and unsustainable long positioning in derivatives markets. The Coinbase premium index posted a -1,083% deviation from its three-month average, one of the deepest discounts recorded since 2025.

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The future of a digital asset market structure bill in Congress is still uncertain amid concerns over ethics provisions, with the president, whose crypto ties are under scrutiny, weighing in on social media.

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he intended to codify a “future-proof digital asset market structure,” likely referring to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY) under consideration in the US Senate.

In a post to his Truth Social platform for the second time this week on policy claims potentially affecting the cryptocurrency industry, Trump said the law would prevent “crypto haters” in future administrations from rolling back regulations affecting digital assets.

Source: Donald Trump

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The European Union's Markets in Crypto Assets regulations first took effect in 2024, but gave crypto service providers time to fully comply with the framework.

The French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) warned that crypto companies operating in the country without a license have until June 30 to acquire the permits or exit the country.

AMF President Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani told a press event on Thursday that crypto companies that fail to obtain a license by the deadline must have "orderly wind-down ⁠plans" to offload customers and end their operations, according to Reuters.

Under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework, crypto service providers are required to have licenses to operate, but can acquire a license in any of the 27 EU member states and “passport” the license to any of the other member nations.

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The feature lets users earn stablecoin yield directly through Trezor Suite without connecting external wallets or using separate DeFi apps.

Trezor has integrated native stablecoin yield functionality into Trezor Suite, the hardware wallet provider’s desktop and mobile application, in a move that could make earning yield on stablecoins more accessible to users who have traditionally avoided decentralized finance due to its complexity and security risks.

Announced on Thursday, the feature comes through an integration with Morpho, a decentralized lending protocol built on Ethereum. The integration allows users to deposit USDt (USDT) and USDC (USDC) into pre-selected Morpho vaults directly through Trezor Suite without connecting external wallets or using separate DeFi applications.

According to Trezor, deposits, withdrawals and reward claims are signed directly on users’ hardware wallets through the company’s clear-signing interface, which displays transaction details in human-readable form on the device screen.

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In the year since Sequans Communications announced that it would adopt a digital asset treasury strategy, the price of Bitcoin fell by more than 30%.

The France-based semiconductor company that announced a move into crypto is “no longer pursuing” a treasury strategy after less than a year.

In a Thursday notice, Sequans Communications said it held 658 Bitcoin (BTC) worth about $48 million at the time of publication, which it said was “fully unencumbered” and unrestricted as it looks to refocus solely on Internet of Things (IoT) semiconductor growth.

The company's NYSE-traded shares, which have shed more than 75% since last June, were up more than 14.5% in morning trading following the announcement.

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P2P.org, a blockchain infrastructure provider operating validators across 40+ proof-of-stake networks since 2018, today launched Syncro Data Stream, a real-time blockchain data stream for Sui and Hyperliquid.

May 28, 2026 - P2P.org, a blockchain infrastructure provider operating validators across 40+ proof-of-stake networks since 2018, today launched Syncro Data Stream, a real-time blockchain data stream for Sui and Hyperliquid. The product delivers on-chain transaction and order flow data directly from P2P.org's active validator nodes, at the point of origin rather than through public endpoints, checkpoints, or shared RPC infrastructure. The data stream for Sui and Hyperliquid is available now at $2,000 per month each, with a one-week free trial for new clients.

Syncro Data Stream is part of Syncro, P2P.org's crypto trading infrastructure product line. Syncro launched earlier this year with Syncro Sender, a Solana transaction landing service already in production with leading trading teams. Syncro Data Stream for Sui and Syncro Data Stream for Hyperliquid are the second and third products in the line.

For trading teams and market makers operating on Sui and Hyperliquid, on-chain data latency directly affects trading performance. Public APIs and shared RPC endpoints deliver transaction data only after it has propagated through the network. On chains with sub-second finality, that gap is the window in which opportunities open and close, quotes go stale, and positions shift.

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Argentina’s proposed online gambling bill would restrict banks, payment firms and crypto providers from serving unauthorized betting platforms.

Argentina’s government is moving to restrict banks, payment firms and crypto providers from serving unauthorized online gambling platforms as part of a broader crackdown on digital betting.

The government presented a Bill for the Prevention of Gambling and Regulation of Online Gambling to Congress, according to an official notice from the Ministry of Health published on Tuesday.

The bill seeks to address gambling addiction by tightening rules on payments, advertising and access to betting platforms.

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RWA standard ERC-7943 reaches final stage as Ethereum builders rethink how institutional finance move onchain.

For years, crypto has thrived on speculative capital flows and the explosive popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens and applications.

That still holds true for rising sectors such as perpetual decentralized exchanges and prediction markets. But as Wall Street pushes deeper into tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), not all of the industry’s existing systems cater to the kinds of financial products institutions want to bring onchain.

An author of the newly finalized ERC-7943 (uRWA) token standard said that the fragmented infrastructure powering much of DeFi wasn’t designed for regulated financial assets, which often require identity frameworks and interoperability standards.

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Standard Chartered reaffirms bullish Ether price targets, citing strong network fundamentals even as ETH trades 57% below its 2025 peak and fund flows turn negative.

Standard Chartered says Ethereum’s network activity remains close to record levels even as Ether (ETH) trades far below last year’s highs, arguing that the gap between usage and price could eventually narrow.

Ethereum’s internal metrics, including transaction counts and total value locked in ETH terms, remain close to record levels, according to a Thursday report from Standard Chartered’s digital assets research team. ETH has fallen about 57% from its August 2025 peak of above $4,800 to under $2,000 at the time of writing, according to Coingecko data.

StanChart's global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, reaffirmed its price targets of $4,000 by the end of 2026 and $40,000 by 2030, implying a return of the ETH/BTC ratio to its 2021 highs around 0.08.

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Bitcoin approached the final week of CME futures gaps with several still open, providing potential BTC price targets as low as $67,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) has created its last classic price magnet as a staple chart feature disappears forever.

Key points:

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Bitcoin approached the final week of CME futures gaps with several still open, providing potential BTC price targets as low as $67,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) has created its last classic price magnet as a staple chart feature disappears forever.

Key points:

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XRP breaks key support at $1.30 as bearish technical setups and weak investor sentiment point to a deeper correction toward $0.63.

XRP (XRP) price dropped to $1.26 on Thursday, its lowest in over 16 weeks. A bearish technical setup suggested that the pressure may extend into June.

XRP/USD daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

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Aave Labs’ Push received FCA approval for “certain cryptoasset activities” in the UK, supporting its plans for regulated stablecoin on- and off-ramping.

Aave Labs' UK subsidiaries, Push Labs Ltd. and Push Virtual Assets Ltd., known together as Push, received Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) cryptoasset registration as cryptoasset exchange providers under the UK’s current Anti-Money Laundering regime.

The registration was obtained for “certain cryptoasset activities” and supports the decentralized finance (DeFi) company's plans to build regulated stablecoin on- and off-ramping infrastructure in the country, Aave said Thursday.

Aave Labs’ Push describes itself as a “simple way to move between Euros and stablecoins,” according to its homepage. The FCA’s online registry shows that the London-headquartered firm has been registered with the regulator since May 12.

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Samsung Securities, SDS and Card will buy 4% of Dunamu as Korean firms prepare for tokenized securities and stablecoin frameworks.

Samsung Securities, Samsung SDS and Samsung Card will acquire a combined 4% stake in Dunamu, the operator of South Korean crypto exchange Upbit, in a deal that expands Samsung affiliates’ exposure to the country’s digital asset market, local media reported.

The three Samsung affiliates held board meetings on Thursday and approved the purchase of 1.39 million Dunamu shares held by Kakao affiliates for 612.8 billion won ($408 million), according to local reports from Yonhap News Agency and ZDNet Korea. Samsung Securities will acquire a 2% stake, while Samsung SDS and Samsung Card will each acquire 1%. 

The investment extends Samsung’s digital asset push weeks after Samsung SDS reportedly won a contract to build South Korea’s blockchain-based securities platform, placing Samsung affiliates across both regulated tokenized securities infrastructure and private-sector crypto exchange and payment rails. 

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ETH's price has entered a decisive breakdown stage of its prevailing technical pattern, indicating further declines toward $1,750 despite strong retail sentiment.

Ethereum's native token, Ether (ETH), slipped below $2,000 for the first time since March, but retail traders have not reacted with panic yet.

Key takeaways:

As of Thursday, "buy the dip" calls on social media were surging after ETH lost the key psychological support level, according to data resource Santiment.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs have turned negative year-to-date with $596 million in outflows as IBIT posted near-record withdrawals and Bitcoin fell below $75,000.

BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) posted its second-largest daily outflow on record as US Bitcoin funds extended an eight-day redemption streak during a sharp pullback in the cryptocurrency to below $75,000.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) saw $527.8 million in net outflows on Wednesday, helping push total withdrawals from US spot Bitcoin ETFs to $733.4 million for the day, according to data from Farside Investors.

The outflows marked IBIT’s second-largest daily loss since launch, slightly below the fund’s record $528.3 million outflow on Jan. 30, 2026.

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An unknown entity burned $8.5 million worth of Bitcoin after 12 years of holding, rendering the BTC unspendable, despite its price increasing by 12,700%.

An unknown entity burned 107 Bitcoin, worth about $8.5 million at the time, effectively removing them from spendable circulation and sparking numerous theories after holding the funds for over 12 years.

On Monday, five Bitcoin (BTC) addresses sent a total of 107 BTC to the old burn address starting "11111," rendering them provably unspendable, according to onchain data shared by Galaxy Research in a Wednesday X post.

The transfer brought the total amount of Bitcoin sent to the burn address to 807 BTC, worth about $59 million at press time, according to blockchain data platform Arkham. 

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Polymarket executive Josh Stevens said identity checks apply only to early beta access and are not being added to Polymarket’s existing platform.

Polymarket’s vice president of engineering, Josh Stevens, clarified that the prediction market platform is not adding mandatory Know Your Customer (KYC) checks to its existing service, after a report said the company had considered user verification requirements.

Stevens said in an X response that Polymarket is launching a new beta product for a select group of users and that KYC is required only to access the beta during its early test period. “No KYC is being added to any part of existing polymarket.com with this launch,” Stevens wrote. He said that once the product is out of beta, no KYC will be required to use it. 

He later addressed questions about whether KYC could be added later, saying “no” and clarifying that he was “just highlighting” that identity checks are tied to early access for a new beta product rather than a broader move away from pseudonymous trading on Polymarket’s main prediction market.

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The Bank for International Settlements' collaboration with seven central banks and more than 40 institutions concludes a two-year project with a prototype settling wholesale payments in seconds.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released a report Wednesday on Project Agorá, an experimental prototype for cross-border wholesale payment.

The BIS said the report shows how seven central banks and more than 40 regulated financial institutions can settle cross-border wholesale payments in seconds once liquidity is locked, while reducing credit and settlement risk through atomic settlement using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits.

The initiative marks one of the broadest collaborations yet between central banks and private lenders, exploring how tokenization could modernize global payments infrastructure.

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Over $935 million was wiped out across the crypto market as traders shifted their focus to $70,000 as the last line of defense for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin (BTC) sold off into the early Asian trading session on Thursday as the drop to $72,600 produced significant liquidation of leveraged positions across the crypto market.

Key takeaways:

The BTC/USD pair fell as low as $72,620 on Thursday, reversing all gains made since April 13 after the US reportedly carried out a new wave of military strikes on Iran. 

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Around 47% of crypto organizations onboarded in 2026 are operating at alerting standards that would have ranked among the industry’s strictest five years ago.

Nearly half of the organizations onboarded into the crypto industry in 2026 are operating at alerting standards that would have made them industry leaders only a few years ago, according to Chainalysis.

In a preview of a report published on Wednesday, Chainalysis said that the crypto industry’s compliance baseline around alert severity, trigger sensitivity and minimum dollar detection floors is tightening, with about 47% of organizations onboarded this year using alerting standards that would have placed them in the top 10% of strictness in 2020.

It added that companies have become more uniform in direct monitoring, where funds arrive immediately from a known illicit source, but there is still a gap with indirect monitoring, where the funds pass through intermediary addresses.

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The physically backed fund gives US investors exchange-traded exposure to the Binance-linked cryptocurrency through traditional brokerage accounts.

VanEck launched the first US spot BNB exchange-traded fund on Thursday, giving investors regulated exposure to the Binance-linked cryptocurrency through traditional brokerage accounts.

The ETF, trading under the ticker VBNB, is physically backed by BNB (BNB) held in cold storage with a qualified custodian, according to the announcement. BNB is the native token of BNB Chain and is used to pay transaction fees across the network.

According to VanEck, the fund is designed to track the spot price of BNB and may later incorporate staking if the issuer determines it can do so without regulatory or legal complications.

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The crypto market capitalization has fallen to its lowest level since mid-April after the US carried out strikes on Iran for the second time in three days amid peace talks.

Cryptocurrency markets have shed around $80 billion in value over the past 24 hours, with losses accelerating after the US reportedly carried out a new wave of military strikes on Iran.

The US ​military carried out new strikes late on Wednesday targeting ‌an Iranian military site and shooting down four Iranian attack drones, which a ​US official told Reuters posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz.

“These actions were measured, ‌purely ⁠defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire,” the official said. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reportedly released a statement saying that it has retaliated by attacking a US airbase in Kuwait.

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The CFTC claimed that its settled complaint filed under the Biden administration relied heavily on a whistleblower’s allegations that Gemini inflated trading activity to distort user demand.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has asked a federal court to vacate its $5 million settlement with crypto exchange Gemini, claiming that the agency’s enforcement action was based on flawed allegations.

Gemini settled with the CFTC and paid a $5 million fine in January 2025 in the final weeks of the Biden administration after the agency accused it of making false or misleading statements related to a Bitcoin futures contract.

The CFTC filed a joint motion with Gemini in a Manhattan court on Wednesday seeking to vacate the settlement, adding in a statement that it had reviewed the matter and concluded that the “complaint should not have been filed — and would not have been under current enforcement standards.”

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Bitcoin dropped closer to a critical support level as spot and long futures traders’ efforts to hold $75,000 failed. Is sub-$70,000 BTC next?

Bitcoin’s (BTC) rising funding rate and aggregated open interest suggest bullish investors are opening longs in an attempt to defend the range lows and an important support at $70,000, but another day of spot ETF outflows has investors concerned that the institutional stance on BTC is shifting.

As shown in the chart below, Bitcoin open interest remains relatively stable despite the day-over-day selling, further re-enforcing the view that long positions are either topping up to stay open or newly created. The cross-exchange funding rates (the last indicator at the bottom of the chart) are also mostly positive to neutral, indicating a long-leaning bias among investors. 

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The Justice Department and the CFTC allege that Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo profited $1.2 million on Polymarket after accessing non-public information at work.

US authorities have charged a Google employee with allegedly using information from the company to make bets on Polymarket and profit $1.2 million.

The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it unsealed charges against Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo, accusing him of accessing unreleased internal information at Google and placing 25 bets worth $2.7 million on markets related to the most searched individuals on Google in 2025.

Prosecutors said Spagnuolo owned the Polymarket account “AlphaRaccoon”, which profited $1.2 million on “outcomes that the market treated as unlikely” when Google published information on the most searched individuals in December.

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Within the first 10 hours of launch, the Kraken Earn BTC Vault raked in $30 million worth of Bitcoin deposits from 4,000 unique wallets.

Crypto exchange Kraken launched a non-custodial Bitcoin product offering a 2.5% yearly yield, adding to the company’s yield product offerings amid increasing investor demand for crypto rewards.

Kraken unveiled the product on Wednesday with the support of crypto yield infrastructure provider Veda, which said the offering seeks to remove “the headaches that come with wrapping Bitcoin, moving assets, or managing a crypto wallet.”

Kraken’s offering comes as Bitcoin (BTC) holders' demand for yield products has risen, but have seen limited development as the Bitcoin blockchain does not have mechanisms for users to generate yield compared to blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana.

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Bitcoin’s underperformance of stocks deepened as BTC miners pivoted to AI and pro-crypto regulation in the United States stalled.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin’s (BTC) rejection at $78,000 on Thursday marked a decoupling from traditional markets after two months of strong correlation. Wednesday’s decline below $75,000 happened while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index jumped to an all-time high.

The factors behind Bitcoin’s underperformance are unlikely to fade in the near term, reducing the odds of a bullish breakout above $82,000.

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Payment volume on crypto-linked credit and debit cards has been steadily increasing since 2024, reaching about $7.8 billion in cumulative transactions this month.

Monthly payment volume on crypto-linked debit and credit cards is up about 230% over last year, amid a proliferation of crypto-related payment products.

Cumulative volume on crypto-linked payment cards reached $7.8 billion this month, according to The Kobeissi Letter, a market research publication.

Payments giant Visa is capturing about 90% of crypto card transactions through partnerships with onchain native companies like Jupiter Global, analysts at The Kobeissi Letter said.

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Weakening spot demand, miner inflows to exchanges and freshly opened shorts put downside pressure on Bitcoin price.

Bitcoin (BTC) miner inflows to Binance crossed 20,000 BTC for only the second time this year, placing fresh pressure on Bitcoin’s daily uptrend near the $75,000 support zone. Will BTC defend its higher-timeframe bullish structure, or is the market on the verge of a broader bearish trend shift? 

Crypto analyst Amr Taha said miners transferred roughly 21,000 BTC to Binance on May 18, close to the 23,150 BTC sent on Feb. 5. Large miner deposits are often tied to potential selling activity as miners move BTC to exchanges to cover operating costs.

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The predictions market operator reportedly explored mandatory user verification requirements, breaking from its policies of allowing traders to access its services using pseudonyms.

[Clarification (May 28 at 2:15 pm UTC): Polymarket’s vice president of engineering said the claims in the report were “false,” adding that the KYC requirements applied to a “new beta product” for a “select group of users.”]

Prediction markets platform Polymarket is reportedly considering measures to verify users in response to pressure from global authorities over sanctions violations and other areas of legal risk to the company.

According to a Wednesday report by The Information, Polymarket has considered mandatory user verification requirements more in line with Know Your Customer (KYC) standards. The move comes as multiple countries have blocked or restricted access to the predictions market platform over concerns about illegal gambling.

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Accredited investors can buy and sell the gold-backed GLDY token through permissioned liquidity pools operating on the Solana blockchain.

Tokenized commodities platform Streamex said it is launching a Solana-based marketplace for trading tokenized assets in partnership with Orca, a decentralized exchange built on Solana.

According to a Tuesday announcement, the trading infrastructure will allow verified accredited investors to buy and sell Streamex’s yield-bearing, gold-backed GLDY token through regulated onchain trading pools operating around the clock.

The system uses identity and compliance checks tied to Streamex’s KYC and accreditation process to restrict trading access to approved investors while enabling secondary market liquidity for regulated digital assets.

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While crypto-backed candidates won runoffs in Texas on Tuesday, industry PACs have less of a stake in California races next week.

After six Republican and Democratic candidates supported by cryptocurrency-backed interest groups won primaries for US House of Representatives and Senate seats in Texas, one of the biggest political action committees (PACs) said it would “aggressively back leaders” supporting crypto policies in the future.

On Tuesday, candidates notched six wins for congressional runoff primaries in Texas, supported by media spending and endorsements by the crypto industry-affiliates Fairshake, Defend American Jobs, Protect Progress, Blockchain Leadership Fund and Fellowship PACs.

Democrat Christian Menefee primaried incumbent Al Green for Texas’ 18th congressional district and Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton won against incumbent Senator John Cornyn with more than 63% of the vote. Four other Republican candidates — Tom Sell, Alex Mealer, Jon Bonck and Carlos De La Cruz — also won in smaller districts after being the beneficiaries of thousands of dollars in media spending by Defend American Jobs.

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The company owns 5,058 Bitcoin, ranking it as the 20th largest publicly traded BTC treasury company, according to data from Bitcoin Treasuries.

Nakamoto (NAKA) is trading down more than 10% on Wednesday just days after the Bitcoin treasury company completed a 1-for-40 reverse stock split undertaken to stay compliant with the Nasdaq stock exchange’s listing criteria. 

NAKA stock is down by about 67% year-to-date (YTD) and by more than 99% since its May 2025 peak of about $34 per share, reaching a low of about $0.16 per share in April before the reverse stock split on Friday.

Nasdaq warned the company in December that its shares would be delisted after trading below $1 for at least 30 consecutive days, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

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Ether futures positioning tightened near $2,000 as rising open interest and dense short liquidity increased focus on a possible squeeze above $2,150.

Ether (ETH) remains under pressure after failing to reclaim the $2,150 resistance level. Despite the decline, ETH's aggregate open interest has increased by roughly 350,000 ETH, suggesting new short positions are entering the market.

With more than $1.5 billion in bearish positions clustered above $2,150, a successful defense of the $2,000 support zone could trigger a sharp short squeeze and a relief rally for ETH. 

ETH has failed to reclaim $2,150 after dropping below it on May 17. The resistance capped the price from February to April, limiting a strong breakout. 

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Bitcoin briefly lost the $75,000 level after net flows into spot BTC ETFs turned negative. Do technical charts point to a BTC and altcoin recovery?

Key points:

Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $75,000 on Wednesday, indicating that the bears are slowly taking charge of the crypto market. Institutional investors seem to be on a selling spree, with BTC exchange-traded funds recording net outflows of $1.88 billion since May 15, per Farside Investors' data. Glassnode said in a post on X that persistent net outflows from BTC ETFs on nearly every trading day since May 7 add “to the supply side without a visible demand offset.”

BTC’s weakness has sent it tumbling below its long-term valuation average, according to Bitwise. The asset management firm said in a recent report that in the past, only 36% of BTC’s market-value-to-realized-value (MVRV) readings were lower than the current level of 1.42. In comparison, roughly 99% of historical Nasdaq-100 price-to-book ratios were below their present levels, signaling the widest valuation gap on record between BTC and US tech stocks.

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The payments giant can now legally conduct digital asset business activity in New York as it deepens its focus on blockchain-based settlement systems.

Mastercard’s US transaction services unit has received a BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), allowing the payments giant to conduct regulated digital asset business activity in the state.

The company announced the license approval on Wednesday, but did not unveil any new consumer-facing crypto products. Instead, Mastercard said it plans to continue developing payment and settlement infrastructure tied to digital assets, focusing specifically on stablecoins and tokenized deposits.

New York’s BitLicense is widely regarded as one of the strictest state-level crypto regulatory frameworks in the United States. Companies offering certain crypto-related financial services to New York residents are generally required to obtain the license.

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XBIT DEX takes the lead in introducing leverage to on-chain prediction markets, prioritizing the 2026 FIFA World Cup for its initial category. The whitelist application is now live.

XBIT DEX takes the lead in introducing leverage to on-chain prediction markets, prioritizing the 2026 FIFA World Cup for its initial category. The whitelist application is now live.

May 27, 2026 - On-chain prediction markets are undergoing explosive growth. In March 2026, monthly trading volume surpassed $25 billion, a more than 20-fold increase compared to the same period last year. Polymarket has become the official prediction market partner for X, and Coinbase has launched prediction contracts across all 50 US states. However, while users and capital are flooding in, product architecture has yet to keep pace.

Currently, mainstream prediction market platforms still predominantly rely on a spot logic of full-amount purchasing and waiting for settlement. Users lack tools to add positions, hedge, or flexibly adjust risk exposure through leverage. The crypto market went through a similar phase until the emergence of perpetual contracts in 2016, which led to derivatives trading volume completely overtaking spot volume in less than four years.

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Bitcoin disappointed bulls by dropping below $75,000 on Iran peace deal reports while US stocks hit new all-time highs and oil saw one-month lows on Hormuz hopes.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell back below $75,000 at Wednesday’s Wall Street open as relief over a US-Iran peace deal bypassed crypto.

Key points:

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BTC Prague, Europe’s premier Bitcoin conference, returns to the PVA Expo Prague on June 11-13, 2026.

Prague, Czech Republic, May 18, 2026 - BTC Prague, Europe’s premier Bitcoin conference, returns to the PVA Expo Prague on June 11-13, 2026. Entering its fourth edition, BTC Prague welcomes 8,500 attendees, uniting entrepreneurs, developers, investors, educators, and newcomers in the industry. This year, BTC Prague adds its new Bitcoin Living Masterclass track, a dedicated stage for talks on health, biohacking, financial sovereignty, AI, parenting, and more, from renowned experts in their fields on top of its best-in-class Bitcoin program.

Without abandoning its Bitcoin-only philosophy, BTC Prague now broadens its appeal, including a wider range of topics very much in vogue among the Bitcoin community. The result is a three-day program of keynotes, panels, debates, and networking across four different stages surrounded by Europe’s largest Bitcoin expo.

BTC Prague is a meeting point for those building Bitcoin’s future. More than a conference, it’s a festival for everyone. From the newly curious to die-hard advocates, the event’s setup is meant to unite the vastly different ideological, technical, and business enclaves that exist in Bitcoin. A BTC Prague ticket ensures people can interact with experiences and content made for and by the Bitcoin community.

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PeckShield said the attacker bridged 43.7 ETH to Ethereum after minting trillions of vsdCRV, while EmberCN said most of the remaining tokens had insufficient liquidity to sell.

An attacker minted more than 5.4 trillion vsdCRV on Arbitrum after a suspected compromise of a StakeDAO-linked deployer key, though thin liquidity limited the realized proceeds to about $91,000.

Blockchain security firm PeckShield said Wednesday the attacker swapped part of the minted vsdCRV for 43.7 Ether (ETH), worth about $91,000, and bridged the funds to Ethereum. Onchain analyst EmberCN said the attacker swapped about 16.83 million vsdCRV, while the remaining tokens had little meaningful liquidity to exit.

EmberCN estimated the 5.4 trillion vsdCRV at about $763 billion on paper, though the figure does not represent the attacker’s realized profit or the protocol’s confirmed loss.

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UK sanctions Huobi Global S.A., operator of HTX, over alleged role in Russia’s “A7” shadow network, as new analysis claims the exchange handled billions in high‑risk flows.

Update (May 27, 2026, 5 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include comments from Global Ledger head of investigations Vladyslav Syrotin.

Update (May 28, 2026, 9 am UTC): This article has been updated to include comments from a spokesperson for HTX.

Sanctioned crypto exchange HTX is pushing back against the United Kingdom’s decision to blacklist Huobi Global S.A., the Panamanian company behind the platform, over allegations it helped Russia move money through a shadow “A7” network.

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The bank plans to launch digital asset custody, transfer and receipt services in 2026 for selected customer categories.

Italian bank Banca Sella announced that it has completed its notification process with the Bank of Italy under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, allowing it to offer crypto-asset services.

On Wednesday, the bank said it is the first bank in Italy authorized to offer crypto-asset services, adding that the approval will allow it to launch a solution focused on the custody, transfer and receipt of digital assets in 2026, aimed at “selected categories” of customers.

Banca Sella is the commercial bank of Sella Group. According to Sella Group, it has almost 300 branches and more than 2,400 employees.

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Bitcoin’s price stayed firm despite a massive $1.3 billion block sale executed by a mysterious BlackRock ETF holder, which analysts called a sign of large-scale institutional de-risking.

A roughly $1.3 billion block trade in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) tested liquidity in the largest spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) as Bitcoin products faced a fresh stretch of outflows.

Bloomberg’s ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, confirmed the transaction, adding that the market “absorbed it well” as IBIT’s price remained largely unchanged, he wrote in a Tuesday X post.

Bitcoin's (BTC) price fell 2% during the past 24 hours, but managed to remain above the $75,600 level at the time of writing, despite the significant block sale from the mysterious ETF holder, data from TradingView shows.

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Bitcoin is on track to end May in the red, a historically bearish signal that could point to deeper losses ahead if the post-May track record is any guide.

Bitcoin (BTC) may be flashing a “sell in May and go away” warning, with the price down roughly 10% after rejecting resistance near $83,000 and now on track for a negative monthly close.

BTC/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView

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Aeternum, organisers of the Unchained Summit series, will host the second edition of Unchained Summit Vietnam this week on May 28 and 29 at the Furama Resort in Da Nang.

Da Nang, Vietnam, May 27, 2026 - Aeternum, organisers of the Unchained Summit series, will host the second edition of Unchained Summit Vietnam this week on May 28 and 29 at the Furama Resort in Da Nang. The event is co-hosted by the Da Nang Innovation Start Support Center (DISSC), with institutional participation from the Da Nang People’s Committee, the State Securities Commission of Vietnam, and the Da Nang Department of Science and Technology.

The summit brings together founders, investors, exchanges, infrastructure providers, enterprise leaders, and policymakers from across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Its second edition arrives as Vietnam’s digital asset sector moves from early-stage experimentation to active policy development; a shift reflected in the depth of government engagement the event has attracted.

Day 1 opens with remarks from Mr. Nguyen Viet Toan, Director of the Da Nang Innovation Startup Support Center, setting the stage for two days of discussions around digital assets, blockchain infrastructure, and emerging technologies in Vietnam. The programme then moves into a keynote from Mr. To Tran Hoa of the State Securities Commission of Vietnam on the country’s regulatory direction for digital assets. David Rogers, CEO Asia-Pacific at B2C2, examines what recent market events mean for the region, and a fireside chat with Hoang Viet Anh, CEO of LPBank Securities, and Mr. Vo Duc Anh, Deputy Director of the Da Nang Innovation Startup Support Center, covers Vietnam’s Digital Asset Future. The afternoon moves through institutional digital asset markets with Tether, Anchorage Digital, and BNY Investments.

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China’s Supreme People’s Court plans to study adjudication rules for crypto and AI cases while the country’s crypto ban remains in force.

China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) said it will study new adjudication rules for virtual currency and cross-border finance cases as part of a broader push to clarify how courts handle digital economy disputes.

“We will conduct in-depth research on the adjudication rules for new cases such as virtual currencies and cross-border finance, formulate judicial interpretations on civil compensation involving insider trading and market manipulation as soon as possible,” said Liu Guixiang, Judicial Committee member of the SPC, during a press conference, reported Chinese news outlet Yicai on Wednesday.

The court also plans to study judicial protection rules for artificial intelligence cases and data property rights, including disputes involving data ownership, data transactions and AI-generated content.

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Crypto PACs threw serious money behind a handful of Texas runoffs, helping oust a senior Democrat and boost Republican hopefuls as lawmakers hammer out new US crypto rules.

[Clarification (17:49 UTC 5/27/2026) In the fourth paragraph, both Alex Mealer and Jon Bonck were the winners in their respective Republican runoffs.]

Crypto-backed political groups supported several winning candidates in Texas primary runoffs Tuesday, highlighting the digital asset industry’s growing role in US elections as Congress debates new rules for crypto markets.

Attorney General Ken Paxton won the Republican US Senate runoff against four-term Senator John Cornyn by a wide margin, according to Texas primary runoff results, and will face Democratic state Representative James Talarico in November.

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Falling MVRV ratio, high XRP Ledger activity and a bullish wedge pattern signal a potential XRP price rise toward $3.10.

XRP (XRP) is down roughly 64% from its July 2025 multi-year high, but several onchain and technical indicators suggested the altcoin was due for a “strong price rebound.”

Key takeaways:

XRP’s market value realized value (MVRV) ratio, or the market cap divided by the realized cap, has dropped to levels that have historically aligned with accumulation zones and market bottoms.

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ETHConf, produced by ETHGlobal, will bring more than 5,000 attendees, 150+ speakers, and 100+ companies to the Javits Center in New York City from June 8-10, 2026 for three days focused on the future of Ethereum and institutional finance.

New York, May 27, 2026 – ETHConf, produced by ETHGlobal, will bring more than 5,000 attendees, 150+ speakers, and 100+ companies to the Javits Center in New York City from June 8-10, 2026 for three days focused on the future of Ethereum and institutional finance.

The event convenes protocol founders, institutional investors, policymakers, developers, and infrastructure leaders shaping the next era of digital assets. Programming will cover stablecoins, tokenized treasuries, institutional adoption, digital asset policy, Layer 2 infrastructure, onchain identity, and the evolution of Ethereum as financial infrastructure.

ETHConf follows New York Tech Week and anchors a broader week of Ethereum ecosystem events across New York City, bringing together founders, developers, investors, institutions, and policymakers from around the world. The week concludes with the ETHGlobal New York Hackathon on June 12-14, where builders will prototype the next generation of onchain applications.

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Spot HYPE ETFs absorbed 1.04% of Hyperliquid’s market cap in 10 trading days, beating Bitcoin and Ether ETF debuts.

Spot Hyperliquid exchange-traded funds absorbed 1.04% of HYPE’s market capitalization in their first 10 trading days, giving them the strongest crypto ETF debut by one market-cap-adjusted demand metric, according to Kairos Research.

Kairos compared cumulative net flows into new spot crypto ETF issuers against the market capitalization of each underlying asset at launch. By this metric, HYPE ETFs outpaced spot Bitcoin, Ether and Solana ETF debuts, which absorbed 0.59%, 0.41% and 0.31% of their respective market capitalizations.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the 21Shares Hyperliquid ETF (THYP) had risen 50% since launching two weeks earlier. Balchunas compared the pace with Roundhill’s DRAM ETF, which he said took five weeks to gain 50%, and BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, which he said took two months.

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Bitcoin remained trapped "massively below" its "fair" level, as dictated by global liquidity trends and gold ratio, the latest BTC price analysis says.

Bitcoin (BTC) is “completely mispriced” to the downside in 2026 compared to global liquidity, new analysis argues.

Key points:

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South Korean prosecutors reportedly charged a group over the CATFI memecoin rug pull, marking the country’s first DEX rug-pull case under crypto law.

South Korean prosecutors charged a group in an alleged rug pull involving the Solana-based memecoin Catpie, or CATFI, in what local media described as the country’s first decentralized exchange (DEX) rug-pull prosecution.

The group was reportedly apprehended by the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office’s Virtual Asset Crime Joint Investigation Division. The main suspect, surnamed Park, allegedly posed as “Eth Father” on social media platforms and falsely promoted CATFI as an independent third-party before executing a rug pull that caused about 900 million won ($599,000) in financial damage to at least 256 investors, local news outlet Digital Asset Works said Wednesday.

Prosecutors allege the group promoted CATFI on social media, drove the token’s price up more than 1,000-fold within 26 hours and then sold their holdings for about 400 million won ($260,000) in illegal profit.

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“Ethereum got the ETH price it deserves, and I don’t see ETH being rerated as an asset, higher or lower,” says David Hoffman.

David Hoffman, an Ethereum advocate and the co-founder of the media company Bankless, said he sold the remainder of his Ether (ETH) holdings last week because the “ETH is Money” thesis has largely “played out.”

Hoffman said in an X post on Tuesday that “Ethereum got the ETH price it deserves, and I don’t see ETH being rerated as an asset, higher or lower.”

Hoffman said that Ethereum “has done incredibly well, and deserves the market cap that it has,” but the “window of opportunity for ETH to be ‘rerated’ by the market seems to be closing.”

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While Falcon’s new fUSD is built for institutional trading and collateral workflows, SoFiUSD targets consumer banking users through SoFi’s app.

Falcon Finance has launched a dollar-backed stablecoin, fUSD, through Anchorage Digital Bank’s federally regulated issuance platform, according to a Wednesday announcement.

The companies said the stablecoin is backed by short-dated US Treasurys, cash and Treasury-backed repurchase agreements.

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Bitmine and Galaxy Digital may also be eligible for the Russell 1000, an index tracking the largest 1,000 US companies that includes Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple.

A range of crypto companies appears in a preliminary list for the Russell 3000 index, including treasury firms Sharplink and Forward Industries, along with crypto exchange Gemini and crypto services firm Galaxy Digital. 

A preliminary index list for the Russell 3000 was published by the index’s provider, FTSE Russell, on Friday. The index tracks the 3,000 largest companies in the US and requires a market capitalization of at least $146.4 million.

Sharplink has a market cap of $1.2 billion, and the company’s CEO, Joseph Chalom, said in a statement on Tuesday that it means the firm could make the Russell 2000, an index that tracks the largest 2,000 publicly traded US companies.

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Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn says a $1.3 billion sale of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF was the largest he has seen on a dark pool, or private trading platform.

An unknown trader’s $1.3 billion sale of shares in BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund on Tuesday coincided with a steep fall in the price of Bitcoin, according to analysts.

A trader sold 29.2 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) at 2:30 p.m. UTC on a “dark pool,” a private trading platform that institutions often use to discreetly make large trades outside of public markets.

The impact of the $1.3 billion trade was immediately felt in the crypto market, with TradingView data showing that Bitcoin (BTC) fell 1.5% from $77,875 to $76,720 in a short 10-minute window after 2:30 p.m. UTC.

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Bitmine purchased 111,942 Ether last week, its biggest buy so far in 2026, after the token dropped below $2,200.

The Ether buying company Bitmine Immersion Technologies has made its biggest purchase so far in 2026 as its chairman, Tom Lee, doubled down on the idea of an impending crypto supercycle.

Lee said Tuesday that in the past week, Bitmine bought 111,942 Ether (ETH) after a recent pullback sent the token below $2,200 and presented an “attractive opportunity.” Ether has traded between $2,025 and $2,147 over the past seven days.

He also reiterated his theory of a supercycle ahead for crypto and Ether, driven by Wall Street’s interest in tokenization and artificial intelligence-powered agents.

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US President Donald Trump says it is “critically important” that the CFTC has sole authority over prediction markets, and took aim at several state officials.

US President Donald Trump has backed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as having the “exclusive authority” over prediction markets, as state regulators' action against the platforms mounts.

“It is critically important that the CFTC’s exclusive authority over Prediction Markets is maintained, and that they will thrive,” Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday.

Trump also took aim at several officials whose states have launched legal action against prediction markets, including Kalshi, Polymarket, Crypto.com and Robinhood.

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Bitcoin’s rangebound trading carries on as bears defend $77,000 and bulls hold out near $74,000.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) consolidation continued into a fourth week, with the price finding support at $74,000 and resistance in the $78,000 to $80,000 range. According to Hyblock analysts, the intra-day rally to $78,164 hit a pocket where “longs that had previously opened up (that are in a position) were underwater and likely exited here at breakeven.” 

BTC/USDT net positions heatmap. Source: Hyblock

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HYPE reached new highs above $65 following record ETF inflows, futures participation and trading volumes at Hyperliquid exchange. Is $100 next?

Hyperliquid’s native token HYPE continues to rally, possibly targeting $100 as its next all-time high, as inflows to its exchange-traded funds highlight investor demand. 

Inflows into the HYPE ETFs reached $89 million over the past nine days, which is equivalent to nearly $9.2 million in daily buying pressure. 

The combined assets under management (AUM) across Bitwise’s BHYP and 21Shares’s THYP climbed to $89 million within days of launch, giving HYPE one of the fastest ETF accumulation curves among crypto investment products.

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After Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren's claimed that the comptroller may have violated US banking laws by approving crypto companies’ charters, The Digital Chamber urged the regulator to defend the applications.

Update (May 26 at 9:30 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include statements from The Digital Chamber.

The Digital Chamber, a cryptocurrency advocacy group that has been closely involved in negotiations with US lawmakers over digital asset-related legislation, questioned three-term Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s understanding of banking laws as applied to crypto companies.

In a Tuesday letter to the US Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Jonathan Gould, Digital Chamber CEO Cody Carbone challenged many of the claims in the Massachusetts lawmaker’s May 18 letter. In that letter, Warren said that the OCC may have violated the National Bank Act by approving national trust charters for nine crypto companies “that intend to engage in activities that appear to go far beyond the narrow set of activities permitted by law.”

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Wall Street’s semiconductor-driven surge is fueling fresh momentum for crypto miners betting their power-heavy infrastructure can support the AI boom.

Several Bitcoin mining stocks rallied Tuesday, reflecting a broader equity surge driven by optimism around artificial intelligence productivity gains as more miners pivot toward AI and high-performance computing workloads.

In addition to TeraWulf (WULF), which rallied by as much as 17% on news of a Kentucky data center acquisition site, Hut 8 (HUT), IREN (IREN) and Riot Platforms (RIOT) closed more than 5% higher on the day.

The rally underscores growing investor enthusiasm for Bitcoin miners that are repurposing parts of their energy infrastructure and data center capacity to support AI and high-performance computing applications — businesses viewed as potentially more stable and lucrative than crypto mining alone.

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Formerly Huobi Global, the exchange is the latest entity to be named as part of a crackdown on companies “exploited by Russia to circumvent UK sanctions.”

The UK government has added cryptocurrency exchange HTX to its list of sanctioned entities over its support of Russia.

On Tuesday, UK authorities said that there were “reasonable grounds to suspect” HTX, formerly Huobi Global, has been supporting Russia’s government through financial services and funds facilitated by the A7 Limited Liability Company and Garantex, other sanctioned entities. The crypto exchange, headquartered in Panama, was the latest to be named as part of a crackdown on entities “exploited by Russia to circumvent UK sanctions.”

“If the Kremlin thinks it can evade our sanctions by hiding behind crypto networks and shadow financial systems, it is gravely mistaken,” said UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.

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WULF shares surged on Tuesday after the Bitcoin miner announced its latest move to expand into AI and HPC through a multi-phase buildout through 2030.

Bitcoin miner TeraWulf has acquired a large data center development site in the US state of Kentucky, adding significant capacity to its artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) business as miners continue diversifying beyond Bitcoin.

TeraWulf said Tuesday the site could eventually support more than 1 gigawatt of AI and HPC capacity. The company expects the first 500 megawatts to come online in 2028, with another 500 megawatts targeted by 2030.

The site includes planned grid infrastructure and long-term power agreements, underscoring TeraWulf’s ongoing shift toward AI and HPC hosting alongside its traditional Bitcoin mining operations.

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Spain joined a growing list of national authorities restricting or banning prediction market platforms amid concerns over unlicensed gambling activities.

Spain’s gambling regulator blocked local users from Polymarket and Kalshi “as a precautionary measure” as authorities there address allegations the prediction markets platforms were in violation of gambling laws. 

On Tuesday, Spain’s Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ) said the country’s Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption, and Agenda 2030 had opened legal proceedings against the two companies, as they appeared to be operating without necessary licensing. The DGOJ issued an order blocking Spanish users from Kalshi and Polymarket until the proceedings were resolved, expected in three to four months.

“The DGOJ wishes to remind the public that, in Spain — in line with other European jurisdictions — prediction markets are deemed to constitute games of chance when bets are placed on uncertain future outcomes,” according to a Tuesday notice. “Consequently, operating such markets within Spanish territory requires obtaining a specific administrative license.”

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Bitcoin failed to copy US stocks' upside after a spike to $78,000 became one of a series of liquidity grabs.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw flash volatility around Tuesday’s Wall Street open as US-Iran nerves rocked risk assets.

Key points:

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NEAR is mirroring a 2023–2024 fractal that preceded a 250% rally, hinting at similar upside in 2026 as privacy coin demand grows.

Near Protocol's native token, NEAR, has the potential to grow 20x by 2027, according to Arthur Hayes, co-founder of the crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX.

Key takeaways:

Speaking on The Rollup podcast, Hayes said NEAR’s bullish case rests on NEAR Intents, a feature that lets AI agents move assets privately across blockchains without dealing with bridges, multiple wallets or fragmented liquidity.

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Financial Times testing found safety controls on open AI models from Meta and Google could be stripped in minutes, raising governance concerns.

Safety protections on open-source artificial intelligence models from major technology groups can be removed in minutes using publicly available tools, allowing systems to produce responses on topics including bioweapons, malware and other prohibited content, according to Financial Times testing with AI safety group Alice.

The findings released Monday add to concerns that safeguards embedded by developers may not persist once model weights are released and modified, raising questions over where responsibility for AI safety should sit.

The investigation, conducted using tools available on public code repositories, found that guardrails on models developed by companies including Meta and Google could be removed in under 10 minutes without specialist hardware.

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Strategy reduced aggregate convertible notes outstanding to $6.7 billion after repurchasing 2029 notes for $1.38 billion in cash.

Michael Saylor's Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, has repurchased $1.5 billion of its 0% convertible senior notes due in 2029 for $1.38 billion at an 8% discount to par, in a move that significantly cuts future debt obligations.

The purchase reduces Strategy’s outstanding debt through convertible notes from $8.2 billion to $6.7 billion for 2029, the company announced on Tuesday. The notes were repurchased using the company's cash reserves.

Strategy also reported an additional $15.5 billion in aggregate notional amount of outstanding preferred stock and a USD reserve of $871 million.

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Grvt will work with Plume to launch tokenized fixed-income and structured credit products tied to institutional-grade real world assets and onchain yield strategies.

Decentralized perpetual futures exchange Grvt will work with Plume to launch three tokenized real-world asset (RWA) yield products, offering users access to fixed-income and structured credit strategies through self-custodial wallets.

According to Tuesday's announcement, the products will be integrated directly into Grvt’s platform and include exposure tied to tokenized institutional-grade assets, including the $2.2 billion in assets iShares AAA CLO Active ETF.

The integration adds three investment products, the Base Yield Fund, Balanced Fund and Opportunistic Fund, to Grvt’s trading platform, allowing users to access tokenized yield strategies from the same self-custodial balance they already use for trading, without transferring assets across separate wallets, brokerage accounts or custody providers.

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Bernstein Research data shows the RWA market at $51 billion, with tokenized private credit leading and Figure leading RWA platforms with $18 billion in tokenized assets.

The tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market has grown to $51 billion, up 42% this year, as private credit becomes the largest segment of the market, according to a Bernstein Research report seen by Cointelegraph.

Private credit accounted for roughly 44% of total RWA value, Bernstein said, reflecting growing use of blockchain-based infrastructure for lending and fund structures.

The $51 billion valuation sits well above other industry estimates, such as RWA.xyz’s $34 billion figure, highlighting how different analytics providers count tokenized assets.

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Bitcoin cup-and-handle chart breakout targets $220,000, but BTC price must first hold the $74,000 support area.

Bitcoin (BTC) is up roughly 30% from its Feb. 6 low below $60,000 as a multi-year bullish chart pattern suggests BTC price could rise to as high as $220,000 in the coming months.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin price has formed a cup-and-handle (C&H) pattern on the weekly chart, suggesting that a massive upward move is still in the cards for BTC.

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Everstake said staking made up 60% of disclosed revenue among six Ethereum treasury firms, while loss-making companies posted $1.41 billion in losses.

Ethereum treasury companies are under pressure to generate revenue from staking and other yield strategies as spot crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) weaken the appeal of public companies that simply hold Ether (ETH), according to a new Everstake report.

Staking accounted for an average of 60% of reported revenue among six ETH treasury firms that separately disclosed staking-related income, the staking infrastructure provider said.

Everstake reviewed 15 publicly listed companies with ETH treasury strategies and found that the firms in its sample that reported 2025 losses posted about $1.41 billion in combined net losses. Separately, BitMine Immersion Technologies reported a $9.02 billion net loss for the six months ended Feb. 28, though the figure was driven largely by unrealized losses on digital assets rather than operating losses, according to the report.

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Smaller Bitcoin treasury companies bought about $46 million worth of Bitcoin below $80,000 last week as the largest corporate holder paused its weekly buys.

Smaller Bitcoin treasury firms added 602.6 BTC worth about $46 million last week, even as the largest corporate holders appeared to pause their acquisitions.

The purchases included a 381.6 Bitcoin (BTC) acquisition by asset manager and Bitcoin treasury company Strive, 200 BTC bought by global consumer food brand DDC Enterprise Limited, 19 BTC acquired by UK-based web design company The Smarter Web Company (SWC), and 2 BTC bought by AI data center company Hyperscale Data.

The buying suggests corporate Bitcoin demand has not disappeared during the latest drawdown, but has shifted toward smaller treasury firms while market leader Strategy paused its usual weekly accumulation.

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Binance remains blocked in the Philippines after a 2024 NTC directive tied to SEC concerns over licensing and registration.

Crypto exchange Binance is partnering with fintech company BlockShoals Technologies in what the platform described as its first formal market-entry approach in the Philippines, through local partnerships and regulatory engagement. 

On Tuesday, Binance announced the partnership, highlighting that BlockShoals is an approved participant under the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Strategic Sandbox, or StratBox, framework. Binance said BlockShoals will serve as the approved local intermediary, while the exchange will provide technology, security, operational and compliance support.

A Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the company is pursuing a compliance-oriented market approach in collaboration with local stakeholders. “This represents Binance’s first formal market entry approach in the Philippines through local partnerships and regulatory engagement,” the spokesperson said. 

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Singapore police charge ex-Hodlnaut CEO Zhu Juntao with six counts of fraud by false representation over allegedly misleading statements on the company’s exposure to the Terra/UST crash.

Former Hodlnaut CEO Zhu Juntao was charged in Singapore with six counts of fraud by false representation, in a case tied to statements Zhu and Hodlnaut employees allegedly made after the 2022 collapse of the Terra ecosystem.

Singapore Police said Zhu, 36, was charged following an investigation by the Commercial Affairs Department and faces three charges under Section 424A(1)(a) read with Section 424A(3) of the Penal Code 1871, as well as three further charges under the same provision read with Section 109.

The case centers on alleged false claims about Hodlnaut’s exposure to the TerraUSD (UST) crash, including accusations that Zhu directed staff to issue some of the statements.

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Crypto ETPs logged $1.47 billion of outflows last week as Bitcoin funds led losses, while nine altcoin ETPs still attracted inflows of more than $1 million.

Crypto investment products recorded $1.47 billion in outflows last week, extending a second straight week of withdrawals as Bitcoin funds led the decline, according to CoinShares.

Crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) extended the prior week’s $1.07 billion in withdrawals, CoinShares reported Tuesday.

Bitcoin products accounted for roughly $1.3 billion of the outflows, their largest weekly withdrawal of 2026, while Ether funds lost $223 million, the asset manager said.

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Ether price eyes a 14% drop to $1,800 as it trades in a classic bearish pattern amid declining total value locked on the Ethereum network.

Ether’s (ETH) price printed a “bear pennant” on the daily chart, a technical chart formation associated with strong downward momentum. Could a weakening technical setup and a decline in total value locked signal the continuation of ETH’s correction to $1,800?

Key takeaways:

Ether’s 13% drop from its multi-month highs above $2,400 saw it breach a key trend line that has supported the price since early February.

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Luffa AI, a leading innovator at the intersection of Web3 and Artificial Intelligence, today announced a strategic equity investment from Hong Kong-listed GoFintech Quantum Innovation Limited (“GoFintech Quantum”, Stock Code: 00290.HK).

HONG KONG, May 26, 2026 — Luffa AI, a leading innovator at the intersection of Web3 and Artificial Intelligence, today announced a strategic equity investment from Hong Kong-listed GoFintech Quantum Innovation Limited (“GoFintech Quantum”, Stock Code: 00290.HK). The transaction values Luffa AI at US$220 million. The two parties will engage in deep strategic collaboration across artificial intelligence, quantum security, blockchain, and compliance fintech to jointly explore the new AI + Quantum Blockchain Fintech track.

The current internet is highly fragmented: identities are siloed and controlled by platforms, AI agents lack independent identities, wallets, and execution capabilities, value and payments are locked within closed ecosystems, and AI-generated content remains unverifiable with unclear compliance pathways. Luffa addresses these challenges through three core dimensions of super connectivity. In Community, it enables trusted DID-based self-sovereign identity, AI agent empowerment, and on-chain governance for true decentralized autonomy. In Content, channels become programmable and tradable value containers, supporting creator influence tokenization and multi-layered monetization. In Aggregation, the SuperBox open mini-app ecosystem, multi-chain wallets, LuffaPay intent-based payments, and multi-agent commercial protocols seamlessly connect applications across all scenarios. These three systems form a closed loop that bridges the critical gaps between users and identity, identity and assets, content and value, as well as online and offline experiences.

As of February 2026, Luffa’s ecosystem has achieved rapid growth, with over 3 million global downloads, 2 million registered users, and more than 150,000 daily active users. Its core products, Luffa Wallet and SuperBox Mini-App Platform, are now officially launched, with proven use cases in prediction markets, AI mini-games, RWA, creator economy, and community governance. In 2026, Luffa will focus on the AI-powered Web3 ecosystem to build a globally leading intelligent trading ecosystem.

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Hyperliquid launched canonical prediction markets for offchain events, expanding beyond perps as analysts frame it as an onchain superapp.

Decentralized exchange (DEX) Hyperliquid launched canonical prediction markets for offchain events, as the platform starts expanding beyond perpetual futures.

Validators run automated newsfeed software that publishes the markets and votes on deployment and settlement, Hyperliquid said in a Monday Telegram post.

The markets are built on Hyperliquid’s HIP-4 and use Circle’s USDC (USDC) as the quote asset. Hyperliquid said the first markets will open based on the May Consumer Price Index (CPI) year-over-year change and the June federal funds rate decision.

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AI agents are becoming increasingly popular among crypto users, with Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire predicting that billions of AI agents will be operating within five years.

Security for artificial intelligence-powered agents should be built into the entire system, not just around the model itself, to better prevent failures and attacks from bad actors, according to a new research paper.

The amended paper, released on May 20 by researchers from Google, Gray Swan AI, EmbraceTheRed, and several universities, argued that agent security must be approached as a systems problem and that AI agents should be treated as an untrusted component.

“Through this lens, efforts to increase model robustness, the dominant viewpoint in the community, are insufficient on their own. Instead, we must complement existing efforts with techniques from the systems security domain,” the researchers said.

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Co-Invest lets users fund accounts, analyze positions and execute trades across more than 500 markets without leaving AI chat interfaces.

Liquid, a multi-asset trading platform, has launched a trading app that lets users execute trades directly inside OpenAI ChatGPT and Anthropic Claude across crypto, equities, foreign exchange markets and prediction markets.

According to the company, the Co-Invest app's users can fund accounts, analyze positions and place trades without leaving the chat interface. Liquid said the platform routes orders through venues including Hyperliquid, Lighter and Ostium.

Liquid said Co-Invest supports trading across more than 500 markets, including pre-IPO secondaries and positions on Polymarket. The company said that its platform has processed more than $3 billion in trading volume since launching in August 2025 and currently serves roughly 40,000 users.

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The company increased its holdings to 16,500 BTC as Bitcoin-linked preferred securities such as SATA and Strategy’s STRC gain traction in emerging “digital credit” markets.

Strive purchased 1,109 Bitcoin between May 19 and May 22, increasing its holdings to 16,500 BTC, according to a Tuesday SEC filing.

The company said it held about $93.3 million in cash and cash equivalents as of May 22, alongside roughly $50.1 million in fair value tied to its holdings of Strategy’s Stretch preferred stock product, STRC. The Dallas, Texas-based company also said it is evaluating refreshed at-the-market stock sale programs that could fund additional Bitcoin (BTC) purchases.

Strive boosted its Class A common shares outstanding by more than 2.2 million shares during the period, while its SATA preferred stock count rose by about 515,000 shares, reflecting continued use of equity-linked financing tied to its Bitcoin treasury strategy.

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A blockchain analyst has warned that malicious phishing advertisements impersonating Uniswap have appeared on Google Search, which has netted attackers at least $400,000.

Scammers have been using Google to deploy malicious phishing advertisements impersonating the crypto protocol Uniswap, which has reportedly netted the attackers at least $400,000. 

The on-chain analyst “b-block” posted to X on Monday that a website impersonating decentralized finance exchange Uniswap was draining funds from multiple wallets and the scammers were holding at least $400,000.

Stacy Muur, founder of Web3 marketing agency Green Dots, said that the scammers had stolen the funds from users through a phishing ad on Google that impersonated Uniswap, and shared a screenshot of a sponsored result from the search engine.

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Bitmine's Tom Lee says the firm could be considered for the Russell 1000, and its stock may get a boost from active and passive fund managers.

Ether treasury company Bitmine Immersion Technologies has been included in a preliminary list for potential inclusion in the Russell 3000 index, a move that chairman Tom Lee hinted could provide tailwinds for the company’s stock.

FTSE Russell, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group, published a preliminary index inclusion list for the Russell 3000 on Friday, its index tracking the 3,000 largest companies in the US. 

Lee said in an X post Saturday that Bitmine could be included in the Russell 1000, an index tracking the largest 1,000 US companies, due to the index’s minimum market capitalization threshold of $5.7 billion. Bitmine’s market cap was $10.15 billion as of market close on Friday.

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This steady drip of ETF outflow continues to add to the supply side without a visible demand offset, said Glassnode.

Bitcoin is sliding into a high-risk environment due to continued institutional selling, primarily from US spot exchange-traded funds, according to crypto analytics platform Swissblock.

Swissblock said on Tuesday that its Bitcoin risk index was at a high risk score of 33 out of 100, adding that “every time the Risk Index signals that selling pressure is structurally overwhelming the market, what sits underneath is institutional distribution.”

The platform’s proprietary risk index was developed to gauge the overall risk level in the Bitcoin market by measuring the relative balance between selling pressure and buying pressure, helping to assess how “risky” it currently is to buy or hold Bitcoin.

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Ondo Finance says its founder, Nathan Allman, died unexpectedly, with company president Ian De Bode to serve as CEO.

Nathan Allman, the founder and CEO of Ondo Finance and one of the pioneers of blockchain tokenization, has died aged 32.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the unexpected passing of Nathan Allman, Ondo's founder,” Ondo Finance said in an X post on Monday. “Our hearts are with his family and loved ones.”

“Nate’s brilliance, humility, and drive shaped every part of what Ondo is today,” Ondo said. “His belief in the power of technology to create a more open, accessible financial system lives on in everything we build. The impact he had on this industry, and on all of us personally, cannot be overstated.”

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Kelp DAO says that sETH mints, redemptions and rewards operations have been running smoothly since it opened withdrawals for the token earlier this month.

Ethereum liquid staking protocol Kelp DAO says its restaked Ether token has been restored with a five-week recovery effort after the protocol suffered a $293 million exploit by North Korea’s Lazarus Group on April 18.

Kelp DAO posted to X on Monday that the final tranche of 20,373.7 Kelp DAO restaked ETH (rsETH) tokens was sent to the LayerZero smart contract responsible for locking, minting, burning and releasing rsETH during cross-chain transfers. 

“This closes the operational part of the rsETH recovery plan,” Kelp said. Several crypto protocols contributed funds to help restore rsETH’s backing under the DeFi United initiative.

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Bitcoin’s 8-month low volatility can’t predict BTC’s price prediction but derivatives data does suggest that a rally to $82,000 would cause a large short squeeze.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin (BTC) implied volatility dropped to 36%, its lowest level in eight months, signaling that professional traders are pricing in lower odds of wide price swings. While declining volatility is not inherently bullish or bearish, Bitcoin derivatives data suggest that overconfidence among bears could catalyze a bullish breakout.

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Data suggests that Bitcoin may be gearing up for a rally to $82,000. Will bulls seize the opportunity?

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin (BTC) reclaimed the $77,000 level on Monday following a recovery in global stock markets. US President Donald Trump stated on Saturday that talks with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz were progressing, causing crude Brent oil prices to retreat to a five-week low and setting the stage for a potential Bitcoin price run to $82,000.

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Bitcoin reclaimed $77,000 despite rising exchange supply and spot BTC ETF outflows. Will bulls push BTC to $80,000 this week?

Bitcoin (BTC) needs fresh spot demand to absorb the rising BTC supply across exchanges and exchange-traded funds. Recent exchange inflows and ETF outflows created nearly 34,000 BTC in local selling pressure, while derivatives data showed the latest recovery was driven mostly by short covering. 

Bitcoin researcher Axel Adler Jr. said BTC exchange and exchange-traded fund (ETF) activity continue to show a local supply imbalance despite the latest recovery. The weekly exchange netflows climbed by roughly 18,000 BTC, indicating more coins were added to exchanges than were withdrawn. Higher BTC inflows increase the near-term selling supply.

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Bitcoin’s weekend bounce shows strong demand at lower levels, but holding $78,000 may remain a challenge for the bulls.

Key points:

Bitcoin (BTC) bounced on Saturday following US President Donald Trump’s announcement in a post on his Truth Social platform that negotiations between the US and Iran were “proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner.” Buyers extended the recovery on Monday and are attempting to sustain above $77,500.

The uncertainty of the past few days has resulted in $1.55 billion in net outflows from the US BTC exchange-traded funds. Crypto sentiment platform Santiment said in a report on Friday that sharp outflows from BTC ETFs indicate retail capitulation, which has “historically correlated with conditions favorable for patient accumulation” for long-term holders rather than panic. 

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Whales withdrew $170 million in XRP from Binance as the price holds a key $1.35-$1.40 accumulation and support zone.

XRP (XRP) traded within a key “value zone” where whales recently accumulated $170 million, signaling a tightening liquidity supply.

Key takeaways:

XRP whale withdrawals, large exits above 1 million coins per transaction, hit 122 million on Binance on May 22, worth about $170.8 million at current rates, according to data from CryptoQuant. 

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The integration gives ADI token holders access to Ledger’s self-custody platform as ADI Chain expands its stablecoin and tokenized asset network.

Ledger added native support for the $ADI token tied to ADI Foundation’s ADI Chain network, a UAE-linked, layer-2 focused on stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.

ADI Chain is backed by Abu Dhabi-based Sirius International Holding, a subsidiary of International Holding Company, and backs the DDSC stablecoin ecosystem launched with First Abu Dhabi Bank. According to the company, the network is designed for institutional use cases including cross-border payments, treasury operations and trade settlement.

The integration allows users to store and manage $ADI through Ledger Wallet and the company’s hardware signing devices. ADI Foundation describes ADI Chain as infrastructure for regulated stablecoins and tokenized assets, with $ADI used as the network’s native gas token.

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The crypto-aligned Protect Progress PAC reported spending another $750,000 on media for a Democratic candidate over Representative Al Green, whom it described as “actively hostile” to digital assets.

Two Texas Congressional candidates supported by millions of dollars in spending from interest groups aligned with the cryptocurrency industry are headed for runoffs this week in races for the US Senate and House of Representatives.

On Tuesday, Democratic voters in Texas’ 18th congressional district will decide between incumbent Al Green and challenger Christian Menefee to run in November's general election. Statewide, voters will choose between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and incumbent John Cornyn for the Republican primary for US Senate.

Both Tuesday races are runoffs after none of the candidates failed to secure a majority in Texas’ March primaries. The crypto industry, through spending on media by political action committees (PACs), has stakes in both races, which could influence policy and the makeup of Congress going into 2027.

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CoinQuant, the AI-powered no-code trading platform that has attracted over 15,000 users since launch, today announces its expansion into a unified trading intelligence architecture built for both human traders and autonomous AI agents.

Dubai, UAE | May 2026 - The agent economy is reshaping financial markets. Open-source agent frameworks are accelerating autonomous financial activity, with AI agents increasingly executing trades, managing portfolios, and interacting directly with exchanges. Yet the financial infrastructure supporting this shift has not evolved at the same pace.

CoinQuant, the AI-powered no-code trading platform that has attracted over 15,000 users since launch, today announces its expansion into a unified trading intelligence architecture built for both human traders and autonomous AI agents.

As AI agents increasingly connect directly to exchanges and wallets, many rely on raw APIs without structured backtesting, risk analysis, or validated data pipelines. CoinQuant introduces a structured intelligence layer between trading intent and live capital deployment.

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A third-party module drained about $3 million from Safe wallets, with Squid attributing the incident to an external Safe module, saying its core systems were unaffected.

A suspected third-party Safe module exploit has drained about $3.2 million from wallets across Ethereum and Base, with multiple teams pointing to an external module as the cause.

Blockchain security platform Blockaid reported the incident on Monday, saying it involved a contract labeled “SquidRouterModule,” which initially led to confusion over a possible link to the cross-chain protocol Squid.

Squid later said on X that the issue was unrelated to its core protocol and instead involved a third-party module integrated into Safe wallets.

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Canton Foundation, Toss, BitGo Among Co-Hosts at Private Event; Token Launch Slated for Second Half of 2026

May 25, 2026 — Canton Foundation, Toss, BitGo Among Co-Hosts at Private Event; Token Launch Slated for Second Half of 2026.

On May 21, ARIQO, an on-chain financial platform, made its first public appearance at Southeast Asia Blockchain Week (SEABW) in Bangkok.

Earlier that day on the conference floor, ARIQO co-founder Emanuel Escobar Duro (CBO) spoke with teams from Orca and Viva Republica (Toss) about the shifting role of DeFi platforms and the trajectory of institutional RWA adoption. The broad direction, he noted, is already clear — institutional capital is moving on-chain. The open question is which platforms actually have the infrastructure to receive it, and on that front, the field is still thin.

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Brian Armstrong's wishlist for upgrading global finance aligns with the exchange's push into stocks, prediction markets and stablecoin payments, though some priorities remain aspirational.

Brian Armstrong posted an eight-point blueprint for upgrading global finance Monday, which closely tracks Coinbase’s expansion into stocks, prediction markets and stablecoin infrastructure, as the exchange continues its push to become an “everything” platform.

The Coinbase CEO’s priorities, posted Monday on X, include tokenized real-world assets, 24/7 global trading, stablecoin payments, AI-powered compliance, open access, capital formation, regulation and sound money.

Coinbase is broadening beyond crypto trading into payments, tokenized assets and financial infrastructure as exchanges compete to capture a larger share of global capital markets. The exchange is positioning itself against rivals like Binance and Kraken, which offer equity perpetuals and synthetic stock exposure under varying regulatory frameworks.

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ETH’s rebound toward the whale’s liquidation zone near $2,150 puts its short at risk of over $1 million in potential losses.

A crypto whale opened a leveraged Ether (ETH) short position worth more than $100 million, even as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin pledged fewer token sales via the Ethereum Foundation.

Key takeaways:

As of Monday, the wallet '0x50b...' held a 47,600 ETH short position worth about $100.72 million, according to Hypurrscan data. The trade used roughly 23x cross-margin leverage, with an entry price near $2,094.92.

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Digital asset treasuries (DATs) and the broader practice of building corporate Bitcoin reserves became hugely popular in 2024 and 2025, thanks in large part to the success of Strategy, whose "flywheel" many tried to replicate.

However, this model cuts both ways. On one hand, it lets companies raise capital on a wave of market optimism. On the other, it forces them to absorb the volatility of the underlying asset when prices fall.

For a public company, the situation is even more complicated. Accounting obligations mean financial losses quickly become public, and any asset movements against that backdrop attract intense scrutiny.

The recent discussion around Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) shows exactly that. Amid paper losses on its crypto strategy, the company moved 2,650 BTC to Crypto.com, having previously withdrawn applications to launch its own cryptocurrency ETFs.

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Cyannova Capital (“Cyannova” or the “Company”), a New York-based investment firm, announces its inaugural investment fund, Cyannova Capital, LP, at its private industry reception held in Hong Kong.

NEW YORK and HONG KONG — Cyannova Capital (“Cyannova” or the “Company”), a New York-based investment firm, announces its inaugural investment fund, Cyannova Capital, LP, at its private industry reception held in Hong Kong. The fund is positioned as event-driven capital and operates as a resource integration platform, strategically leveraging the momentum of a significant global investment cycle fueled by the convergence of energy, computing, automation, and space-based infrastructure.

By leveraging a global network spanning North America, the Middle East, and Asia, Cyannova focuses on providing long-term support to its portfolio companies. Cyannova is targeting high-growth sectors that expand human productivity, including AI, renewable energy, robotics, and the emerging space economy.

At the reception, Cyannova announced that it entered into a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Butong Group (6090.HK), an emerging tech-driven lifestyle solutions provider. "Cyannova’s platform is built to do more than just deploy capital," said Mr. Wang, Chairman of the Board of Butong Group. "Butong is proud to be one of Cyannova’s first strategic partners. They are integrating global resources to help companies scale across borders."

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Bitcoin’s weakening demand failed to absorb increased selling pressure, raising risks of a further BTC price drop toward $72,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen 6.5% from its recent high above $82,000, as a bearish technical structure, weakening demand, and increasing sell pressure now point to the risk of further losses ahead.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin’s failure to hold above key support levels suggested buyers were unable to sustain the upward momentum.

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Indonesia blocked Polymarket after users bet on President Prabowo Subianto leaving office early, citing gambling concerns and expanding global scrutiny of prediction markets.

Indonesia blocked access to Polymarket after the prediction market platform hosted wagers on whether President Prabowo Subianto would leave office before the end of his term.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi) announced the block on Friday, describing Polymarket as an “online gambling site disguised as a prediction market.”

"The government will not allow any form of online gambling in Indonesia,” ministry official Alexander Sabar said, adding: “Activities like Polymarket involve betting and speculation on uncertain outcomes, thus violating Indonesian law.”

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The crypto lobby has spent tens of millions of dollars more on Republican candidates and elections than on Democratic lawmakers.

In the upcoming 2026 midterm elections, Americans will elect 35 of 100 Senate seats and all of the 435 voting seats of the House of Representatives.

The cratering popularity of President Donald Trump’s administration, which polls show is the result of everything from the economy to the War in Iran and his handling of immigration, has put Democrats in an historic lead. 

The generic congressional ballot test, i.e., a poll that asks which party the respondent plans to support, recently showed that the Democrats had the largest mid-term lead of any party in the last 20 years. 

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Bitcoin traders predicted a short squeeze to $80,000, but a lack of overall demand and the return of leverage sparked warnings of more liquidation events to come.

Bitcoin (BTC) starts the final week of May with traders optimistic about an $80,000 rebound — will it end up as a liquidity grab?

Bitcoin price action struggled over the weekend, dipping below $75,000 to its lowest levels since mid-April, per data from TradingView.

A rebound then brought $77,000 back into focus in line with optimism around a US-Iran peace deal.

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Influence360 today announced the launch of its platform, introducing a new infrastructure layer for Web3 influencer marketing built around trust, data, and global execution.

Influence360 introduces a campaign engine that enables Web3 projects to discover KOLs globally, execute structured campaigns, and track real performance across regions, languages, and channels. A benchmark study of 143 Web3 KOLs highlights major gaps in payments, access, and campaign infrastructure, providing context for the platform’s launch.

May 25, 2026 — Influence360 today announced the launch of its platform, introducing a new infrastructure layer for Web3 influencer marketing built around trust, data, and global execution.

Projects can discover web3 KOLs across 10+ languages and key platforms, including X, YouTube, TikTok, and Telegram; launch structured campaigns; and manage execution in one place with AI-powered optimization, smart contract escrow, and real-time performance tracking, enabling transparent payments and clear attribution at a global scale.

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A New York lawsuit seeks ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets, raising questions over lost crypto, private keys and property law.

A New York lawsuit filed by Noah Doe and two Wyoming-based LLCs, ABC Company and XYZ Company, seeks a court order declaring ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses, raising important questions about the legal treatment of inactive Bitcoin under property laws.

Filed on May 1, the suit claims that the coins tied to the listed addresses represent legally abandoned property they found and reported to the New York Police Department and claimed under New York lost-property law.

The plaintiffs claim that the dormant Bitcoin wallets were legally “abandoned” property that they found, including wallets belonging to early Bitcoin miners and addresses attributed to Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, among other lost coins and unidentified entities. They claim that these constitute seizable property, akin to traditional bank accounts.

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Georgia’s central bank released stablecoin rules in March covering reserve backing, issuer documents and external auditor verification.

Stablecoin issuer Tether and the government of Georgia plan to launch a stablecoin called “GELT” that would represent the Georgian lari under the country’s digital asset regulatory framework.

On Monday, Tether said the stablecoin is expected to support cross-border commerce and digital payments in Georgia. The company said GELT's structure, rollout and regulatory implementation will be announced at a later stage.

The plan builds on Georgia’s recent efforts to develop rules for digital assets and stablecoins, including a framework covering reserve management, redemption rights, issuer oversight and Anti-Money Laundering compliance. In March, the National Bank of Georgia said it had developed rules for the initial offering of “stable virtual assets,” including requirements for full reserve backing, offering documents and external auditor verification. 

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Chun Wang, who bankrolled and led a SpaceX flight over Earth’s poles, says he will head to Mars on SpaceX’s first manned mission to the red planet.

Chun Wang, the Chinese-born Maltese entrepreneur who founded the Bitcoin mining pool F2Pool, has joined SpaceX’s first planned interplanetary mission to Mars after “purchasing” the mission.

SpaceX announced Thursday that the two-year-long mission will explore beyond the moon, fly by Mars, and return to Earth. Wang has also bought a ticket for a planned weeklong commercial spaceflight around the moon that will launch before the Mars mission.

“I believe that even without private investment in lunar flights, we will still reach the Moon, and likely very soon. As competition between the United States and China intensifies, governments will turn lunar bases into reality,” Wang said in a post on X on Friday.

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Dek: US Bitcoin ETF net inflows have shrunk to $536 million so far in 2026, after recording a six-day run of net outflows totalling $1.55 billion.

The US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund market is closing in on recording net outflows for this year after Friday saw the funds hit six consecutive days of outflows.

Net inflows into the Bitcoin ETFs so far in 2026 have shrunk to $536 million after the market bled another $105.2 million on Friday, as BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) lost $68.9 million and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) recorded outflows of $36.3 million.

While no other US-based Bitcoin ETF registered a change in flows, Friday’s outflow contributed to the $1.55 billion that has bled out of the ETFs since May 14, the last recorded net inflow among all the funds.

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Socket says a campaign of malicious packages is aiming to steal crypto and is injecting hidden instructions that hijack popular AI coding assistants.

An active supply chain attack is targeting crypto and artificial intelligence developers in a bid to steal crypto, data or credentials, says the developer platform Socket.

Socket said in a report on Sunday that it discovered the malware campaign, which it dubbed “TrapDoor,” on Friday, and the campaign has deployed more than 34 malicious packages and 384 related versions, with attackers repeatedly pushing new releases across ecosystems.

TrapDoor targets crypto, decentralized finance, AI, and security developers, stealing wallet data, Secure Shell, or SSH keys, cloud credentials, GitHub tokens, browser extension data and API keys, Socket said.

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Stablecoins became the default settlement layer for AI agents as crypto payment rails can handle sub-dollar transactions more efficiently, says a report from Keyrock.

Artificial intelligence agents settling payments have gone from concept to reality in the last 12 months, with $73 million settled across 176 million transactions from May last year through April 2026, according to crypto investment firm Keyrock.

In a report released Thursday, written in collaboration with crypto exchange Coinbase and the blockchain Tempo, Keyrock researcher Ben Harvey said that “in the past 12 months, machine-to-machine payments have gone from concept to a developed ecosystem.”

“Agents have settled over $73 million across 176 million transactions, and incumbents have deployed more than $8 billion in acquisitions to secure their position in what is emerging as an entirely new payment stack,” Harvey added.

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"We’re not going to be outspent or out-organized by entrenched interests protecting their monopolies," said John Bivona, head of government relations at Kalshi.

Kalshi has backed a new lobbying group for prediction markets called Americans for Fair Markets, which has tapped former deputy White House chief of staff Taylor Budowich as its strategic advisor.

Kalshi said on Friday that the organization is positioning itself against sportsbooks and casinos, which it claims are “focused on protecting their monopolies and seeding lies about prediction markets to policymakers.”

Americans for Fair Markets, which Kalshi said was launched with its support, would join a broader lobbying push that includes the Coalition for Prediction Markets, an advocacy group for prediction markets launched in December 2025, backed by Coinbase, Crypto.com, and Robinhood.

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The SEC has reportedly delayed releasing a proposal permitting tokenized stock trading after receiving industry concerns.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly postponed its plan to allow trading of tokenized stocks after stock exchange officials raised concerns over how the plan would be implemented.

Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter, that the SEC’s “innovation exemption” for crypto-based stocks was expected to be released during the week, with SEC staffers having already reviewed a draft of the tokenized stock trading proposal.

The SEC has reportedly received input from hundreds of market participants on how to best implement the rules, but it has not made a decision to change its proposal.

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Fixed-income investors are in a "panic" as government securities, once seen as low-risk, begin to crack, according to BitMEX researcher Shang Wu.

Rising government bond yields signal a coming “structural” shift that will create a Bitcoin “supercycle” of rising prices, as investors flee debasing assets for one that cannot be inflated, according to Shang Wu, a senior research analyst at crypto exchange BitMEX.

The yield on the 30-year US Treasury broke past 5.14% on Tuesday, while the Bank of Japan’s 10-year government bond yield touched 2.8%, Wu said.

These yields are unsustainable in the long-term and will force governments to choose between debasing their currencies and a “sovereign debt collapse,” Wu said.

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The Ethereum Foundation holds less than 1% of all ETH in circulation while other protocol foundations typically hold 10-50% of their native token's supply, the founder said.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded to growing criticisms of the Ethereum Foundation’s role in the Ethereum ecosystem, pushing back against critics who want the organization to take a more active role in supporting token prices and marketing.

Buterin said the Foundation will continue to focus on promoting censorship-resistance, open source software code, long-range research, cybersecurity, and decentralization of the Ethereum Protocol, as outlined in its mandate. He said:

The Ethereum Foundation's mandate was published in March 2026. Source: Ethereum Foundation

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The law firm agreed to a settlement in February 2026 and is facing a separate $525 million lawsuit over its role in the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange.

Fenwick & West LLP, the principal law firm that advised former cryptocurrency exchange FTX, agreed on Friday to pay $54 million to settle a 2023 class action lawsuit, filed by former customers of the defunct exchange.

The plaintiffs allege that Fenwick “facilitated FTX’s fraud” by playing “a key and crucial role in the most important aspects of why and how the FTX fraud was accomplished,” according to the original complaint. 

Plaintiffs argue that the Silicon Valley law firm helped the now-bankrupt FTX obscure the misuse of customer funds by creating legal entities, structures and other strategies to hide the commingling of funds, including transfers between the exchange and its trading arm, Alameda Research.

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ETH’s bearish chart setup points to a 25% drop toward $1,600, risking over $10 billion in paper losses for BitMine in the coming weeks.

Tom Lee’s BitMine faces about $7.3 billion in paper losses on its Ethereum treasury as Ether (ETH) traders weigh worsening sentiment, ETF outflows and a bearish chart setup pointing toward $1,600.

Key takeaways:

Bitmine's ETH treasury dashboard. Source: DropStab.COM

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A New York Times investigation found that senior CFTC officials who raised concerns about Polymarket, Crypto.com and Gemini were suspended and pushed out.

Senior officials at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) who raised concerns about prediction market companies were suspended, investigated and eventually pushed out of the agency.

According to a New York Times investigation published Sunday, the officials had flagged concerns about Polymarket, Crypto.com and a Gemini affiliate, each with alleged business ties to President Donald Trump's family. Career staff worried that Crypto.com was not treating small bettors fairly, that Polymarket lacked adequate fraud protections and that Gemini’s affiliate had not completed the required regulatory review to operate.

Despite those concerns, then-acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham and her senior counsel intervened to help the firms get what they wanted, sources told the NYT. By the end of 2025, two officials who had raised questions were placed on administrative leave and under internal investigation. Three others who had enforced crypto laws faced the same fate. None were told what they had done wrong.

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William Mougayar says critics are measuring the Ethereum Foundation by the wrong standard, claiming it was never meant to pump ETH or court institutions.

A blockchain researcher has pushed back against growing criticism of the Ethereum Foundation, arguing that the organization is doing “exactly” what it was designed to do, which the critics keep getting wrong.

In a post on X titled “Leave the Foundation Alone,” William Mougayar, a Toronto-based blockchain investor, researcher and best-selling author, argued that the Ethereum Foundation is a protocol steward, not a marketing engine.

Mougayar said that Ether (ETH), Ethereum and the Ethereum Foundation are three separate entities with three separate trajectories. “The asset is money. The infrastructure is shared compute. The Foundation is a non-profit that is steering the protocol toward irrelevance for its own founders,” he wrote, adding that confusing the three leads to bad predictions and misplaced anger.

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William Mougayar says critics are measuring the Ethereum Foundation by the wrong standard, claiming it was never meant to pump ETH or court institutions.

A blockchain researcher has pushed back against growing criticism of the Ethereum Foundation, arguing that the organization is doing “exactly” what it was designed to do, which the critics keep getting wrong.

In a post on X titled “Leave the Foundation Alone,” William Mougayar, a Toronto-based blockchain investor, researcher and best-selling author, argued that the EF is a protocol steward, not a marketing engine.

Mougayar said that ETH, Ethereum and the Ethereum Foundation are three separate entities with three separate trajectories. “The asset is money. The infrastructure is shared compute. The Foundation is a non-profit that is steering the protocol toward irrelevance for its own founders,” he wrote, adding that confusing the three leads to bad predictions and misplaced anger.

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Rising short-term bond yields and Warsh's hawkish comments in the past are reviving fears of a December rate hike, which could slam the brakes on Bitcoin's recovery.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell to $74,190 on Saturday, its lowest level in more than a month, despite pro-crypto Kevin Warsh being sworn in as Federal Reserve chairman a day earlier.

BTC/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView

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Stablecoin issuer StablR says it has been compromised, with Blockaid suspecting the cause is a private key compromise of an owner of a multisig wallet used for minting tokens.

Stablecoin issuer StablR has said it has suffered an exploit, resulting in its euro and US dollar stablecoins depegging.

Blockchain security firm Blockaid said on Sunday that the exploit had extracted $2.8 million so far. StablR said in a X post that it had identified an exploit and was “working to contain it and minimize impact.”

Blockaid said it suspected the cause of the exploit is a private key compromise of one owner on a multisignature wallet used for minting stablecoin, which allowed one of the three participants to sign a transaction.

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The suspected cause is a private key compromise of one owner in the minting multisig account, said Blockaid.

An ongoing exploit is impacting StablR, resulting in the depeg of its Euro and USD stablecoins, while a compromised private key has been blamed, adding to a lengthening list of hacks and exploits this month.

Blockchain security firm Blockaid reported on Sunday that its exploit detection system has identified an ongoing exploit on the StablR issuer, with around $2.8 million extracted so far.

The suspected cause is a private key compromise of one owner in the minting multisignature account, which used a weak 1-of-3 threshold, stated Blockaid. 

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US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that final details of a deal with Iran are currently being discussed, giving crypto markets a lift.

Crypto markets have recovered around $75 billion in value after US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that a peace agreement with Iran was imminent.

Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform on Saturday that a deal has been “largely negotiated” between the US and Iran, along with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain.

“An agreement has been largely negotiated, subject to finalization between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the various other countries,” Trump said.

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The price of Bitcoin is about $75,800 at the time of publication, a nearly 40% decrease from the all-time high of about $126,000 reached in October 2025.

The price of Bitcoin may be headed to the $60,000 level after breaking past a “crucial” support zone between $75,000 and $76,000, according to crypto market analyst Michaël van de Poppe.

Bitcoin fell below the support zone on Friday, van de Poppe said, adding that market corrections occurring on Fridays “flip back bullish quite often.”

There are also “multiple” Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Bitcoin futures gaps above the spot market price, the highest of which is over $79,000, he added. He continued:

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The current Federal Funds target rate is between 350 and 375 basis points, which traders project to rise by at least 25 basis points in December 2026.

Kevin Warsh, who was sworn in as the chairman of the US Federal Reserve on Friday, will likely slash interest rates, despite the “consensus” view that he will raise rates, according to author, Bitcoin investor and market analyst Lawrence Lepard.

Lepard said that comments from other US officials, including Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, support the likelihood of rate cuts in 2026. He added: 

Source: Lawrence Lepard

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The ECB warned EU finance ministers that expanding euro stablecoin issuance could weaken bank lending and complicate monetary policy.

The European Central Bank warned EU finance ministers on Friday that proposals to expand euro stablecoin issuance could weaken bank lending and complicate monetary policy, according to three sources cited by Reuters.

The pushback came in response to a policy paper prepared by Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, whose authors presented their proposals at the two-day informal meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council in Nicosia, Cyprus. The paper called for easing liquidity requirements for stablecoin issuers and potentially granting them access to ECB funding, arguing that these measures were necessary if the euro stablecoin market was to compete with dollar-backed rivals.

Europeans conduct 38% of global stablecoin transactions, yet euro-denominated tokens account for just 0.3% of total supply, per the policy paper. Circle’s EURC (EURC), the largest euro stablecoin, ranks only 12th globally, according to CoinMarketCap.

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The cash-settled, European-style contracts will trade under the ticker QBTC on Phlx, but still require CFTC approval before trading can begin.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved Nasdaq’s proposal to list cash-settled Bitcoin index options on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.

The options are European-style contracts tied to the Nasdaq Bitcoin Index, a benchmark that tracks one one-hundredth of the CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index, which updates with data from major cryptocurrency exchanges every 200 milliseconds. The approval was granted on an accelerated basis and published Friday on the SEC’s website.

The new contracts are cash-settled, meaning holders receive the difference between the Bitcoin spot price and the strike price at expiration. Unlike options on spot Bitcoin ETFs, there is no physical Bitcoin involved and no risk of early assignment, offering traders an alternative way to bet on the price of the cryptocurrency.

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Strategy chairman Michael Saylor said the goal is to maximize Strategy’s Bitcoin per share by 2033.

Strategy chairman Michael Saylor has not ruled out the company offloading some Bitcoin as early as this year, after recently softening his long-held “never sell” stance.

“I think it's not unlikely that we'll sell some Bitcoin between now and the end of the year,” Saylor said during an interview with Natalie Brunell published to YouTube on Friday.

Saylor said it is “also likely” that the company will sell a mix of equity and credit and manage its USD and cash holdings. “We do it in a very thoughtful programmatic fashion where we're running our multivariate models, and we're literally running them,” Saylor said, noting the company is focused on long-term outcomes out to 2033:

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Ethereum’s dominance in DeFi, stablecoins and staking is strengthening the long-term ETH accumulation thesis, despite it’s 28% price decline in 2026.

Ether’s (ETH) long-term investment case is drawing fresh attention as Ethereum continues to lead in key areas of onchain activity and decentralized finance, despite the altcoin losing 28% of its value this year. The network still hosts roughly $43 billion in DeFi liquidity, more than $165 billion in stablecoins, and about 55% of tokenized assets tracked across public blockchains. 

Data from Token Terminal also shows that the market capitalization of tokenized exchange-traded funds (ETFs) exceeds $400 million, with Ethereum accounting for 76.9% of the market share. 

Referencing the data above, crypto analyst Tanaka said, 

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Laszlo Hanyecz's 2010 post, offering 10,000 BTC in exchange for two pizzas delivered to his home, marked the first recorded commercial BTC payment.

The Bitcoin community celebrated the 16th anniversary of “Pizza Day” on Friday, marking the first recorded commercial Bitcoin transaction, in which real-world goods were purchased with Bitcoin.

In May 2010, software developer Laszlo Hanyecz published an online post offering 10,000 BTC, which was valued at about $41 at the time, in exchange for two Papa John's pizzas.

At current market prices, the BTC is worth more than $767 million, and at the all-time high of about $126,000 reached in October 2025, the 10,000 BTC was valued at more than $1.2 billion. Nischal Shetty, the founder of crypto exchange WazirX, said: 

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US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, but investors forecast no chance of a rate cut in 2026.

Kevin Warsh was sworn in on Friday as the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, but investors and traders still forecast no interest rate cuts for the rest of 2026.

Speaking at the ceremony, US President Donald Trump said that Warsh will remain “independent” of the Executive Branch regarding interest rate policy, and claimed that employment numbers are at record levels. 

“Thankfully, unlike some of his predecessors, Kevin understands that when the economy is booming, that's a good thing,” Trump said. He added:

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Bitcoin sold off to $76,000, giving bears an opportunity to reclaim control of the crypto market. Meanwhile, altcoins like HYPE charted new highs.

Key points:

Bitcoin (BTC) has dipped below $77,000, indicating that the bears are attempting to seize control. Glassnode said the true market mean at $78,300 has historically acted as a dividing line between bear and bull market regimes. If the price breaks sharply below the level, it suggests that the recent rally may have been a “local top within the ongoing bear market.”

Institutional investors seem to be selling, as evidenced by the sharp decline in the Coinbase premium over the past few days. LVRG research director Nick Ruck told Cointelegraph that the decline of the Coinbase premium signals selling from large holders, which “could weigh on near-term price momentum across major crypto assets.”

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NEAR price surges 50% in a week as AI token momentum, Nvidia optimism and network upgrades fuel bullish sentiment.

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) displayed strength on Friday, rising 34% over the last 24 hours to $2.32, leading artificial intelligence-based tokens in a rally fueled by NEAR’s network upgrades and NVIDIA's bullish revenue forecast. 

NEAR is trading 50% higher than its price seven days ago and has gained a whopping 115% over the last 90 days.

Key takeaways:

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Institutional crypto adoption accelerates as Tether expands Bitcoin holdings, miners pivot to AI and Polymarket joins Nasdaq amid $1 billion fund outflows.

Institutional adoption continued to reshape the digital asset market this week, even as geopolitical tensions reminded investors that crypto remains sensitive to broader macro conditions.

Digital asset funds suffered more than $1 billion in outflows as traders reduced risk exposure amid fading hopes for a durable ceasefire between the United States and Iran. At the same time, Tether tightened its grip on Twenty One Capital, Bernstein argued that Bitcoin miners are carving out a strategic role in the race to build artificial intelligence infrastructure, and Polymarket teamed up with Nasdaq to launch prediction markets tied to private companies.

This week’s Crypto Biz underscores how institutions continue to influence the digital asset ecosystem.

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Bitcoin headed lower as Wall Street trading began with new record highs for the Dow Jones, while traders warned of weak US demand.

Bitcoin (BTC) faced familiar selling pressure on Friday as US stock markets began setting fresh record highs.

Key points:

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ICE and OKX plan to launch oil-linked perpetual futures based on Brent and WTI benchmarks, bringing crypto derivatives further into traditional energy markets under licensing restrictions.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), is working with crypto exchange OKX to launch trading of oil-linked perpetual futures.

OKX said Friday it plans to introduce perpetual futures based on ICE’s Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude benchmarks, two of the world’s most widely used oil price indicators, according to a release shared with Cointelegraph.

“These new OKX perpetual contracts, based on ICE’s deep, liquid, transparent, and global oil markets, allow OKX’s customer base [...] to access energy benchmark products,” said Trabue Bland, ICE’s senior vice president of futures exchanges.

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MARA spent $4.3 million on CEO Fred Thiel’s security in 2025, including vehicle armoring, as crypto wrench attacks increased globally.

Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings spent $4.3 million on personal security for CEO Fred Thiel in 2025, including $430,780 to armor a vehicle, as crypto companies respond to rising physical attacks on industry executives and investors.

MARA, the seventh-largest Bitcoin mining company worth more than $5 billion, also spent about $58,810 on Thiel's home security installations and reported additional expenses related to the security measures of other executives, according to its DEF 14A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on April 30.

The filing shows that MARA spent a total of $4.3 million on Thiel's security during fiscal year 2025, including the armored vehicle, bodyguards and home security fortifications.

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SpaceX’s IPO could turn the Mag 7 into a Mag 8, with Tesla and SpaceX comprising 25% of the group's Bitcoin balance-sheet exposure.

Elon Musk's rocket and satellite company SpaceX is planning a $75 billion IPO in June, which could make it the largest near-term public listing with a major Bitcoin treasury.

Key takeaways:

SpaceX disclosed 18,712 BTC in its recent S-1 filing, worth roughly $1.45 billion, making it the largest known Bitcoin holder among companies preparing for, or recently filing for, a public listing.

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Repeated bridge exploits and shrinking yields are making institutions question whether DeFi’s risks still justify the returns, says Symbiotic’s Putiatin.

Security exploits are weighing on institutional appetite for decentralized finance (DeFi), even as broader crypto adoption continues through stablecoins and tokenized assets.

In an April research note, JPMorgan analysts said that bridge security remains a challenge for the industry, raising questions on whether DeFi can grow to support further institutional adoption. 

The recent exploit on the Versus-Ethereum bridge was the eighth major attack against DeFi bridges in 2026 so far, with cumulative losses totalling $328.6 million.

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The $10.7 million THORChain exploit was caused by a GG20 vulnerability, which allowed a malicious node to reconstruct a full private key to one of its vaults.

THORChain said a malicious node operator exploited a vulnerability in its GG20 threshold signature system to drain about $10.7 million from one of the protocol’s vaults.

The GG20 threshold signature scheme is used to secure THORChain vaults by splitting key control across multiple node operators, meaning no single node normally holds the full private key.

The vulnerability allowed the malicious node operator to reconstruct a full private key for one vault, through “progressive key material leakage,” the protocol said in a post-mortem report released on Wednesday.

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XRP Ledger activity surges with 4,300 new wallets created in 24 hours, but strong resistance keeps XRP price capped.

XRP Ledger has seen a spike in new addresses over the last 24 hours, but overhead resistance at $1.40 kept the XRP (XRP) price in check.

Key takeaways:

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Polymarket is reportedly seeking entry into Japan amid falling trading volumes and rising regulatory scrutiny, targeting approval by 2030.

Polymarket, a global prediction market platform, is reportedly seeking entry into Japan amid growing regulatory scrutiny of the sector worldwide.

The company has appointed Mike Eidlin, head of Japan at crypto firm Jupiter, to lead its local efforts and is preparing to lobby for authorization of prediction markets in the country, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Polymarket is targeting government approval in Japan by 2030, viewing the market as a major untapped opportunity.

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Polymarket said user funds and market resolution were safe after a suspected private key compromise tied to top-up operations.

Polymarket confirmed a security exploit affected part of its infrastructure, pointing to a possible private key compromise involving a wallet used for top-up operations, while saying user funds and market resolution were safe.

In a Friday X post, Polymarket developers said contracts and core infrastructure were unaffected. Polymarket product lead Akanshu Jain and multiple other Polymarket employees also said user funds and market resolution are safe.

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT first flagged the exploit as a compromise to the Polymarket-linked UMA Conditional Tokens Framework (CTF) Adapter contract on Polygon, with the exploiter draining at least $520,000.

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The hacker behind the Verus bridge exploit returned 75% of the stolen funds as part of a recovery deal negotiated with the protocol days after the incident.

The attacker behind the Verus bridge exploit has returned 4,052 Ether, worth about $8.5 million, to the project's team wallet after Verus offered a 1,350 ETH bounty for the recovery of most of the stolen funds.

The return represents about 75% of the stolen funds, with the exploiter retaining 1,350 Ether (ETH), worth about $2.8 million as a bounty, according to blockchain security firm PeckShield on Friday.

Verus had offered the bounty a day earlier, saying it would treat the retained ETH as a reward if the exploiter returned 4,052.4 ETH to the team address within 24 hours.

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Bitcoin rallied for 90 days after its dip below $60,000, breaking the record for the longest uptrend within a bear market in BTC price history.

Bitcoin (BTC) has trended up for 90 days and is seeing a “bull market rally,” analysis says.

Key points:

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The proposed fund would use covered-call and short-term options strategies designed to generate monthly income alongside Bitcoin exposure through a leveraged structure.

Hamilton ETFs filed a preliminary prospectus in Canada for an actively managed Bitcoin income exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would use leverage and short-term options strategies to generate yield alongside Bitcoin exposure.

The proposed Hamilton Enhanced Bitcoin DayMAX ETF would use covered-call strategies and leverage capped at roughly 25% of net asset value. The strategy is designed to generate income by collecting premiums from short-term options contracts tied to Bitcoin (BTC) price movements.

The fund is intended to combine Bitcoin exposure with monthly income generation. The company said the ETF would seek listing approval on Cboe Canada under the ticker symbol BDAY.

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The transfer was executed on ADI Chain, a layer-2 blockchain designed for institutional payments, treasury operations and trade settlement.

The International Holding Company (IHC) executed a 110 million dirham ($30 million) transaction using the DDSC stablecoin on ADI Chain. The company described the transfer as one of the largest disclosed stablecoin transactions executed in the United Arab Emirates.

The transaction follows recent approval from the UAE central bank for the dirham-backed stablecoin ecosystem launched by IHC, First Abu Dhabi Bank and Sirius International Holding.

DDSC operates on ADI Chain, a layer-2 blockchain developed by ADI Foundation. According to the announcement, the system is designed for institutional use cases including cross-border payments, treasury operations and trade settlement.

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TradFi views the breakup of its previously consolidated, centralized liquidity as a “serious structural threat,” said Tiger Research director Ryan Yoon.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s move to allow third parties to list tokenized stocks could risk two structural disruptions with liquidity and revenue fragmentation, according to Tiger Research.

Liquidity fragmentation may occur as capital disperses from centralized exchanges across multiple blockchain platforms, said Tiger Research director and head of research Ryan Yoon on Friday.

"Traditional finance views the breakup of its previously consolidated, centralized liquidity as a serious structural threat,” said Yoon.

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Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz reportedly told a court the SEC made it “very difficult” to complete a planned 2021 merger with BitGo.

Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz appeared in court on Tuesday to face off against BitGo CEO Mike Belshe in a long-running legal fight over a failed proposed $1.2 billion merger in 2021.

The planned deal was the largest-ever crypto merger at the time, set to create a massive conglomerate offering a suite of services at a time when investor interest in crypto was high.

Galaxy called off the deal in August 2022 as the crypto market was reeling from the collapse of the Terra ecosystem. BitGo has asked Galaxy to pay a $100 million fee for pulling out of the deal and also hid it was being probed by US authorities, while Galaxy has claimed BitGo failed to provide financial information on time.

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An executive at tokenization platforms Superstate said the stricter approach suggested by Hester Peirce would enable DeFi to expand without compromising rules in traditional capital markets.

US Securities and Exchange Commissioner Hester Peirce has told the crypto industry to cool its expectations about a potential “innovation exemption” to allow tokenized stock trading after a report earlier this week about what it could entail. 

Her comments were made after a Bloomberg report on Monday. Brett Redfearn, president of tokenization platform Securitize, expressed concern following the report, arguing that enabling third parties to tokenize stock “without an issuer at the table” could lead to fragmentation issues. 

In a post to X on Thursday, Peirce said her expectation has always been that any exemption would be “limited in scope” by only permitting “digital representations of the same underlying equity security that an investor could purchase in the secondary market today.”

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Uncertainty surrounding the current macro environment “appears to be pushing institutions toward hedging strategies while waiting for greater clarity,” said analyst Darkfost.

A key indicator of institutional crypto market participation, the Coinbase premium has fallen deeper into negative territory, indicating increased selling pressure from institutions.

The Coinbase premium has been mostly negative since late April, but it has fallen much faster over the past seven days and recorded its lowest level this month at -0.0983% on May 21.

“Institutional selling pressure has intensified recently,” CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost said on Thursday. 

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CertiK reported earlier this month that criminal wrench attack teams usually consist of three to five people and are often made up of amateurs, while the masterminds are outside the country.

Two of the six men accused of attempting to kidnap the wife of Sébastien Borget, the co-founder of The Sandbox, were arrested after calling an Uber to flee the scene, according to local reports. 

One of the attackers, disguised as a delivery driver, allegedly convinced Borget’s wife to open the gate at their home in the Île-de-France region in northern France. Then five masked accomplices rushed into the courtyard and tried to force her into a nearby car, Le Journal du Dimanche reported Thursday. 

Neighbors intervened, forcing the attackers to flee. Four escaped in the vehicle, while two others fled on foot and ordered an Uber, which was then intercepted by the Meaux Anti-Crime Brigade, according to Le Journal du Dimanche. The two suspects were allegedly found with a replica handgun, cable ties and balaclavas.

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Under the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026, Bitcoin must be held for a minimum of 20 years unless used to slash national debt.

US lawmakers have renewed efforts to codify a US strategic Bitcoin reserve with a new bipartisan bill on Thursday that seeks to acquire around 1 million Bitcoin over five years. 

The American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 would establish a Strategic Bitcoin (BTC) Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile for other federally held cryptocurrencies, which would be held by the US Treasury Department, said the bill’s sponsor, Representative Nick Begich.

ARMA, sponsored by 16 members of Congress, builds on the BITCOIN Act, which was introduced in July 2024 and updated in March 2025.

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Fantasy.top, Everclear and ZERO Network announced they were winding down on Thursday, adding to a growing list of crypto companies that have closed this year.

At least five crypto companies have shuttered this week as a prolonged downturn in the crypto market has put downward pressure on user activity and investor funding. 

Crypto trading card platform Fantasy.top, cross-blockchain infrastructure company Everclear, and Ethereum layer-2 blockchain ZERO Network all announced Thursday that they were winding down, with their products failing to find the right fit in the market or sustain enough revenue.

This came the same week Ethereum infrastructure firm Syndicate Labs announced it was winding down after five years in a shrinking rollup market, and crypto ATM company Bitcoin Depot filed for bankruptcy in the US on Monday, citing financial strain and regulatory pressure. 

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Data show Bitcoin futures traders are pursuing overhead short positions, raising the chance of a rally to $80,000.

A liquidity imbalance in Bitcoin (BTC) is building near $80,000, with more than $4 billion in short positions vulnerable to liquidation above that level. The setup strengthened after Bitcoin defended support near $76,100 for two days and formed bullish signals on the lower time frames. 

On the one-hour chart, Bitcoin formed a bullish divergence between the price and the relative strength index (RSI), with improving momentum and higher lows near $76,100, suggesting underlying buying strength. BTC also retested $78,000 on Thursday after defending the $76,100 support level multiple times this week.

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Data shows Bitcoin traders cutting short positions and going long despite concerning US macroeconomic data emerging. Is a rally toward $82,000 next?

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin (BTC) flirted with $78,000 on Thursday but failed to sustain its bullish momentum after a disappointing outlook from US retailer Walmart and growing signs of a more restrictive US monetary policy. Despite weakening macroeconomic conditions, professional Bitcoin traders increased their bullish exposure. Is a rally to $82,000 the next step?

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Harvard's endowment fund has become one of the latest high-profile holders to liquidate its ETH as investor sentiment sours during the ongoing bear market.

Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard University’s endowment fund, sold all of its Ether (ETH) holdings after just one quarter, according to its Q1 2026 United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

The endowment no longer holds the $87 million in BlackRock iShares Ethereum Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF) shares, which it held in Q4 2025, according to its Q1 2026 SEC filing.

Harvard also reduced its exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) in Q1 2026, offloading about 2.3 million Bitcoin ETF shares. The endowment fund still holds more than 3 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, valued at nearly $117 million.

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Federal Election Commission filings showed only $175,000 in contributions to the hybrid PAC, which could influence US voters through media buys before key elections in several states.

A political action committee (PAC) that claimed to “support candidates working to advance digital asset and blockchain policy in the United States” announced its picks for the 2026 election cycle, potentially influencing key races with money from the crypto industry.

In a Thursday notice, the Blockchain Leadership Fund said it had endorsed ten candidates for the 2026 US midterm elections, four in the Senate and six in the House of Representatives. Chainlink Labs and Anchorage Digital announced the launch of the PAC in March amid other committees that spent heavily in the 2024 US election cycle, like Fairshake.

The PAC’s picks included Republicans Barry Moore, Kurt Alme and Jon Husted for US Senate races in Alabama, Montana and Ohio, respectively, and Houston Gaines, Jim Kingston and Jon Bonck for House runs in Georgia’s 10th district, Georgia’s 1st district and Texas’ 38th district, respectively. It will also support Democrats Angie Craig’s run for the US Senate in Minnesota and Adrian Boafo, and Christian Menefee and Don Davis for House races in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. 

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Data suggest Bitcoin’s chance of dropping below $60,000 again is slim to none, thanks to longer-term investors holding more than 71% of the asset’s total supply.

The chance of Bitcoin (BTC) falling below $60,000 is “extremely slim,” according to data showing that BTC long-term holders increased their holdings to 71.6% of the total supply. In addition to this data, a key technical signal turned bullish for the first time since February.

Crypto analyst Sykodelic said the possibility of Bitcoin revisiting fresh lows has “become extremely slim” after the weekly relative strength index (RS) retested the 50 level. Historically, Bitcoin has entered long-term expansion phases after the RSI recovered above that threshold following an oversold position. 

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The crypto exchange's new pre-IPO futures product lets traders speculate on SpaceX’s expected public market valuation before the company begins trading on public exchanges.

Binance launched perpetual futures contracts tied to the expected valuations of private companies ahead of their public listings, starting with a SpaceX-linked product settled in Tether's USDt (USDT).

Binance said pre-IPO perpetual contracts are expected to reflect publicly available IPO pricing indicators, including announced valuation ranges and final offering prices, before a company begins trading publicly. After a listing, the contracts would transition to tracking live market prices.

The first contract, SPCXUSDT Pre-IPO Perpetual, is tied to SpaceX's expected public market valuation, with additional pre-IPO perpetual contracts to follow over time.

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Critics say the new 22% crypto tax, set to take effect in 2027, unfairly favors other asset classes with a much lower tax burden.

A petition to scrap a 22% tax on crypto investment gains in South Korea reached the 50,000-signature threshold required for the country’s Finance and Economic Planning Committee to review objections to the new tax regime.

The 22% tax, set to take effect in January 2027, imposes financial and reporting “burdens” on investors, while also limiting upward mobility for younger individuals, who are locked out of housing markets due to skyrocketing real estate prices, according to the petition.

The petition now has more than 52,000 signatures. Source: South Korea Assembly

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The financial regulator signed a similar agreement with Major League Baseball in March and continues to file lawsuits against state-level authorities going after prediction market platforms over sports betting.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), under the sole leadership of Republican Michael Selig, announced a memorandum of understanding with the National Hockey League to “protect the integrity of professional hockey and maintain fair and transparent prediction markets.”

In a Thursday announcement, Selig said the move was intended to protect prediction market users from “insider trading, fraud, and other abuse” as the CFTC continues to maintain what it calls its “exclusive jurisdiction” over platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket.

The agency signed a similar agreement with Major League Baseball in March, at the same time the league announced Polymarket would be its Official Prediction Market Exchange.

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The crypto services company began the US IPO process as companies across the digital asset sector weigh public market debuts.

Crypto services company Blockchain.com confidentially filed for a US initial public offering (IPO), becoming the latest digital asset player to pursue a public listing as crypto firms return to equity markets.

The company said it submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) related to a proposed offering of Class A ordinary shares. Pricing and the number of shares have not yet been determined.

According to Thursday's announcement, the proposed IPO remains subject to market conditions and SEC review. Confidential S-1 filings allow companies to begin the IPO process and receive regulatory feedback before publicly disclosing financial and offering details.

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Bitcoin whales and investors shift to distribution as realized losses surge past $600 million, as BTC price declines toward $76,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) has dropped nearly 7% from its local peak of $82,800, as several groups of wallet holders switched from accumulation to distribution. Data suggests that this distribution, combined with increasing realized losses, points to a potential shift in momentum.

Key takeaways:

The yearly absorption rate measures the amount of new BTC issued that has been absorbed by the market over the past year. Currently, the absorption rate by exchanges is improving while whales are losing coins at a historic pace.

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Bitcoin should shift 5% or more "soon" with $77,000 staying the focus amid mixed messages over the latest US-Iran peace deal plans.

Bitcoin (BTC) focused on $77,000 on Thursday as analysis eyed a minimum 5% BTC price move.

Key points:

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IG Group, which launched spot crypto in the UK last year, is bringing the service to European investors through Bitpanda’s infrastructure.

IG Europe has partnered with Bitpanda to offer crypto for European investors, using the Austrian exchange’s infrastructure for liquidity, trading connectivity and market data.

IG’s push to bring spot crypto trading to its European client base comes after launching the service in the United Kingdom in 2025. The new expansion has no confirmed timeline.

“This partnership broadens our product offering across Europe, giving experienced investors access to a wider range of asset classes with the quality and security they demand,” said Esteve Jane, managing director of IG Europe, which is regulated by BaFin in Germany.

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HYPE’s rally is flashing exhaustion near its record-high resistance, raising the risk of a 20% pullback toward the $51.5–$45 support zone.

A Hyperliquid (HYPE) whale is refusing to close a massive short position even as the token’s rally leaves the trader sitting on more than $22 million in unrealized losses.

Key takeaways:

As of Thursday, the wallet '0x8ef...' held a 5x cross-margin short on 1.80 million HYPE, worth about $102.98 million, with an entry price near $44.96, according to HypurrScan data.

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Kraken’s parent company, Payward, received preliminary approval from Dubai's VARA, paving the way for UAE dirham funding, margin and OTC trading and institutional access via Kraken Prime.

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken moved closer to a launch in the United Arab Emirates after its operator, Payward, received preliminary approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), according to the company.

Payward on Thursday announced its UAE expansion alongside receiving preliminary approval for a broker-dealer, investment and management licence from VARA.

A spokesperson for Kraken told Cointelegraph the preliminary approval was granted on Thursday, with a full launch date to be confirmed.

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OFAC sanctioned six Ethereum addresses linked to a Sinaloa Cartel money laundering network allegedly converting drug proceeds into crypto.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned six Ethereum addresses tied to a Sinaloa Cartel-linked money laundering network that allegedly converted drug proceeds into cryptocurrency.

OFAC added the addresses to its Specially Designated Nationals list (a US sanctions list of people, entities and assets subject to blocking restrictions) on Wednesday as part of sanctions against 11 individuals and two entities connected to two Sinaloa Cartel financial networks.

Treasury said one network, led by Armando de Jesus Ojeda Aviles, collected bulk cash in the US from fentanyl and other drug sales before allegedly converting the money into cryptocurrency for transfer to the cartel in Mexico.

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Bitcoin demand and ETF flows weaken as BTC struggles below $80,000, raising risks of prolonged consolidation or a drop toward $65,000.

Demand for Bitcoin (BTC) has decreased sharply over the last few days as the price ran into overhead resistance above $80,000. Analysts say BTC’s inability to hold key support levels may be paving the way for a prolonged consolidation.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin’s apparent demand has dropped to its lowest level since mid-January, as traders and investors adopted a risk-off approach due to geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties.

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The private Telegram backchannel allegedly allowed Jane Street to unwind hundreds of millions in potential exposure “mere hours before” the Terra ecosystem’s $40 billion collapse.

A newly unsealed court filing in the Terraform Labs bankruptcy case alleges Jane Street used a private Telegram channel with former Terraform intern Bryce Pratt to obtain nonpublic information before the collapse of TerraUSD. Pratt is currently a systems developer at Jane Street. 

The channel, called “Bryce’s Secret,” allegedly gave the quantitative trading firm a backchannel to Terraform insiders as Jane Street unwound exposure to TerraUSD (UST) shortly before the algorithmic stablecoin lost its dollar peg in May 2022, according to the filing. “Jane Street used Bryce’s Secret chat group and other backchannel sources of non-public information to front-run trading that hastened the collapse of Terraform,” the filing states.

The claims renew scrutiny of who profited from Terra’s $40 billion collapse, one of the crypto industry’s largest failures, and could test how traditional insider trading and market manipulation theories apply to decentralized finance markets.

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Boerse Stuttgart’s Seturion has partnered with Societe Generale, SG-FORGE and flatexDEGIRO to build a pan-European blockchain securities settlement system.

Boerse Stuttgart Group’s tokenized securities settlement platform Seturion has partnered with Societe Generale, its crypto subsidiary SG-Forge and online broker flatexDEGIRO to build out a blockchain-based securities settlement system across Europe.

Under the plan, Societe Generale will issue tokenized structured securities, such as turbo warrants and investment certificates, on Seturion, according to a Thursday announcement. SG-Forge, which holds a Markets in Crypto-Assets authorization from French regulators, will settle transactions using its CoinVertible euro and dollar stablecoins, EURCV and USDCV.

FlatexDEGIRO, which says it serves serve 3.5 million customers across 16 countries, will also connect its retail investor flow to the platform.

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The US Federal Reserve proposed a limited “skinny” payment account framework for fintech and crypto firms and called for a temporary pause on Tier 3 applications.

The US Federal Reserve proposed creating limited payment accounts that could give legally eligible fintech and crypto-linked banks narrower access to its payment rails without the backstops available to traditional banks.

The proposal was released on Wednesday through a Federal Reserve Board request for comment and notice of proposed rulemaking, referring to “skinny master accounts” for nonbank financial institutions.

The Fed also encouraged regional Reserve Banks to pause decisions on Tier 3 account-access requests while it finishes the rulemaking, a step staff said is expected to end by Dec. 31, 2026.

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OSL Group (863.HK) (OSL), a global stablecoin payment and trading platform, today announced that its Hong Kong-licensed digital asset exchange OSL HK has officially listed USDKG, the gold-backed stablecoin issued by the Kyrgyz Republic.

HONG KONG, May 21 — OSL Group (863.HK) (OSL), a global stablecoin payment and trading platform, today announced that its Hong Kong-licensed digital asset exchange OSL HK has officially listed USDKG, the gold-backed stablecoin issued by the Kyrgyz Republic. The listing marks a significant step in bringing a state-supervised, asset-backed digital currency to one of the world’s most established licensed virtual asset markets.

Pegged 1:1 to the U.S. Dollar and fully backed by physical gold reserves, USDKG is now accessible to professional investors through OSL’s institutional-grade infrastructure. The initial trading pair USDKG/USDT is now available to professional investors across OSL HK’s over-the-counter (OTC) platform.

The listing of USDKG aligns with OSL's commitment to contribute to the development of a secure and compliant digital asset ecosystem in Asia and beyond. It also expands USDKG’s reach into new markets through a regulated platform aligned with institutional standards, supporting its use in cross-border settlement and broader financial applications.

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Former Silvergate executive Kate Fraher said the rule that prevented her from sharing her side of the story was unconstitutional. It was finally lifted by the SEC this week.

The former chief risk officer of Silvergate revealed she made the decision to settle with the US securities regulator in 2024 to avoid a “multi-year battle” in court, where she was accused of misleading investors about anti-money laundering rules and how the bank monitored crypto customers.

In her first public comments about her settlement with the SEC on Wednesday, Kate Fraher claimed that no financial agency proved that Silvergate’s anti-money laundering controls had failed, and that she only opted to settle to “move forward.” 

Fraher had agreed to a civil penalty of $250,000 and was banned from serving as a company executive or board director for five years.

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Italian authorities uncovered a tax evasion scheme in which an individual allegedly used Bitcoin Ordinals and the BRC-20 token standard to generate and conceal $1.1 million.

Tax dodgers have started turning to Bitcoin Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens and other digital methods in an attempt to hide their wealth from tax authorities, according to blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis.

“Tax evasion and unreported income are age-old financial crimes, but the methods used to commit them are rapidly evolving,” Chainalysis said in a report Wednesday.

Tax authorities have been scrambling to catch up with technological advances and to track and apply taxes. A March study estimated that only 32% to 56% of US crypto owners report their gains. In Norway, that percentage was only 12%, according to a study from August 2024. 

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The Ethereum rollup market is dominated by Arbitrum and Base, which have a combined 68% market share, according to L2Beat.

Syndicate Labs announced it is winding down after five years of developing onchain infrastructure for customizable Ethereum rollups and sequencers, citing a shrinking market for rollups.

The company said on Thursday on X that the decision was necessary because “the rollup market has fundamentally shifted.”

“Unfortunately, the rollup market has shrunk dramatically. For every new rollup spinning up, several more are quietly shutting down,” it said. 

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Bitwise, Roundhill Investments and GraniteShares had their prediction market ETF applications put on hold by the SEC earlier this month.

The US securities regulator is delaying the launch of a recent wave of “novel ETFs,” including those that allow investors to bet on the outcome of events, to consider the implications of introducing the new products. 

In a statement on Wednesday, SEC Chair Paul Atkins said that “novel products raise novel questions” and instructed his staff to seek public feedback on how the regulator should respond to these applications. 

Bitwise filed in February for a series of prediction market ETFs under the PredictionShares brand to track US election results, while Roundhill Investments and GraniteShares also filed for prediction market ETFs that month. 

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ETF analyst Eric Balchunas says crypto and traditional assets are trading down while Hyperliquid is up, leading to a boon for ETFs tied to the token.

US-based exchange-traded funds tied to HYPE recorded a 50% trading volume jump on Wednesday, in a rare move for newly debuted ETFs, according to analysts. 

Two Hyperliquid (HYPE) ETFs from issuers Bitwise and 21Shares have recorded nearly $41 million in total value traded since their launches earlier this month, with trading volumes increasing since their debuts, according to SoSoValue.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said in an X post Wednesday that such trading increases for ETFs are “very rare,” and many normally record a “big splash [on] day one then drop off OR oblivion for months until [people] notice it. Rare to build in first week like this.”

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The attacker tricked the Butter Network cross-chain bridge into minting millions more tokens than the legitimate supply of MAPO.

MAPO, the native token of the Map Protocol, fell 96% on Wednesday after an exploit of the Butter Network cross-chain bridge, which allowed an attacker to mint a quadrillion MAPO tokens.

The malicious mint was tens of thousands of times larger than the legitimate supply of tokens, sending the value of MAPO from around $0.003 to $0.0001 in a matter of hours, according to CoinGecko. 

The attacker used a new externally-owned account (EOA) to dump around a billion MAPO tokens, draining about 52 ETH, worth about $180,000, from Uniswap liquidity pools while retaining nearly a trillion tokens that continue to threaten other pools and potential exchange listings, reported Blockaid on Wednesday.

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Shares in Nakamoto closed Wednesday at 16 cents. They are down more than 99% from May last year, when the stock traded above $25.

Bitcoin treasury company Nakamoto is moving ahead with a shareholder-approved 1-for-40 reverse stock split on Friday in an effort to avoid delisting from the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.

The company received a notice from the Nasdaq on Dec. 10, warning that its stock price had fallen below the $1 minimum for 30 consecutive business days, according to an SEC filing. Nakamoto has until June 8 to address the issue and keep its stock above $1 for at least 10 days. 

A reverse stock split reduces the number of shares outstanding. In a 1-for-40 split, every 40 shares are combined into one. After completion, Nakamoto’s total common shares will drop from 696.1 million to 17.4 million, the company said Wednesday.

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SpaceX is expected to go public next month, which would make its 18,712 Bitcoin holdings rank seventh among public companies.

Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX reported holding 18,712 Bitcoin worth $1.45 billion in a recent filing, over 10,000 coins more than blockchain tracking firms had estimated. 

In the company’s S-1 registration statement, filed as part of its bid to become a public company on June 12, SpaceX revealed it purchased Bitcoin (BTC) at an average of $35,320 per coin. Its reported holdings would make it the seventh-largest among public companies.

SpaceX’s Bitcoin holdings as of Dec. 31, 2025. Source: SEC

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Profit-taking by Bitcoin traders pushed the Coinbase BTC premium to a six-week low, but demand from longer-term traders put a clear support under the range lows.

Bitcoin (BTC) demand on Coinbase points to early signs of market stabilization as BTC reclaimed the upper bounds of its range highs. The 14-day trend of the Coinbase Premium Index has remained in an uptrend, suggesting steady buyer interest despite traders taking $1.14 billion in profits, which pushed the daily Coinbase premium to a six-week low. 

The Coinbase Premium Index dropped to -0.087 on May 19, its weakest reading since March 31. A negative premium means Bitcoin traded at a lower price on Coinbase than on Binance, signaling softer demand from US-based buyers.

BTC profit-taking accelerated as it rallied to $82,000 and holders realized 14,600 BTC ($1.14 billion) in daily profits on May 4. CryptoQuant noted unrealized profit margins climbed to 17.7% on May 5, the highest level since June 2025. 

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The lawsuit followed an investigation by Missouri authorities into several crypto ATM companies that involve allegations of “deceptive fee structures” and scams.

Update (May 21 at 4:15 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from CoinFlip.

Missouri is suing the company behind cryptocurrency ATM operator CoinFlip, accusing it of “knowingly facilitating fraudulent transactions and profiting from them,” in the latest move by a US state authority targeting digital currency kiosks and ATMs.

In a Wednesday notice, the office of Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said the lawsuit against GPD Holdings, doing business as CoinFlip, was in response to incidents of fraud, including against the state's “seniors and veterans.” The state began a probe in December 2025 into several crypto ATM companies, including Bitcoin Depot, which recently filed for bankruptcy.

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The launch marks Coinbase’s latest push into white-label stablecoin infrastructure for businesses building branded digital payment and settlement systems.

Coinbase launched USDF with Flipcash, a Solana-based stablecoin backed 1:1 by Circle's USD Coin, as the crypto exchange expands its infrastructure business for companies issuing branded digital currencies.

According to Wednesday's announcement, USDF is designed to serve as the settlement asset for currencies created on Flipcash, a platform where users can launch fixed-supply digital currencies priced and transacted in the stablecoin. Flipcash said the token is intended to function as the primary dollar asset within its app.

In December, Coinbase launched its white-label stablecoin issuance service for companies seeking branded digital dollar products without managing their own reserve, custody or settlement infrastructure. The platform includes fiat onramps, wallet services and USDC (USDC) reserve backing. It previously identified Solflare, R2 and Flipcash among companies exploring launches using the system.

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Bitcoin finds footing above $77,000 despite investors’ worry over BigTech earnings results and $2 billion outflows from the BTC ETFs.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin (BTC) reclaimed $77,000 on Wednesday as broader risk markets saw modest relief after Brent crude prices retreated below $108. However, large outflows from spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have forced traders to reassess the odds of further downside risk, especially amid lingering fears of a global economic downturn.

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Hester Peirce will become an associate professor at a Virginia law school some 18 months after her term at the SEC expired, leaving another empty seat in the agency’s leadership.

Hester Peirce, a two-term commissioner at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), head of the agency’s crypto task force and known to many as “Crypto Mom,” will join the Regent University School of Law as faculty.

In a Tuesday notice from Regent University, the law school said that Peirce would join as an associate professor starting in November. Her term at the SEC officially expired in June 2025, but commissioners “may continue to serve up to approximately 18 months after terms expire if they are not replaced before then,” according to the agency.

She joined the SEC in January 2018, after her nomination by President Donald Trump and Senate confirmation in December 2017. She was confirmed for her second term in 2020. She was initially nominated by President Barack Obama for a Republican seat on the SEC in 2015, but the US Senate did not act on her nomination.

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Bitcoin looks on track for a rally toward $80,000 while HYPE, ZEC and a handful of altcoins are pushing toward their range highs.

Key points:

Bitcoin (BTC) has risen above $77,500, but the recovery is expected to face resistance in the $78,500-$82,000 range. The net outflows of $979.7 million from spot BTC exchange-traded funds this week, according to Fireside Investors data, suggest that investors have turned cautious in the near term.

Crypto analyst Ardi said in a post on X that the next retest of the $74,000 to $75,000 zone may be the most important test of this entire bear market. The zone is important because it acted as stiff resistance in 2024 and then flipped into support during the retest in 2025. A break below the support zone may “expose the market to a much deeper rotation back toward the bear market lows.”

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Five Republicans and one Democrat won or went to runoffs following primaries in Georgia, Alabama and Kentucky after a crypto-backed PAC and its affiliates spent a combined $20 million on media and ads.

Political action committees (PACs) aligned with and funded by the cryptocurrency industry notched a series of wins in three US state primaries on Tuesday, potentially setting a precedent for the 2026 midterm elections.

The Fairshake PAC and its affiliates poured a combined $20 million into supportive media for the races. The committee, largely funded by crypto companies Ripple Labs and Coinbase, is behind the Defend American Jobs PAC in supporting Republican candidates and Protect Progress PAC for Democrats considered to be “pro-crypto.”

Four Republican candidates and one Democrat won their respective primaries for US Senate and House of Representatives seats in Georgia and Kentucky, while one Alabama Republican will go to a runoff election.

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Five Republicans and one Democrat won or went to runoffs following primaries in Georgia, Alabama and Kentucky after a crypto-backed PAC and its affiliates spent a combined $20 million on media and ads.

Political action committees (PACs) aligned with and funded by the cryptocurrency industry notched a series of wins in three US state primaries on Tuesday, potentially setting a precedent for the 2026 midterm elections.

The Fairshake PAC and its affiliates poured a combined $20 million into supportive media for the races. The committee, largely funded by crypto companies Ripple Labs and Coinbase, is behind the Defend American Jobs PAC in supporting Republican candidates and Protect Progress PAC for Democrats considered to be “pro-crypto.”

Four Republican candidates and one Democrat won their respective primaries for US Senate and House of Representatives seats in Georgia and Kentucky, while one Alabama Republican will go to a runoff election.

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The stablecoin issuer bought SoftBank’s 26% stake, expanding its control over the public Bitcoin holder as it moves into lending, mining and capital markets.

Tether has acquired SoftBank Group’s stake in Twenty One Capital, a Bitcoin treasury company that is expanding into lending, mining and capital markets services, in a move that gives the stablecoin issuer greater control over one of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin holders. 

In an announcement on Wednesday, Tether said it purchased SoftBank’s roughly 26% stake for an undisclosed amount. SoftBank was one of the earliest backers of Twenty One Capital, which launched in 2025 as a Bitcoin (BTC) treasury company backed by Cantor Fitzgerald and led by Jack Mallers.

Neither controlling shareholder Tether nor Twenty One Capital disclosed the size of Tether's stake. As part of the ownership change, SoftBank’s representatives will step down from Twenty One Capital’s board of directors.

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Bitcoin struggles to overcome US selling pressure with markets on edge ahead of Nvidia's Q1 earnings report.

Bitcoin (BTC) halted its latest recovery at Wednesday's Wall Street open as US traders sold off.

Key points:

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Bitcoin struggles to overcome US selling pressure with markets on edge ahead of Nvidia's Q1 earnings report.

Bitcoin (BTC) halted its latest recovery at Wednesday's Wall Street open as US traders sold off.

Key points:

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Analytics provider Glassnode identified 10% of Bitcoin supply as structurally exposed to a quantum breakthrough, underscoring the need for a quantum-proof implementation such as BIP-360.

Nearly 10% of the total Bitcoin supply is considered “structurally unsafe” due to a quantum computing breakthrough, as their output type reveals the public key by design, regardless of address management practices, according to data analytics platform Glassnode.

Totaling about 1.92 million Bitcoin (BTC), the group includes BTC from early Satoshi-era Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) outputs, legacy multi-sig structures such as Pay-to-Multisig (P2MS) and modern Pay-to-Taproot (P2TR) outputs, which reveal the public key or public key-equivalent by design, wrote Glassnode in a Wednesday X post.

Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s coins represent about 1.1 million or 5.5% of the vulnerable supply, following another 620,000 Satoshi-era coins or 3.1% of the supply and about 200,000 coins or 1% of the supply in Taproot addresses.

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Ethereum is flashing a warning of a familiar bearish pattern that preceded a 41% drop in January, raising risks of a fresh breakdown.

Market analysts say Ether’s (ETH) price may drop to $1,000 if a breakdown from a bearish chart pattern is confirmed.

Key takeaways:

Ether’s downtrend could accelerate if the price breaks below the lower trend line of a bear flag at $2,000 on the daily chart, where a similar breakdown in January led to a 41.5% ETH price drop.

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EU opens MiCA review as consultation probes stablecoin interest rules, DeFi risks and classification gaps ahead of July's crypto authorization deadline.

The European Commission has opened a review of its landmark crypto regulation, signaling that the European Union is considering updates to its landmark digital asset framework just two years after it took effect.

The commission on Wednesday launched a public consultation seeking feedback from the crypto industry and the wider public on whether the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) should be updated. The consultation will remain open until Aug. 31.

The commission said crypto markets and the global regulatory environment have “continued to evolve” since MiCA took effect in 2024, prompting officials to assess whether the current framework remains “fit for purpose.”

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If even a fraction of the more than 1 billion people who use AI daily delegate authority to AI agents for online spending, stablecoin adoption would grow substantially, a Fireblocks executive said.

Digital assets platform Fireblocks has deepened its push into AI agent infrastructure by launching Agentic Payments Suite, a framework purpose-built to support the x402 protocol, as it also joined the x402 Foundation.

Fireblocks said Wednesday that its full-stack solution would cover “the full lifecycle” of AI agent payments, including wallet infrastructure for agents to send funds and an acceptance layer for merchants to receive them. Agentic Payments Suite also includes several compliance and settlement features for regulated financial institutions.

A key area of focus for Fireblocks with Agentic Payments Suite is to scale stablecoin adoption through the use of AI agents.

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Earlier, analysts at Bernstein and BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes also projected Bitcoin to reach new record highs in 2026.

Bitcoin (BTC) is down roughly 40% from its October 2025 record high, but a long-term valuation model suggests the cryptocurrency could erase the entire decline and rally to as high as $255,000 by year-end.

Key takeaways:

The Bitcoin Decay Channel is a logarithmic price model that tracks BTC’s long-term uptrend while adjusting for smaller gains in each new cycle.

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MAS found deficiencies in Bsquared’s risk management and conflict-of-interest policies, and that the firm had provided false or misleading information to the regulator on multiple occasions.

Singapore’s central bank has pulled the crypto payment license of Bsquared Technology Pte. Ltd., stripping the firm of its right to provide digital payment token services after uncovering a series of breaches.

In a Wednesday announcement, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said it revoked Bsquared’s Major Payment Institution Licence after an on-site inspection found weaknesses in the company’s risk management practices and conflict-of-interest policies, as well as failures to comply with the regulator’s outsourcing guidelines.

MAS said Bsquared provided false or misleading information on multiple occasions, from its initial license application through the inspection itself.

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Bitcoin momentum is fading following drop to $76,000 as analysts warn a loss of key support at $74,000-$76,000 could trigger a deeper BTC price correction.

Market analysts say Bitcoin (BTC) is showing “momentum exhaustion” after its 8% drop from multi-month highs above $82,000, with bulls expected to defend key crucial support levels. 

Key takeaways:

Private wealth manager Swissblock stated that Bitcoin’s momentum is fading following failure to “sustain expansion” above $82,000. 

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Senate Bill 163 bans CBDC payments by state agencies and shields Bitcoin miners from discriminatory zoning and licensing rules.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed Senate Bill 163 into law on Tuesday, advancing one of the most crypto-friendly state-level frameworks in the country.

The bill, which previously passed the Senate 38-1 and the House 110-1, bans state agencies from accepting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), protects the rights of crypto users and miners, and clears regulatory hurdles for businesses operating in the space.

On CBDCs, the law bars any state agency or political subdivision from accepting, requiring payment in, or participating in Federal Reserve-led digital currency trials, including any pilot programs run by federal agencies.

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Qivalis expands to 37 banks after adding 25 new members across 15 countries, boosting euro stablecoin plans ahead of a second-half 2026 launch.

Qivalis, a European banking consortium developing a regulated euro stablecoin, expanded to 37 member institutions on Wednesday after adding 25 new banks across 15 countries.

The new members include ABN AMRO, Rabobank, Nordea and Intesa Sanpaolo. The Amsterdam-based consortium is targeting a second-half 2026 launch, according to a statement shared with Cointelegraph.

“We are not merely building payment rails; we are ensuring that European principles around data protection, financial stability and regulatory rigour are embedded into the next generation of digital money,” said Howard Davies, chairman of Qivalis’ supervisory board.

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OpenAI is opening its first overseas applied AI lab in Singapore through a $234 million partnership expected to create more than 200 technical roles.

OpenAI is opening its first applied AI lab outside the US in Singapore through a multiyear partnership with the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, backed by more than $234 million.

The AI company said Tuesday that the new lab will add more than 200 technical roles over the next few years, making Singapore one of OpenAI’s global hubs for Forward Deployed Engineers (FDE), or technical specialists who work directly with organizations to implement AI systems.

“Through OpenAI for Singapore, we want to help more organisations benefit from frontier AI, support the next generation of local AI talent, and widen access to these tools across the country,” Denise Dresser, the company's chief revenue officer, said.

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Bitwise’s Matt Hougan says Hyperliquid’s token is not priced as if it is tied to a “global super-app,” arguing the platform is more than just a crypto platform.

Crypto asset manager Bitwise has called Hyperliquid “one of the most mispriced assets in crypto today,” despite its outperformance so far this year.

“Hyperliquid is one of the most important crypto projects to emerge in years,” Bitwise investment chief Matt Hougan said in a note on Tuesday. 

“Its native token, HYPE, is the best-performing large-cap crypto asset of 2026, up 77% YTD [year to date]. And yet I still think investors are underestimating its impact and its value.”

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Financial regulators are also asked to review regulations that could be amended to streamline applications for eligible fintech firms seeking bank and credit union charters.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to review any barriers that might be stifling fintech innovation or preventing access to banking partnerships and payment rails.

The order directs the Federal Reserve Board to evaluate the legal, regulatory and policy framework governing fintech and crypto firms' access to Federal Reserve payment systems and submit a report to Trump within 120 days.

The governors have also been asked to assess the Federal Reserve's legal authority to grant direct access to fintech and crypto firms and to explore “options for expanding such access to the extent permitted by law, subject to appropriate risk management requirements.”

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GitHub said the activity involved the exfiltration of about 3,800 internal repositories, and it removed the malicious code extension.

GitHub said on Wednesday it is investigating unauthorized access to its internal repositories following the compromise of an employee's device. 

“While we currently have no evidence of impact to customer information stored outside of GitHub’s internal repositories, we are closely monitoring our infrastructure for follow-on activity,” the developer platform said in a statement.

In a subsequent post, GitHub said it detected and contained a compromise of an employee device involving a poisoned VS Code extension on Tuesday. “We removed the malicious extension version, isolated the endpoint, and began incident response immediately,” it added. 

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Approximately 49,000 workers were laid off in 2026 as companies adopted a more AI-reliant business model.

Meta has reportedly begun cutting staff in Singapore as the company executes a plan to reduce employee numbers by 8,000 to lean more heavily on AI. 

Emails were sent out at 4 a.m. Singapore time to affected employees, and staff in the US and Europe were also expected to be notified that morning, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Meta’s engineering and product teams are expected to be hit hardest. 

Meta is one of several Big Tech firms cutting staff while investing heavily in AI infrastructure in an effort to streamline operations and reduce costs. An estimated 49,135 layoffs have occurred at US companies in 2026 as a result of AI integration. 

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The remittance company partnered with Stripe-incubated blockchain Tempo to support stablecoin settlement and help validate transactions across its global payments network.

MoneyGram partnered with payments-focused blockchain Tempo to support stablecoin settlement and help validate remittance transactions on the network, as remittance companies increasingly adopt blockchain technology for cross-border transfers.

The companies said Stripe plans to settle transactions to MoneyGram using Tempo’s infrastructure as part of efforts to move treasury and payment flows onto stablecoin rails.

Tempo is a Layer 1 blockchain incubated by Stripe and Paradigm that focuses on stablecoin transfers and cross-border payments. In April, Visa became an early validator on Tempo, alongside companies including Stripe and Zodia Custody.

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“Congress has the power to slam the brakes on this unwise conflict,” said bill sponsor and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine.

The United States Senate has voted to advance a resolution that could force US President Donald Trump to seek congressional authorization to continue the country's war with Iran.

The vote on a procedural war-powers measure on Tuesday passed by 50 to 47, with four Republicans also voting in favor, according to Reuters. 

Policymakers have been arguing that Congress, not the president, should have the power to send troops to war, as spelled out in the US Constitution. 

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AI Financial Corp. posted a net loss of $271.5 million in the first quarter of 2026 as it flagged significant doubt about its ability to continue operating for the next 12 months.

AI Financial Corp., a World Liberty Financial token treasury company, said its working capital deficit and liabilities are casting significant doubt on its ability to continue over the next year. 

The company, which has World Liberty CEO Zach Witkoff as its chairman, reported a net loss of $271.5 million in its first-quarter results on Monday, compared to losses of $2.4 million a year ago.

The firm, formerly known as ALT5 Sigma, said that as of March 28, it had a working capital deficit of around $5.5 million, with $39.1 million in liabilities against $32.2 million in assets.

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Bankr recommends that affected users create a new wallet, generate a new seed phrase on a clean device and revoke approvals if remaining assets can’t be moved.

AI-powered crypto trading assistant Bankr said it disabled transactions after identifying an attacker who gained access to at least 14 wallets, with users reporting that as much as $150,000 in crypto was drained from some. 

In an X post on Tuesday, Bankr said it was investigating reports that several wallets had been compromised and that transaction activity, including swaps, transfers and deployments, had been disabled “out of caution” while the investigation continues.

“We've identified an attacker was able to access 14 Bankr wallets. We've temporarily locked things down while we work through the details. We will be reimbursing any and all lost funds. Will provide more updates as we have them,” it added.

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The crypto ETFs were intended to be part of Trump Media & Technology Group’s broader crypto strategy, which included the launch of the Truth.fi financial platform.

Asset manager Yorkville America has requested the withdrawal of multiple crypto exchange-traded fund applications filed on behalf of the Donald Trump-backed Truth Social after changing its product strategy.

Yorkville America said Tuesday that it is moving away from offerings registered under the Securities Act of 1933, such as the proposed Truth Social Bitcoin ETF, to structures under the Investment Company Act of 1940, saying the shift would enable it to offer more innovative products while benefiting from stronger investor protections and tax efficiencies. 

Yorkville America’s Truth Social Bitcoin & Ethereum ETF and Truth Social Crypto Blue Chip ETF were also withdrawn. The asset management firm said it “initiated this process after determining the '40 Act framework provides a structure for delivering the differentiated, rules-based investment strategies the firm continues to develop for its growing investor base.”

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Solana futures funding turned negative as demand for SOL and its associated decentralized exchanges fell. Will traders buy the dip or is $78 next?

Key takeaways:

Solana's native token SOL (SOL) faced a 15% correction following a rejection at $98 on May 11. A retest of the $83 level on Tuesday was followed by negative futures funding rates, indicating increased demand for short SOL positions. 

While declining network activity contributed to the price drop, competition among rival blockchain networks has picked up. 

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About 24 hours after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a bill into law passed by the state’s legislature to effectively ban prediction markets in the state, the CFTC pushed back with its own lawsuit.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), under Chair Michael Selig, has filed a lawsuit against the state of Minnesota and its officials after lawmakers passed a bill “prohibiting prediction markets-related activities.”

In a Tuesday filing in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota, the CFTC said that Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and the state’s director of the department of public safety, Jon Anglin, had passed the “first outright ban” on prediction markets in the country with Senate File (SF) 4760. 

Signed into law by Walz on Monday, the bill amended Minnesota’s statutes to prohibit advertising, creating, operating or otherwise facilitating prediction market platforms, effectively banning them in the state. The law, set to go into effect on Aug. 1, specifically said that the event contracts on prediction markets platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, including sporting events, military conflicts and weather were effectively “wagers” and therefore prohibited.

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Bernstein says miners control 27 GW of planned power and $90 billion in AI deals, giving them a strategic edge as electricity becomes the main constraint on data center growth.

Bitcoin miners are emerging as an important part of the AI infrastructure supply chain because they control large amounts of power capacity and data center real estate that are increasingly difficult to secure, according to a new research note from Bernstein.

Analysts Gautam Chhugani, Mahika Sapra, Sanskar Chindalia and Harsh Misra estimate that publicly traded Bitcoin miners control more than 27 gigawatts of planned power capacity and have announced more than $90 billion in AI-related agreements covering 3.7 gigawatts with hyperscalers, neocloud providers and chipmakers.

An April 29 research brief from RAND said that it expects the US will add approximately 82 GW of additional net available capacity by 2030.

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Bitcoin futures and orderbook data show dip buyers waiting for a BTC price drop below $70,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) traders have shifted their focus lower after futures and order book data point to strong buyer interest in the $68,000-$70,000 zone.

Sell pressure has increased in the derivatives markets and the daily bid-ask ratio fell to -0.03, showing sellers are currently more aggressive than buyers as traders position around liquidation levels.

The visible range volume profile (VRVP) indicator shows the $68,000-$70,000 region as the most densely traded zone on the chart since November 2025. High trading activity in that price range suggests most positions were opened near those levels over the past few months.

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New markets will let users trade on fundraising, valuation and other startup milestones using data from Nasdaq Private Market, extending forecasting into private capital.

Polymarket has launched a new category of prediction markets tied to private companies, allowing users to trade on questions related to pre-IPO companies — a move that could bring greater price discovery to private markets, where valuation data is often limited and opaque.

The new offering, announced Tuesday, was developed in partnership with Nasdaq Private Market, a platform that facilitates secondary trading in shares of privately held companies. Nasdaq Private Market will provide the underlying data and market infrastructure for the contracts.

The markets are designed to reflect expectations around events such as fundraising rounds, valuation changes and other corporate milestones involving startups and late-stage private companies. The launch expands Polymarket’s product lineup beyond its core markets focused on politics, macroeconomic events and public companies.

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The Massachusetts lawmaker asked the US Comptroller of the Currency to provide all communications between the agency and President Donald Trump potentially related to the charter approvals.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren accused the US Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Jonathan Gould of violating banking laws by approving national trust charters for cryptocurrency companies.

In a Monday letter to Gould, Warren said the OCC head had “approved at least nine national trust charters for crypto companies that intend to engage in activities that appear to go far beyond the narrow set of activities permitted by law,” an apparent violation of the National Bank Act.

Source: US Senate Banking Committee

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The UK central bank said digital money should remain trusted and interoperable as it weighs stablecoin reforms and near-24/7 settlement to support tokenized markets.

The Bank of England is stepping up its focus on digital money, with Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden highlighting tokenization as a potential way to reduce costs, speed settlement and increase competition.

Speaking at London's City Week on Tuesday, Breeden said tokenization — the representation of assets and money on digital ledgers — could improve the efficiency and functionality of payments and financial markets, provided that trust and interoperability are preserved.

Breeden stressed that central bank money will remain the foundation, or “anchor,” of the monetary system, even as private-sector innovations such as tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins gain traction.

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Spot XRP ETFs record net inflows for nine days, absorbing sell pressure and potentially supporting an XRP price recovery over time.

XRP (XRP) has fallen 12% over the last five days, and the confirmation of a bearish pattern now points to the risk of more losses ahead.

Key takeaways:

Since early February, the XRP/USD pair has been consolidating inside a bear pennant on the three-day chart.

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BTC price stayed pinned below $77,000 amid rising US bond yields and oil prices, with market analysts saying Bitcoin is now at a "crucial level of support."

Bitcoin (BTC) consolidated near month-to-date lows on Tuesday as surging US bonds punished stocks and safe havens.

Key points:

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5,800 users in two hours. One QR code. One bow that went viral.

5,800 users in two hours. One QR code. One bow that went viral.

Some platforms launch with a whitepaper. Some with a token. GraphDex launched with a hedgehog, a condom, and the co-founder of Ethereum bowing in respect.

A short video from Token2049 Singapore, recorded in September 2024, resurfaced across X this week at precisely the moment GraphDex went live. In this video, the project's hedgehog mascot moves through the conference floor, greets attendees, and hands a branded condom to Vitalik Buterin. The condom carries GraphDex branding and a QR code that opens the app directly. Buterin takes it and then bows to the hedgehog.

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Global internet freedom has declined for 15 consecutive years, with more countries restricting access to more of the internet, according to Freedom House.

A coalition of privacy and internet freedom advocates led by the Tor Project has announced a new crypto funding campaign to support censorship-resistant digital infrastructure.

The first-of-its-kind Web3 crowdfunding campaign for internet freedom tools will support 10 nonprofit projects working across privacy, censorship circumvention, secure communications and public-interest digital infrastructure, according to the campaign leaders, Tor Project and Funding the Commons.

The campaign, which kicks off May 19, accepts crypto contributions in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether(ETH), Zcash (ZEC), Monero (XMR) and Golem (GLM).

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More than 10,000 Bitcoin have been sold at a loss by short-term holders in recent days, adding fuel to analysts’ predictions that BTC price will fall to $65,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) price dropped to $76,500 on Monday, erasing nearly all of this month’s gains as fresh US-Iran war tensions soured the crypto market sentiment. This has led investors and traders to reevaluate their risks and stay cautious, with many recent buyers selling their BTC at a loss.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin has retraced 7% from its local high of $82,800 set on May 6. The rejection from the 200-day moving averages at $82,000, the daily close below the true market mean, and the short-term holder cost basis around $78,000 have cemented a more risk-off stance among Bitcoin investors.

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Canaan’s Q1 results were dragged down by a $25 million inventory write-down and a 75% quarterly drop in equipment sales as Bitcoin prices retreated from their highs.

Bitcoin miner Canaan reported a net loss of $88.7 million for the first quarter of 2026, as falling Bitcoin (BTC) prices squeezed margins and triggered a significant inventory write-down.

The company posted total revenue of $62.7 million for the quarter ending March 31, a sharp decline from the $196.3 million it recorded in the previous quarter, according to a Tuesday press release.

Industrial mining equipment remained the company’s primary revenue driver at $39.6 million, though sales tumbled 75% from the prior quarter. Self-mining contributed $19.1 million, while the home mining segment brought in $2.7 million, a category that more than doubled year-on-year.

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Estonia’s FIU has partially suspended BB Trade Estonia OÜ’s license, giving the Zondacrypto operator 30 days to fix compliance issues or risk full revocation.

A European regulator has partially suspended the operating license of the company behind troubled crypto exchange Zondacrypto.

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Estonia partially suspended the license of BB Trade Estonia OÜ, operating under the Zondacrypto brand, according to a statement on Monday.

According to the FIU, the company is now barred from accepting deposits and onboarding new clients, while existing users are still allowed to withdraw their funds.

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ZEC has jumped 18% in three days as privacy coins rally, defying a 3.45% drop across the wider crypto market.

Privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) is flashing a classic bullish reversal pattern that could push its price above $1,000 in the coming weeks.

Key takeaways:

The ZEC/USD pair appears to have formed a cup-and-handle (C&H) pattern, marked by a rounded recovery phase followed by a downward-sloping consolidation.

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South Korea’s seventh-largest mutual aid company is currently sitting on a $33 million paper loss on its leveraged Ether ETF investment, following the crypto market downturn.

South Korean funeral service company Bumo Sarang is sitting on roughly 49.3 billion won ($32.7 million) in unrealized losses after investing about $40 million in customer funds into leveraged crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Bumo Sarang invested in the T-REX 2X Long BMNR Daily Target ETF (BMNU), which doubles the daily returns of Ether (ETH) treasury company Bitmine, according to the company’s audit report for 2025.

Another funeral service company, Christian Funeral Family of Faith, recorded a $331,700 net loss last year, according to Korea Economic Daily.

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Pump.fun pulled in $124.7 million in Q1 2026, making it Solana’s largest revenue generator even as memecoin activity cooled, while the network’s RWA market cap crossed $2 billion.

Pump.fun remained Solana’s largest revenue generator in the first quarter of 2026, pulling in $124.7 million, more than a third of the network’s $342.2 million in total app revenue, despite cooling memecoin activity.

The memecoin launchpad's revenue rose 17% quarter over quarter, a sign that its core business remains resilient, Messari said in its Solana Q1 report.

Launchpads generated $144 million in Q1, roughly 42% of Solana’s total app revenue. A standout within the sector was Bags, whose quarterly revenue surged 1,347% to $11.5 million, fueled by a wave of AI-themed memecoins in January. The surge proved short-lived, with monthly revenue dropping 85% by February.

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The self-custodial wallet platform integrated Kraken-backed xStocks infrastructure, adding more than 130 tokenized stocks and ETFs for users.

Bitget Wallet said it has integrated xStocks infrastructure, giving its 90 million users access to more than 130 tokenized stocks and ETFs through its self-custodial wallet platform.

The integration expands Bitget Wallet’s tokenized real-world assets offering to more than 300 products, including equities, commodities, precious metals and index-linked assets, according to a Tuesday announcement.

The company said its tokenized equity products have processed more than $30 billion in transaction volume since launching in 2025. The products are not available in the United States, United Kingdom or other restricted jurisdictions, according to the company.

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Bubblemaps’ investigation found a cluster of nine accounts that generated $2.4 million with a near-perfect win rate on Polymarket contracts tied to major US military operations.

Blockchain data platform Bubblemaps said it identified a cluster of Polymarket wallets that collectively earned $2.4 million with a 98% win rate on contracts tied to US military operations.

Nine wallets placed all their major bets just before major military developments, including the Feb. 28 attack on Iran, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the US-Iran ceasefire agreement, Bubblemaps wrote in a Monday X post.

The accounts were all funded through centralized cryptocurrency exchanges in a tight timeframe and made some minor losing bets on Feb. 20, which likely served to “avoid attention,” according to Bubblemaps. Four of them each made around $400,000 in profit on their bets that the US would strike Iran on Feb. 28.

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Swan Bitcoin has been sued for allegedly using insider access to pull nearly $1 billion in Bitcoin and cash from Prime Trust days before its 2023 bankruptcy filing.

The post-bankruptcy trust for Prime Trust has filed suit against Swan Bitcoin, alleging the Bitcoin services company exploited insider knowledge to pull nearly $1 billion in assets from the custodian days before its collapse.

The complaint, filed in Delaware bankruptcy court, accuses Electric Solidus, the corporate entity behind Swan, of receiving over $24.6 million in cash, 11,994 Bitcoin (BTC) currently worth around $923 million, roughly 5 million USDt (USDT) and smaller amounts of other digital assets before Prime Trust's August 2023 bankruptcy.

At the center of the allegations is an unidentified Prime Trust senior executive who, while working at the company, was also a paid adviser to Swan through a side arrangement dating back to July 2019.

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Ethereum Foundation researchers Julian Ma and Carl Beek have resigned, bringing the total number of major departures from the nonprofit to at least eight in 2026.

The Ethereum Foundation saw the resignations of two top researchers on Monday, bringing the total number of high-profile departures at the organization to at least eight in recent months.

Julian Ma and Carl Beek, both researchers at the Ethereum Foundation, ended their respective four and seven-year tenures at the organization.

Ma contributed to Ethereum’s censorship-resistant properties and cross-layer bridge algorithms and strategy, while Beek contributed to the early design of the Beacon Chain, which introduced proof-of-stake to the blockchain.

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The Bitcoin miner said the investment will support development of its River Bend AI data center campus as the company expands its long-term AI infrastructure business.

Bitcoin miner Hut 8 committed $16 million to expand water capacity in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, as part of development plans for its River Bend AI data center campus.

According to a Tuesday announcement, the investment includes a new water well, about eight miles of water main and other system upgrades. Hut 8 said the assets will be transferred to the parish after completion, which is expected in the second half of 2026, at no cost to taxpayers.

Hut 8 said Phase 1 of the River Bend campus represents a multibillion-dollar capital investment and is expected to support about 1,000 construction workers at peak build-out and at least 75 permanent jobs once operational.

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Among those who used crypto for payments, over 25% said they did so because the business preferred crypto, citing speed, privacy and lower cost advantages.

About one-tenth of US adults said they used or invested in crypto in 2025, the highest level in three years, according to a Federal Reserve report on the economic well-being of households. 

Roughly 10% used crypto for any reason, up from 2023 and 2024, according to the Fed report published on Wednesday.

Despite the rise, 2025’s figures still fell short of crypto adoption seen in 2021, when 12% of Americans reported having used crypto for any reason.  

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The hacker has already laundered nearly 5% of the loot through Tornado Cash and is still holding the remaining 955 eBTC.

Decentralized finance protocol Echo Protocol was exploited after an attacker minted about 1,000 unauthorized eBTC on the protocol, which is deployed on the Monad blockchain.

Blockchain security firm PeckShield and analytics platform Lookonchain both reported the incident on Tuesday, noting that a hacker minted 1,000 synthetic Bitcoin (eBTC) worth around $76.7 million.

“We are currently investigating a security incident impacting the Echo bridge on Monad.  All cross-chain transactions remain suspended while the investigation is underway,” Echo Protocol said on Tuesday.  

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Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said the company is expected to have accumulated 5% of Ether's total supply before the end of the year.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies chairman Tom Lee says the crypto treasury company took advantage of a recent Ether price drop under $2,200 to scoop up another 71,672 Ether for its stockpile.

Ether (ETH) has traded between $2,081 and $2,341 over the past seven days. It was trading at $2,128 as of Tuesday and was down 8.7% over the same period.

“Over the past week, we acquired 71,672 ETH. We view the recent pullback of ETH to below $2,200 as an attractive opportunity. Bitmine is expected to reach the alchemy of 5% sometime in 2026,” Lee said on Monday.

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Several SEC officials reportedly didn’t support the decision, while tokenization platform Securitize flagged risks with enabling third-party platforms to issue tokenized stocks.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly making an “innovation exemption” for blockchain-based tokenized trading of public companies, even those that don’t consent to the third-party tokens tracking their share prices.

Bloomberg reported on Monday that the exemption could come as early as this week, expanding the trading of public companies beyond traditional stock exchanges to decentralized crypto platforms. 

The SEC reportedly spoke with “hundreds of market participants” for feedback on how best to tailor the rules for tokenized trading and proposed that third-party tokens carry the same benefits as common stock, such as voting rights and dividends, or risk being delisted.

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Bitcoin retail inflows to Binance remained at record lows as aggressive BTC futures selling and weakening spot demand pressured BTC below $77,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) retail investor activity on Binance has fallen to its lowest level in history. Retail BTC inflows on Binance now average near 314 BTC per month in 2026, down sharply from the 1,200 BTC range recorded in March 2024.

Bitcoin’s recovery in May also slowed as spot inflows on Binance weakened, with the 30-day net demand growth falling 73% over the past three weeks.

CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost said retail Bitcoin inflows to Binance remained near its historic lows. The metric tracks BTC deposits from wallets holding less than 1 BTC, a common signal for retail investor activity.

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Many experts voiced concerns that the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair would lead to uncertainty about the central bank’s independence, particularly in setting interest rates.

Kevin Warsh is set to be sworn in as the next chair of the US Federal Reserve Board of Governors on Friday amid speculation about whether he'll do what US President Donald Trump hopes he does: lower interest rates once in office.

On Wednesday, the US Senate voted largely along party lines to confirm Warsh as the next Fed chair, succeeding Jerome Powell. While Trump nominated both Fed governors in different terms, the president repeatedly threatened to fire Powell in recent months, saying that the Fed chair “should be lowering interest rates.”

Source: Kalshi

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The NYDFS approvals allow GalaxyOne Prime NY to offer trading and financing services to institutional investors in one of the most tightly regulated US crypto markets.

Galaxy Digital, a crypto-focused financial services company led by Mike Novogratz, has received a BitLicense and Money Transmission License from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), allowing it to expand regulated digital asset services to institutional clients in the state.

The company said Monday that the approvals were granted to its subsidiary, GalaxyOne Prime NY, which provides trading and financing services to institutional investors.

The licenses extend Galaxy’s regulatory reach into New York, one of the most tightly regulated jurisdictions for cryptocurrency businesses in the United States.

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Bitcoin positions itself for a rally above $80,000 after Strategy's $2 billion BTC buy, crumbling investor confidence in the US Treasury and a potential US-Iran deal.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin (BTC) faced a rejection following a failed attempt to break above $82,000 on Thursday. A subsequent retest of the $76,000 level on Monday triggered $400 million in liquidations for bullish Bitcoin positions over a four-day period. While traders’ confidence took a hit from the 7% price decline, the prospects for recovering the $80,000 mark remain valid.

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Hosting revenue outpaced mining as new capacity came online, highlighting Soluna’s shift toward data centers for AI and high-performance computing.

Digital infrastructure company Soluna Holdings reported strong first-quarter revenue growth as expanding data center operations helped offset weaker returns from cryptocurrency mining.

Revenue rose 58% from a year earlier to $9.4 million and increased 2% from the previous quarter, according to the company’s earnings report released Monday. It was Soluna’s fourth-consecutive quarter of sequential revenue growth.

The gains were driven by additional capacity coming online at the company’s Dorothy and Kati sites in Texas. Data center hosting generated $6.7 million in revenue, while cryptocurrency mining contributed roughly $2.2 million, down from nearly $3 million the year before, as Bitcoin mining economics deteriorated. 

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A political action committee aligned with crypto interest groups reported spending more than $4 million in support of Democratic US House candidate Jasmine Clark in Georgia.

The Protect Progress, a political action committee (PAC) affiliated with the cryptocurrency company-backed Fairshake PAC, has spent more than $4 million attempting to help secure a win for a Georgia state representative running for the US House of Representatives.

On Tuesday, Georgia voters will decide on their candidate in the primary for the state’s 13th Congressional district, where state representative Jasmine Clark faces competition among Democrats. According to data from the Federal Election Commission, Clark has been the beneficiary of more than $4.2 million in spending on media by the Protect Progress PAC ahead of the primary, as crypto-aligned interest groups attempt to influence voters in key elections.

Source: FEC

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Bitcoin traders are closely watching the $74,000-$75,000 support zone as exchange inflows rise and market signals weaken following BTC's loss of momentum above $82,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) lost its hold on the $80,000 level over the weekend, and data suggest that the cryptocurrency needs to trade above the $74,000-$75,000 range, as it has repeatedly served as key support over the last two years. 

Crypto analyst Ardi said the next retest of the $74,000-$75,000 range could become the most important support test of the current bear market.

The analyst pointed to the role that the price range played during the last two years. In 2024, Bitcoin struggled to break above the range during a seven-month-long consolidation. In Q1 2025, the same area held as support before BTC rallied toward its cycle highs at $126,000.

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Bitcoin traders are closely watching the $74,000-$75,000 support zone as exchange inflows rise and market signals weaken following BTC's loss of momentum above $82,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) lost its hold on the $80,000 level over the weekend, and data suggest that the cryptocurrency needs to trade above the $74,000-$75,000 range, as it has repeatedly served as key support over the last two years. 

Crypto analyst Ardi said the next retest of the $74,000-$75,000 range could become the most important support test of the current bear market.

The analyst pointed to the role that the price range played during the last two years. In 2024, Bitcoin struggled to break above the range during a seven-month-long consolidation. In Q1 2025, the same area held as support before BTC rallied toward its cycle highs at $126,000.

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Bitcoin dropped to the crucial $76,000 support level while large-cap altcoins sold off sharply. Do technical charts suggest that traders will buy the dip?

Key points:

Bitcoin (BTC) came under pressure on Monday after US President Donald Trump warned Iran that the “clock is ticking” and they better get moving fast. Analyst CryptoRover said in a post on X that a potential US military operation against Iran “is extremely dangerous for $BTC.”

Institutional investors also seem to be turning cautious in the short term. According to SoSoValue data, spot BTC exchange-traded funds recorded $1 billion in weekly net outflows. That was the first net outflow after six successive weeks of inflows totaling $3.4 billion.

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Institutional investors pulled capital from Bitcoin and Ether products as Iran tension and rising inflation rattled markets, while XRP and Solana funds continued to attract fresh inflows.

Cryptocurrency investment products posted heavy outflows last week as investors reduced risk amid inflation fears and uncertainty over a lasting ceasefire between the United States and Iran.

According to CoinShares’ latest weekly report, digital asset exchange-traded products (ETPs) recorded $1.07 billion in net outflows, ending a six-week streak of inflows. It marked the third-largest weekly outflow this year.

Bitcoin (BTC) investment products accounted for the bulk of the withdrawals, with $982 million in outflows. Ether (ETH) products lost $249 million, their largest outflow since the week ending Jan. 30.

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Ether price fell sharply below $2,100 as increasing sell pressure on Binance and persistent ETF outflows fueled bearish momentum.

Ether (ETH) dropped sharply after rejection at $2,400 last week, dropping as low as $2,100 on Monday, indicating that bears are back “in control,” according to new analysis.

Key takeaways:

Data from TradingView shows ETH price trading at $2,100, down 12% below its local high of $2,420 reached on May 6. On Sunday, ETH/USD hit $2,090 on Bitstamp, its lowest level since April 17.

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A bullish long-term chart pattern puts HYPE on track for a potential rally above $70 this year, with a16z-linked accumulation and fresh institutional catalysts strengthening the case.

Hyperliquid DEX's native token, HYPE, is showing potential for a 55% rally after a wallet reportedly tied to Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist, a16z, accumulated $90.87 million worth of tokens in just over a month.

Key takeaways:

HYPE appears to be forming a cup-and-handle pattern, a classic bullish continuation setup.

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The FCA and Bank of England are seeking feedback on new tokenization guidance and plans to extend operating hours for the UK’s core payment and settlement infrastructure toward near-24/7 availability.

The Bank of England on Monday proposed extending operating hours for its core settlement infrastructure toward near-24/7 availability, part of a broader push with the Financial Conduct Authority to prepare UK wholesale markets for tokenized finance.

The proposal seeks to add weekend and extended daily operating hours to the central bank's settlement mechanism, Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), and the Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS).

The Bank of England said the expanded operating hours would support cross-border payments and new payment and settlement models as tokenization develops.

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Bitcoin Depot files for Chapter 11 in Texas, plans asset sale and wind-down as regulatory pressure forces shutdown of its Bitcoin ATM network.

Bitcoin Depot, one of the largest Bitcoin ATM operators in the US, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as the company moved to wind down operations and sell its assets.

In a Monday announcement, Atlanta-based Bitcoin Depot said it started voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, citing mounting regulatory pressure and financial strain.

CEO Alex Holmes said the company strengthened anti-fraud protections in recent years, including stricter identity checks and lower transaction limits, but argued that growing compliance demands and enforcement actions made the business model “unsustainable.”

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EUR 1 billion note programme planned for 2026 following completion of global issuance infrastructure by the end of Q3 2026.

EUR 1 billion note programme planned for 2026 following completion of global issuance infrastructure by the end of Q3 2026.

STOCKHOLM & RIGA — May 14, 2026 — Deploi, the institutional infrastructure layer for digital private credit, today announced the launch of its direct issuance framework on Polygon, following ISIN allocations from Nasdaq CSD for its inaugural UK Consumer Credit Notes.

The first issuance, Series 2026/CON/001, enables regulated digital debt issuance for consumer credit assets, with individual notes of up to EUR 5 million. The issuance forms part of Deploi’s EUR 1 billion note programme for 2026, with planned expansion capacity of up to EUR 5 billion following the expected completion of its global issuance infrastructure by the end of Q3 2026.

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Michael Saylor’s Strategy bought 24,869 Bitcoin for $2.01 billion last week, lifting holdings to 843,738 BTC as STRC sales funded around 97% of the acquisition.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public Bitcoin holder, made another massive BTC acquisition last week as the crypto asset hovered around $80,000.

Strategy acquired 24,869 Bitcoin (BTC) for $2.01 billion between May 11 and 17, according Monday's 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Standard Chartered will absorb Zodia Custody’s regulated crypto business and spin out Zodia Solutions, as big banks move to own core digital asset custody in-house.

Standard Chartered has announced that its offer to acquire the business of Zodia Custody has been accepted by shareholders.

The deal, announced Monday, will consolidate Standard Chartered’s digital asset custody operations while separating a standalone infrastructure platform for institutional clients.

Zodia Solutions will be established as an independent entity under SC Ventures, backed by several banking investors, including existing Zodia Custody shareholders, and will provide “bank-grade infrastructure” to financial institutions, including Standard Chartered, as they expand digital asset services.

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The parent company of South Korea’s largest bank completed a stablecoin payment pilot ahead of the country's proposed digital asset framework.

KB Financial Group, the parent company of South Korea's largest bank, KB Kookmin, completed a stablecoin pilot for offline payments and cross-border remittances through the Kaia blockchain.

KB tested the lifecycle of a South Korean won-denominated stablecoin, including issuance, merchant settlement and remittances, with Kaia, electronic payments company KG Inicis and fintech firm OpenAsset, local outlet Yonhap reported.

The stablecoin pilot adds to the growing list of legacy financial institutions in South Korea experimenting with stablecoins. In late April, one of the nation's largest credit card providers, Shinhan Card, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Solana Foundation to test stablecoin payments.

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Bitcoin analysis says BTC price could revisit the $65,000 demand area after fresh US-Iran war tensions soured the crypto market mood.

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped to $76,000 during the early Asian trading hours on Monday as US-Iran tensions resurfaced. 

Key takeaways

Data from TradingView showed BTC price dropped as much as 7% over the last three days to three-week lows of $76,500, erasing all the gains made since May 1. 

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XRP still faces short-term downside risk, with a symmetrical triangle breakdown pointing to a possible drop toward $1.00–$1.10.

XRP (XRP) may go on a 10x–15x rally from its "quiet accumulation" zone, according to analyst Crypto Patel, who says the muted price action resembles the calm before its major breakout in late 2024.

Key takeaways:

In his Sunday post, Patel highlighted the $1.00–$0.70 range as a potential long-term accumulation zone, arguing that XRP’s muted sentiment and lack of retail hype could precede a larger upside move.

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Proof of Talk, widely known as the Davos of Web3, today confirmed its 2026 programme and opened remaining passes for its fourth edition at the Louvre Palace in Paris on June 2–3.

Paris, May 18, 2026 — Proof of Talk, widely known as the Davos of Web3, today confirmed its 2026 programme and opened remaining passes for its fourth edition at the Louvre Palace in Paris on June 2–3.

The gathering will bring together more than 120 speakers, 95% at CEO or Founder level, representing a combined $18 trillion in assets under management. Attendance is capped at 2,500. The event sold out in both 2024 and 2025.

When the most senior leaders in digital assets, finance, and infrastructure need a room that matches the weight of the decisions ahead, this is where they come.

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South Korea’s FSC is reportedly reviewing Hana Bank’s $668 million Dunamu stake under “banking-commerce separation” rules that limit bank ownership tied to crypto firms.

South Korea’s financial regulator is reportedly reviewing Hana Bank’s planned $668 million purchase of a 6.55% stake in Dunamu, the operator of the largest domestic cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit.

Local outlet iNews24 cited an unnamed Financial Services Commission official to report that regulators are examining whether Hana Bank's share purchase from Kakao Investment, rather than directly from Dunamu, falls under broader "banking-commerce separation" rules.

The official said Hana’s investment would be assessed under the same standards as a direct stake in the exchange operator.

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Goldman Sachs cut its crypto ETF exposure in Q1 2026, exiting XRP and Solana funds while trimming Bitcoin and Ether ETFs and reshaping equity bets.

US investment bank Goldman Sachs sharply reduced its exposure to cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the first quarter of 2026.

No XRP-linked ETFs appeared in Goldman Sachs’ Q1 Form 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

In its Q42025 13F filing, Goldman Sachs reported holding nearly $154 million worth of XRP-related ETFs from Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale and 21Shares.

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AFX, a sovereign Layer 1 purpose-built for decentralized derivatives trading, has officially commenced the operation of its L1 Mainnet, signaling a definitive end to the era of trade execution compromised by general-purpose blockchain congestion.

Road Town, BVI, May 18, 2026 — AFX, a sovereign Layer 1 purpose-built for decentralized derivatives trading, has officially commenced the operation of its L1 Mainnet, signaling a definitive end to the era of trade execution compromised by general-purpose blockchain congestion. Engineered for the world’ s most demanding participants, AFX introduces the Sovereign Trading Layer—a dedicated financial environment where the non-custodial transparency of a Perp DEX meets the uncompromising speed and depth traditionally reserved for institutional-grade centralized entities.

At launch, the protocol supports a high-liquidity suite of perpetual markets across both digital and traditional macro assets, featuring BTC, ETH, Gold (XAU), and Crude Oil (CL), with up to 40x leverage to ensure peak capital efficiency from the first block.

The architectural foundation of AFX represents a radical departure from legacy decentralized platforms that remain tethered to the high latency and structural bottlenecks of shared networks. By operating on a custom-built execution layer powered by DAG-based consensus and an ABCI modular architecture, AFX transforms the perpetual trading experience, achieving a specialized environment where execution is decoupled from consensus. This synergy provides a dedicated mempool optimized exclusively for high-frequency order flow and protocol-level MEV resistance, allowing for a 100ms median latency and a capacity exceeding 100,000 transactions per second.

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Bitcoin started the week with a dip toward new May lows as ongoing BTC price pressures included "collapsing" US bond markets.

Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week under pressure as support levels fade and macro gloom intensifies.

Key points:

Bitcoin felt the pressure as the new weekly candle began, dropping to $76,500 — its lowest levels since May 1, per data from TradingView.

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The 25th-largest Bitcoin treasury company acquired $15 million worth of BTC as one of only four treasury firms to announce a corporate Bitcoin investment during May.

France-listed Bitcoin treasury company Capital B announced Monday that it acquired 192 BTC for 13 million euros ($15.2 million), bringing its total holdings to 3,135 BTC.

Capital B purchased its latest tranche at an average price of about $78,948 per Bitcoin, Alexandre Laizet, Bitcoin strategy director at Capital B, said on X.

The acquisition comes a week after the company announced a $17.8 million raise from strategic investors, including Blockstream CEO Adam Back and Paris-based asset manager TOBAM. Capital B also raised $1.28 million from Back on May 4.

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Kraken has cut 150 staff due to the rising use of AI, adding to more than 5,000 layoffs across the crypto sector so far this year, Bloomberg reports.

Crypto exchange Kraken has reportedly laid off some of its staff as a cost-cutting measure, which could delay its planned initial public offering in the US until next year.

The company, whose corporate name is Payward, laid off about 150 workers due to efficiencies from deploying artificial intelligence across the business, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The person said AI is being used more extensively throughout Kraken, but the company is not planning further job cuts at the moment.

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Two security companies have flagged the address where the stolen funds are allegedly being held, showing the cryptocurrencies have been converted into 5,402 Ether.

Verus Protocol’s Ethereum bridge was reportedly exploited on Monday through a fake cross-chain transfer message that allowed a hacker to fraudulently transfer out at least $11.58 million in cryptocurrency.

Onchain security platform Blockaid said in an X post on Monday that its detection system identified an ongoing exploit on the Verus-Ethereum bridge and shared a transaction on Etherscan showing a transfer of 1,625 Ether (ETH), 147,659 USDC (USDC) and 103.57 tBTC v2, worth over $11.5 million.

Blockchain security company PeckShield also called the transfer an exploit, with onchain data showing the funds have since been converted into Ether. The wallet shows a balance of 5,402 Ether, worth over $11.4 million, according to Etherscan.

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Fundstrat's Tom Lee pointed out an inverse correlation between crude and Ether as oil surged back to around $110 on Monday.

Rising oil prices since the US-Israeli war have been a consistent weight on the price of Ether for the last three months, according to Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee. 

“If one is wondering why Ethereum has been under selling pressure … to me, rising oil prices is the biggest headwind,” Lee said on X on Monday.

Lee said the inverse correlation between Ether prices and oil is at a record high. Crude oil prices have surged 66% from $65 to more than $100 per barrel since the US-Israeli war began on Feb. 28. 

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Payward said futures trading activity rose 51% year-over-year as Kraken's parent expanded through acquisitions including Bitnomial, Backed and Reap.

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, reported $507 million in adjusted first-quarter revenue as it expanded its presence in tokenized equities, regulated US derivatives and stablecoin payments through acquisitions and new products.

The company said futures trading activity rose 51% year-over-year, while assets on platform increased 11% to $40 billion and funded accounts grew 47% to 6.1 million. Payward also said its xStocks platform reached 100 tokenized equities and plans to expand to more than 500 by the end of 2026.

Payward completed acquisitions of tokenization company Backed, token management platform Magna and derivatives exchange Bitnomial during the quarter, while separately announcing a deal to acquire stablecoin payments company Reap for up to $600 million in cash and stock.

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The move expands the Bitcoin miner's BUZZ HPC infrastructure with deployment targeted for 2027.

HIVE Digital Technologies said its BUZZ HPC subsidiary plans to develop a 320-megawatt AI data center campus near Toronto capable of supporting more than 100,000 GPUs at full build-out.

The company said the project is expected to cost about CAD $3.5 billion with target deployment in the second half of 2027. HIVE said BUZZ acquired roughly 25 acres of land tied to a 320-MW power allocation in the Toronto-Waterloo technology corridor.

HIVE currently operates about 5,500 GPUs for AI computing and said its broader infrastructure pipeline could support roughly 130,000 GPUs.

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Screenshots of a website called “Hormuz Safe” have been circulating on social media, which offers “digital insurance” for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran is reportedly considering a plan to exercise control over the Strait of Hormuz through an “insurance-based model,” with some speculating, based on an unverified website, that it could be paid in Bitcoin. 

On Saturday, Fars News Agency, an Iranian news outlet closely affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that the Iranian Ministry of Economic Affairs plans to manage the Strait of Hormuz through insurance, citing a state document it obtained. 

However, other reports say Iran is looking to take payments for the “insurance” in Bitcoin through a website called “Hormuz Safe,” with a widely circulated screenshot of the purported site selling “Secure Digital Insurance for Maritime Cargo.”

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NYDIG’s Greg Cipolaro says the Senate’s crypto market structure bill is at risk of failing if it cannot clear a floor vote by August.

The US Senate’s crypto market structure bill could take until August to pass and risks not advancing at all if lawmakers cannot pass it before the midterms, said Greg Cipolaro, head of research at financial services firm NYDIG.

Patrick Witt, a senior White House crypto adviser, said earlier this month that he was targeting July 4 for the Senate’s crypto bill to pass, saying there was enough time for a Senate markup, floor vote and House vote. 

“This may represent an aspirational benchmark rather than a fixed legislative deadline,” Cipolaro said in a note on Friday. “The realistic window, however, is June through early August.”

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Some analysts argue that a comparatively broadened, institutionalized buyer base for crypto today may prevent a repeat of the drawdowns seen in May 2018 and May 2022.

Crypto analysts are divided over whether markets will see a major Bitcoin sell-off in May, a pattern that has emerged in the last two bear markets during US mid-term election years. 

In May 2018, Bitcoin crashed from nearly $10,000 to about $7,000 by the end of the month. It happened again in May 2022, when Bitcoin fell nearly 30% from about $40,000 to $28,500 before falling further in June to $20,000. 

With 2026 also a bear market year coinciding with a US mid-term election, there are concerns it could happen again. 

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Aave applied a temporary freeze to WETH as a precautionary safety measure in response to the Kelp DAO exploit, alongside freezes on the rsETH and wrsETH reserves.

Aave users are now able to borrow against wrapped Ether on the decentralized finance protocol again, as the Kelp DAO exploit recovery plan continues to progress. 

Aave founder Stani Kulechov said in an X post Sunday that the protocol restored loan-to-value (LTV) ratios for wrapped Ether (WETH) to pre-incident levels across all affected networks: Aave V3 Ethereum Core, Ethereum Prime, Arbitrum, Base, Mantle and Linea. 

“The next step in the rsETH technical recovery plan has been completed with the restoration of WETH LTVs to their pre-incident levels across all affected networks. Users can now once again borrow against WETH on Aave, including through collateral and debt swaps,” Kulechov said.

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The US securities regulator approved 21Shares’ Hyperliquid ETF last week, adding to a growing number of cryptocurrencies converted into ETF wrappers in the US.

Asset managers Grayscale and VanEck filed amended S-1 registration statements for their respective spot BNB exchange-traded funds on Friday, bringing the cryptocurrency one step closer to becoming an approved US crypto ETF. 

Grayscale filed its second amendment, while VanEck submitted its fifth on Friday. S-1s are one of the main filings that ETF issuers must submit to the SEC for approval, detailing everything from the ETF’s structure and strategy to management fees and risks.

“Another amended S-1 from [Grayscale] on the BNB ETF… have to guess they are going off feedback from SEC and trying to launch in near future? Could be the next crypto asset to get a spot ETF in the US,” said Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart.

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Figure Technology Solutions latest quarterly results showed Bernstein analysts how different it is from most balance sheet-based fintech lending platforms.

Bernstein analysts said Friday that Figure Technology Solutions’ first-quarter earnings report shows that the fintech is fast becoming a company that is unique among blockchain marketplaces.

Figure’s May 11 earnings report soundly beat Wall Street estimates on both revenue and EBITDA, with a business that seeks to turn real-world credit assets into blockchain-native instruments that can be traded, funded and financed more efficiently.  

As Figures builds out a blockchain-native capital market ecosystem, the analysts expect the company will surprise investors with how it differs from balance sheet-based fintech lending platforms, seeing FIGR stock as a real-time reflection of blockchain loan volumes.

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Michael Saylor signaled another Bitcoin buy on Sunday while urging retail investors to vote on a proxy measure enabling semi-monthly STRC dividend payouts.

Strategy chairman Michael Saylor on Sunday signaled the Bitcoin treasury company would be buying more of the cryptocurrency in the week ahead while also encouraging retailer shareholders to vote on a proxy measure enabling semi-monthly dividend payouts on the company’s STRC perpetual preferred stock.

“Big Dot Energy” was Saylor's tweet late Sunday morning to accompany a bubble chart tracking Strategy’s BTC purchases over the past nearly six years. That chart, from Iceland-registered StrategyTracker.com, has been consistently posted by Saylor in the days ahead of a corporate purchase.

Saylor's "Big Dot Energy" message on Sunday. Source: Michael Saylor on X.com

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Japan’s biggest brokerages are racing to bring crypto investment trusts to retail investors, as regulators move to formally allow crypto-holding funds by 2028.

Japan’s major brokerages are preparing to bring crypto investment trusts to retail investors, with SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities already developing products in-house, while others like Nomura plan to enter the space once regulations are finalized.

SBI Securities plans to sell funds developed by group company SBI Global Asset Management, with products spanning both ETFs and investment trusts focused on liquid assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, according to a Sunday report by Nikkei. The group intends to handle everything from product development to distribution in-house.

Rakuten Securities is taking a similar approach, working with Rakuten Investment Management to build products tradeable directly through smartphone apps, the report revealed.

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While macro pain and Iran war uncertainty drag Bitcoin below $79K, fixed-income market outflows could trigger a medium-term Bitcoin rebound.

Bitcoin (BTC) faced a sharp contraction on Friday following a rejection at $82,000 the prior day. Recent price movements closely resembled the US small-capitalization stock index, hinting that macroeconomic factors are the leading drivers behind the nosedive below $79,000. 

The anxiety sparked a sell-off in fixed-income markets. Counterintuitively, this may help Bitcoin embark on a sustained bull run over the next few weeks.

Key takeaways:

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Intesa Sanpaolo increased its crypto holdings from $100 million to $235 million in Q1 2026, making first-time moves into Ethereum and XRP while almost exiting Solana.

Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest bank, more than doubled its crypto exposure in the first quarter of 2026, with holdings climbing from about $100 million at the end of 2025 to $235 million as of March 31.

The growth was driven by expanded Bitcoin positions, with the bank adding to positions in both the ARK 21Shares BTC ETF and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF. It also entered Ethereum for the first time through BlackRock’s iShares Staked Ethereum Trust, and picked up a fresh stake in Ripple’s XRP via the Grayscale XRP Trust ETF, worth approximately $26 million, according to a report by local crypto outlet Criptovaluta.it.

Intesa also opened a new position in iShares Bitcoin Trust call options, its first derivatives play in the space. The bank previously confirmed to Criptovaluta.it that its crypto positions are held for proprietary trading purposes, though it has not disclosed whether any of the assets are also used to hedge products offered to professional clients, the report said.

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Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor said that continuing to use the “never sell” Bitcoin mantra could ultimately undermine the very asset his company is built around.

Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor said he raised the possibility of selling Bitcoin during Strategy's recent earnings call to protect the asset's long-term interests.

“We own about $65 billion worth of Bitcoin. If the market thought we would never sell it, the credit rating agencies would say, Well then, I guess it’s not an asset,” Saylor told Scott Melker on The Wolf Of All Streets podcast published to YouTube on May 10.

“There is $20 to $100 billion of liquidity in the Bitcoin market that is not correlated to our equity or to our credit. If we were to say we’re never going to take advantage of that liquidity and we’re never going to use that asset, then we’re impairing the asset, which 98% of the company is built on,” Saylor explained, adding:

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A16z crypto said that when US legal frameworks strike a balance between innovation and consumer protection, the impact tends to ripple through into global markets.

The US CLARITY Act could have a positive ripple effect beyond the crypto sector itself, according to venture capital firm a16z crypto.

“If the US provides builders with regulatory clarity, it will be a boon for domestic innovation,” a16z crypto said in an X post on Friday.

A16z pointed to the passage of the GENIUS Act in July 2025, which created a regulatory framework for stablecoins, as a possible indication of what may happen following the CLARITY Act.

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Potential liquidity contractions in secondary markets and surging government bond yields could spell trouble for preferred perpetual stockholders.

Investors are mispricing risk for perpetual preferred stocks, like Bitcoin treasury company Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock (STRC), according to Matt Dines, the chief investment officer of credit asset management company Build Markets.

The corporate issuers of perpetual preferred stocks never have to repay holders their principal investment, and can just pay dividends indefinitely, without renegotiating the investment terms, Dines told the Truth for the Commoner (TFTC) media outlet.

If holders want to cash out, they must sell the perpetuals on the secondary market to recover their principal, which leaves holders exposed to liquidity contraction and interest rate risks that exist forever because perpetuals lack a maturity date, he said. He added:

Basic performance metrics for Strategy's STRC perpetual preferred stock. Source: SaylorTracker

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The notes carry a 0% coupon, but can be converted into equity in the company if holders choose to redeem their notes for shares.

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy announced on Friday that it will repurchase $1.5 billion in 0% convertible notes, due in 2029, retiring about half of the 2029 convertible note tranche’s total outstanding debt.

Strategy entered into “privately negotiated transactions” with a portion of its 0% senior convertible note holders on Thursday, agreeing to repurchase the debt for an estimated $1.38 billion, according to the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

The transaction is set to settle on Tuesday of the week following the publication of this article, the company said, adding that the final repurchase amount could “vary” from the estimated amount based on market conditions. The company added:

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Bitcoin fell below $78,000 for the first time since the start of May, but traders refused to give up hope of a BTC price rebound coming next.

Bitcoin (BTC) circled $78,000 on Saturday after geopolitical headwinds erased most of its May gains.

Key points:

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In a world-first deal, OpenAI and Malta will give all citizens free ChatGPT Plus for a year after they complete a government-backed AI literacy course.

OpenAI and the Maltese government have announced a world-first partnership to roll out ChatGPT Plus to all Maltese citizens, marking the first time a government has struck such a deal with the AI company.

Under the programme, citizens who complete a government-backed AI literacy course will receive free access to ChatGPT Plus for one year, OpenAI announced on Saturday. The course, developed by the University of Malta, covers what AI is, what it can and cannot do and how to use it responsibly at home and in the workplace.

“Malta is the first country to launch a partnership of this scale because we refuse to let our citizens stay behind in the digital age,” Maltese minister for economy, enterprise and strategic projects Silvio Schembri said, adding that the goal is to turn AI “from an unfamiliar concept into practical assistance for our families, students, and workers.”

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THORChain has launched a recovery portal following a $10 million exploit, allowing affected users across four chains to revoke malicious approvals and claim refunds.

THORChain has confirmed a $10 million exploit and launched a recovery portal, giving affected users a self-custodial path to revoke malicious token approvals and submit refund claims backed by a treasury-provisioned refund pool of equal size.

In a Saturday post on X, THORChain Foundation introduced the recovery portal, saying that “affected users are now able to check what they will be paid as compensation following the exploit.”

The portal, citing a PeckShield post-mortem, claims that the attack was detected at 02:14 UTC on May 11, when node operators flagged anomalous outbound transactions. Trading and outbound signing were paused within eight minutes. In total, attackers drained 36.75 BTC, worth around $3 million, and approximately $7 million in tokens across BNB Chain, Ethereum and Base, hitting 12,847 wallets across four chains.

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The rest of the world is “really closely” watching the US CLARITY Act as the nation moves further away from the previous “hostile stance,” according to Sharplink’s chief.

Ethereum needs three catalysts to fall into place for its price to regain momentum and surge higher, according to SharpLink Gaming CEO Joseph Chalom.

“One is the CLARITY Act to pass in the US,” Chalom pointed out in an interview with Robert Baggs on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction show published to YouTube on Thursday. It came on the same day that all 13 Republican members and two Democrats voted to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY) at the US Senate Banking Committee meeting.

Chalom said that while many view the legislation, which aims to give the US crypto industry greater clarity, as “a US phenomenon,” it is also being seen as a major signal for other jurisdictions around the world.

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Spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $1 billion in a single week as capital rotated toward AI stocks and macro uncertainty weighed on sentiment, ending a six-week run that had pulled in $3.4 billion.

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $1 billion in weekly net outflows, ending a six-week inflow streak that had drawn a combined $3.4 billion.

The week started on a cautiously optimistic note, with Monday posting modest inflows of $27.29 million, according to data from SoSoValue. The tide turned sharply on Tuesday, when investors pulled $233.25 million from the funds. Selling pressure intensified on Wednesday, the worst single day of the week, with outflows reaching $635.23 million.

A brief reprieve came on Thursday, as inflows of $131.31 million offered a momentary reversal. However, Friday erased that recovery as well, when a further $290.42 million exited the products, sealing the week in the red at exactly $1 billion in net outflows.

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Santiment warned that the crypto market “typically” moves against crowd expectations, pointing to a recent rise in bullish sentiment driven by renewed momentum around the US CLARITY Act.

Sentiment around Bitcoin’s near-term price direction has picked up as momentum builds behind the US CLARITY Act, which aims to provide the crypto industry with greater regulatory clarity, according to crypto sentiment platform Santiment.

“Bitcoin has seen a major spike of euphoria across social media following news that the Senate Banking Committee advanced the CLARITY Act in a 15–9 bipartisan vote,” Santiment said in an X post on Friday.

“This brings BTC and crypto one step closer to being ultimately passed,” Santiment said.

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The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is currently headed by Chair Michael Selig, with no public statement from Donald Trump about fully staffing the five-member panel of commissioners.

The Republican chair and Democratic ranking member of the US House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture have called on President Donald Trump to fully staff the leadership at a key financial regulator, citing the potential impact of a crypto market structure bill.

In a Friday letter to Trump, House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson and ranking member Angie Craig asked the president to “nominate a full panel” of bipartisan leaders for the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The representatives cited “urgent regulatory issues” facing the US regulator in addition to a “significant rulemaking process” required if the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY) becomes law.

“Ensuring the Commission is well-equipped as the leading derivatives markets regulator in the world is a bipartisan priority for the members of our Committee,” said Thompson and Craig. “A complete commission will allow the agency to best fulfill its mandate of promoting integrity, resilience, and vibrancy of US derivatives markets and will advance US leadership.”

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The crypto ATM company reported financial difficulties amid a changing regulatory environment and ongoing litigation, which have cost it millions of dollars.

Cryptocurrency ATM company Bitcoin Depot reported “substantial doubts” about the company’s ability to continue operating amid ongoing litigation and a challenging regulatory environment.

In a Form 10-Q filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, Bitcoin Depot chief financial officer David Gray reported that the company had accrued more than $20 million in legal judgments in the fourth quarter of 2025 and “ongoing litigation matters.” The company also reported “substantial year-over-year declines in revenue” amid US states and municipalities passing laws and regulations banning or restricting crypto ATMs.

“As a result of these factors, management has concluded that substantial doubt exists about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” said the report.

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The Hyperliquid decentralized exchange allows anyone who stakes 500,000 HYPE tokens, valued at roughly $22.2 million, to deploy new markets.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the two biggest exchanges for energy-linked commodities, are pressuring US regulators to clamp down on the Hyperliquid decentralized exchange’s expansion into commodity markets.

Executives from both companies say that Hyperliquid’s energy-linked onchain derivatives create insider trading and price manipulation risks, according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the ongoing talks with US regulators.

ICE and CME cited the “anonymous” and “unregulated” nature of Hyperliquid as major risks to critical energy markets, like oil and gas, which could be used by state actors to circumvent sanctions, the report added.

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The new card lets users spend USDC balances through online, in-store and contactless transactions while accessing ATM withdrawals in supported regions.

Layer-1 blockchain developer Solayer launched a Visa-compatible payment card that allows users to spend USDC balances through in-store, online and contactless transactions.

The card supports ATM withdrawals in supported regions and can be ordered through the Solayer Pay app, according to the announcement. Existing users can request the card for free, while new users pay a $20 annual activation fee.

Source: Solayer Pay

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Law firm Gerstein Harrow LLP is attempting to claim frozen cryptocurrency funds for claimants of unrelated judgments stretching back decades.

Law firm Gerstein Harrow LLP filed a new motion on Thursday in a miscellaneous enforcement lawsuit, asking the court to compel stablecoin company Tether to hand over more than $344 million in frozen USDt linked to Iranian entities.

The motion claims that the plaintiffs are owed more than $532 million in compensatory damages and more than $1.8 billion in punitive damages from acts of “terrorism committed or sponsored by Iran,” stretching back more than 25 years. 

The latest filing is part of a broader lawsuit against North Korea (DPRK) and Iran, attempting to claim and redistribute digital assets as compensation for victims of various and unrelated judgments tied to state-sponsored violence, drawing criticism from the crypto community.

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Sellers have pulled Bitcoin back below the $79,000 level, but buying may emerge as the price nears the $76,000 support.

Key points:

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recovery above $82,000 on Thursday was short-lived, as bears sold at higher levels and pulled the price back to the $79,000 level. Glassnode said in its Week On-chain report that several investors bought BTC between November 2025 and February near the $86,900 level. These holders may sell near their entry price after experiencing large drawdowns, creating a barrier for BTC’s continued rally.

Another negative view came from crypto analytics firm CryptoQuant, which said in a recent report that BTC has hit its major resistance at the 200-day moving average near $82,400. In 2022, BTC had resumed its downtrend after failing to cross above the 200-day SMA. BTC may get into trouble if history repeats itself.

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BHYP offers spot exposure to Hyperliquid’s HYPE token and will stake a portion of its holdings through Bitwise’s in-house staking division.

Bitwise Asset Management has launched a US-listed investment product tied to Hyperliquid, offering investors spot exposure to the token and staking rewards linked to the decentralized derivatives platform.

The fund, trading under the ticker BHYP on the New York Stock Exchange, is the second US-listed Hyperliquid product to launch this week. Bitwise said the fund plans to stake a significant portion of its HYPE (HYPE) holdings through its in-house staking division.

Hyperliquid is a decentralized trading-focused layer 1 blockchain launched in 2023 that offers perpetual futures, spot trading and lending services. Bitwise said the platform processed about $2.9 trillion in trading volume in 2025 and accounted for roughly 60% of global onchain derivatives open interest as of May 5, citing DefiLlama data.

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The text of Myanmar’s Anti-Online Fraud Bill said that anyone who was convicted of committing “digital currency fraud” could face from ten years to life in prison, and possibly the death penalty.

The military government of Myanmar released the text of a bill aimed at combating online fraudsters, with several penalties related to cryptocurrencies and scam centers.

According to the text of the Anti-Online Fraud Bill, made public on Thursday, Myanmar’s parliament, the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, proposed the law in response to online fraud in the country, which it said challenged its “sovereignty and stability.”

The law stated that anyone who was convicted of committing “digital currency fraud” or online fraud could face from ten years to life in prison, and possibly the death penalty.

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Ethereum analysts said that increasing supply on exchanges and declining ETF demand put ETH at risk of another leg down to $1,700.

Market analysts say Ether (ETH) faces “downside risks” that could trigger another 20% downtrend toward $1,700, new analysis said.

Key takeaways:

Ether’s 40% recovery from multi-month lows below $1,800 was dampened by resistance from the $2,400 level. 

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While Senator Tim Scott touted yesterday’s markup as bipartisan, just two Democratic senators supported the bill, and no Democratic amendments were adopted.

The US Senate Banking Committee passed the crypto framework CLARITY Act yesterday.

Now, the bill, for which the crypto industry has heavily lobbied since it was introduced in 2025, will head to the Senate floor for a broader debate. 

As Cointelegraph reported, over 100 amendments were proposed while lawmakers hashed out the exact language of the bill. These covered a wide range of issues, including ethics, AI sandboxes and stablecoin yields.

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Bitcoin joined stocks in a sell-off over US bond yields as BTC price action eyed its lowest levels for May after giving up gains.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $80,000 at Friday’s Wall Street open as analysis tied risk-asset weakness to US bond markets.

Key points:

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BloFin, a prominent global cryptocurrency exchange, has officially opened registration for its highly anticipated trading competition, the WOW (War of Whales) 2026 Grand Prix.

May 15, 2026, Press release – BloFin, a prominent global cryptocurrency exchange, has officially opened registration for its highly anticipated trading competition, the WOW (War of Whales) 2026 Grand Prix. Returning bigger and bolder than ever, this year's edition boasts an extraordinary total prize pool of up to $5,000,000 USDT, exclusive luxury giveaways, and a groundbreaking new twist — for the first time, human traders will go head-to-head against AI in a battle to claim the title of the ultimate whale.

Under the rallying cry "Squad Up. Beat AI.", WOW 2026 is set to become one of the most dynamic and forward-looking trading events of the year, bringing together crypto traders, elite squads, and algorithmic challengers worldwide.

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Polish lawmakers approve a Ministry of Finance-backed crypto bill to implement the EU MiCA framework in a 241–200 vote after repeated vetoes.

Polish lawmakers approved a government-backed bill Friday to bring the country’s crypto market under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) framework, after President Karol Nawrocki twice vetoed earlier versions.

The vote took place on Friday during the 57th sitting of the Sejm in Warsaw, where lawmakers adopted the legislation in a 241–200 decision, according to official parliamentary records.

Backed by the Ministry of Finance, the approved bill (No. 2529) designates the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) powers to oversee market participants, impose administrative sanctions and temporarily block accounts and transactions.

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Bitcoin’s break above $82,000 and a return of strong institutional demand are prerequisites to confirm a trend change for BTC price.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) Thursday rally to $82,000, buoyed by the Senate Banking Committee's advancement of the CLARITY Act, has stalled amid stiff overhead resistance and weakening ETF demand. Still, analysts said that BTC’s upward momentum may increase if key conditions are met.

Key takeaways:

Data from TradingView showed BTC tested overhead resistance at $82,000, which has rejected the price since last week.

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South Korea's FSC is preparing detailed rules for tokenized securities before a legal framework for blockchain-based securities takes effect in February 2027.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) plans to release detailed tokenized securities rules in July as the country prepares to bring blockchain-based securities under its capital markets framework in 2027.

The measures are expected to include a roadmap for tokenizing stocks, bonds and money market funds, possible changes to over-the-counter trading limits and rules allowing some fractional investment products to pool similar underlying assets, the FSC announced on Friday at the second meeting of its public-private tokenized securities council, which was launched in March to design issuance, trading, infrastructure and settlement rules before the framework takes effect in 2027.

“The goal is to make an announcement in July,” said FSC Vice Chairman Kwon Dae-young, adding that the new rules will serve for the “institutionalization” of tokenized securities.

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Bitcoin traders split between a "massive catch-up" with stocks and the start of its "next downtrend" as BTC price action failed to flip $82,000 to support.

Bitcoin (BTC) risks starting its “next downtrend” as bulls fail to break beyond $82,000, the latest analysis warns.

Key points:

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THORChain paused trading after ZachXBT flagged a suspected $10 million exploit spanning Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain and Base.

Decentralized liquidity protocol THORChain halted trading after blockchain investigator ZachXBT flagged a suspected exploit of more than $10 million.

A THORChain alerts Telegram channel showed all trading and signing halted, with a global node pause extended until block 26191149, or roughly 12 hours and 42 minutes. The halt came shortly after ZachXBT said the protocol had likely been exploited across Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain and Base.

A wallet labeled by Arkham as the THORChain exploiter showed $10.8 million in holdings, transferred across several smaller transactions in the 30 minutes before 10:11 am UTC.

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Fresh US ETF launches and Coinbase’s Hyperliquid deal helped fuel HYPE’s rally this week, but technicals warn of a possible pullback.

HYPE, the native token of decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, jumped more than 23% in the past 24 hours, climbing toward $47 on Friday to hit its highest level since October 2025.

HYPE/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

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OKX is reportedly seeking a 20% stake in South Korean crypto exchange Coinone as foreign and domestic firms compete for market access.

Global crypto exchange OKX is reportedly in talks with Korea Investment & Securities to take a major stake in Coinone, marking the latest shakeup in South Korea’s tightly regulated crypto exchange market.

According to a Friday report by Korean media outlet Yonhap, the two firms are discussing plans to each acquire around 20% of Coinone, mainly through the issuance of new shares rather than the sale of existing stock, a structure that would inject fresh capital while initially leaving management control largely unchanged.

In early April, Korean media reported that Korea Investment & Securities was reviewing a possible acquisition of a stake in Coinone as part of a broader push into digital assets, and that no final decision had been made.

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The purchase makes Hana Financial the fourth-largest shareholder in Dunamu, following several crypto-related deals in the last two months, as it dives deeper into the digital assets sector.

Major South Korean financial conglomerate Hana Financial is buying a stake in Dunamu, the operator of the crypto exchange Upbit, in its latest venture into the digital assets sector, amid a broader trend of traditional financial institutions wading into the digital assets market.

In a regulatory filing on Friday, Hana Financial announced it is buying more than 2.2 million shares in Dunamu, or roughly 6.55% of the company, from investment firm Kakao Investment, worth over 1.003 trillion Korean won ($668 million).

Hana Financial’s 6.55% stake from Kakao makes it the fourth-largest Dunamu shareholder. South Korean outlet The Chosun Daily reported last September that major shareholders of Dunamu include its chairman Song Chi-hyung with 25.5%; Vice Chairman Kim Hyoung-nyon with 13.1%; Kakao with 10.6% and Woori Technology Investment with 7.2%.

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Signal's vice president of strategy said the firm “would rather pull out of the country” than comply with Bill C-22, which could threaten end-to-end encryption.

Privacy messaging app Signal has said it may exit Canada if forced to comply with the country's proposed lawful access bill, which would require companies to build technical surveillance capabilities that some argue could threaten end-to-end encryption.

In an interview with Canadian news outlet The Globe and Mail on Thursday, Signal's vice president of strategy and global affairs, Udbhav Tiwari, argued that the bill could threaten encryption and leave private messaging services vulnerable to potential cyberattacks. 

Bill C-22 is part of a regulatory package introduced in March. It would require electronic service providers to build surveillance capabilities and retain certain user metadata for up to a year as part of a broader push to help law enforcement investigate crimes such as terrorism and child exploitation.

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Robin Singh, CEO and founder of Koinly said the changes will hurt low-income crypto investors most and could encourage more short-term trading.

Australia’s proposed changes to capital gains tax could lead to smaller profits for cryptocurrency traders, especially low-income earners, and could discourage “patient investing,” according to several crypto executives.

The proposed reform, announced by the ruling Labor Party on Tuesday as part of its fiscal year 2027 budget, will bring in a minimum 30% tax on capital gains and scrap the 50% capital gains tax discount on assets held for more than 12 months. 

Robin Singh, CEO and founder of crypto tax platform Koinly, told Cointelegraph the proposed changes are a mixed bag: The new system “theoretically” protects investors from being taxed on purely inflationary gains, but in practice, most crypto investors will pay more tax, with low-income earners hit the hardest.

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LayerZero has come under scrutiny since it was exploited in April, as crypto protocols reevaluate their cross-chain providers and seek safer alternatives.

Crypto exchange Kraken announced Thursday that it had changed its cross-chain provider from LayerZero to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, joining a number of protocols that have made the move following the Kelp DAO exploit in April.

Kraken said it is deprecating its existing cross-chain provider and migrating to Chainlink CCIP as its exclusive cross-chain infrastructure to secure Kraken Wrapped Bitcoin (kBTC) and all future wrapped tokens.

The company added that it chose Chainlink CCIP because it “offers enterprise-grade infrastructure with strict security and risk management requirements.” These include certifications, secure-by-default design, 16 independent nodes and native rate limits.

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Strategy has leaned on Stretch to fund Bitcoin buys over the past 12 months as funding through senior convertible notes and at-the-market equity offerings has tightened.

Strategy’s perpetual preferred stock, STRC, the company’s primary vehicle for funding its Bitcoin purchases in 2026, hit a new daily trading volume record of $1.5 billion on Thursday.

“All-time high volume. $1.53B of liquidity,” chairman Michael Saylor said, referring to Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock. 

Stretch offers investors an 11.5% dividend without requiring the company to dilute common shares. 

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Bullish stock dropped in trading with the crypto exchange’s first-quarter earnings miss, adding to the crypto companies that have underperformed in the quarter.

Shares in the US crypto exchange Bullish fell on Thursday after the company’s first-quarter earnings missed analysts’ top and bottom line expectations.

Bullish’s adjusted revenue for the quarter ended March 31 was $92.8 million, up from $62.4 million a year ago, but below Wall Street expectations of $95.4 million.

The company reported a net loss of $604.9 million, deeper than its $348.6 million loss in the prior-year period. Its adjusted earnings per share were 13 cents, below estimates of 17 cents.

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Gemini credit card revenue surged nearly 300% to $14.7 million in Q1, attributed to significant growth in its user base.

Crypto company Gemini reported a 42% year-on-year increase in revenue in Q1 2026 as it continued its growth from a pure crypto exchange into a financial services company.

Total revenue for the Winklevoss twins' company grew 42% year-on-year to $50.3 million in the first quarter, while transaction revenue remained stable at $24 million, the company reported Thursday.

However, its crypto exchange revenue decreased 27% year-on-year to $17.2 million, “reflecting lower spot trading activity and a moderation in crypto market volumes,” while total trading volume declined to $6.3 billion from $13.5 billion in Q1 2025. 

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Dune co-founder and CEO Fredrik Haga says the company’s staff cuts come as it shifts focus and is “all-in” on AI and institutional interest in crypto.

Crypto data company Dune said it is laying off 25% of its workforce, citing a need to restructure its business to focus on its core products.

“We’re restructuring Dune to sharpen our focus around the core data products thousands of customers across the crypto industry rely on,” Dune co-founder and CEO Fredrik Haga posted to X on Thursday. “That unfortunately means we’ve let 25% of the team go this week.”

Haga did not share the number of staff who were laid off. The company’s LinkedIn shows about 150 employees. Haga said the company remained “well capitalized” and that Dune was “all-in” on artificial intelligence and growing institutional interest in crypto.

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Strive reported a net loss of $265.9 million for Q1, which it attributed to the fall in market value of its Bitcoin holdings, but saw its shares on its move to pay SATA holders dividends every business day starting in June.

Shares in Bitcoin-focused Strive closed 5.8% higher on Thursday after the company said it will become a “daily dividend company” and revealed it eliminated all debt in the first quarter of 2026. 

The Vivek Ramaswamy-founded company said the Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock, ticker SATA, will start paying dividends every business day beginning June 16 at a current annual dividend rate of 13%. The payouts are funded by income generated from the company’s Bitcoin treasury strategy.

Strive CEO Matt Cole said the move will make it the first public company to offer daily dividends, expanding on a similar playbook adopted by Michael Saylor’s Strategy, which has relied on perpetual preferred stock offerings such as Stretch (STRC) to fund its Bitcoin purchases while paying investors every two weeks.

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The news follows growing calls from UK lawmakers and government officials to curb or temporarily ban crypto political donations in the country.

United Kingdom politician Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform Party, purchased a property valued at 1.4 British pounds ($1.8 million) after receiving a $6.7 million “personal gift” from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. 

The real estate deal closed in May 2024, several weeks before Farage announced that he was running for office in the general elections, according to Sky News.

Farage is now facing a UK parliamentary probe over the personal gift, which critics of the politician say should have been declared and registered after he took office.

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The unversity’s endowment disclosed holdings in the Bitwise Solana staking ETF, Grayscale Ethereum staking ETF and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF.

The $9 billion endowment of Ivy League university Dartmouth College reported new investments with exposure to cryptocurrencies, increasing the digital assets in its portfolio since January.

In a Thursday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the trustees of Dartmouth College reported that the university endowment held about $3.3 million worth of the Bitwise Solana staking exchange-traded fund (ETF).

The trustees also disclosed about $3.5 million worth of the Grayscale Ethereum staking ETF and about $7.7 million of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF. 

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Celsius‘ former chief revenue officer received a lenient sentence after his 2023 guilty plea for fraud and conspiracy to commit price manipulation.

A US federal judge has sentenced the former chief revenue officer of defunct cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius to time served after almost three years following his arrest on fraud and conspiracy charges.

In a sentencing hearing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, Judge John Koeltl ordered that Roni Cohen-Pavon be sentenced to time served and one year of supervised release for his role in manipulating the price of Celsius’s CEL token and fraud on the platform.

The former chief revenue officer initially pleaded not guilty to four charges following his arrest in September 2023, changing his plea to guilty about a week later.

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