Brent crude fell 4.4% to $99, widening the gap to the $147 all-time-high threshold. Crude oil new ATH by Dec 31 at 35.5% YES, down from 44% last week.

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Trump's "no dust, no dollars" ultimatum demands Iran surrender uranium before any deal. Iran uranium surrender by Dec 2026 at 51.5% YES, June 2026 at 25.5%.

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US officials say no Iran deal this weekend, language finalization extended by days. US-Iran agreement by May 26 at 16.5% YES; June deal still at 59%.

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Iran accused Washington of retreating on key understandings hours after Trump claimed a deal was "largely negotiated." US-Iran agreement by May 26 collapsed to

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Trump says Iran deal isn't fully negotiated yet, sending near-term odds crashing. US-Iran agreement by May 26 at 18.5% YES, down from 60% yesterday.

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Bitcoin Magazine

The History and Future of Physical Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s digital nature is the source of most of its advantages. Since it is programmable, it unlocks self-custody practices that can make theft and confiscation very difficult. Since it is digital, it can move at the speed of light, allowing movement of value and settlement across the globe in minutes. 

Nevertheless, Bitcoin has at times been criticized for being hard to grasp, literally. Bitcoin, in its natural state, can not be touched, can not be physically held; it can only be imagined and understood. To many people, that’s a significant barrier and one that has inspired quite a few attempts to bring the coin into meat space, but it is not easy. 

Entrepreneurs and artists alike, for well over a decade, have taken on the challenge of making Bitcoin physical in a way that retains its most valuable cash-like properties, and while nobody has entirely solved the problem, significant progress has been made, leaving a wonderful trail of artifacts along the way.

Casascius Coins

(Image by Stacks Bowers Galleries) 

Minted as early as September 6th, 2011, at a bitcoin price of barely $8 dollars, Casascius coins are without a doubt the most iconic physical Bitcoin artifacts in history, with many copycats since. Named after Mike Caldwell’s Bitcointalk forum nym, which appears to be an idiom for “call a spade a spade”, the Casascius coins developed many of the practices that other attempts at physical Bitcoin would innovate on over the years.

One problem with making Bitcoin physical is the handling of private key material. Since Bitcoin is digitally native, it can only live in a cryptographic private-public key pair, a secret that is used to generate a public key, with Bitcoin-compatible cryptography. In the case of the Casascius coin, Caldwell generated the private keys in an airgapped machine and printed them, gluing them to the iconic precious metal coins and then presumably destroyed the copy that could have been kept on his computer. He described the security precautions taken on his website for potential buyers to review.

The printed private key was then covered by specialized tamper-proof stickers, which, if removed, leave an obvious mark in a “honeycomb pattern”. Buyers of the coins could thus tell if the private keys in a Casascius coin had been exposed before purchase from a third-party vendor.

This key management issue is the biggest hazard in the creation of physical bitcoin, and one which, in the case of Caldwell, was dealt with by trusting him not to cheat. He was also very transparent and careful by the standards of the time. To this day, his reputation is strong if not legendary, so that trust was well placed by buyers who profited greatly from the collector’s value of the items, which to this day mark a premium on top of the bitcoin and precious metal values of the piece.

Casascius coins were discontinued in November 2013 after the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a branch of the Treasury Department, informed developer Mike Caldwell that minting physical bitcoins qualified him as a money transmitter business with heavy compliance requirements. The trust involved in generating the private keys may have been a centralizing element that put a target on his back. 

RavenBit Coins

A year after Casascius coins shut down, RavenBit launched, with an attempt at decentralizing the trusted minting problem of physical bitcoins. The RavenBit coins, very similar in form factor to Casascius, did not come with pre-generated keys; instead, they came with the tamper-proof sticker unpealed, such that the user could generate their own keypair, paste it to the coin and slap the tamper-proof sticker on top.

This, in a sense, decentralized the mint and, in theory, that is a breakthrough, but in practice, it just created a thousand trusted mints, without brands, without reputations, using office printers that probably had malware on them. If you got a RavenBit coin from someone, how could you know that the person who bought it and generated the private key in there didn’t keep a copy or take proper precautions?

To date, the RavenBit project has been abandoned, but it probably taught the industry an interesting lesson. To make Bitcoin physical, we need to go higher tech.  

Opendimes

To route around the trusted mint problem — both at the center and at the edges – of physical bitcoins, Coinkite, the hardware wallet maker, designed the Opendime, a tiny computer purpose-built to be a Bitcoin bearer asset. Looking back on what motivated him, NVK, co-founder of CoinKite, told Bitcoin Magazine that, “Bitcoin is digital money. All we can do is an analog backup. Maybe someone cracks doing secp256k1 by hand in the future.” Meaning that currently, you always need some kind of computer to generate valid Bitcoin keys; that computer is the mint.  

Opendimes were designed around this fundamental fact. They have a computer chip that can generate a private-public key pair and store the private key securely, behind a silicon tamper-proof mechanism. 

Users have to feed it a file or some kind of input for entropy during setup, which the chip uses in part to generate the Bitcoin wallet, this grants further assurance that the random generation logic, which is open source, has an even better entropy input in the generation of those bitcoin keys. 

The public key of the generated Opendime wallet can always be seen by connecting the device to a computer, as you would a normal USB stick; its balance is visible on a block explorer.

Users can then send bitcoin to the opendime, but if they want to withdraw BTC from it? They have to physically puncture the device, which unlocks a circuit to access the private key, but renders the device visibly unsealed. 

Opendimes represent a major breakthrough in bearer asset technology and go for about $20 dollars each today, rising in price slightly with inflation from a low of about $13 each in 2016. As a result, they have also achieved iconic status, with artists embedding them in premium Bitcoin art and making them into Bitcoin meme culture. 

While $13 to $20 dollars is very cheap for hardware wallets, and the trusted mint issue is effectively solved by letting users fill the device with their own coins, the price and form factor are still far away from cash. On a price basis alone, $20 dollars is a big ask. If Casascius charged about 20% markup for his coins, then Opendimes should hold at least $100 worth of Bitcoin inside to be worth the hardware, and for use as a currency, which prices out most every day purchases.

Finally, the badass cypherpunk USB stick form factor, while epic, does not visibly tell the user much about its contents, making each device effectively non-fungible with other Opendimes and thus not cash-like. A cheaper and probably more fungible alternative is needed. 

The Satodime

Taking the Opendime concept to a more friendly form factor, the Belgian hardware wallet manufacturer Satochip created an open source credit card-like Bitcoin wallet, which has very similar qualities to the Opendime. It can generate Bitcoin private-public key pairs, and depending on the version, can even sign transactions. Users can interact with it via phone apps that talk to the card via NFC. Other form factors are available as well, like rings and coins that contain the same chip and capabilities. 

The cost for Satochip hardware can be as low as 13 Euros, depending on the bulk purchases, which is cheaper than an Opendime, which gets us closer to everyday cash purchases, but not by that much. The Satochip cards are intended to be high-security hardware wallet devices anyway, not daily-use cash containers. And these powerful and small computer chips are not cheap, hence the price floor above $10 that seems so hard to break through, for now. 

Too Expensive? The Fundamental Limits

So, how cheap does physical Bitcoin hardware need to be to make business sense, if it can make sense at all? 

According to the Federal Reserve, it costs anywhere from 4.1 cents to 11.3 cents to produce U.S. dollars. The smaller the value, the more expensive it is, with $1 bills incurring a 4.1% loss in production costs. 

That means that to justify a 20,000 Satoshis bill — roughly $16 dollars at today’s prices — the hardware needs to cost well under a dollar. Most computer chips powerful enough to do Bitcoin cryptography are above that price target, but there is one chip that demonstrates what is possible, the NXP’s NTAG X DNA chip.

Available in sticker antenna form factor, a couple of millimeters thin, this NXP chip can handle a variety of cryptographic primitives, such as ECDSA and ECC. It can create secrets, sign them and even encrypt a message. However, while powerful, it does not include the Bitcoin cryptography curve, secp256k1, which means it can’t do Bitcoin things natively. 

Nevertheless, this 2025 generation NTAG can be purchased for roughly $3, if you can find any supply, demonstrating how low the price can go on a chip capable of performing cryptographic functions.

Sadly, the cash-like form factor most of the world is used to, with flexible bills that people can fold into their pocket, can be very damaging to computer chips, a fact that NVK says he learned from experience, as they experimented with Bitcoin bearer assets hardware. 

The closest anyone may have come to the cash-like format is the OfflineCash company, with a beautiful, collection-worthy set of Bitcoin-denominated bills that have an NTAG-style NFC chip, which stores a user-generated key, while the company generates a second key on their servers, to create a 2 of 2 multisignature wallet. The Server key is on a time lock, degrading the multisig address to a 1 of 1 wallet, from which the user can eventually withdraw the bitcoin. This tries to get around the trusted mint issue, but ends up just replicating the many mints problem. Though their cash-like form factor is undeniably gorgeous.

The costs of producing a Bitcoin native NTAG can easily hit a few million dollars, and implementing Bitcoin’s cryptography in this way can be fraught with errors if manufacturers are not experts on the topic. It would also need to be fully open source to guarantee that there are no backdoors. 

There’s one more fundamental problem with physical Bitcoin bearer assets. Even if you could get a cheap enough chip in a cash-like format, you would always need online access to verify its authenticity —that the cash is loaded with real bitcoin— since the asset is unavoidably digital. The problem could be solved by simply trusting an issuing mint of Bitcoin-denominated cash instruments, and believing in the face value of a redeemable bill, but that would miss the ideal of self-custodied, trusted cash. Though it probably would work in a friendly jurisdiction. 

So, while it would be cool to have physical Bitcoin bills like those created by OfflineCash Company with a bearer asset secure chip and not trusted mint risk, we are still a ways away. And it might actually be overkill today, since no one would have bitcoin-denominated change anyway, so you’d end up getting fiat cash back, but maybe one day, post-hyperbitcoinization. NVK does believe there’s a superior solution to the cash format, at least for the foreseeable future, which is why Coinkite created the Tapsigner. 

The Tapsigner

Built on the Coinkite Bitcoin NFC chip, a technology similar to the X DNA NTAG by NXP, though perhaps more powerful and thus more expensive, the Tapsigner comes in the familiar debit card form factor, with a secure element chip, NFC tap to pay and cool designs to choose from. Inside the chip, though, is a fully capable Bitcoin wallet, with scep256k1 cryptographic capabilities, letting it create Bitcoin keys, store the secret securely enough and sign transactions internally, to be broadcast by an accompanying phone, which serves as a critical visual aid for the user to verify transactions.

The Tapsigner can function as a bearer asset, but perhaps even better as a refillable hardware wallet that can spend specific amounts of bitcoin, like any credit card, resolving the issue of change, and enabling tap to pay to wallets that support the already popular feature.

With cards like the Tapsigner, which cost about $20 bucks, the problem of bitcoin-denominated payments returns to good old-fashioned retail adoption, and integration with major business accounting and payments software, which Cashapp and Square are blowing wide open. 

This post The History and Future of Physical Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Bitcoin Magazine

SEC Delaying Plan to Allow Crypto Versions of US Stocks: Report

The Securities and Exchange Commission has pumped the brakes on its highly anticipated “innovation exemption” for tokenized stocks, pushing back the release of the framework as it weighs input from traditional stock exchanges and other market participants wary of the plan’s sweeping implications, according to Bloomberg reporting.

The SEC, under Chair Paul Atkins, was preparing to release the so-called innovation exemption as soon as this week.

The framework would create a new regulatory pathway allowing digital tokens linked to publicly traded company shares to trade on decentralized crypto platforms — 24 hours a day, seven days a week — bypassing the constraints of traditional stock exchanges. 

The exemption is part of Atkins’ broader “Project Crypto” initiative, which aims to relax existing crypto restrictions in line with the Trump administration’s pro-crypto agenda.

The SEC was reportedly leaning toward permitting third-party tokens — digital representations of stocks like Apple, Nvidia, or Tesla — to be issued and traded without the consent of the underlying public companies. 

This means outside actors, not the issuers themselves, could create blockchain-based wrappers tracking a company’s share price and list them on decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.

These tokens may not carry traditional shareholder rights like voting or dividends, though the SEC is reportedly considering requiring platforms to provide those rights or risk delisting.

Why the SEC is delaying

The timing of the exemption’s release has been pushed back as the agency weighs feedback from stock-exchange officials and other market participants who met with SEC staff in recent days. 

The World Federation of Exchanges — whose members include Nasdaq, Cboe, and CME Group — previously warned the SEC in a November 2025 letter that such exemptions could “dilute” existing investor protections and “distort” competition by giving crypto exchanges a regulatory shortcut unavailable to traditional markets. 

The group cautioned that granting legitimacy to tokenized stocks before full compliance implementation would “undoubtedly have negative — potentially acute — consequences” for U.S. markets.

The tokenization debate is unfolding against a backdrop of competing visions for the future of U.S. equity markets. Nasdaq, which received SEC approval in March 2026 for its own tokenized securities proposal, is pursuing a different model: one that keeps all trades on-exchange with full shareholder rights intact, built on the DTCC’s enterprise blockchain. 

The innovation exemption, by contrast, would sanction a parallel, crypto-native market running alongside the existing system — potentially fragmenting liquidity across dozens of third-party token issuers for the same underlying stock.

This post SEC Delaying Plan to Allow Crypto Versions of US Stocks: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

A Freshman Congressman from Nashville Wants to Make the National Bitcoin Reserve Permanent

When Rep. Matt Van Epps helped lead the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 this week, he framed the bill not as an abstract national security measure — but as a direct extension of what he sees happening in his own backyard.

“Nashville is one of the nation’s leading Bitcoin hubs,” Van Epps said in a statement to Bitcoin Magazine, pointing to Bitcoin Park, the city’s growing digital asset community, and the annual Bitcoin conference, set to return to Nashville in 2027. 

“Nashville is quickly emerging as one of the nation’s leading Bitcoin hubs, with a growing digital asset community, institutions like Bitcoin Park, and the annual Bitcoin conference, which is scheduled to come back to Nashville in 2027,” Van Epps said. “Supporting this bill means supporting the financial innovation taking place in my district.” 

For the freshman congressman from Tennessee’s 7th District — a West Point graduate and combat helicopter pilot who won his seat in a December 2025 special election — this is personal. The bill is, in his telling, a statement about what his district already represents.

Van Epps co-led the legislation alongside Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK), who introduced the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026, known as ARMA. The bill would codify President Trump’s March 2025 executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve — giving it the force of statute rather than leaving it to the discretion of future administrations. 

The reserve would sit inside the U.S. Department of the Treasury and hold BTC seized through federal law enforcement forfeitures and civil penalties.

Van Epps’ central argument for the legislation is fiscal. “With a national debt of $39 trillion, this is an essential piece of legislation,” he said. Under ARMA, any future sale of Bitcoin from the reserve would be permitted for only one purpose: reducing the national debt. No transfers to other government programs, no discretionary spending — just debt reduction. The reserve, he stressed, “would be established without cost to American taxpayers”.

The bill also draws a firm line on property rights. Van Epps and Begich included language affirming that the federal government cannot interfere with an individual’s right to own, transfer, or self-custody digital assets — a provision that reflects the libertarian undertow running through much of the pro-Bitcoin caucus in Congress.

Van Epps: Bitcoin can fix some problems in the U.S. 

For Van Epps, the argument goes beyond portfolio management. He described the reserve as something with the potential to “solve major problems” for the country, with the national debt chief among them. Bitcoin’s fixed supply and its appreciation over time, in his view, give the United States a tool that gold certificates and traditional reserves cannot match.

The bill requires BTC in the reserve to be held for a minimum of 20 years — a provision designed to take the asset out of short-term political calculations and treat it as a generational balance sheet decision. 

Quarterly public Proof of Reserve reports and independent third-party audits would accompany the reserve, adding a layer of statutory transparency that the existing executive order lacks.

Eighteen original co-sponsors signed on, stretching across nine states. The Senate remains the harder terrain — competing crypto legislation is moving through committee there, and the path to 60 votes is unclear. 

This post A Freshman Congressman from Nashville Wants to Make the National Bitcoin Reserve Permanent first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Trump Media (DJT) Moves to Sell Bitcoin as Losses Reach $455 Million

Trump Media & Technology Group (Nasdaq: DJT), the parent company of the Truth Social platform, has transferred another 2,650 Bitcoin worth approximately $205 million to the exchange Crypto.com, a move widely interpreted as preparation for a potential sale of the company’s digital asset holdings.

The transfer, confirmed by on-chain data tracked by blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain, occurred in two transactions between roughly 1:22 a.m. and 2:22 a.m. GMT on May 22, originating from wallets labeled as Trump Media accounts by Arkham Intelligence.

The company has yet to issue any official statement confirming or denying the intent behind the move.

Trump Media originally purchased 11,542 BTC for approximately $1.37 billion at an average acquisition price of $118,522 per coin. 

With Bitcoin trading around $77,000 to $77,300 at the time of the transfer — well below that cost basis — the company is now estimated to be sitting on roughly $455 million in unrealized losses on its cryptocurrency holdings. Following the transaction, Trump Media’s visible on-chain holdings stand at an estimated 6,889 to 6,892 BTC, valued at approximately $533 million at current prices.

This is not the first time the company has moved Bitcoin off its books. 

Four months ago, Trump Media shifted 2,000 BTC valued at roughly $175 million — at the time, with Bitcoin trading near $87,378 — in what the company later characterized as a collateral movement.

Trump bitcoin ETF withdrawal

The latest crypto transfer comes just days after Trump Media withdrew its applications for a spot Bitcoin ETF and a combined Bitcoin-Ethereum ETF from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 20. 

The company’s fund sponsor, Yorkville America, filed for withdrawal, citing a decision not to pursue the public offering “at this time.” 

ETF analysts noted that the decision appeared driven less by regulatory headwinds and more by competition from established players like BlackRock and Morgan Stanley, which now dominate what has become a $57 billion Bitcoin ETF market.

The Bitcoin strategy has coincided with a dramatic deterioration in Trump Media’s financials. In its first-quarter 2026 earnings report, the company posted a net loss of $405.9 million on just $871,200 in revenue — a staggering widening from a $31.7 million loss during the same period a year earlier. The bulk of those losses, approximately $368.7 million, stemmed from non-cash unrealized losses on digital assets and equity securities.

DJT shares have fallen roughly 60% over the past 12 months and were trading around $7.95 to $8.15 on Thursday and Friday. 

The company, which was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Sarasota, Florida, has struggled to build meaningful advertising revenue even as it has aggressively bet on crypto as a core pillar of its financial strategy.

This post Trump Media (DJT) Moves to Sell Bitcoin as Losses Reach $455 Million first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day, The 16th Anniversary of Laszlo Hanyecz Paying 10,000 BTC For Two Papa John’s Pies

Sixteen years ago today, a Florida programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two large Papa John’s pizzas. At the time, those coins were worth roughly $41. On this Pizza Day, they are worth $777.87 million — down $328 million from last year’s anniversary price. 

Bitcoin Pizza Day, observed each May 22, marks the first commercial transaction using Bitcoin — the moment a digital currency stopped being a theoretical experiment and became a medium of exchange for real goods.

On May 18, 2010, Hanyecz posted on the BitcoinTalk forum with a straightforward offer: 10,000 BTC to anyone willing to order him two pizzas. Some forum users were skeptical — one pointed out he could sell the coins for $41 in cash. 

Hanyecz’s reply was simple: “I just think it would be interesting if I could say that I paid for a pizza in Bitcoins”. Four days later, a then-19-year-old forum user named Jeremy Sturdivant accepted, ordered the pies from Papa John’s, and collected 10,000 BTC via manual transfer. Bitcoin had its first exchange rate against a consumer good.

The $328 million bitcoin haircut

Every May 22, that fixed 10,000 BTC gets revalued at the day’s spot price — the cleanest annual benchmark crypto has. In 2024, the stack was worth $674 million. In 2025, it hit a record $1.106 billion, with Bitcoin trading at $110,568 on that day’s all-time high. Today, with Bitcoin near $77,300, the stack sits at $777.87 million — down 29.7% from last year.

The decline began on October 6, 2025, when Bitcoin reached a fresh all-time high of $126,000. Four days later, President Donald Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese imports and export controls on critical U.S. software. 

Within hours, total crypto market capitalization fell nearly $200 billion in a single session, Bitcoin dropped from $122,000 to $107,000, and approximately $19 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated — the largest single-day liquidation event in crypto history.

The worst start since 2018

Q1 2026 became Bitcoin’s third-worst opening quarter on record, closing down 23.2%, with spot Bitcoin ETFs bleeding $4.5 billion in outflows across the first eight weeks of the year. Iran tensions compounded the pressure, as U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on February 28 triggered a sharp risk-off rotation, trapping Bitcoin between $60,000 and $75,000 for much of March. 

Q2 has brought partial recovery — Bitcoin has climbed roughly 14% over the quarter — but the broader crypto market cap sits at $2.65 trillion today, down from $2.9 trillion just one week ago.

This post Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day, The 16th Anniversary of Laszlo Hanyecz Paying 10,000 BTC For Two Papa John’s Pies first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Given how far the crypto market has come in terms of regulation, the next big fight won't be about Bitcoin, stablecoins, or even memecoins.

It's going to be about whether a crypto exchange can list tokenized stocks that track Tesla, Apple, or Nvidia without those companies ever agreeing to it, and whether the retail investors buying those tokens understand that they're not shareholders in any meaningful legal sense.

Bloomberg Law reported on May 18 that the SEC is preparing an “innovation exemption” for tokenized stocks that could let crypto-native platforms offer digital versions of publicly traded securities under lighter regulatory requirements.

The plan, expected in the next week, sits inside a larger initiative the agency calls Project Crypto. The SEC approved Nasdaq's rules for tokenized equities in March 2026, followed by a similar approval for the New York Stock Exchange in April, with both exchanges now allowing tokenized versions of select equities and ETFs to trade alongside traditional shares using the Depository Trust Company's tokenization pilot.

The exemption then takes that several steps further: where those approvals kept tokenized trading inside existing market structure, the new exemption is designed to permit broader on-chain trading by crypto-native venues and some decentralized finance protocols during a limited experimental period.

DefiLlama data puts the on-chain RWA market at close to $30 billion, which represents just 0.02% of global equity value against SIFMA's 2024 global equity market capitalization of $126.7 trillion. The tokenized stock segment is minuscule, and the exemption could determine whether it grows into a regulated extension of US equities or stays a crypto side market.

What are tokenized stocks, and why are they so important now?

The concept of tokenized stocks sounds simple until you get into how these instruments are actually built.

A normal stock is a legal ownership claim in a company, recorded in a custody system and governed by federal securities laws that have been around for decades. A tokenized stock is a blockchain-based instrument connected to that underlying share, though “connected” can mean very different things depending on who's doing the issuing.

Tokenized equities fall into two structural buckets: full security tokens, where the token represents a legal claim on the underlying security held by a regulated custodian, and synthetic or derivative tokens, which track the price of a stock or ETF via derivatives but don't confer legal ownership or governance rights.

Kraken's xStocks platform falls into the first category. xStocks now lists 100 fully backed, 1:1 tokenized US stocks and ETFs, and has surpassed $25 billion in total transaction volume since launching in June 2025, all of it currently available only outside the United States. A synthetic tracker, on the other hand, gives the buyer price exposure without any equity claim sitting behind it. The SEC's January 2026 joint staff statement made sure to draw this line explicitly, separating issuer-sponsored tokenized securities, which carry real equity, from third-party synthetic products that provide price exposure to a stock without granting any equity or voting power.

What makes the SEC's move so surprising is that it's now leaning toward allowing the trading of tokens that don't have the backing or consent of the public companies whose shares they track, and those tokens would be tradeable on decentralized crypto platforms without carrying the same benefits as conventional stocks, such as voting rights or dividends.

Under the proposal, platforms that fail to provide those benefits would lose the right to list the tokens. But that condition still leaves room for a product that looks and trades like a stock while offering a much different legal standing to the person holding it.

In 2025, Coinbase sought the SEC's approval to offer tokenized equities. If approved, it would put it in direct competition with retail brokerages and push it to the forefront of the US stock market.

Robinhood has already launched EU stock tokens and is building a layer-2 blockchain for RWA tokenization. Dinari got its broker-dealer license in June last year to offer blockchain-based shares to US investors. All three companies have been waiting for the regulatory permission that an innovation exemption could finally provide.

At the same time, incumbent institutions are working on their own versions of tokenization. The DTCC, which processes and safeguards most of the US securities market, plans to begin limited production trades of tokenized assets in July, ahead of a bigger launch in October. The system will allow tokenized versions of stocks and ETFs backed by assets the DTCC already holds. 

As CryptoSlate reported in April, if the SEC adopts systems like those used by incumbents such as Citadel Securities, tokenized stocks will certainly be a better infrastructure built around familiar gatekeepers. If the exemption leans more towards open-chain distribution, a huge part of that value will flow toward crypto-native exchanges and DeFi protocols instead.

But not everyone is happy about these developments. We've heard a lot of very concrete and specific complaints coming from regulators and private companies in the space. In December, SIFMA warned that a lack of standard requirements like interconnectivity and price transparency for tokenized assets could make markets “fragment and become disorderly.”

Brett Redfearn, the president of Securitize and a former director of the SEC's own trading and markets division, saw this as a problem of consent.

“If third parties can tokenize Apple or amazon without the issuer at the table, there's no theoretical limit on how many wrappers of the same company can exist at once. This could create a whole new level of market fragmentation and could leave investors less certain what their shares are actually worth at any moment.”

Citadel Securities made similar arguments in its own December letter, calling for structured rulemaking rather than the broad exemptions it said could weaken KYC and AML protections.

What do you actually own?

Given all of that pushback, the SEC's willingness to move forward still has a coherent policy rationale behind it.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins, who launched Project Crypto after taking over the agency in April 2025, has argued consistently that the US risks pushing innovation offshore if it doesn't create domestic regulatory pathways for tokenized securities. His stated view at ETHDenver in February was that “market participants should be able to engage with decentralized applications on public, permissionless blockchains if they desire.” The exemption would not eliminate existing legal obligations under federal securities law, but could ease certain registration requirements for participating platforms while the pilot runs. The SEC also plans to include various guardrails, such as exposure limits, disclosure requirements, and other conditions tied to the program's temporary nature.

Commissioner Hester Peirce, who led the push for the exemption from within the agency, was measured about its scope when speaking at ETHDenver in February.

“It would be an important step toward facilitating the integration of tokenized securities into our existing financial system, but it would not change the entire financial system overnight,” Peirce said.

Some SEC officials don't support the decision to allow the trading of third-party tokenized securities at all, according to people familiar with the agency.

There are genuine benefits of a well-designed framework. Tokenized stocks can settle near-instantly, trade around the clock, enable fractional access, and become composable with DeFi lending and collateral systems in ways that conventional shares can't.

As CryptoSlate covered this week, the RWA market is bifurcating into two lanes: one for ownership-first, permissioned rails, and another for composability-first designs that combine compliant issuance with secondary-market utility. Those two paths lead to very different products for the person at the end of the chain.

The central question the exemption needs to answer, and the one any retail investor should be asking before buying, is what does holding this token actually give you?

If it's a real equity claim, then tokenized stocks are an infrastructure upgrade for the stock market. If it's a price-tracking instrument without shareholder rights, then the SEC may be opening the door to a parallel market where the label is familiar, but the legal protections behind it are different.

A token that tracks Nvidia's stock price at 2 AM on a Saturday isn't always the same thing as owning Nvidia, and how clearly that distinction gets communicated (by the framework itself, by the platforms building on it, and by the disclosures investors actually read) will determine whether this experiment works or becomes the next financial product people regret buying without reading the fine print.

The post SEC’s tokenized stock plan could force crypto exchanges to answer what investors really own appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Ethereum’s market sentiment has deteriorated significantly as the blockchain network's native ETH token moves through a medium-term bear phase.

Data from blockchain analytics platform Santiment shows that while ETH-related discussions increased in frequency throughout May, the tone of that commentary has shifted toward frustration, disappointment, and concern about deeper downside potential.

Analysts at the firm noted that this shift in sentiment reflects a combination of market pressures building simultaneously, including weak spot price action, persistent exchange-traded fund (ETF) outflows, high-profile departures from the Ethereum Foundation, public criticism from longtime ecosystem supporters, and stronger price momentum across competing layer-1 networks like Hyperliquid, Zcash, and Solana.

Broader market data from CryptoQuant reinforces this picture of institutional deceleration. The firm’s spot market and fundamental indicators point to severe structural weakness as ETH prices drop toward the critical $2,000 support level.

This spot weakness is most apparent in Ethereum's performance relative to the broader market. The ETH/BTC ratio recently fell to roughly 0.02758, a 10-month low, signaling that Ethereum has lagged behind Bitcoin amid current weak market conditions.

This has created a split-market identity in which spot investors are steadily reducing exposure, market liquidity has thinned, and institutional buying pressure has largely vanished from major trading desks.

Spot selling leaves Ethereum without a durable bid

Indeed, CryptoQuant’s fund-tracking data highlights the extent of the contraction in the institutional bid over the last two quarters.

According to the firm, total fund holdings, which peaked above 7 million ETH in October 2025, have steadily declined to a range around 5.5 million ETH.

This persistent unwinding indicates that large-scale allocators have systematically reduced their core exposure throughout the current multi-month drawdown.

Notably, the regulated ETF market has reinforced this structural pressure. Total assets under management across Ethereum ETFs now stand near $12.14 billion, marking a 23% decline from their January peak.

Data from SoSoValue shows that May proved particularly challenging, with two consecutive weeks of net outflows totaling approximately $470 million, representing one of the largest episodes of concentrated capital flight of the year.

This institutional withdrawal is further illustrated by the Coinbase Premium Index, which tracks the price disparity between Coinbase Pro and major offshore platforms.

The index remained negative throughout May, signaling an absence of spot demand from US institutional buyers.

At the same time, ETH liquidity has thinned alongside this reduction in fund reserves.

According to CryptoQuant, daily fund trading volume has trended downward since February 2026, dropping well below its trailing 1-year moving average to a recent range of $17 million to $42 million.

This volume compression points to a thinner spot market where dip-buying appetite has faded, leaving the asset highly exposed to volatility spikes during periods of negative news.

ETH options traders hedge as leveraged longs hold on

Beneath the spot market liquidation, derivatives data reveal an ongoing debate over whether ETH is breaking into a structural decline or forming a base for a leveraged rebound.

This disconnect has left the derivatives market divided, with professional traders aggressively hedging downside risk even as speculative perpetual futures traders maintain long positioning.

Data from Block Scholes reveals that ETH's 25-delta risk reversal skew over a seven-day horizon has traded near-7%, indicating that options market participants are paying a premium for downside put protection.

This defensive posture is supported by clearing data from the Deribit exchange, where open interest for put options targeting the $2,100 and $2,000 strike prices has concentrated past $380 million, placing those technical areas at the center of short-term institutional positioning.

Market Note: This concentrated options activity reflects a market preparing for extended weakness. Having already slipped below the $2,100 support shelf, Block Scholes’ risk appetite indexes show slowing momentum, leaving the asset dependent on defensive hedging in the absence of spot accumulation.

Concurrently, the perpetual futures market sends a more complicated signal. CryptoQuant data shows that Ethereum’s derivatives funding rate has settled firmly in positive territory, reaching 0.0082 on May 21, 2026.

This positive rate indicates that speculative long bias has not fully collapsed despite declines in market capitalization, fund holdings, and spot trading volume.

The resulting split identity creates a delicate technical backdrop: while options traders position for a breakdown, perpetual futures traders continue to hold leveraged long exposure.

This structural disconnect can fuel rapid short-squeezes if spot demand unexpectedly returns, but it significantly elevates the risk of cascading liquidations if the spot price breaches the heavy open interest concentrated at the $2,000 floor.

Ethereum Foundation exits collide with a weaker ETH value thesis

Ethereum's financial underperformance has coincided with an acceleration of senior personnel departures from the Ethereum Foundation (EF), the Swiss non-profit entity that stewards the blockchain's core development.

The internal churn intensified following the formal resignations of research veterans Carl Beek and Julian Ma. Beek had spent seven years focused on Beacon Chain design, while Ma authored the network's Forwarding Oversight Committee for Incentivized Labs (FOCIL) framework.

Their departures bring the total number of senior exits or step-backs to at least nine since February, with five landing in May alone.

The list includes former co-Executive Director Tomasz Stańczak, board co-steward Josh Stark, Protocol Guild contributor Trent Van Epps, and protocol cluster leads Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko.

Additionally, senior researcher Alex Stokes recently commenced a three-month sabbatical, further thinning the organization’s visible technical leadership during a period of acute market stress.

Ecosystem analysts trace this administrative migration back to the publication of the foundation’s “Mandate” document in mid-March.

The 38-page framework codified the foundation's dedication to “CROPS” principles: censorship resistance, open-source deployment, privacy, and base-layer security.

Crucially, the document framed the foundation as an ecosystem steward rather than a corporate enterprise, explicitly stating that its purpose is to protect network neutrality, not to maximize token price, optimize investor returns, or aggressively coordinate commercial expansion.

This neutrality-first posture has become increasingly difficult for parts of the market to accept as alternative networks capture speculative market share.

Tommy Shaughnessy, co-founder of Delphi Ventures, noted that the departures are more serious than they appear, adding that the exit of reform-minded personnel leaves fewer internal voices to challenge the foundation’s structural direction.

Reform calls test Ethereum’s neutrality-first model

The perceived lack of commercial execution by the foundation has prompted several prominent former insiders to call for structural governance reforms.

Dankrad Feist, a notable researcher who left the foundation last year to join the Stripe-backed layer-1 network Tempo, publicly advocated creating an entirely separate entity to safeguard the network's economic relevance.

Feist proposed establishing an independent, alternative organization backed by at least $1 billion in capital, funded in part by network staking revenues. This proposed body would be directly accountable to token holders and expressly tasked with driving ETH's financial adoption and market value.

Feist highlighted that the current foundation controls less than 0.1% of the total circulating ETH supply and receives no direct inflows from base-layer staking yields or network transaction fees.

According to him, this leaves the ecosystem without an agile institution incentivized to promote the asset in capital markets.

Bankless co-founder Ryan Sean Adams supported this view, stating that Ethereum’s future cannot depend solely on the foundation.

Adams argued that the ecosystem requires competitive, well-capitalized institutions dedicated to capital efficiency, aggressive communication, and commercial execution. These are roles the foundation was never structurally designed to fulfill.

The consensus among these reform proposals is not to replace the foundation, but to establish a dual-institution model: one to protect base-layer neutrality and public goods, and another to promote the asset and compete for institutional capital.

This push for reform has drawn a direct response from Ethereum bulls, who argue that the market is overreacting to short-term price action and natural organizational transitions.

ETH investor member Ryan Berckmans characterized the talent turnover as a healthy handoff to a younger generation of developers.

Berckmans argued that Ethereum has successfully navigated previous periods of regulatory pressure and leadership transitions while still delivering major upgrades like the Merge, blob transactions, and a dominant position in on-chain application capital.

He noted that the expanding deployment of stablecoins and tokenized assets by global corporations continues to support the network's long-term trajectory.

This perspective is shared by substantial institutional holders.

Thomas Lee, chairman of BitMine, dismissed the current market anxiety as typical cyclical capitulation. BitMIne is the largest publicly traded corporate holder of ETH, with a portfolio of 5.2 million ETH and over $10 billion actively staked tokens.

Lee asserted that blockchain infrastructure represents the foundational settlement highway for agentic artificial intelligence commerce and institutional finance, positions where Ethereum maintains a distinct structural advantage due to its established security record, deep liquidity, and institutional familiarity.

How Ethereum can recover from the current FUD

Market observers have noted that Ethereum’s near-term trajectory now hinges on whether its technical roadmap and commercial moats translate into a coherent investment thesis for ETH.

Strategic analysis from Galaxy Digital indicates that the network must execute a disciplined operational agenda to reverse ongoing capital flight.

According to Galaxy’s recovery framework, the immediate focus must center on shipping the Glamsterdam upgrade, keeping the subsequent Hegotá deployment on track, clarifying administrative responsibilities within the foundation, and concentrating resources on core commercial verticals.

These key areas include high-value decentralized finance, institutional asset issuance, tokenized RWAs, stablecoin settlement, and privacy-preserving financial infrastructure. These are sectors where Ethereum’s credible neutrality and security record serve as a commercial necessity rather than an abstract principle.

Galaxy also pointed to the need for Ethereum to move faster on narratives likely to define the next cycle, including layer-1 scaling, on-chain privacy, post-quantum security, and AI-native economic infrastructure.

While much of this technical architecture is documented in the open-source “Strawmap” development framework, the more complex challenge remains the coordination among commercial and institutional actors.

This coordination gap sits at the center of Ethereum’s current market friction.

The foundation’s Mandate provides a clear statement of base-layer engineering principles, but it does not provide capital markets with a simple answer on value accrual, nor does it create an entity designed to defend the asset against aggressive layer-1 competitors.

Consequently, the current drawdown has evolved into more than a simple price correction; it is an active test of whether a decentralized structure can distribute commercial responsibility across new institutions without losing operational coherence.

If the ecosystem can turn its current administrative churn into clearly defined roles and convert its technical roadmap into a concise asset case, this period of underperformance could serve as a necessary governance reset.

However, if it cannot, the market may continue to treat weak spot demand, senior departures, and the application-layer economic shift as evidence that Ethereum’s network strength no longer guarantees protection of the underlying token's value.

The post Ethereum’s selloff tests whether its neutrality-first model can defend ETH’s value amid Foundation ‘brain drain’ appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The Federal Reserve's April meeting minutes, released Wednesday, failed to bring the good news Bitcoin traders had been hoping for most of the year. The majority of policymakers said some degree of policy tightening would likely become appropriate if inflation stayed persistently above the central bank's 2% target, the opposite of the rate cuts markets had been counting on.

The committee held its benchmark rate steady at 3.50% to 3.75%, but four members dissented, the most divided Fed meeting since 1992, and a growing bloc wanted to strip the statement of any language suggesting cuts were on the way.

At the beginning of the year, futures traders were pricing two or more rate cuts before year-end and treating another hike as something close to impossible. By May 20, CME FedWatch was showing a 54.1% probability of a rate hike by December, with only 1.5% odds assigned to any easing. That's a full reversal in the expected direction of monetary policy, and for Bitcoin, those two things have very different consequences.

Bitcoin trades on Fed liquidity before it trades on ideology

Bitcoin's sensitivity to Fed policy comes down to one thing: liquidity.

When the Fed is expected to cut rates, money gets cheaper, yields fall, the dollar softens, and investors are more willing to hold risky, volatile assets (including Bitcoin). When the Fed is expected to hike, the opposite happens across all those channels at once. Bitcoin price is now almost entirely dependent on the risk appetite and liquidity conditions that Fed policy shapes. That's why the direction of rate expectations can move BTC even when the Fed hasn't actually done anything yet.

This shift was largely driven by the situation in Iran. The conflict pushed energy prices sharply higher, sending most inflation measures above 3%, and policymakers who had been inclined to look through supply-side shocks found themselves less willing to do so as the conflict extended.

April CPI came in at 3.8%, well above the Fed's 2% target. Several participants in the April meeting wanted to remove the easing-bias language from the official statement. That might sound like a technical detail, but markets always see it as a meaningful signal about where policy is heading.

Incoming Chair Kevin Warsh now takes over from Jerome Powell with a committee that's already repositioning around a more hawkish center of gravity. When markets price a more aggressive Fed, the dollar tends to strengthen because higher rates in the US make dollar-denominated assets more attractive relative to other currencies.

A stronger dollar tightens financial conditions globally and puts pressure on assets priced in dollars, which includes Bitcoin. The 10-year Treasury yield hit 4.54% on May 15, a 12-month high, making a non-yielding asset like Bitcoin a harder sell to institutional allocators who can earn close to 5% on government bonds with essentially no volatility.

The size of the ETF market only exacerbates this. Before spot Bitcoin ETFs, BTC's macro sensitivity was somewhat buffered by crypto-native infrastructure. But now Bitcoin trades inside the same brokerage accounts as equities and bond funds, and institutional allocators can reduce exposure with the same tools they'd use to trim any other risk position. The week of May 15, Iranian escalation pushed oil above $110, drove Treasury yields to cycle highs, lifted Fed hike odds, and triggered nearly $1 billion in Bitcoin ETF outflows, snapping a six-week inflow streak. Coinbase analysts noted that a sustained expansion in Bitcoin's price range would likely require either a clear improvement in systemic liquidity or a definitive downward trend in inflation. The minutes confirmed that neither is visible right now.

The policy win ran into a macro wall

A delayed rate cut and a potential rate hike are easy to conflate, but they describe completely different environments. A delayed cut still means the next major Fed move eventually loosens liquidity. Markets can usually price through that, and Bitcoin had found a rough equilibrium in the $76,000 to $83,000 range. A market pricing a real probability of hikes means the next big surprise could come from the tightening side, which is a harder setup for any risk asset to trade against.

The historical precedent most relevant here is the 2022 hiking cycle: as the Fed moved its benchmark rate from near zero to above 5%, and Bitcoin fell from roughly $69,000 to $15,500. The starting conditions are different now, and that specific trajectory isn't the base case. A 25 basis-point hike is already partly priced in, so the move itself wouldn't land as that big of a shock.

The more dangerous scenario is a sustained hawkish posture, a dot plot signaling rates elevated through 2027, or an inflation sequence that keeps giving policymakers reasons to delay any pivot.

What makes this year particularly complicated is that Bitcoin had developed a credible bull case around this year's regulatory progress: a friendlier SEC stance, advancing stablecoin legislation, and improving institutional infrastructure.

The issue, as CryptoSlate's macro coverage has noted throughout the year, is that you can have regulatory tailwinds and liquidity headwinds at the same time, and in the short-term, liquidity tends to win.

Bitcoin can ride the Washington narrative and still lose the rates trade. It was sitting around $77,300 on May 20, roughly 38.7% below its October 2025 ATH. The Fed minutes didn't deliver an actual hike to damage Bitcoin's setup. They just confirmed that the next serious policy surprise is more likely to come from the hawkish side than the dovish one.

The rate-cut trade that defined Bitcoin's macro outlook at the beginning of the year has been replaced, for now, by something much harder to build a rally around.

The post Fed minutes turn Bitcoin’s rate-cut trade into a hike-risk problem appeared first on CryptoSlate.

BitMine bought an additional 60,000 ETH worth about $126 million as Ethereum traded near $2,000, extending one of the largest corporate accumulation strategies tied to the second-largest digital asset.

The purchase came just as the firm was named to the preliminary list for the Russell 1000 Index, positioning the crypto holder to capture a slice of the $12.2 trillion in assets benchmarked against Russell US Indexes.

Why BitMine is adding to its Ethereum holdings during current selloff

On May 23, blockchain analyst EmberCN reported BitMine's latest ETH purchase was executed through BitGo and Kraken.

The purchase lifted BitMine’s Ethereum holdings to more than 5.2 million ETH, valued at roughly $11.1 billion at current market prices. The company has continued to accumulate even as ETH trades near $2,000, which is about 60% below its August 2025 record high of $4,953.

Notably, this latest purchase occurs about two weeks after the company signaled its intent to slow the pace of its ETH accumulation.

However, BitMine Chairman Thomas Lee previously described ETH’s recent decline below $2,200 as an attractive entry point.

According to him, the pullback has provided an opportunity to add to its ETH exposure ahead of any potential recovery in digital assets. Lee stated that the recent regulatory developments around the CLARITY Act could bolster growth in the emerging industry.

As a result, his firm has continued to increase its exposure to the cryptocurrency in anticipation of the growth.

Meanwhile, BitMine’s strategy mirrors the corporate treasury model popularized by Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) but shifts the focus from Bitcoin to Ethereum.

That distinction gives BitMine’s balance sheet a different profile because Ethereum’s proof-of-stake system allows holders to generate staking rewards rather than relying only on price appreciation.

BitMine operates MAVAN, an Ethereum staking platform that adds a yield component to its treasury approach. The company has staked more than $10 billion of its Ethereum holdings, tying part of its balance sheet return to ETH's network economics.

That structure gives investors a cleaner way to evaluate BitMine’s strategy: the company is buying ETH into weakness, staking a large portion of its holdings, and seeking to turn that exposure into an equity-market instrument accessible to traditional investors.

Russell preliminary list adds another channel

Beyond its treasury expansion, BitMine has been added to the preliminary list for the 2026 Russell 3000 Index.

FTSE Russell released the initial reconstitution data on May 22, with the final index composition scheduled to take effect at the end of June.

Lee said BitMine’s market capitalization could place BMNR in the Russell 1000, the large-cap segment of the broader Russell 3000 Index, rather than the Russell 2000.

That distinction is significant for the company’s investor base. The Russell 3000 tracks about 3,000 of the largest US companies and represents nearly the entire investable US equity market. The Russell 1000 covers the largest names in that group, while the Russell 2000 captures smaller companies.

This index inclusion could change who owns BitMine's stock, as the funds benchmarked to Russell indexes often adjust portfolios around index reconstitution, while some active managers use those benchmarks to define the pool of eligible holdings.

Lee has also argued that many active managers focus on Russell 1000 constituents, and that passive funds and ETFs can hold a meaningful share of a company’s market capitalization once it is included in major benchmarks.

Crypto treasury stocks move deeper into public indexes

BitMine’s Russell path comes as more crypto-linked companies push into mainstream equity benchmarks.

SharpLink Gaming, another public company with an Ethereum treasury strategy, has also been linked to Russell index inclusion.

SharpLink CEO Joseph Chalom said the company is expected to join the Russell 2000 and Russell 3000 indexes on June 29, calling the move an important milestone because of the capital tied to those benchmarks.

According to him:

“Approximately $12.2 trillion in assets are benchmarked against the Russell US Indexes, with roughly 16% using the Russell 2000 as their reference point. Inclusion places SBET inside the passive and active flows that track these benchmarks.”

The preliminary Russell materials also include other crypto-related companies, including Gemini Space Station (GEMI) and Galaxy Digital (GLXY), as well as Iris Energy and Soluna.

That group reflects a broader shift in which crypto exposure is no longer confined to tokens, private funds, or spot ETFs.

Meanwhile, these additions follow the precedent established by Strategy's MSTR. The Michael Saylor-led firm entered the Russell 1000 in June 2024 and subsequently graduated to the Top 200 Value Index in 2025

The post BitMine’s $126M Ethereum buy sets up a Russell index test tied to $12.2T in assets appeared first on CryptoSlate.

There's a huge contradiction sitting at the center of modern American finance. The same industry regulators tried to isolate from the mainstream financial system has become one of the largest US Treasury buyers on the planet.

Tether, the company behind the world's largest stablecoin USDT, closed 2025 with total direct and indirect exposure to US Treasuries surpassing $141 billion, making it one of the largest holders of American government debt worldwide. The company itself said it was the 17th largest overall, and the largest non-sovereign holder of US debt, a ranking that makes some policymakers nervous and others genuinely relieved.

The US government spent years debating whether to ban digital assets like stablecoins, restrict them, or treat them as a fringe curiosity.

Then, finally, after over a decade of a legal standstill, it signed legislation designed to make stablecoins part of the US financial system.

The GENIUS Act, signed into law by President Trump on July 18, 2025, after passing the Senate 68-30 and the House 308-122, established the first federal regulatory framework for stablecoins in US history. Its core requirement is that stablecoin issuers must maintain 100% reserve backing with liquid assets like US dollars or short-term Treasuries, with monthly public disclosures of reserve composition.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called that provision a “debt relief engine” on the day the Senate voted, saying that stablecoin reserves parked largely in short-dated Treasuries would lift demand for the securities and ease financing pressure on the government. If the stablecoin market expands toward the $1.9 trillion base-case projections analysts are now using for 2030, that reserve mandate effectively hard-wires an enormous and perpetually growing source of demand into US sovereign debt markets.

How Tether became a Treasury buyer

It's important to understand how Tether became such a systemically relevant bond buyer.

Every USDT the company issues represents a dollar taken from a user, and that dollar has to sit somewhere. After years of controversy over reserve quality and significant scrutiny following the 2022 FTX collapse, Tether pivoted toward what many see as the safest, most liquid asset class available.

By March 2025, 81.5% of Tether's total $149.3 billion in reserves were held in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term deposits, primarily US government debt, with the bulk composed of $98.5 billion in direct Treasury bills and $15.1 billion in overnight repo agreements.

The structure is self-reinforcing in a way that tradfi hasn't really seen before: as more people globally want access to digital dollars, Tether issues more USDT, collects more cash, and pours it straight back into American sovereign debt.

The IMF's July 2025 External Sector Report noted that Tether and Circle collectively hold more US Treasuries than Saudi Arabia, and argued that increased international adoption of dollar-backed stablecoins could raise demand for US Treasuries, effectively reinforcing the country's position as the world's banker and helping stabilize its finances and external deficits.

That's a pretty unusual setup by almost any measure: a private company registered in El Salvador, operating a product regulators once classified alongside speculative tokens, has become a structural source of demand in the market Washington uses to fund itself.

As CryptoSlate reported, the GENIUS Act would require issuers to fully back their tokens with “high-quality” liquid assets, including short-term Treasuries. This will institutionalize Treasury investment requirements across the entire stablecoin sector and anchor digital dollars within US financial infrastructure far more deeply than most people outside the bond market have registered.

The CLARITY Act, which passed the House 294-134 alongside the GENIUS Act and now awaits the Senate, extends that further into market structure. Taken together, these two bills are an acknowledgment that stablecoin infrastructure has grown large enough that designing around it is a less practical ambition than designing with it.

The banking system's uncomfortable reckoning

The consequences flowing from this integration are complex, and they pull in multiple directions simultaneously.

The most politically charged one is the threat to traditional deposit banking. An April 2025 US Treasury report estimated that stablecoins have the potential to drain as much as $6.6 trillion in deposits from the banking system. A Citigroup executive echoed that figure publicly, and a more recent Citi Institute report suggested stablecoin growth could extract up to $1 trillion in domestic bank deposits by 2030.

The Federal Reserve's own research was more cautious but still pointed. It said that large institutions with the scale, technological capacity, and regulatory expertise to participate in the stablecoin ecosystem may “offset potential disintermediation by issuing tokenized deposits and offering custodial services,” while smaller and less digitally advanced institutions face more serious headwinds, with their deposit base eroding and funding costs rising in ways their lending models weren't built to absorb.

The banking lobby's anxiety has translated into concrete policy pressure throughout the GENIUS Act's construction. The law prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying yield to holders directly, a provision widely read as a concession to traditional banks, who argued that yield-bearing stablecoins would force a competitive repricing of deposit rates their business models can't sustain.

Standard Chartered estimated stablecoins could pull roughly $500 billion in deposits out of US banks by the end of 2028, even under current restrictions. The real dispute animating GENIUS Act rulemaking through 2026 and into 2027 is whether third-party platforms and wallets can pay holders rewards funded by the yield those reserves generate, a question that'll determine whether stablecoins function as genuinely competitive financial instruments or remain structurally constrained by regulatory design.

As CryptoSlate's coverage of the rulemaking battle noted, Treasury's proposed implementation rules are already showing how Washington intends to narrow the door it opened through legislation.

What happens when the structure gets stress-tested

The systemic risk surrounding stablecoins and their integration into mainstream finance is hard to deny. Despite the very clear language in both the GENIUS and the CLARITY Acts, regulators are still concerned.

The IMF warned that the $305 billion stablecoin market could threaten traditional lending, hamper monetary policy, and trigger a run on some of the world's safest assets. The stress scenario runs like this: if confidence in a major stablecoin breaks and large redemptions spike simultaneously, issuers would need to liquidate Treasury positions into a market that may already be under pressure.

The IMF has characterized stablecoins as resembling money market funds more than actual money, warning they could face confidence-driven runs as tokenized finance scales, with liquidity crises potentially materializing instantly in systems built for continuous, automated settlement rather than the batch processing that gives traditional regulators time to intervene.

What makes this truly difficult to resolve is that the two most compelling arguments about stablecoins are both grounded in real evidence and pulling hard in opposite directions.

Bessent's projection of a $3.7 trillion stablecoin market by 2030 becoming more likely with the GENIUS Act, represents a structural demand source for US debt that the Treasury finds appealing at a moment of elevated deficit financing pressure.

The IMF's warning that this same system could transmit shocks at machine speed across borders represents an equally real risk that the legislation hasn't resolved.

Stablecoins began as infrastructure for crypto traders and are now carrying the weight of arguments about dollar dominance, bank solvency, sovereign debt demand, and systemic liquidity risk all at once. That's a convergence that Washington clearly didn't anticipate when it first started drawing up rules for what it assumed was a peripheral asset class.

At some point in the not-too-distant future, the question of government tolerance for stablecoins will likely give way to a much harder one: how to manage a global financial system that's already been reshaped around them.

The post Tether’s $141 billion Treasury pile reveals the stablecoin risk now embedded in US debt appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Why Data Tokens Are Becoming Important in Crypto

Data is becoming one of the most valuable assets in the digital economy. As artificial intelligence, blockchain analytics, decentralized finance, and privacy-focused applications continue to grow, crypto projects linked to data infrastructure are gaining more attention.

However, the term data tokens can cover several categories. Some projects focus directly on data indexing, storage, AI training, or decentralized data access. Others, like Zcash and Railgun, are more accurately described as privacy tokens, but they still play an important role in how data is protected on-chain.

This makes the data-token narrative broader than just AI. It includes data ownership, private transactions, decentralized infrastructure, AI-powered networks, and blockchain transparency tools.

1. NEAR Protocol: A Data and AI Infrastructure Token

NEAR Protocol is one of the most relevant projects in the data and AI crypto narrative. The network describes itself as a high-speed, modular protocol designed for AI-native systems, where AI can act as the front end while the blockchain handles identity, trust, and data.

This makes NEAR more than just a Layer 1 blockchain. It is positioning itself as infrastructure for applications where users, AI agents, and data systems interact securely.

NEAR also appears among the top AI and Big Data tokens by market capitalization on CoinMarketCap, which strengthens its position in the broader data-token category.

Why NEAR Matters

NEAR could benefit from the growing demand for AI-friendly blockchain infrastructure. As more applications require secure identity, user-owned data, and AI-powered transactions, NEAR may become one of the key networks supporting this new sector.

2. Zcash: Privacy for Financial Data

Zcash is not a classic data token, but it is highly relevant to the data-privacy narrative. Zcash is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that allows users to make shielded transactions using zero-knowledge proofs. These shielded transactions can hide details such as sender, receiver, and transaction amount while still allowing the network to verify validity.

In a blockchain world where most transactions are public, Zcash focuses on protecting financial data. This makes it important for users who care about privacy, confidentiality, and fungibility.

Why Zcash Matters

Zcash represents one of the oldest and most recognized privacy projects in crypto. As data privacy becomes more important, ZEC could remain relevant for investors watching the intersection between privacy, blockchain, and financial freedom.

3. Railgun: Private DeFi Transactions

Railgun is another project that fits better under the privacy-token category, but it is still connected to data protection. Railgun describes itself as an on-chain zero-knowledge privacy ecosystem and DeFi privacy toolkit.

Unlike Zcash, which operates as its own privacy-focused cryptocurrency, Railgun is designed to bring privacy tools to DeFi users. It allows users to interact with decentralized applications while adding privacy protection to transaction activity.

Railgun’s own site describes it as a smart contract system for professional traders and DeFi users that adds privacy protection to crypto transactions.

Why Railgun Matters

Railgun is important because DeFi activity is normally visible on-chain. Wallet balances, trades, transfers, and interactions can often be tracked publicly. Railgun aims to reduce that exposure by giving users more control over their transaction data.

4. Bittensor: Decentralized AI and Data Intelligence

Bittensor is one of the most talked-about AI crypto projects. Its token, TAO, is commonly included in AI and big data crypto rankings, and CoinMarketCap lists it among the leading AI and Big Data tokens by market capitalization.

Bittensor focuses on decentralized machine intelligence. Instead of relying only on centralized AI companies, Bittensor aims to create an open network where machine learning models can contribute value and be rewarded.

Why Bittensor Matters

Bittensor connects directly to the AI-data economy. AI models need data, compute, and incentive systems. Bittensor’s role is to create a decentralized market around machine intelligence, making it one of the strongest projects in the AI-data token sector.

5. The Graph: Blockchain Data Indexing

The Graph is one of the most important infrastructure projects for blockchain data. It helps developers access and organize blockchain information through indexing. In simple terms, The Graph makes on-chain data easier to search, query, and use in decentralized applications.

Without indexing tools, blockchain data can be difficult to retrieve and structure. The Graph solves this problem by allowing developers to build applications that can efficiently access blockchain data.

Why The Graph Matters

The Graph is directly connected to the data-token narrative because it focuses on making blockchain data usable. As Web3 applications grow, demand for reliable on-chain data indexing could also increase.

Are Railgun, Zcash, and NEAR Really Data Tokens?

This is important: Railgun, Zcash, and NEAR are not all “data tokens” in the same way.

NEAR fits the AI and data-infrastructure narrative.
Zcash is mainly a privacy coin.
Railgun is mainly a DeFi privacy protocol.

However, all three are connected to the broader crypto data theme because they deal with data ownership, data privacy, transaction confidentiality, AI infrastructure, or secure blockchain activity.

Final Thoughts: Data Tokens Could Become a Major Crypto Narrative

Data tokens are becoming more important as crypto moves beyond simple payments and speculation. The next phase of blockchain may focus more on AI, private transactions, user-owned data, and decentralized data access.

NEAR brings AI and blockchain infrastructure together.
Zcash protects financial transaction data.
Railgun adds privacy to DeFi.
Bittensor supports decentralized machine intelligence.
The Graph makes blockchain data easier to access and use.

Together, these projects show how the data-token narrative is expanding across AI, privacy, DeFi, and Web3 infrastructure.

$NEAR, $ZEC, $RAIL, $TAO, $GRT

The global cryptocurrency market experienced a massive wave of volatility on Sunday as the price of Bitcoin shot past the critical $77,000 threshold. The rapid upward movement was directly catalyzed by major geopolitical developments emerging from Washington. President Donald Trump announced via social media that a historic peace agreement with Iran has been largely negotiated and is expected to be officially unveiled shortly.

This sudden breakthrough in the Middle East crisis has immediately reshaped market sentiment, alleviating fears of prolonged energy supply disruptions and macroeconomic instability. As risk appetite returned to the financial sectors, leveraged traders who were heavily positioned for further downside found themselves caught in a violent short squeeze.

Why is Bitcoin Price Up?

For investors tracking why the Bitcoin price spiked so aggressively today, the answer lies in a major de-escalation of geopolitical friction. According to statements from the U.S. administration, the pending memorandum of understanding includes a critical provision: the Strait of Hormuz will be fully opened to international shipping.

The strategic shipping lane had been a focal point of market anxiety since hostilities flared up earlier this year. The news of a diplomatic resolution brokered alongside regional mediators immediately forced a repricing of global risk assets, sending Bitcoin up by over 4% in a matter of hours.

$180 Million in Crypto Shorts Liquidated

The sudden market reversal caught short-sellers entirely off guard. Data from derivatives tracking platforms confirmed that over $180,000,000 in crypto short positions were liquidated within a brief 30-minute window following the headline.

Prior to this announcement, Bitcoin had been locked in a tight consolidation range between $75,600 and $76,500, weighed down by the U.S. naval blockades and regional tensions. The sudden injection of positive macro news pushed the asset past its immediate technical resistance at $76,381 (as seen on the 3-hour chart), accelerating stop-losses and forcing short liquidations that added fuel to the upward momentum.

US Iran War Might Come to an End

The upcoming diplomatic accord marks a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy. President Trump confirmed he had engaged in extensive discussions with regional leaders, including the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as officials from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Details reported by international news outlets like The Guardian indicate that the draft agreement outlines a 60-day ceasefire extension during which the Strait of Hormuz will operate without tolls, allowing Iran to sell oil while broader negotiations regarding its nuclear program commence. Concurrently, the United States will ease blockades on Iranian ports. While certain state media channels within Iran have urged caution regarding the absolute finality of the details, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that "significant progress" has been made, indicating an announcement could be imminent.

Should You BUY Bitcoin now?

The resolution of the maritime blockade directly affects global liquidity and asset allocations. Historically, Bitcoin has behaved as a sensitive gauge for global macroeconomic stress. While it occasionally acts as a safe-haven asset during specific banking crises, localized geopolitical conflicts that threaten global trade routes tend to depress risk assets due to the resulting inflationary pressures on oil and logistics.

With the Strait of Hormuz poised to reopen, capital is visibly rotating back into high-growth digital assets. Traders look toward whether Bitcoin can solidify its footing above $77,000 and turn this previous resistance zone into a reliable psychological support floor for the coming weeks.

This weekly roundup breaks down how Bitcoin’s market structure paved the way for select altcoins to print massive double-digit gains. We analyze the top five performing assets from the past seven days, examining their price action, trading volumes, and underlying ecosystem drivers.

Why Are Cryptos UP This Week?

The primary driver behind this week's market rotation was Bitcoin ($BTC) finding firm horizontal support around the $76,000 level. After pulling back from its local highs near $82,000, Bitcoin's stabilization injected fresh liquidity and risk-on sentiment back into the altcoin market. This allowed projects like NEAR Protocol ($NEAR), Hyperliquid ($HYPE), and Venice Token ($VVV) to capitalize on ecosystem-specific developments and outpace the broader market.

Bitcoin Market Structure: Resiliency at $76,000

To understand the sudden surge in altcoin strength, one must look directly at the Bitcoin price chart. Following a strong bullish expansion throughout April and early May, Bitcoin faced an intense rejection near the $82,800 resistance ceiling.

The daily chart reveals a clear corrective wave down to the key support zone ranging between $76,086 and $76,902. Over the last 48 hours, a prominent red liquidation circle materialized as sellers attempted to push the price lower. However, institutional and retail demand actively stepped in, creating long lower candle wicks that signify strong absorption at support.

With the 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) cooling off to a neutral 46.55, the market shed its overbought characteristics without breaking its macro-bullish structure. This successful retest of the $76,000 floor acted as a structural green light for speculative capital to rotate directly into high-beta altcoins.

Top 5 Gaining Crypto Assets: In-Depth Breakdown

As Bitcoin consolidated, the following five digital assets recorded substantial gains over the past 7 days, defying the temporary macro drawdown.

1. NEAR Protocol (NEAR)

NEAR Protocol secured the top spot on our watchlist this week, showing remarkable resilience.

• Current Price: $2.36
• 24-Hour Change: +13.75%
• 7-Day Change: +52.66%
• Market Cap: $3,066,997,726
• 24-Hour Volume: $1,002,338,823

NEAR's impressive 52.66% weekly rally was backed by a massive influx of trading volume, which crossed the $1 billion milestone within a 24-hour window. The protocol continues to draw attention due to its scaling capabilities, thriving user onboarding frameworks, and renewed developer incentives, making it a primary choice for capital rotation.

2. Hyperliquid (HYPE)

Hyperliquid continues to solidify its footprint as a dominant decentralized perpetual exchange, with its native token printing phenomenal year-to-date numbers.

• Current Price: $64.20
• 24-Hour Change: +15.41%
• 7-Day Change: +49.72%
• YTD Performance: +152.48%
• Market Cap: $16,315,372,923

HYPE registered a 49.72% gain over the last seven days. Boasting a massive market capitalization of over $16.3 billion, Hyperliquid's rise highlights the growing investor migration away from centralized entities toward high-throughput, non-custodial trading environments.

3. Venice Token (VVV)

Venice Token emerged as the highest percentage gainer when looking at a broader macro horizon, driven by explosive speculative interest and ecosystem milestones.

• Current Price: $19.65
• 24-Hour Change: +11.89%
• 7-Day Change: +38.76%
• YTD Performance: +1098.14%
• Market Cap: $910,565,165

With a stunning year-to-date increase of 1098.14%, VVV extended its rally by another 38.76% this week. Approaching a $1 billion market cap, Venice Token's rapid expansion showcases the substantial gains currently available within emerging, micro-to-mid-cap DeFi layers.

4. Worldcoin (WLD)

Despite suffering a difficult start to the year from a macro perspective, Worldcoin found a local bottom and initiated a sharp, volume-backed short squeeze.

• Current Price: $0.3052
• 24-Hour Change: +15.41%
• 7-Day Change: +25.26%
• YTD Performance: -36.49%
• Market Cap: $1,042,212,637

WLD rebounded by 25.26% over the week. While its year-to-date performance remains down at -36.49%, the sudden 15.41% single-day pump suggests that buyers are beginning to value the project at these multi-month lows, utilizing Bitcoin's support bounce to accumulate heavily.

5. Zcash (ZEC)

Privacy-centric networks made a surprising comeback this week, with the veteran privacy coin Zcash leading the charge.

• Current Price: $647.25
• 24-Hour Change: +8.84%
• 7-Day Change: +24.49%
• Market Cap: $10,803,031,144
• 24-Hour Volume: $800,950,118

Zcash surged by 24.49% over the past seven days, pushing its unit price up to $647.25. As global conversations regarding financial data sovereignty and decentralized identity heat up, institutional capital appears to be re-allocating back into established, highly-liquid privacy networks like ZEC.

Altcoin Prices at a Glance

The table below outlines the specific trading metrics and liquidity profiles that fueled this week's top-performing digital assets:

What to Watch Next

As we look toward the final days of May, the sustainability of this altcoin rally relies entirely on Bitcoin holding its newly discovered market floor. According to historical on-chain data tracked by Bloomberg, whenever Bitcoin successfully converts previous resistance points into macro support levels, altcoins enter a prolonged phase of price discovery.

Traders should monitor the daily candle closes for Bitcoin. If $BTC$ invalidates the $76,000 horizontal support line, a deeper market correction toward the $65,581 liquidity pocket remains on the table. Conversely, prolonged consolidation above $77,000 will likely yield further bullish momentum for hyper-scalers like NEAR and HYPE.

For years, the pseudonymous on-chain sleuth known as ZachXBT has operated as the unofficial sheriff of the Web3 world. Tracking hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen assets, exposing exit scams, and cooperating directly with international law enforcement, the investigator built a reputation as an untouchable force for transparency.

However, a viral exposure thread on X (formerly Twitter) published by user @matthewabides has cast a shadow over the detective, bringing forth a wave of unverified but highly detailed allegations regarding his identity, funding sources, and professional conduct.

The Core Accusations Against ZachXBT

The extensive social media thread questions the absolute neutrality of the crypto space's most famous investigator. The user claims that while ZachXBT has actively unmasked malicious actors across the industry, his own background, multi-million dollar institutional funding, and selective investigative targets have avoided rigorous independent examination.

The allegations range from the public leaking of his real identity through historical court documents to critical claims regarding token dumps, trading advantages, and potential conflicts of interest stemming from prominent crypto exchanges and founders who donated to his legal defense fund.

Who is ZachXBT? Identity Uncovered via Legal Battles

While ZachXBT has maintained a strict layer of digital anonymity during his public career, his identity became a matter of public record during a high-profile legal dispute. In June 2023, prominent crypto figure Jeffrey Huang, known online as Machi Big Brother, launched a defamation lawsuit against the investigator over an exposé regarding alleged embezzlement.

According to publicly accessible federal court documents via CourtListener, the initial filings officially identified the defendant as Zachary Wolk, residing in Kingsland, Texas. Though the lawsuit was ultimately dismissed after ZachXBT modified the wording of the disputed article, the legal footprint remained.

Using basic open-source intelligence (OSINT), internet researchers mapped out Wolk’s background prior to entering the blockchain space. Public athletic records on Swimcloud point to a competitive swimming history with the Austin Swim Club and Vandegrift High School between 2009 and 2015, which matches local profiles published by the Four Points News. ZachXBT has previously stated he entered cryptocurrency trading during his college years around 2017, aligning closely with the public timeline of his academic graduation.

Legal and Ethical Questions Surrounding Recent Investigations

The viral thread moves past basic doxxing to challenge the legality and ethics of ZachXBT's recent operational tactics throughout 2026.

The Legality of Personal Data Bounties

On May 7, 2026, ZachXBT publicly posted a $10,000 bounty looking for information on Vova Sadkov, the founder of LAB. The post explicitly requested government-issued identification or passport data. Under federal United States law (specifically 18 U.S.C. § 1028), paying for or soliciting another individual's private identification documents can constitute a federal offense. Critics argue that using financial bounties to crowdsource highly confidential personal data walks a thin line between aggressive blockchain analytics and illegal doxxing practices.

The Axiom Investigation Leak Allegations

Another serious claim involves information asymmetry. In February 2026, ZachXBT teased an upcoming deep-dive investigation into a highly profitable crypto enterprise, which led to a speculative market on the decentralized platform Polymarket that generated roughly $40 million in trading volume.

The exposé eventually targeted Axiom. However, blockchain data pulled by on-chain analytics accounts show that a cluster of 12 newly created crypto wallets aggressively bet against Axiom on Polymarket just hours before the article went live, netting an estimated $1.2 million in profit. The thread suggests that because ZachXBT reached out to the Axiom team for comment ahead of publication—a mandatory journalistic practice—the pending investigation was leaked to insiders who actively capitalized on the private information.

Token Dumping and Institutional Funding Ties

Beyond daily operations, the financial architecture supporting ZachXBT has drawn sharp criticism regarding his ultimate independence from the platforms he reports on.

The $ZACHXBT Token Liquidations

In January 2025, an anonymous developer launched a meme token named $ZACHXBT, airdropping 50% of the total supply directly to the investigator's public wallet address. As speculation mounted, the token's market capitalization peaked near $88 million. Blockchain records show that ZachXBT liquidated his entire allocation for 16,059 SOL, worth approximately $3.87 million at the time.

While the investigator defended his actions by stating the allocation was unsolicited and that he sold to prevent third-party malicious actors from orchestrating a worse rug pull on his followers, market participants noted that the multi-million dollar windfall was retained personally rather than being redirected to a public blockchain security fund or victim treasury.

The Defense Fund and "Selective Immunity"

Following the 2023 lawsuit by Machi Big Brother, ZachXBT established a community defense fund that raised over $1.1 million. The major donors included some of the most powerful and heavily scrutinized figures in Web3:

• Changpeng Zhao (CZ), former CEO of Binance (~$50,000)
• Justin Sun, founder of TRON ($10,000)
• Jesse Powell, co-founder of Kraken
• Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon

Furthermore, records highlight additional direct financial backing, including $580,000 from Optimism, $254,000 from Hyperliquid, and $53,000 from the Bybit trading platform, alongside an advisory role at venture capital firm Paradigm.

The core of the criticism relies on an apparent shift in investigative behavior following these financial contributions. For instance, between December 2024 and January 2026, ZachXBT actively published seven critical threads evaluating the operations of Hyperliquid. On January 18, 2026, Hyperliquid officially awarded him a grant of 10,000 HYPE tokens, valued at over $600,000 under current market conditions.

Critics point out that in the four months following the grant, ZachXBT has published zero critical investigations regarding the platform. The thread alleges that while the detective aggressively hunts down minor Solana rug-pullers and social media influencers, major institutional donors may receive unwritten immunity.

A Neutral Outlook on Web3 Accountability

It is crucial to note that these allegations originate from an anonymous user on social media, and no regulatory bodies or courts have validated claims of insider trading, market manipulation, or selective enforcement against Zachary Wolk. Tracking illicit assets on public ledgers like Bitcoin is an incredibly complex endeavor that naturally requires deep industry communication and structural funding to sustain.

However, the viral controversy highlights an essential lesson for the crypto community: in a decentralized ecosystem built on the core principle of "don't trust, verify," even the watchmen must be subject to the same standards of transparency they impose on others.

Crypto Market Crash Intensifies as Bitcoin Loses $75K

The crypto market crash deepened today as Bitcoin broke below the important $75,000 level, triggering a broader selloff across major cryptocurrencies. After holding near higher support levels earlier this week, Bitcoin suddenly slipped under $75K, increasing market fear and pushing traders to reassess the short-term outlook.

The latest move also came with a sharp rise in liquidations. Around $400 million worth of long positions were reportedly wiped out in the past 10 minutes, showing how quickly leverage can worsen a market decline. When Bitcoin loses a key psychological level, forced selling from leveraged positions can accelerate the crash and put additional pressure on altcoins.

Bitcoin Crash Pulls Ethereum and Major Altcoins Lower

Bitcoin was not the only crypto under pressure. Ethereum also moved sharply lower, trading close to the $2,000 area as bearish sentiment spread across the market. A break below this level could increase fears of a deeper Ethereum correction, especially as ETH has already struggled to regain strong bullish momentum.

Major altcoins also followed Bitcoin lower. Solana, Dogecoin, Cardano, Chainlink, Sui, Bitcoin Cash, Toncoin and other large-cap tokens recorded notable losses, showing that the selloff is affecting the broader crypto market rather than one isolated asset.

This type of market movement usually suggests that traders are reducing risk exposure. When Bitcoin weakens and Ethereum fails to hold key support, altcoins often suffer even more because they are more sensitive to liquidity changes and investor sentiment.

Why Is the Crypto Market Crashing Today?

Several factors appear to be weighing on the crypto market at the same time. The first is renewed geopolitical fear, especially around US and Iran tensions. Reports suggesting that the US and Iran are still negotiating a possible deal helped create uncertainty, but the market remains nervous about any escalation. If tensions rise again, oil prices could increase, inflation fears could return, and the Federal Reserve may have less room to cut interest rates. That would be negative for risk assets like crypto.

The second factor is regulatory uncertainty. Recent delays around blockchain-based tokenized stocks and ongoing investigations into prediction markets have added pressure to the sector. The crypto market had been expecting more supportive regulation, but delays and political disagreements are now slowing down optimism.

The third factor is bond market stress. Rising yields in the US and Japan are making investors more cautious. Higher yields usually reduce appetite for riskier assets because borrowing becomes more expensive and liquidity conditions become tighter. For crypto, this can lead to weaker demand, especially when the market is already overleveraged.

Crypto Liquidations Add More Pressure

The liquidation wave is one of the most important parts of this crypto crash. When traders open long positions with leverage and the market moves against them, exchanges force-close those positions. This creates additional sell pressure, which can push prices even lower.

That is why Bitcoin falling below $75K matters. It was not only a price move, but also a trigger point for leveraged traders. Once those positions started getting liquidated, the selling pressure spread quickly across Ethereum and altcoins.

If liquidations continue, the crypto market could remain volatile in the short term. However, if Bitcoin stabilizes and selling pressure slows down, a relief bounce could follow.

Bitcoin Price Prediction: What Comes Next?

For now, Bitcoin needs to reclaim the $75,000 level quickly to reduce bearish pressure. If BTC manages to move back above this zone and hold it, the market could attempt a recovery toward the $78,000 to $80,000 range.

However, if Bitcoin fails to recover and selling continues, the next important downside area could be around $72,000. A deeper break below that level would make the current crypto market crash more serious and could trigger another wave of altcoin losses.

Ethereum also remains important to watch. If ETH falls below $2,000, the market could see stronger fear across altcoins. But if Ethereum holds this level while Bitcoin stabilizes, traders may start looking for a short-term rebound.

Crypto Market Outlook

The crypto market crash is being driven by a combination of technical weakness, leveraged liquidations, geopolitical concerns, regulatory delays, and macro pressure from bond yields. Bitcoin’s break below $75K has now become the main signal traders are watching.

The next few days will be critical. If geopolitical tensions ease and Bitcoin reclaims lost support, the market could see a relief rally. But if fear continues and liquidations increase, the crypto crash could extend further before buyers step back in.

$BTC, $ETH, $SOL, $DOGE, $ADA, $LINK, $SUI, $BCH, $TON

MoonPay's new app lets users buy cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Solana, through ChatGPT just by speaking with the chatbot.

How did Michael Saylor's firm amass a record stash of Bitcoin? Here's a look back at how Strategy made such massive gains.

Joi AI is hiring 10 “masturbation consultants” to test its AI-guided masturbation feature and report how it affects stress, sleep, mood, and confidence.

Project Nova is coming later this year with a cleaner look, compact mode, and a toggle to make AI features disappear entirely.

Bitcoin touched its lowest price in a month overnight following an awful week for ETFs, which shed over $1.25 billion this week.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined a major strategic transition for the Ethereum Foundation.

As rumors swirl around an XRP integration on PlayStation, the reality points to Sony Bank's push for a closed-loop, fiat-backed ecosystem.

Dogecoin regained $0.10 following an earlier drop as crypto community looks ahead to new development.

StablR breaks a two-month silence to confirm a $10 million exploit of its USD and EUR stablecoins.

Bitcoin pioneer, Adam Back revisits altcoin warning, says "efficient market" finally catching up.

TLDR:

• Brian Armstrong highlighted tokenization as a major priority for future financial infrastructure
• Coinbase’s CEO linked stablecoins and AI systems to faster and cheaper global financial services
• Armstrong called for risk-based crypto regulation instead of broad industry-wide restrictions
• The post tied blockchain networks to startup funding, open access, and self-custodial finance

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has outlined several areas where he believes the global financial system still requires major upgrades.

His comments focused on tokenization, stablecoins, AI-powered finance, and broader access to capital markets.

The post quickly gained attention across crypto discussions because it tied blockchain infrastructure to long-term financial reform. Armstrong also highlighted regulation and self-custody as central parts of the industry’s next phase.

Brian Armstrong Pushes Tokenization and Global Crypto Trading

Armstrong shared the framework through a post on X outlining eight sectors he believes still need modernization. The list placed tokenization of real-world assets at the center of future financial infrastructure.

According to the post, tokenized assets could include real estate, stocks, bonds, and investment funds. Armstrong said blockchain-based settlement may improve distribution and fractional ownership access.

The Coinbase executive also pointed to round-the-clock global trading as another major gap in traditional finance. He described a system where global liquidity pools allow faster trading access across borders.

Stablecoin payments formed another key part of the discussion. Armstrong referenced near-instant and lower-cost international transfers, including payments tied to AI agents and automated systems.

The comments arrive as tokenization continues gaining traction among crypto firms and traditional financial institutions. Several large firms have recently explored blockchain settlement systems and tokenized treasury products.

Armstrong also linked open blockchain protocols with expanded financial participation. He said self-custodial wallets and smartphone-based access could reduce reliance on traditional intermediaries.

Coinbase CEO Highlights AI, Regulation, and Capital Formation

Armstrong’s post also focused heavily on artificial intelligence within finance. He said AI-powered systems may improve risk analysis, compliance checks, fraud detection, and financial advice.

The comments connected crypto infrastructure with automated financial tools that operate across digital networks. Armstrong described broader access to financial guidance through AI-driven systems.

Regulation also appeared as a central theme throughout the post. Armstrong argued for risk-based regulatory frameworks instead of broad rules that treat all crypto activity equally.

The Coinbase executive said innovation-friendly regulation could increase competition and reduce barriers for startups. He tied those changes to future capital formation across blockchain markets.

Armstrong also described blockchain networks as tools for cheaper fundraising. According to the post, lower issuance costs could help more startups access investment opportunities.

The final section focused on sound money and inflation concerns tied to fiat systems. Armstrong described cryptocurrency as a possible refuge during periods of declining monetary discipline.

His remarks reflected a wider push across the crypto industry toward integrating blockchain systems with traditional finance infrastructure. The post also reinforced how tokenization, stablecoins, and AI remain central themes in current crypto market development.

The post Brian Armstrong Outlines Crypto Vision for the Future Financial System appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Strategy holds about 843,768 Bitcoin with an average acquisition price near $75,700 per BTC
• Michael Saylor’s “BitVac is charging” post sparked fresh speculation about another BTC purchase
• Strategy reportedly added over 171,000 Bitcoin during 2026, exceeding new miner output
• The company continues funding Bitcoin buys through stock sales and preferred share offerings

Michael Saylor has again triggered Bitcoin market speculation with a new social media message tied to Strategy’s treasury activity.

The company executive posted “BitVac is charging” as traders watched for another corporate Bitcoin purchase. Strategy already holds one of the world’s largest Bitcoin reserves among public companies.

The latest signal also arrived as investors tracked the firm’s funding plans, debt restructuring, and comments around possible future Bitcoin sales.

Michael Saylor Bitcoin Signal Revives Strategy Buy Expectations

Saylor shared the “BitVac is charging” message through his X account, drawing immediate attention from Bitcoin traders. Similar posts have often appeared before Strategy disclosed additional Bitcoin purchases.

The company currently holds around 843,768 Bitcoin according to figures cited in the report. Strategy’s average acquisition price stands near $75,700 per Bitcoin.

Bitcoin traded close to $75,958 during the latest market session. That price placed the asset slightly above Strategy’s average cost basis.

Strategy’s Bitcoin purchases this year have reportedly exceeded newly mined Bitcoin supply worldwide. The company added more than 171,000 BTC during 2026 based on the supplied figures.

That accumulation pace has increased Strategy’s influence across Bitcoin markets. Investors now closely monitor both the company’s treasury moves and financing structure.

The firm’s Bitcoin strategy has transformed its market identity over recent years. Many investors now view Strategy primarily as a leveraged Bitcoin holding company rather than a software business.

Strategy Funding Model and Bitcoin Sales Draw Focus

Strategy has financed recent Bitcoin purchases through common stock offerings and preferred shares. The company’s STRC preferred shares reportedly carry an 11.5% dividend.

The company also moved to repurchase approximately $1.50 billion in convertible notes. That decision reflected continued adjustments to its capital structure.

Saylor recently discussed Strategy’s long-term Bitcoin approach during appearances on Coin Stories and The Wolf Of All Streets podcast. He said management remains focused on maximizing Bitcoin per share over time.

The comments marked another example of Strategy linking corporate performance directly to Bitcoin accumulation. That approach has shaped how shareholders evaluate the company.

Saylor also suggested limited Bitcoin sales could occur under certain conditions. The remarks drew attention because Strategy has historically promoted a long-term holding strategy.

According to comments cited from The Wolf Of All Streets podcast, Saylor said credit rating agencies must recognize Bitcoin as an asset. The statement followed discussion around Strategy’s financing model and balance sheet structure.

Strategy shares closed at $159.89 during the latest trading session based on Google Finance data referenced in the report. The stock declined 10.86% during the previous 30 days.

Market participants continue tracking Strategy’s next Bitcoin move after the “BitVac” signal. Traders are also watching how future purchases could affect funding costs and broader Bitcoin demand.

The post Michael Saylor’s “BitVac” Post Fuels New Strategy Bitcoin Buy Speculation appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Tom Lee warned of a possible bear market while BitMine continued buying Ethereum during the decline
• BitMine recently acquired another 60,000 ETH through wallets linked to Kraken and BitGo
• Ethereum traded near $2,093 while remaining roughly 57% below its reported 2025 peak
• BitMine’s Ethereum treasury now exceeds 5.2 million ETH, equal to 4.37% of supply

Tom Lee’s latest bear market warning has reignited debate across the crypto market. The comments surfaced as BitMine continued expanding its Ethereum treasury despite prolonged ETH weakness.

Blockchain tracking data showed the firm recently acquired another 60,000 ETH through wallets linked to Kraken and BitGo. The move arrived while Ethereum traded more than 50% below its reported 2025 peak.

Tom Lee Bear Market Warning Puts Ethereum Strategy in Focus

Crypto Tony shared Lee’s warning on X, drawing immediate attention from traders monitoring broader market conditions. The discussion intensified because BitMine has remained aggressive with Ethereum accumulation.

BitMine launched its Ethereum treasury strategy in July 2025 following a $250 million private placement. The company later disclosed holdings of 163,142 ETH valued near $500 million at the time.

Since then, the firm has steadily expanded its position during periods of market weakness. Recent blockchain activity tracked by Lookonchain pointed to another 60,000 ETH purchase worth roughly $126 million.

The transactions reportedly moved through newly created wallets connected to Kraken and BitGo infrastructure. Blockchain investigator EmberCN also linked the transfers to BitMine’s treasury activity.

The latest acquisition pushed BitMine’s reported Ethereum holdings above 5.2 million ETH. That figure represents about 4.37% of Ethereum’s circulating supply.

Lee has continued defending the treasury strategy during the decline. According to the report, he viewed Ethereum prices below $2,200 as an attractive accumulation zone.

BitMine ETH Treasury Expands Despite Ethereum Market Weakness

Ethereum traded near $2,093 during the latest market session according to TradingView data. The asset remained roughly 57% below its reported 2025 high.

BitMine previously indicated it would slow future Ethereum purchases during May. However, the company did not signal an end to the treasury plan.

The firm still aims to control 5% of Ethereum’s total supply before December. That target has kept attention fixed on BitMine’s accumulation pace.

Meanwhile, traders continue monitoring Ethereum’s technical structure. Market watchers highlighted a rising wedge formation during the recent recovery attempt.

Some technical setups referenced in the report pointed toward possible downside near $1,600 if support levels fail. A move lower could increase unrealized losses tied to BitMine’s holdings.

Based on reported treasury data, estimated paper losses could approach $10.1 billion depending on Ethereum market prices. The calculation used an average acquisition cost near $3,513 across 5.28 million ETH.

At the same time, rebound scenarios remain active across trading discussions. Analysts tracking the wedge formation identified $2,530 near the 200-day moving average as a resistance level if buyers regain momentum.

The post Tom Lee’s Bear Market Warning Collides With BitMine’s ETH Buying Spree appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Alphractal linked Bitcoin rallies to improving Fed liquidity trends across multiple market cycles
• Fed RRP declines and Treasury spending continue shaping crypto market liquidity conditions
• VirtualBacon challenged expectations of a delayed Bitcoin bear market capitulation phase
• Bitcoin’s 200-week SMA near $61K remains a closely watched technical market level

Bitcoin liquidity conditions tied to Federal Reserve cash flows are gaining attention across crypto markets. New analysis from Alphractal linked Bitcoin price cycles to changes in Fed liquidity plumbing over the past several years.

The data focused on the Federal Reserve’s Reverse Repo Facility and Treasury General Account activity. The discussion emerged as Bitcoin traded near $76,500 while investors debated whether deeper downside remained ahead.

Bitcoin Liquidity Data Tracks Fed RRP and TGA Trends

Alphractal shared a breakdown showing how Fed liquidity conditions aligned with Bitcoin market cycles since 2020. The firm focused on the interaction between the Reverse Repo Facility, known as RRP, and the Treasury General Account.

According to the thread, rising liquidity often supported Bitcoin rallies across previous cycles. Tightening liquidity conditions frequently appeared before major crypto market corrections.

The report pointed to the 2020 and 2021 market expansion period. During that phase, combined RRP and TGA balances reportedly climbed from roughly $2 trillion to $7 trillion while Bitcoin rose from $10,000 to $69,000.

The same framework showed a reversal during 2022. Alphractal stated that aggressive liquidity tightening preceded Bitcoin’s decline from $69,000 to nearly $15,500 by several weeks.

The report also tracked conditions through 2023 and 2024. During that period, money market funds rotated into Treasury bills while the RRP facility steadily declined.

Alphractal said improving liquidity conditions appeared before Bitcoin rebounded toward $73,000. The post also referenced Bitcoin’s reported October 2025 peak near $126,200, noting liquidity indicators weakened months earlier.

Bitcoin Market Debate Shifts Toward Bear Market Timing

The liquidity discussion gained traction alongside a separate market thread from VirtualBacon focused on Bitcoin bear market bottoms. The post challenged the widely repeated expectation of a final capitulation event later in the cycle.

VirtualBacon compared prior Bitcoin downturns from 2015, 2018, and 2022. According to the thread, only the 2022 cycle ended with a sharp collapse near the final stage of the bear market.

The post argued that earlier cycles bottomed much sooner. In both 2015 and 2019, Bitcoin reportedly reached lows near its first major correction before stabilizing later.

VirtualBacon also highlighted Bitcoin’s 200-week simple moving average as a recurring market support zone. The thread placed the indicator near $61,000 while projecting it could rise toward $63,000 or $64,000 within two months.

Meanwhile, Alphractal noted current liquidity conditions remain mixed. The report cited a Federal Reserve rate range between 3.5% and 3.75%, a 3.8% CPI reading, and a stronger U.S. dollar index.

Despite those conditions, the thread stated Treasury spending and declining RRP balances continue adding liquidity beneath headline tightening measures. The report linked those trends to prior Bitcoin recoveries during fear-driven market periods.

The post Bitcoin Liquidity Signal Points to Potential Market Reversal appeared first on Blockonomi.

The online gambling industry has long been shaped by a small group of established names. Bet365 and 888casino are two of the biggest. Both have spent decades building loyal user bases, wide game libraries, and strong sportsbook products. They are often the first names that come up when players look for a trusted place to bet online.

But the industry is changing. A new wave of crypto-first casinos is starting to gain ground. One name getting attention is ZunaBet, a platform that launched in 2026 and is already being talked about as a serious challenger. With over 11,000 games, support for more than 20 cryptocurrencies, a $5,000 welcome bonus, and a gamified loyalty program built around a dragon evolution theme, ZunaBet is taking a different approach to what an online casino can be.

This article looks at how Bet365 and 888casino compare, and where ZunaBet fits into the picture as a newer, crypto-focused option built for a different kind of player.

Bet365 and 888casino: The Traditional Giants

Bet365 is one of the most recognised names in online betting. It started as a sportsbook and has grown into a full gambling platform with casino games, poker, bingo, and live dealer options. It is known for its in-play betting, deep sports markets, and a strong mobile app. Bet365 operates under licenses in multiple regulated markets and mostly works with fiat currency. Players deposit using debit cards, bank transfers, and a small number of e-wallets.

888casino has been around even longer. It launched in 1997 and is one of the original online casinos. It has a strong reputation for safe play, a polished casino product, and a steady stream of promotions. Like Bet365, it focuses on fiat payment methods and operates under strict regulatory frameworks in markets like the UK, Spain, and parts of the United States.

Both platforms are solid, well-known, and dependable. But they were built for an earlier era of online gambling, one where credit cards and bank transfers were the main way to play. They have been slow to adopt crypto, slow to build gamified loyalty systems, and slow to expand into newer areas like esports betting at scale.

ZunaBet: The New Challenger

ZunaBet launched in 2026 and is owned by Strathvale Group Ltd. It operates under an Anjouan gaming license and is run by a team with more than 20 years of combined experience in the industry. From day one, it was built as a crypto-first platform, which sets it apart from most of the older brands.

The casino offers 11,294 games from 63 providers, including Pragmatic Play, Hacksaw Gaming, Yggdrasil, BGaming, and Evolution. That puts its library among the largest in the crypto casino space. Players get access to slots, RNG table games, and live dealer games, with the slot library making up the bulk of the offering.

On the sportsbook side, ZunaBet covers all the major global sports, including football, basketball, tennis, and NHL. It also runs a full esports book covering CS2, Dota 2, League of Legends, and Valorant. Virtual sports and combat sports round out the offering. This makes it a true hybrid platform that combines casino and sportsbook in one place.

Crypto-First vs Traditional Payments

The biggest difference between ZunaBet and platforms like Bet365 or 888casino is how players move money in and out.

Bet365 and 888casino mainly work with fiat. That means debit cards, bank transfers, and e-wallets. These methods are familiar, but they come with delays, fees, and limits set by banks and payment processors. Withdrawals can take days. Some markets have restrictions on what cards can be used for gambling.

ZunaBet takes a different path. It supports more than 20 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT across multiple chains, Solana, Dogecoin, Cardano, and XRP. The platform does not charge processing fees, and withdrawals are fast. For players who already hold crypto, this means they can deposit and play in minutes, and withdraw winnings without waiting for bank approval.

This crypto-first setup also makes ZunaBet more accessible to a global audience. Players in regions where card-based gambling is restricted can still use crypto to play. For a new generation of players who are already comfortable with digital wallets, this is a more natural fit than the traditional banking route.

Loyalty Programs: Standard VIP vs Dragon Evolution

Loyalty programs are another area where the gap shows.

Bet365 and 888casino offer standard VIP and rewards systems. Players earn points or status based on how much they wager, and benefits include cashback, free spins, and access to exclusive promotions. These programs work, but they tend to look the same across most traditional platforms.

ZunaBet has built something different. Its loyalty program is themed around a dragon evolution system with six tiers: Squire, Warden, Champion, Divine, Knight, and Ultimate. Each tier offers more rakeback, starting at 1% and going up to 20% at the top level. Along the way, players unlock tier-based free spins, with up to 1,000 spins available at higher tiers. There is also VIP club access, double wheel spins, and a gamified mascot called Zuno that ties the whole experience together.

The 20% rakeback at the top tier is high for the industry and gives serious players a real reason to climb. The gamified design also makes the journey feel more engaging than ticking off boxes on a standard VIP ladder.

Welcome Bonus and First Impressions

First-time players also see a clear difference. 888casino and Bet365 offer welcome bonuses, but these are usually tied to a single deposit and come with strict wagering rules.

ZunaBet offers a welcome package worth up to $5,000 plus 75 free spins, spread across three deposits. The first deposit gets a 100% match up to $2,000 plus 25 spins. The second gets a 50% match up to $1,500 plus 25 spins. The third gets another 100% match up to $1,500 plus 25 spins. The total works out to a 250% bonus across three deposits, which is more generous than what most traditional casinos offer.

Why ZunaBet Stands Out

ZunaBet is not trying to be the next Bet365 or 888casino. It is going after a different kind of player. Someone who already uses crypto, wants fast payouts, enjoys gamified rewards, and is looking for a platform that offers both casino and sportsbook in one place.

The combination of 11,000+ games, 20+ cryptocurrencies, a sportsbook with deep esports coverage, and a loyalty program that actually feels like a game makes ZunaBet feel built for where the industry is going, not where it has been.

The Future of Online Casinos

Bet365 and 888casino will keep their place in the market. They have strong brands, loyal users, and proven products. But they were built for an older model of online gambling.

ZunaBet represents what the next generation of players are looking for. Crypto payments, huge game libraries, integrated sportsbooks, and loyalty programs that feel like part of the game itself. It is still new, but it is already drawing attention as one of the most exciting platforms to launch in years. For players who want something that fits the way they already use the internet and manage their money, ZunaBet looks like the future of online casinos.

The post Bet365 vs 888casino: Is ZunaBet the Challenger to Watch? appeared first on Blockonomi.

SOL fell 33% in the first quarter of 2026 to close at around $83, but Messari’s Q1 State of Solana report tells a story that’s harder to dismiss than the price chart would suggest.

While dollar-denominated numbers dropped across the board, the network set new records for daily transaction volume, grew its real-world asset market cap to over $2 billion, and barely budged on validator revenue.

Record Activity, Shrinking Prices

The headline figure from the report was the new all-time high for average daily non-vote transactions: 112.6 million, up 50% from the previous quarter and 15% above the previous record set in Q2 2025.

It means that more transactions happened on Solana every day in Q1 than at any point in the network’s history, which clearly sits at odds with the price decline. Meanwhile, Chain GDP, which is Messari’s term for total application revenue, stayed almost flat at $342.2 million, fractionally above Q4 2025’s $341.8 million.

Per the report, Pump.fun is still the largest single revenue source at $124.7 million, an improvement of 17% quarter-over-quarter. In second place was Axiom, a trading app, which recorded a 36% jump, raking in $42.4 million.

However, the most dramatic mover was a launchpad that lets users share trading fees with social media accounts, called Bags. Its revenue went up 1,347% to $11.5 million after meme coins tied to open-source AI projects generated intense trading activity in January.

That momentum didn’t hold, with Bags’ revenue dropping 85% month-over-month into February, making the episode another example of how quickly new activity cycles through Solana’s application layer.

On the other hand, DeFi TVL fell 22% quarter-over-quarter to $6.16 billion, a drop that tracks almost directly with SOL’s price dip rather than with any meaningful outflow of users. Solana’s share of total DeFi TVL moved barely at all, going from 6.9% to 6.7%, while Kamino reclaimed the top protocol spot with $1.72 billion, edging Jupiter at $1.69 billion.

Drift’s performance was affected by a $285 million exploit attributed to a sophisticated social engineering operation linked to North Korean state-affiliated threat actors.

Looking at Real Economic Value, which is basically the fees and MEV tips paid to validators, the report shows it fell just 1% to $89.5 million. That figure placed Solana second among all networks, only behind Hyperliquid’s $156 million.

RWAs Take the Lead

If one story defined Q1 beyond the bear market backdrop, it was real-world assets. On Solana, the market saw its value grow 43% quarter-over-quarter to $2.01 billion.

BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized money market fund doubled to $525.4 million after Anchorage Digital added custody support, with the latter holding around 81% of the total supply on-network by quarter’s end.

Meanwhile, Ondo Finance launched 200-plus tokenized US stocks and ETFs on Solana, including a same-day tokenization of BitGo stock on the date of the company’s NYSE IPO.

Finally, while the stablecoin market cap on the platform remained at just under $15 billion, the composition changed. USDC fell 21% to $7.83 billion but remains the largest at 53% of the total, while USDT rose 34% to $2.89 billion.

At the same time, World Liberty Financial’s USD1 climbed 473% to $883.5 million, largely on the back of Binance reallocating customer holdings to Solana.

The post Report: Solana Activity Hits Record High Despite SOL’s 33% Q1 Drop appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The securities regulator was preparing to release its “innovation exemption” for tokenized stocks as soon as this week, and a draft of the plan had been prepared and reviewed by staff.

However, the timing has since been pushed back as the SEC weighs input from stock-exchange officials and other market participants, reported Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter on Saturday.

The exemption would have allowed the trading of tokenized stocks on decentralized exchanges that do not have the backing or consent of the public companies whose shares they track.

Experts Weigh Pros And Cons

However, the SEC noted that allowing the trading of third-party tokens has raised concerns. Several former regulators reportedly said it was unclear how companies could fulfill the same rights criteria as tokens traded on third-party blockchains.

Bloomberg also reported that public companies might face uncertainty over normal practices such as issuing dividends and counting shareholder votes. There was also concern about tokens ending up in the hands of bad actors overseas.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said earlier this week 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.”

“The SEC deserves a lot of credit for preparing diligently for legislation and for moving ahead expeditiously under its existing authority to provide clarity to markets in adopting tokenization in capital markets,” said Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal on Saturday.

Thank you @HesterPeirce. @Coinbase has long supported the thoughtful SEC staff comments already published on tokenization.

The SEC already has the existing authority it needs to permit innovation in securities markets, particularly for real, onchain tokenized NMS equities that… https://t.co/Mwr5VBrSVQ

— Paul Grewal (@iampaulgrewal) May 23, 2026

Meanwhile, Tiger Research director Ryan Yoon cautioned that allowing third-party trading of tokenized stocks could risk liquidity and revenue fragmentation. The move could create “price discrepancies across platforms,” in addition to increasing slippage on large orders, and ultimately “degrading overall market efficiency,” he said.

He added that financial revenues that should accrue to domestic US exchanges could flow offshore instead. Benefits from the move could include faster settlement, fractional ownership, lower transaction costs, the potential for 24/7 trading, and giving non-US citizens access to popular US stocks.

Crypto Markets Bounce on Trump Deal

Crypto markets have recovered from their Saturday slump today following the latest announcement from US President Donald Trump, who said on Truth Social that 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.”

The deal would include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and “final aspects and details of the deal are currently being discussed and will be announced shortly,” he added.

Bitcoin reclaimed $77,000 in early trading on Sunday following its dip to a five-week low of $74,200 on Saturday.

The post SEC Delays Plans for Tokenized Stock Trading on Crypto Platforms appeared first on CryptoPotato.

XRP’s recent price action reflects growing indecision, with volatility contracting on higher timeframes while shorter-term charts show repeated reactions from established support and resistance zones. Such compression periods often precede significant directional moves, making the upcoming sessions particularly important for the asset.

Ripple Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, XRP remains trapped beneath the descending long-term trendline while simultaneously struggling around the 100-day moving average near the $1.38 region. This moving average has recently acted as dynamic resistance, preventing buyers from sustaining upward momentum.

The price is also approaching the narrowing section of the broader descending channel structure, suggesting that a breakout event may be developing. As volatility compresses, XRP appears to be entering a decision zone where prolonged consolidation becomes less likely.

Currently, the primary resistance remains the $1.75-$1.85 supply region, while stronger resistance is located around the 200-day MA near $2.0. On the downside, the key support sits around the $1.10-$1.20 demand zone.

The most probable scenario in the near term is continued compression around the 100-day MA at $1.38, followed by an impulsive breakout. A bullish breakout above the descending channel and $1.40-$1.45 area could trigger recovery toward the $1.75-$1.85 resistance region. Conversely, rejection from current levels may reinforce the broader bearish trend and expose lower supports once again.

XRP/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart presents a clearer range-bound structure. XRP has been oscillating between support around the $1.27-$1.30 zone and resistance near $1.53-$1.57 for several weeks, forming a relatively stable consolidation range.

Most recently, the price revisited the lower boundary of this range near $1.30, triggering another bullish reaction. This suggests buyers continue defending the support area, increasing the possibility of a short-term move higher.

As long as XRP holds above the $1.30 support region, the path toward the upper boundary around $1.53-$1.57 remains open. Such a move would represent a corrective bullish swing inside the broader sideways structure rather than confirmation of a larger trend reversal.

However, repeated tests of support tend to weaken demand over time. Therefore, failure to maintain the $1.30 level could invalidate the consolidation range and increase the probability of renewed downside pressure. For now, the market structure favors continued ranging behavior, with the upper resistance zone near $1.55 acting as the primary target for any short-term recovery.

The post Ripple Price Analysis: The Next Few Trading Days Will Be Essential for XRP appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin remains under bearish pressure after failing to sustain momentum above the critical $80K-$82K resistance region. However, recent price action suggests buyers are attempting to defend the important $75K support zone, increasing the probability of a short-term corrective rebound before the broader downtrend resumes.

While the market structure still favors sellers, the current positioning near key support and liquidity clusters could trigger a temporary bullish correction in the coming sessions.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, BTC has entered a corrective phase after being rejected from the major supply zone around $82K-$84K, which also aligned with the upper boundary of the ascending channel. The rejection accelerated selling pressure and pushed the asset toward the important demand area at $75K-$76K.

Recently, the price swept below the $75K support region before quickly recovering, suggesting active buyer interest and potential liquidity collection beneath local lows. This recovery has led to a modest bullish reaction, with BTC currently attempting to stabilize above the $76K area.

Despite this rebound, the broader structure remains cautious. Bitcoin is still trading beneath previous support turned resistance, and as long as Bitcoin remains below the $80K-$82K region, any upside movement may simply represent a corrective pullback within a larger bearish retracement.

The first upside target for a relief rally sits around $78K-$80K, while stronger resistance remains at $82K-$84K. Failure to reclaim these levels could increase the probability of another bearish leg toward the next major daily demand zone around $70K-$71K. A deeper breakdown may eventually expose the lower support area near $65K-$66K.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart highlights a clearer short-term recovery attempt. After reaching the $75K-$76K order block, Bitcoin generated a sharp bounce and is now consolidating around $76K-$77K.

This reaction indicates that buyers are defending the local support area, potentially setting the stage for a corrective move higher. If momentum persists, the first pullback target lies near the $78K-$79K range, followed by the more significant resistance zone around $80K-$82K.

However, the broader lower-high formation remains intact, and recent price action still reflects weakening bullish momentum compared to earlier recovery phases. As a result, the current rebound could evolve into a classic bearish continuation setup, where price revisits resistance before initiating another decline.

For bulls to regain control, Bitcoin would need to reclaim the $80K-$82K region convincingly. Otherwise, the current move is more likely to be interpreted as temporary relief rather than a trend reversal.

Sentiment Analysis

The liquidation heatmap provides additional context supporting the corrective-bounce scenario. A notable concentration of short liquidations has accumulated above the current price, particularly within the $80K-$85K region.

Markets often gravitate toward nearby liquidity pools before resuming the prevailing trend. Therefore, Bitcoin may first move higher to absorb these leveraged short positions, potentially fueling a squeeze toward the $80K-$82K resistance area.

At the same time, substantial liquidity clusters remain below price around the $60K-$63K region, indicating that downside targets continue to exist if bearish momentum returns after the correction.

This creates a two-step scenario: an initial bullish retracement driven by liquidation hunting toward $80K-$82K, followed by renewed selling pressure and another bearish leg toward lower support levels. The interaction between price and these liquidity zones will likely determine Bitcoin’s next major move.

The post Bitcoin Price Prediction: What’s the Most Likely Scenario for BTC Next Week? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

SpaceX has revealed in a new S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it owns $1.293 billion in Bitcoin (BTC) on its balance sheet.

The disclosure is the first time the company has publicly shared details about its crypto treasury ahead of its IPO.

SpaceX Discloses Its BTC Position

In SpaceX’s filing, the company says it holds 18,712 BTC, which it purchased at an average cost of around $35,324 per BTC for a total of around $661 million. As of March 31, 2026, the fair value of those holdings stood at $1.293 billion, with an unrealized gain of nearly 119%.

“The company has ownership of and control over its digital assets, which consists of Bitcoin, and utilizes, and expects to continue to utilize third-party custodians to hold its Bitcoin,” read the filing.

Elon Musk has publicly hinted at his company’s interest in digital assets through his frequent social media commentary for years. However, this filing marks the first time the aerospace giant has formally acknowledged holding BTC. Until now, estimates of the firm’s holdings had been mostly speculative, with analysts tracking Arkham-linked wallets putting the figure at around 8,285 BTC.

The revelation places SpaceX among the largest corporate holders of BTC worldwide, surpassing Tesla’s own reserves. According to data from BitcoinTreasuries.net, the former now ranks seventh globally, while the latter sits in 13th place with holdings of 11,509 BTC.

Elsewhere, Strategy remains the largest BTC treasury company, with the firm recently making a multi-billion dollar purchase of 24,869 BTC, bringing its entire stash to 843,738 BTC.

SpaceX’s Upcoming IPO

SpaceX is getting ready for its much-anticipated IPO, which it plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX next month. The company is aiming to raise about $75 billion, with a valuation that’s expected to fall between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion. If successful, the offering would surpass the Saudi Aramco IPO from 2019, which raised $29.4 billion and currently holds the record for the biggest debut ever.

The aerospace firm said in its Wednesday prospectus that it sees a total addressable market of about $28.5 trillion, with its strategy focused on identifying opportunities that match this under its repeatable business model. The document also shows that Musk will keep about 85.1% of the voting power after the listing, meaning that he will still have strong control over key company decisions even after it becomes a public entity.

Meanwhile, Circle’s IPO made headlines last year in the crypto space, as the USDC issuer raised over $1 billion in its public debut. The offering also received lots of interest from major investors, with firms like ARK Investment and BlackRock contributing to its shares being oversubscribed by more than 25 times.

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