Geopolitical instability from the US-Iran conflict may lead to volatile markets, affecting global economic conditions and commodity prices.

The post US-Iran conflict fuels WTI crude oil price hike expectations for May 2026 appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Potential U.S. troop withdrawal from Europe could destabilize NATO's strategic balance, prompting a reevaluation of transatlantic alliances.

The post Trump considers pulling US troops from Italy, Spain amid NATO tensions appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The price hikes highlight the vulnerability of global energy markets to geopolitical tensions, potentially leading to prolonged supply chain disruptions.

The post Indian Oil raises LPG, jet fuel prices amid West Asia conflict appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The potential reintegration of Anthropic AI into federal operations could reshape U.S. tech policy, balancing innovation with ethical concerns.

The post US considers executive action to reintegrate Anthropic AI by April 2026 appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz could lead to sustained high energy prices, impacting global supply chains and industries.

The post Iran-US standoff disrupts Strait of Hormuz shipping, energy prices may hit $150 appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strike CEO Jack Mallers Announces Lending Proof-of-Reserves, Volatility-Proof Loans, and Backs Tether Merger Plan

Strike CEO Jack Mallers announced a series of product updates and strategic moves Wednesday, including the launch of lending proof-of-reserves, a new “volatility-proof” bitcoin-backed loan structure built with Tether, and a $2.1 billion credit facility. 

He also said he supports a proposal by Tether Investments to merge Strike with Twenty-One Capital and bitcoin miner Elektron Energy.

Mallers said Strike’s bitcoin-backed loan and line-of-credit business has grown since launch, with users drawn to the ability to borrow against bitcoin rather than sell it. 

He described bitcoin as a savings account for many customers and said Strike cut its rate tiers across the board. Pricing now ranges from approximately 10.5% APR for loans under $250,000 to approximately 7.49% APR for loans above $5 million.

Strike announced the first iteration of its lending proof-of-reserves, which gives borrowers the ability to verify that their collateral is present and segregated in a distinct on-chain address. 

“We want you to trust us and know that we are who we say we are,” Mallers said. The disclosure mechanism was developed in partnership with Tether, which Mallers credited with helping Strike build the transparency infrastructure.

The two companies also jointly developed what Mallers called “volatility-proof” bitcoin-backed loans, a structure that removes the risk of forced liquidation when bitcoin prices fall or broader markets drop. 

Mallers said the segregated collateral product is available now through Strike’s private client desk, and the volatility-proof loan feature is available to customers as part of the bitcoin-backed lending suite.

Mallers announced that Strike has secured a $2.1 billion credit facility, which he said gives the company capacity to meet demand at any order size within its lending business.

Merger proposal

Earlier Wednesday, Tether Investments published a proposal to merge Twenty-One Capital with Strike and Elektron Energy, a large-scale bitcoin mining operator that manages approximately 50 EH/s, or roughly 5% of the current Bitcoin network hashrate. 

Tether said the combined entity would integrate bitcoin treasury holdings, mining, financial services, lending, and capital markets under a single listed platform.

Mallers said he backs the plan. “Simply put, I think it’s a great idea,” he said, adding that building a Bitcoin company — not a narrow payments app — was his founding goal. Elektron founder Raphael Zagury has been proposed as President of the combined entity under the plan.

The bitcoin company quadrant and Maller’s vision

Mallers used a quadrant framework onstage to argue that the Bitcoin industry has a gap at the intersection of high conviction and high operating income. 

He placed crypto exchanges in the high-income, low-conviction corner, saying they run profitable businesses but list many coins and build products across asset classes. He placed bitcoin treasury companies in the high-conviction, low-income corner, describing them as deeply committed to bitcoin but limited in operating business scope. 

He cited Coinbase as an exchange that could carry more bitcoin on its balance sheet, and praised MicroStrategy executive chairman Michael Saylor while drawing a distinction between a treasury strategy and a product strategy. “I love him and his company,” Mallers said of Saylor, “but I want to build bitcoin products.”

His answer to the gap was a four-pillar model: a financial services arm covering brokerage, custody, lending, payments, treasury, and prime services; bitcoin infrastructure spanning energy, power generation, mining, hardware, and hosting; a capital markets operation built around loan-book securitization, mining revenue securitization, bitcoin-backed debt, and structured products; and a mergers-and-acquisitions function targeting profitable bitcoin businesses across software, custody, payments, energy, and distribution. 

The stated goal of the M&A arm, as presented on his slide, is to give “every dollar of operating income one job: buy more Bitcoin.”

Mallers closed by saying a platform of that scope could “change the world with its products” and cited a phrase he has used throughout his career: “Fix the money, fix the world.”

This post Strike CEO Jack Mallers Announces Lending Proof-of-Reserves, Volatility-Proof Loans, and Backs Tether Merger Plan first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strategy and Blockstream CEOs Paint Vision of Bitcoin’s Financial Future

Strategy CEO Phong Le and Blockstream CEO Adam Back appeared Wednesday on a panel moderated by Natalie Brunell, covering Bitcoin treasury strategy, tokenization, digital credit, and the enduring mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto. 

The conversation drew a picture of a financial system in transition, with Bitcoin at its center.

Le opened with a striking observation about Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings. The company now holds 818,334, putting it second behind only one entity. 

“There is only one individual entity with more Bitcoin than Strategy,” Le said. “That’s Satoshi.” 

The firm is on pace to reach 1 million BTC in the next couple of months, a milestone that would cement its place in financial history.

Digital credit in the bitcoin space

Much of the discussion centered on Stretch, or STRC, Strategy’s perpetual preferred stock that pays an 11.5% annual dividend with proceeds used to purchase Bitcoin.

Le was direct about why the product matters. “This product does good,” he said, contrasting it with industries like tobacco and processed food. 

Investors use STRC as a place to park short-term money, and it has served as a lower barrier for people seeking BTC exposure. Layer 2 products and DeFi protocols are now being built on top of it, Le said, describing STRC as “the most important credit product of all time” and a cornerstone for bringing BTC and DeFi together.

Back addressed the intersection of cypherpunk ideology and institutional finance, a tension the Bitcoin community has long wrestled with. 

He said BTC’s acceptance by sovereign wealth funds and private funds is “a sign of success,” not a compromise. Cypherpunks, he explained, believed in capital formation and free markets, not just cryptographic privacy. 

Back said treasury companies exist to grow Bitcoin per share, and when they do, individual holders benefit too.

Le reinforced the point, saying he learned much from Back when they first met. “Cypherpunks are gifted minds who understand the markets very well,” Le said, framing the movement as one that has always operated at the intersection of technology and capital.

On tokenization, both men saw it as the next structural shift. Le described it as “the digitalization of markets,” with blockchain providing the transparency layer.

He pointed to tap-to-pay as an analogy. “Why can’t you do that to a stock, peer to peer?” he asked. Back added that tokenization enables 24/7 trading, use of assets as collateral, and unlocks value in assets that are hard to discover or trade, like private notes and contracts.

When asked if major banks would compete in bitcoin digital credit, Le said he expected them to. He compared it to Amazon reshaping retail and forcing Walmart to respond. 

Then he added: “I’d love to see Morgan Stanley on that list” regarding massive bitcoin companies. 

The panel closed on a lighter note. Brunell asked Back about a New York Times investigation published earlier this month that named him as Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. 

Back, who denied the claim when the story broke, did not address it directly. “We are in a very good place regarding people adopting the technology,” he said. 

This post Strategy and Blockstream CEOs Paint Vision of Bitcoin’s Financial Future first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Morgan Stanley Executive on Bitcoin: ‘We Are Still So Early on This Journey’

Morgan Stanley launched its bitcoin exchange-traded product, the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), into a market it believes is still in its infancy. 

At a panel on Wednesday moderated by Tyler Evans, Amy Oldenburg, the bank’s head of digital assets, spent the better part of an hour making a case for bitcoin that few clients have heard in full, and said that gap is the industry’s most urgent problem.

“We have to start with bitcoin,” Oldenburg told the audience, citing the asset’s roughly 1.5 trillion dollar market cap and its distance from the rest of the crypto landscape. 

She was careful to draw a line between bitcoin and crypto as a broad category, a distinction she said most retail and institutional clients still do not make with confidence. The firm wants to see that distinction anchored in fundamental research, not just narrative.

Oldenburg: Bitcoin has an education problem 

The education problem, she said, runs deep. Many investors still associate bitcoin with its early history of use by bad actors, and struggle to see past that frame when weighing an allocation. 

Oldenburg said that when clients ask about yield or structured exposure, her team tries to be direct: “you can present it as a yield, but the underlying asset is bitcoin.” That clarity, she said, is still missing from most conversations in the market, and there is “so much more work to do.”

MSBT pulled in more than $100 million in its first week of trading, a strong early signal for a product the bank describes as designed for the full spectrum of its client base rather than a narrow segment. 

But Oldenburg was quick to put that number in context. All of the initial flows came through self-directed accounts, because the fund had not yet been made available on the advisory platform.

She noted that the bank has announced a 2–4% crypto allocation recommendation, and that even with that guidance in place, take-up through advisors has been slow. The product, she reminded the audience, has been on the market for less than a year.

To bridge that gap, Morgan Stanley is working from the inside out. Oldenburg said the firm is rolling out internal training so that financial advisors can speak to clients on bitcoin with confidence, and that her team spends “hour after hour after hour” on the phone walking clients through models and allocation frameworks. 

She said the bank designs products for clients with different needs and wants its platform to cover each of those needs, including clients who want a direct ETP wrapper, and that spot crypto trading is coming for those on the wealth management side.

On custodians, Oldenburg acknowledged the complexity of the decision. The market has no shortage of providers, and choosing among them was not straightforward, which led the firm to work with more than one. Morgan Stanley ultimately tapped Coinbase and BNY Mellon as custodians for MSBT.

When the conversation turned to high-beta bitcoin plays, Oldenburg called Strategy, the Michael Saylor-led company formerly known as MicroStrategy, “a good friend of Morgan Stanley,” and said the bank has worked alongside it through its evolution. 

She said most of the exposure in that vehicle so far is coming from retail and that “digital credit” as a category will take time to develop.

Morgan Stanley buying bitcoin is “not out of the question”

On the question of banks holding bitcoin on their balance sheets, Oldenburg said it is “not out of the question” if regulatory progress continues, but was measured in framing it. 

The U.S. needs greater alignment among its financial regulators, she said, and for a global firm like Morgan Stanley, the picture is more complex still — each jurisdiction comes with its own framework.

She closed where she began: on the need for research with reach. The market has commentators and personalities that investors trust and follow, she said, and the work ahead is to bring that kind of accessible, grounded analysis into the mainstream. 

“We are still so early on this journey,” she said. “So little allocation. It’s still really early.”

This post Morgan Stanley Executive on Bitcoin: ‘We Are Still So Early on This Journey’ first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin, WikiLeaks, and a Film the Streamers Wouldn’t Touch: Jack Dorsey and Eugene Jarecki Make Their Case

Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki and tech entrepreneur Jack Dorsey took the stage Wednesday to discuss The Six Billion Dollar Man, Jarecki’s documentary on Julian Assange, and the role the bitcoin community may play in getting it to the public — a conversation that stretched from censorship and surveillance to Satoshi Nakamoto and the original principles of the internet.

Dorsey joined the panel virtually. The setting itself carried weight: Jarecki told the crowd that the casino sitting close to where he stood had ties to the private security firm that spied on Assange while he lived inside London’s Ecuadorian Embassy — a revelation the documentary places at the center of its surveillance narrative.

Dorsey: Bitcoin embodies a gatekeeper-free, open network

Jarecki said he went to Dorsey first for money. He needed help distributing a film that, despite premiering at Cannes and earning recognition on the festival circuit, found no takers among major streaming platforms. Dorsey shifted the conversation. 

Rather than write a check, he told Jarecki that the bitcoin community represented something larger than a funding source — a constituency built around the same principles Assange had fought to defend.

“Bitcoin is an open protocol for money transmission,” Dorsey said. “It routes around the gatekeepers — Visa, Mastercard, the banks.” 

He described the community as one that views Assange as a hero, someone who stood for the idea that information should remain free and open, values he traced back to the founding culture of the internet itself.

Dorsey pointed to 2011 as a proof of concept. After financial institutions cut off WikiLeaks from donation channels under pressure from the U.S. government, bitcoin stepped in as the only payment rail that could not be blocked.

He called WikiLeaks adopting bitcoin out of necessity one of the most significant moments in the protocol’s early history — not because it was planned, but because it revealed an immediate, real-world use case under conditions of state pressure.

He then drew a line between Assange and Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin. Dorsey said what matters most about bitcoin is that its founder walked away. He called that exit a selfless act — one that made the network founderless, and therefore resistant to the kind of pressure that governments and institutions can apply when a single person stands at the center of a project. 

He placed Assange and Edward Snowden in the same category: people who trusted the technology they used, put their lives at risk for principles larger than themselves, and paid for it.

Jarecki said making the film carried its own risks. While shooting in Russia, he said his crew felt they were being followed and monitored — a layer of pressure that shaped the production from the inside. He described the mutual regard between Assange and Snowden, two figures who understood each other’s positions with precision, as one of the documentary’s most striking undercurrents.

A pay-per-view watch party in less than 60 days

The film’s distribution model is the most unusual element of the project. Dorsey proposed a global private pay-per-view watch party as an alternative to the traditional release pipeline. Ticket buyers at thesixbilliondollarman.com receive a credit line on the film itself, turning the audience into participants in the project rather than passive consumers. 

Jarecki framed it as a test of whether a community organized around open financial infrastructure could do what media gatekeepers would not — get a film about press freedom in front of the people who need to see it.

Dorsey said the website and the viewing model offer a way to crowdfund and bring the community together around a shared cause. 

At the panel, Jarecki showed never-before-seen clips from the documentary — behind-the-scenes footage that gave the audience a direct look at material that has not circulated publicly.

Jarecki and Dorsey are betting that the bitcoin community, which absorbed that argument in 2011 when it mattered most, will carry the film where the streaming industry declined to go.

This post Bitcoin, WikiLeaks, and a Film the Streamers Wouldn’t Touch: Jack Dorsey and Eugene Jarecki Make Their Case first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Eric Trump, John Koudounis Call Bitcoin a Global Reserve Asset, Float $1M Price Target

At Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas, Eric Trump and Calamos Investments CEO John Koudounis sat down with Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas for a panel that covered bitcoin’s maturation from speculative instrument to global reserve contender. 

The conversation ranged across institutional adoption, government debanking, currency debasement, and the challenge of winning over ordinary investors who still view bitcoin as too risky, too complex, or both. 

It was a panel that reflected how much the room has changed — a mix of long-time bitcoin believers and fresh institutional money that, a decade ago, would have dismissed this gathering entirely.

Trump: Bitcoin is a sticky, limited supply asset

Trump opened on a structural theme, arguing that bitcoin has become “sticky.” The U.S. government now holds approximately 300,000 bitcoin and will not sell, he said, a claim consistent with the creation of a U.S. strategic bitcoin reserve. 

Corporate treasury buyers like Strategy and Metaplanet, which surpassed 40,000 bitcoin in holdings by the end of the first quarter of 2026, are doing the same. The world’s largest financial platforms — Trump named Charles Schwab and Morgan Stanley — have also moved in. 

American Bitcoin, the company Trump co-founded, is mining bitcoin and holding every coin rather than selling. 

“We are compressing bitcoin,” Trump said. “There is a limited supply.”

The argument, in essence, is that the natural sellers are leaving the market while a new class of permanent holders takes their place.

Koudounis put the bitcoin supply compression argument in the context of a broader capital shift. He cited research projecting that 124 trillion dollars in wealth will transfer across generations through 2048, and said the 60 billion dollars that have moved into spot bitcoin ETFs so far represent a fraction of what is coming. 

For context, 60 billion dollars is roughly the size of a mid-tier U.S. asset manager’s total book. Set against a 124 trillion dollar transfer of accumulated Boomer wealth to Millennial and Gen Z inheritors who are far more comfortable with digital assets, it reads as a starting line.

Koudounis told the audience that the institutional conversation has already moved on. “The question used to be, ‘Are you buying bitcoin?'” he said. “Now it’s, ‘What percent are you allocating?'”

And his conclusion on what full institutional entry means for the asset: “Once institutions get involved, it’s game over.”

How can bitcoin attract retail clients?  

Balchunas pressed both men on the retail challenge, asking how they would sell bitcoin to his mother — a stand-in for the generation of older investors who remain nervous about volatility and complexity. It is a question the industry has never fully answered. 

Bitcoin’s price history, with its 80% drawdowns and euphoric recoveries, is not a comfortable pitch to someone managing a fixed retirement income. 

In response to this quandary, Koudounis said that Calamos has built a line of protected bitcoin ETFs that cap downside and smooth returns, turning a perceived deterrent into a feature for conservative investors who want exposure without the full ride. 

The goal, he said, is to add bitcoin exposure to products that already feel familiar to traditional investors. 

Trump’s answer to the same question was more direct. Fixed income, he argued, is not a genuine alternative at current yields. 

“Do yourself a favor, go invest in fixed income at 4%,” he said. “I’ll invest in bitcoin. I’ll ride out the volatility and we’ll see who wins that equation in a 10-year period of time.” 

He claimed BTC has averaged roughly 70% annual growth per year over the past decade and called it “a better gold,” adding that “every country in this world needs it.”

The macro case Trump made was not only about returns. He pointed to currency weakness and geopolitical instability — citing Iran specifically — as reasons traditional store-of-value assets are under pressure, and argued that BTC’s ability to transfer value across borders without a bank intermediary is a feature that becomes more valuable the more fragile existing systems look.

Currency debasement, he said, is real and ongoing, and bitcoin is designed to resist it. “Would you rather have the euro,” he asked, “or would you rather have bitcoin, an asset that’s grown at 70% a year on average, year over year for the last decade? It’s not even close.”

Koudounis: Banks can ‘debank’ you at any time

On the question of why he became an advocate at all, Trump’s answer was personal. He described how major banks shut down hundreds of Trump Organization accounts — covering buildings, golf courses, and restaurants — following the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

JPMorgan has since confirmed it closed those accounts. Trump and the Trump Organization later filed suit against Capital One over similar closures.

“They threw us away like dogs,” Trump said on stage. 

The debanking experience, combined with what he described as slow, friction-heavy bank wire transfers, pushed him toward bitcoin’s censorship-resistant architecture. “That’s why I advocate like hell for this industry,” he said. 

On usability, Trump conceded that early crypto technology was clunky, but said banks entering the space will be the force that finally makes the experience simple.

“The industry will grow,” he said, “when the user experience is simple and easy and not torturous.”

Koudounis broadened the debanking argument beyond the Trumps. He drew on personal history, recounting Greece’s 2015 debt crisis, when the government imposed daily withdrawal limits on bank accounts that lasted roughly four years before capital controls were fully lifted. 

Citizens woke up one day to find the state had placed a ceiling on how much of their own money they could access. 

“You don’t have to be the Trumps to be targeted by banks,” Koudounis said. “This can happen to anybody. You, me, any of us.” 

Banks told you to stay away, then ‘snuck into’ bitcoin

Koudounis then turned the spotlight on the financial industry’s own behavior. While banks spent years publicly dismissing BTC and warning customers away from it, they were constructing the infrastructure to invest in it out of sight. 

“Banks got the clue,” he said, and delivered a pointed summary to the crowd: “You guys won.”

Trump closed with three statements that drew the loudest reaction of the panel. He called government spending “dangerous” and pointed to a federal investigation that found some government spending to be fraudulent, citing it as evidence for why a transparent, programmable, decentralized form of money has real-world value beyond trading.

If fraud of that scale is hard to eliminate in the best-administered country on earth, he argued, it is a structural problem that BTC’s transparent ledger is built to address. He acknowledged the macro backdrop has been rough for holders over the past three months but told the audience to stay the course.

And then he closed his remarks in plain terms: “I have absolute conviction that bitcoin is going to hit one million dollars… I’ve never been more bullish on this asset class in my life.”

This post Eric Trump, John Koudounis Call Bitcoin a Global Reserve Asset, Float $1M Price Target first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

While Washington attempts to navigate the stablecoin battle between banks and crypto companies over the Clarity Act, Coinbase has now announced the “Coinbase Stablecoin Credit Strategy” (CUSHY), targeting qualified investors and institutions with exposure to public, private, and opportunistic credit.

The firm also said that it offers investors access to the structural alpha from tokenization, protocol incentives, and on-chain market structure.

The launch is a direct bet that stablecoins, which topped $33 trillion in transaction volume in 2025 and had an average of 89 million daily holding addresses, are mature enough to serve as distribution rails for institutional credit.

Coinbase already earns heavily from stablecoin economics, with $1.35 billion in stablecoin revenue in 2025, and subscriptions and services accounting for 41% of net revenue, against total net revenue of $6.88 billion.

Optional tokenized shares run on Superstate's FundOS platform, with Northern Trust as the fund administrator, Coinbase Prime as the prime services provider, and Base, Solana, and Ethereum as the supported networks.

CUSHY fits Coinbase's existing trajectory by converting stablecoin infrastructure into an asset management product with recurring institutional relationships.

The credit layer stablecoins haven't touched yet

McKinsey and Artemis estimate actual stablecoin payment activity at roughly $390 billion in 2025, which is still small compared with the raw $33 trillion on-chain volume figure that Coinbase cites.

BIS similarly found annual stablecoin volumes of around $35 trillion in 2025, while acknowledging that real-economy use remained modest, with most of the raw volume reflecting trading, internal transfers, and automated activity.

Only about $8 billion of that flowed through capital markets settlement in 2025, per McKinsey.

Private credit is the most direct bridge between what stablecoins can do and what institutional finance actually needs.

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The Federal Reserve tracked bank commitments to private credit vehicles, climbing from roughly $8 billion in the first quarter of 2013 to about $95 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024.

That expansion happened entirely within traditional financial plumbing via bilateral relationships, manual fund administration, and limited secondary-market access.

In theory, on-chain rails transform subscription and transfer mechanics without affecting credit underwriting. Coinbase is betting that operational improvements alone are enough to draw institutional allocators toward tokenized structures.

BCG puts tokenized US Treasuries at $13.6 billion in April 2026, while RWA.xyz shows tokenized credit at $5.01 billion in distributed value and $21.2 billion in represented value, with represented value up 5.54% over the past 30 days.

Credit risk survives the wrapper

The technology improves subscription mechanics, transfer speed, and observability, and the underlying assets retain all the opacity, illiquidity, and borrower dependence they would in any traditional structure.

A tokenized share in a private-credit fund can move on a blockchain at any hour; no counterparty can liquidate the underlying loan on demand.

That difference between the wrapper's apparent liquidity and the asset's actual liquidity is the oldest risk in structured finance, and tokenization does not resolve it.

Coinbase's CUSHY leaves the core tension between digital rail speed and credit market depth intact.

The Federal Reserve put specific numbers to private credit risk, noting a roughly $36 billion increase in drawdowns, with limited aggregate effects on large banks' capital and liquidity ratios in a stress scenario in which private credit vehicles fully drew down their last credit lines.

The direct bank-stability implications appear contained for now, but the Fed also flagged opacity and intensifying interconnectedness between banks and private-credit vehicles as factors warranting close monitoring. Coinbase is building on a sector the Fed is watching closely.

The bull case

If Citi's projection of $1.9 trillion in stablecoin issuance by 2030 in its base scenario proves directionally right, CUSHY looks early.

In that environment, stablecoins become the default money leg for fund subscriptions, redemptions, collateral movements, and secondary transfers in private-credit and asset-based-lending structures.

Coinbase's existing infrastructure stack positions it closer to that outcome.

The $17.8 billion in average USDC balances held in Coinbase products during 2025 shows that institutional capital already sits within its infrastructure, and that pointing that capital toward credit products with recurring management economics is the natural extension.

Coinbase explicitly frames CUSHY around digitally native borrowers migrating to more efficient digital rails, a thesis backed by BIS data showing private credit lending to SaaS firms climbed from roughly $8 billion in 2015 to more than $500 billion by the end of 2025.

If those borrowers prefer on-chain access to capital, an institutional fund already running on tokenized rails and a public-chain stablecoin settlement layer gets there first.

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The bear case

Citi's analysis presents the counterargument that bank token turnover could exceed stablecoin volumes by 2030.

If institutions prefer permissioned, bank-issued tokenized cash for the settlement leg of credit products, Coinbase may help prove that institutional credit belongs on-chain while watching the most lucrative flows consolidate around bank-controlled infrastructure.

The credit thesis could be correct, and Coinbase could still find itself competing against JPMorgan's tokenized deposit rails and similar permissioned systems for the institutional relationship.

The liquidity mismatch risk amplifies that outcome. A credit event or gating episode within a tokenized private-credit vehicle would manifest as an on-chain liquidity failure in investors' consciousness, freezing appetite across the entire tokenized-credit category, regardless of which issuer caused it.

Coinbase's first-mover position becomes a liability if an early stumble sets the narrative before the product matures.

The question now is whether institutional allocators trust public chain stablecoin networks more than the permissioned token systems that large banks are building in parallel.

The post Coinbase’s new credit fund shows why banks are fighting stablecoin yield on the Clarity Act appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Visa said its settlement pilot for stablecoins now supports nine blockchains and has reached a run rate of $7 billion a year.

The company announced on April 29 that it added Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon and Tempo to a pilot that already used Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana and Stellar.

Visa said the annualized settlement run rate is up 50% from the prior quarter.

The pilot remains bounded by Visa's own language, but the signal is in where the volume sits. Stablecoins are entering the part of payments consumers rarely see, the settlement layer that moves value between issuers, acquirers, banks, program managers and treasury systems after a transaction has already been authorized.

That makes the update a settlement-infrastructure signal as much as a blockchain support list. Visa is testing whether stablecoins can become a parallel settlement option inside payment infrastructure that already touches banks, card programs and merchants across markets.

The operational point is direct: crypto adoption is moving into the back office before it becomes visible at the checkout screen.

The conclusion has limits. The company described a pilot and support, gave a run rate for stablecoin settlement, and left the split by chain, stablecoin, partner, and geography undisclosed.

That keeps things bounded: the network is adding optional settlement rails, while traditional settlement remains part of the stack.

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Apr 9, 2026 · Gino Matos

How Visa got to nine chains

Visa has been building toward this point for several years. In 2023, the company said it had moved millions of USDC between partners over Solana and Ethereum to settle fiat-denominated VisaNet payments.

That announcement followed an earlier Crypto.com issuer pilot and expanded the settlement work to merchant acquirers Worldpay and Nuvei.

The operational issue is familiar in card payments. A consumer gets near-instant authorization at the point of sale, but funds still have to move between the issuing bank and the merchant's bank.

Visa's treasury and settlement systems sit inside that process, moving value across currencies and institutions.

In December 2025, U.S. issuer and acquirer partners gained the ability to settle with Visa in USDC, with Cross River Bank and Lead Bank initially settling over Solana.

The company cited faster funds movement, seven-day availability, and resilience across weekends and holidays.

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The April release also connected the chain expansion to Visa's stablecoin-linked card programs, which it said numbered more than 130 programs across more than 50 countries.

That makes the nine-chain footprint part of a broader payment operating model, beyond a ledger experiment.

The new run rate gives that timeline a sharper shape. The December 2025 U.S. launch put the prior annualized stablecoin settlement baseline above $3.5 billion.

The April update puts the run rate at $7 billion, with five more blockchains added to the pilot.

The table serves as a footprint rather than a volume map. The run rate applies to the pilot as a whole; the available disclosure leaves that volume undivided across the nine supported networks.

The sequence also shows a shift in who the product is for. The early work proved that USDC could move between card ecosystem participants.

The current phase asks whether the same settlement logic can be offered across a wider menu of rails while reducing the need for each partner to build separate crypto operations from scratch.

What the chain mix shows

The five additions suggest the types of environments Visa wants available to partners.

Arc is a stablecoin-native Layer 1 created by Circle. It brings USDC-denominated fees, optional privacy, sub-second deterministic finality and direct integration with Circle's stack.

That makes Arc relevant to payment flows where predictable costs, stablecoin liquidity and transfer guarantees count more than token speculation.

Arc's public materials also describe public testnet status, which keeps production claims bounded.

Base brings a different route into the same problem. Visa described Base as powered by Coinbase, while Base offers USDC payments that settle in seconds, use low gas costs and can be funded from a Base Account or Coinbase Account.

Base connects wallets, payment tooling, and exchange-linked liquidity into a consumer and developer surface.

Canton adds the institutional privacy layer. Visa had already said in March that it would become a Canton Super Validator, helping banks and financial institutions explore privacy-preserving payments, settlement and treasury use cases.

Canton centers stablecoin payments on need-to-know privacy, so counterparties, amounts and strategies can remain visible only to the parties that need them, unlike many open blockchains.

As an analytical reading of the chain mix, Polygon and Tempo fit the payment-infrastructure side of the roster. Polygon emphasizes global payments, stablecoin liquidity and lower-cost transactions.

Tempo emphasizes dedicated payment lanes, stablecoin-native gas, payment metadata for reconciliation and deterministic settlement.

Together, the additions create a wider operating menu across chain types. One partner may need low-cost stablecoin movement.

Another may need privacy controls for regulated finance. Another may value Coinbase-connected payment tooling.

Visa's role is to make those differences usable through a common settlement layer.

The result is a portfolio of settlement options across chain types. That portfolio lets Visa present stablecoins as infrastructure that can adapt to partner constraints, from regulated privacy to low-cost throughput, while keeping the payment-network relationship in the center.

The adoption signal is operational

The broader market context supports the shift while keeping price moves out of the frame. As of April 30, the crypto market stood at around $2.55 trillion, while DefiLlama put total stablecoin market capitalization at around $319.802 billion.

USDC sits in that context as a core settlement asset used for payments, treasury management, collateral, and cross-chain liquidity.

Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon Ecosystem Token are large or payment-relevant networks and tokens that can carry settlement infrastructure while keeping price data in the background.

Stablecoins already have enough liquidity and operating history for large payment networks to treat them as infrastructure options.

The adoption test shifts from whether a consumer chooses a wallet over a card to whether payment firms can use stablecoins to move value after the customer-facing transaction is done.

The market-side thesis has been building. A January analysis of BlackRock's stablecoin thesis argued that dollar tokens were shifting from trading utility to settlement infrastructure within and alongside traditional finance.

An April analysis of Visa, Stripe, and Mastercard described stablecoins as a settlement and liquidity layer beneath existing payment brands.

Visa's update provides a current operating example for that thesis. The company is connecting stablecoin settlement to issuers, acquirers, U.S. banks, and stablecoin-linked card programs.

Its March expansion with Bridge said stablecoin-linked Visa cards were live in 18 countries, with planned expansion to more than 100 countries.

That release also said issuers and acquirers involved in those programs could settle with Visa using stablecoins over supported networks.

Regulation sits in the background. Treasury framed the U.S. GENIUS Act as providing regulatory clarity for a market it expects could become much larger.

A CryptoSlate analysis of stablecoin economics under the CLARITY and GENIUS framework showed why the policy fight has moved toward who captures digital-dollar economics.

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Apr 28, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

Visa tied the expansion to pilots, banks, partners, and supported networks, while the policy debate helps explain why payment stablecoins are drawing more mainstream attention.

The $7 billion run rate shows real activity, while the lack of a chain-by-chain breakdown leaves the depth of each rail unclear.

The nine-chain footprint shows optionality, while the pilot label keeps the conclusion bounded.

The adoption signal is therefore specific. Stablecoins are taking on a role beyond trading-market distribution.

Within Visa's settlement pilot, they are becoming a treasury and settlement option for institutions already within mainstream payments.

The next test is whether that option remains a specialist rail for selected partners or becomes a routine part of how global payment firms move value after the consumer never sees the transaction again.

The post Visa is quietly building stablecoins into mainstream payment plumbing without you knowing appeared first on CryptoSlate.

X has given users a new way to turn down the noise in their For You feeds. The first signal from that tool should make the crypto industry uncomfortable.

According to X product executive Nikita Bier, crypto ranked as the most-snoozed topic since the platform began rolling out topic snoozing for Premium subscribers. It came ahead of politics, sports, business and finance, artificial intelligence, gaming, and entertainment.

That is a brutal placement for an industry that has spent more than a decade treating X as its main public square. Crypto has used the platform for launches, price discovery, fundraising narratives, protocol drama, scam warnings, meme cycles, customer support, and real-time market consensus.

For many users, that same feed has become exhausting.

The strongest signal in Bier’s ranking is plain: when given the option, many users chose to see less crypto before almost anything else.

Bitcoin’s price makes the timing sharper. CryptoSlate’s Bitcoin market data showed BTC near $76,000 on April 30, down over 24 hours and seven days, yet still up more than 14% over 30 days.

That is enough of a rebound to put Bitcoin back into daily market conversation. It is also far below the October 2025 all-time high above $126,000, which leaves a large gap between the market’s recent recovery and the public’s tolerance for more crypto content.

Crypto’s biggest attention venue is becoming easier to escape

The most important part of X’s change is the user action. Crypto became the first thing users chose to mute when the platform gave them more control over their feeds.

High visibility can look like demand from inside the crypto industry. From the user side, it can feel like repetition, spam, bots, recycled charts, promotional accounts, and a stream of posts that all ask for attention at once.

X’s new product direction makes that fatigue more measurable. The platform has begun rolling out Custom Timelines, which let Premium users pin topic feeds to the home tab.

Those feeds are powered by Grok’s understanding of posts and the platform’s personalization systems. At the same time, X is giving users a way to snooze topics from the For You tab.

One tool pulls committed users deeper into a niche. The other helps tired users fence that niche off.

For crypto, that creates a split distribution system. The already-convinced can pin crypto and go deeper.

The fatigued can mute it and move on. The group in the middle, the ordinary user who checks Bitcoin now and then, becomes harder to reach by accident.

That middle group has always been important to retail cycles because many new users first encounter crypto through ambient social exposure. They see a chart, a warning, a meme, a debate, or a price milestone, then search for context.

If the feed removes more of that ambient exposure, crypto loses one of its cheapest discovery channels.

The risk is larger for the broader crypto market than for Bitcoin itself. Bitcoin has institutional products, ETFs, treasury buyers, long-term holders, and macro allocators.

It can attract capital through financial rails that do not require a casual user to enjoy crypto content on X. Meme coins, token launches, smaller chains, influencer-led trades, and narrative-driven altcoins depend more heavily on social spread.

They need users to see a theme before they search for it. They need the feed to carry excitement before fundamentals can be tested.

If crypto becomes something users actively mute, that mechanism weakens.

This also turns spam into a market-structure issue. Bier has said that no technology can fully solve spam replies on crypto accounts and the majority of crypto activity is bot-driven.

That figure should be treated as an attributed platform claim instead of a verified measure of all crypto discussion. Even with that caution, the direction is clear.

Users are reacting to an experience. If crypto content feels polluted, the feed becomes less useful for education, price discovery, and trust formation.

Bitcoin can recover while public attention keeps thinning

The uncomfortable part for the industry is that Bitcoin’s recovery and crypto fatigue can happen at the same time. Markets do not need every casual user to feel excited before price can move.

Capital can return through ETFs, fund flows, macro positioning, treasury strategies, or long-term accumulation. Attention works differently.

It depends on curiosity, trust, and the willingness to keep reading after the first few seconds.

Recent fund-flow data supports the idea that capital is moving on a separate rail. CoinShares reported weekly inflows of $1.4 billion into digital asset investment products, the strongest weekly total since January and a third consecutive week of positive flows.

That gives Bitcoin a support channel that social media sentiment alone cannot explain. Institutional and product-based demand can improve while casual-feed tolerance gets worse.

That is the core contradiction.

Google Trends adds another layer. Trends data is normalized on a scale from 0 to 100, so it shows relative interest inside a selected window rather than absolute search volume.

The recent worldwide chart for “bitcoin” over the past three months shows a spike followed by a steady fade into April. The five-year view is more mixed, with several strong bursts around major market moments. The current period is also far below the 2017 mania peak.

That does not prove public interest has disappeared. It shows that current search intensity is weaker than past peaks and softer than the recent spike.

In plain English, Bitcoin is back on the market radar, while the surrounding content layer has yet to rebuild broad curiosity at the level that usually marks full retail participation. That aligns with the X snooze data.

Users may still care about Bitcoin’s price. They may still own exposure.

They may still follow major milestones. They are also showing signs of fatigue with the surrounding content machine.

CryptoSlate previously covered a related tension when US Bitcoin search interest climbed toward 2021 levels even as Bitcoin traded far below its later highs. The lesson from that earlier period was that search interest is a receipt for attention, rather than a price signal by itself.

The current setup carries a different implication. Price can rebuild before the public mood does.

That leaves Bitcoin in a stronger position than most of crypto because it can draw demand from more than one source. It also leaves the industry with a more difficult task: proving that the content layer is worth returning to.

The next cycle may depend on who can still reach normal users

The next phase for crypto may be less about whether people know Bitcoin exists and more about whether they want crypto in their daily information diet. Awareness is no longer scarce.

Trust and tolerance are.

That is a different problem from the early cycles, when the main challenge was explaining what Bitcoin was. The current challenge is explaining why a user should keep crypto in the feed after years of scams, leverage blowups, celebrity tokens, exchange failures, spam replies, and AI-generated content farms.

That shift has practical consequences. If Bitcoin holds the $70,000 to $80,000 area and fund inflows continue, it can keep behaving like a macro asset even with weak social enthusiasm.

That would support the idea that Bitcoin has matured into a capital market instrument with its own institutional demand base. Under that path, casual users may return only after price forces the issue, which would make retail a lagging signal rather than the engine of the move.

A second path is more difficult for the broader market. Crypto remains one of the most-muted topics, search interest stays soft, and altcoin narratives fail to break into general feeds.

That would leave Bitcoin relatively insulated while smaller assets fight for attention inside narrower, more self-selected audiences. The effect would show up in weaker exchange app momentum, slower narrative spread, thinner retail participation, and more dependence on paid promotion or influencer networks.

In that environment, social reach becomes more expensive and less trusted at the same time.

A third path is more selective. X’s Custom Timelines could create a smaller but more committed crypto audience.

Users who pin crypto may engage more deeply with higher-intent content, while everyone else sees less of it. That would reward serious analysis, market data, protocol updates, and trusted media.

It would punish generic hype because generic hype would struggle outside its own bubble. The open question is whether that smaller audience can still create market-wide momentum or whether it simply produces stronger echo chambers.

The fourth path is a trust backlash. If bot complaints and spam claims keep defining the crypto experience on X, the platform may tighten reply visibility, topic distribution, or paid controls.

Users may begin treating crypto posts as unsafe by default. That would have the heaviest impact on projects that rely on fast social legitimacy.

It would also create an opening for search, newsletters, direct media brands, exchange research desks, and data platforms because users still need context, even when they do not want the firehose.

The clearest thing to watch is whether crypto stays near the top of X’s snoozed-topic ranking after the launch period. A one-week ranking can be dismissed as novelty, exposure bias, or a power-user quirk.

A persistent ranking would say something deeper about the state of crypto distribution. The second signal is Bitcoin search behavior if BTC approaches $80,000 again.

A sharp search rebound would show that price can still pull ordinary users back in. A muted search response would suggest that Bitcoin’s recovery is being driven more by capital flows than public excitement.

Crypto’s feed problem is now part of the market

The industry has often treated attention as proof of strength. That assumption needs more scrutiny.

A topic can be everywhere and still be unwanted. A feed can be full of crypto and still fail to build trust.

A market can recover while the public chooses to see less of the content around it.

The X snooze ranking is powerful because it turns a vague complaint into a user action. People used a new tool to reduce crypto in their feeds.

That is a clearer signal than sentiment slogans because it reflects behavior. For a market that still depends heavily on social distribution, behavior carries more weight than another poll, another influencer fight, or another chart thread.

Many users are tired.

They may be tired of scam replies under major accounts. They may be tired of tokens promoted with no substance.

They may be tired of market panic dressed up as certainty. They may be tired of seeing every price move converted into a demand for attention.

When a platform gives those users a switch, they use it.

Bitcoin can continue attracting capital through ETFs and institutional products, especially if macro conditions support hard-asset narratives or if investors keep treating BTC as a liquid, high-beta store-of-value trade.

The rest of crypto faces a harder distribution test. Projects that need broad retail discovery may find that the old X playbook produces less reach and more resistance.

Exchanges may need to rely more on search intent, product utility, brand trust, and direct acquisition. Media outlets may gain leverage if users still want crypto context but want less feed sludge.

Global adoption data also argues against treating X fatigue as a verdict on crypto demand. Chainalysis’ 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index ranked India and the United States at the top, showing that crypto usage remains geographically broad and driven by different local needs.

CryptoSlate has also covered how adoption often depends on practical on-ramps, payment rails, verification flows, and usable interfaces rather than online attention alone. The feed is one channel.

It is an important channel because crypto has leaned on it so heavily, but it is still one channel.

Ultimately, X shows that crypto’s free-attention layer has been damaged.

Bitcoin has enough institutional structure to keep moving even when social enthusiasm looks tired. Many other crypto assets still need that enthusiasm to travel.

The next cycle may reveal which parts of the market can survive a world where users can make crypto disappear from their feeds with one tap.

The post Crypto is the most “muted” term on X as public splits between believers and avoiders appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin's April rebound is now facing a two-front macro test. The official Treasury curve for Apr. 29 placed the 10-year yield at 4.42%, the 30-year at 4.98%, and the 5-year at 4.05%.

Today, market charts show the same pressure zone, with the 10-year near 4.40%, the 30-year near 5%, the 5-year near 4.04%, and WTI crude elevated.

At the same time, Brent crude is trading above $126, its highest level since 2022, after fresh reporting says President Donald Trump is willing to keep the Iran blockade in place for months.

Bitcoin is trading near $76,049 today, about 40% below its October 2025 high. The broader crypto market is near $2.54 trillion, with Bitcoin dominance near 59.9%.

Those levels put Bitcoin in a different kind of test. The decisive issue is whether the rate market is raising the price of taking risk faster than crypto demand can absorb it.

If the 10-year yield moves toward or through 4.5%, Bitcoin's near-term ceiling may be set by oil, Treasury supply, real yields, and Fed liquidity operations before it is set by crypto-specific flow.

The market question is direct: if bonds keep selling off, does Washington need to reduce geopolitical oil pressure or ease Treasury and Fed plumbing before Bitcoin can retake risk appetite?

Bond yields are setting the first line

The first pressure point is the nominal Treasury curve. A 10-year yield around 4.4% is already close to the level CryptoSlate highlighted in its recent Bitcoin bond-market analysis as the area where the $80,000 test becomes harder.

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Bitcoin’s $80k test should be decided by the bond market this week

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Apr 28, 2026 · Gino Matos

The Apr. 28 analysis argued that a break above 4.35%, moving toward a 4.6% upside area, could turn a renewed inflow streak into another failed rally at resistance.

The Apr. 29 official curve put that risk within reach. The 10-year was at 4.42%, the 30-year was at 4.98%, and the 5-year was at 4.05%.

The long end is the part of the curve that speaks most directly to duration risk, equity multiples, mortgage pressure, and the discount rate investors apply to assets with distant or uncertain cash flows.

Bitcoin has no coupon, dividend, or earnings stream. That means its macro case relies heavily on liquidity, risk appetite, scarcity demand, ETF access, and balance-sheet demand.

When Treasury yields rise, those inputs face a tougher comparison. Investors can earn close to 5% at the long end of the U.S. risk-free curve while Bitcoin remains below its early-year highs.

The real-yield layer makes the setup sharper. Treasury's real curve showed the 10-year real yield at 1.96% and the 30-year real yield at 2.71% on Apr. 29.

Treasury publishes those rates as market data. The Bitcoin implication comes from the way BTC has traded in this regime.

IMF research on the crypto cycle and U.S. monetary policy found that a common crypto factor explained 80% of crypto price variation and that Fed tightening reduced that factor through the risk-taking channel.

CryptoSlate has also argued that Bitcoin's recent macro identity looks more like a liquidity-sensitive tech beta than a clean gold or dollar hedge.

In that regime, higher real yields can work like a drag on the market's willingness to pay for volatility. BTC can still rise, but it needs stronger proof that demand is deep enough to survive a higher hurdle rate.

Oil has become a rates variable

The second pressure point is oil. Reuters reported that the U.S. was seeking international support to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while crude prices surged and a U.S. blockade of Iranian oil exports remained part of the pressure campaign in stalled talks.

The Guardian then reported Brent above $126 after Trump warned the blockade could last for months.

That takes the issue beyond foreign-policy risk. Oil is now part of the rate equation because energy prices flow into inflation expectations, headline inflation, freight, input costs, consumer pressure, and the Fed's reaction function.

The Energy Information Administration's April outlook gives the scale. It said the Strait of Hormuz had been effectively closed to shipping since Feb. 28 and that nearly 20% of global oil supply normally flows through the strait.

Brent had already reached almost $128 on Apr. 2. EIA expected Brent to average $115 in the second quarter under assumptions that included the conflict easing after April.

A separate EIA release estimated that Middle East producers shut in 7.5 million barrels per day in March, rising to 9.1 million barrels per day in April.

That forecast already treated the disruption as a major energy-market event. The latest developments on a months-long blockade challenge the duration assumption underlying that base case.

The Fed has already connected the dots. Its Apr. 29 statement said inflation was elevated, in part because of increases in global energy prices, and that Middle East developments were creating high uncertainty.

Chair Jerome Powell's opening statement went further, noting that March PCE estimates pointed to 3.5% headline inflation and 3.2% core PCE, with headline inflation boosted by global oil prices.

The vote showed that the Fed's constraint was both internal and external. The FOMC held the target range at 3.50% to 3.75%.

Stephen Miran dissented in favor of a 25-basis-point cut. Beth Hammack, Neel Kashkari, and Lorie Logan supported the hold but opposed keeping the easing-bias language in the statement.

That split is the rates-market version of the oil shock. One side saw enough downside risk to prefer a cut. Another side saw enough inflation risk to resist easing language. Bitcoin sits downstream from that disagreement.

Policy levers start with plumbing

If yields keep climbing, Washington has only a few near-term channels to ease the pressure. One is geopolitical: reduce the oil shock by changing the blockade calculus or reopening a route for Gulf energy flows.

That channel would be the cleanest for risk assets because it would directly attack the inflation impulse.

Another channel is liquidity management. The Fed's implementation note kept the administered-rate structure in place and directed the Open Market Desk to buy Treasury bills, and if needed, other Treasuries with remaining maturities of three years or less, to maintain an ample level of reserves.

That is a reserve-management tool. It can support market functioning and bank-reserve conditions while still leaving oil prices and term premium outside the direct toolset.

Treasury has its own levers. Its most recent refunding page shows the next major financing documents scheduled for May 4 and May 6.

February borrowing estimates projected $109 billion in privately held net marketable borrowing for April through June, with an assumed $900 billion end-June cash balance.

The February refunding statement said Treasury could adjust bill sizes, expected the Treasury General Account to peak around $1.025 trillion in late April, and planned buybacks of up to $38 billion for liquidity support plus up to $75 billion in the one-month to two-year bucket for cash management.

Those tools can affect market plumbing. Bill issuance changes the part of the curve that absorbs supply. Buybacks can support off-the-run liquidity.

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Apr 30, 2026 · Gino Matos

TGA movements can add to or drain bank reserves. The constraint is that debt management can smooth financing pressure while energy inflation still pushes against the Fed.

Each path remains conditional. A geopolitical channel would attack oil-inflation pressure directly. A plumbing channel would need to improve funding conditions without making the response look like stress.

The market still has to prove which path is active.

Bitcoin's own market has little room

Bitcoin's price structure makes the macro squeeze more visible. BTC fell below $76,000 after the Fed decision, and Glassnode data showed short-term holder profit-taking around the $78,000 to $79,000 area.

The same report said buyers would need to absorb overhead supply to push toward $84,000, while a break below $68,000 would expose a deeper correction path.

CryptoSlate's Apr. 28 bond-market analysis placed the key battleground around $78,100 to $80,100. That area now works as a practical confirmation zone.

A reclaim would show that spot demand, ETF demand, or positioning can absorb the macro shock. A rejection would support the view that the bond market is still setting Bitcoin's ceiling.

The broader liquidity context supports that caution. CryptoSlate's Apr. 30 debt-and-liquidity analysis argued that U.S. debt is growing faster than M2 and that Treasury issuance, the Treasury General Account, reserve balances, and bank-credit conditions can keep the financial plumbing tight even as broad money rises.

A separate CryptoSlate analysis of M2 found that Bitcoin's liquidity relationship is lagged and regime-dependent, with real yields, the dollar, ETF flows, and geopolitical shocks able to override the simple money-supply argument.

Corporate treasury demand adds another channel. CryptoSlate's coverage of the Bitcoin treasury trade showed that corporate and sovereign holders can become sellers when funding pressure rises, debt needs increase, or cash becomes more valuable than balance-sheet optics.

A company built to accumulate BTC, selling $20 million at a loss, turned that risk into a concrete example.

That is why the current setup reaches beyond spot traders. Higher Treasury yields can pressure Bitcoin through discount rates, ETF demand, corporate treasury funding, collateral appetite, and the cost of leverage.

Oil keeps the Fed constrained. Treasury supply keeps reserves and term premium in focus. Bitcoin's own supply zone determines how quickly those macro forces manifest in price.

Bitcoin can still rally from here. A strong enough flow bid can absorb profit-taking for a while, and prior CryptoSlate oil-war coverage showed BTC can resist crude pressure intraday when demand is present.

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The problem is durability. Once U.S. equities opened in that earlier session, Bitcoin moved back into the broader risk trade.

That is the same unresolved test now. A BTC bounce below $80,000 would show that buyers remain active. A durable move through the resistance zone would require evidence that bonds, oil, or liquidity have stopped working against the trade.

The next signal sits in the 10-year yield. If it eases back from the 4.4% to 4.5% zone, Bitcoin's demand story gets room to breathe.

If it breaks higher while oil stays elevated, BTC's ceiling is likely to stay outside crypto. The bond market would still be deciding how much risk investors are willing to own.

The post US Treasury yields spike to highest levels in a year adding new problem for Bitcoin liquidity appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin entered yesterday's Fed decision already capped below a dense on-chain supply zone, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell's press conference gave buyers little reason to push through it.

The Federal Reserve kept the target range at 3.5%-3.75% and explicitly linked elevated inflation to higher global energy prices, citing the tensions in the Middle East as a source of uncertainty for the economic outlook.

Powell added to that framing in his opening remarks, estimating that total PCE ran at 3.5% through March, core PCE at 3.2%, and that higher oil prices are set to push overall inflation up in the near term.

The committee also fractured in the most divided Fed vote since 1992. Eight officials held, one dissenter wanted a cut, while Hammack, Kashkari, and Logan objected to retaining any easing bias in the statement at all.

The internal split exposed the committee's actual posture of easing bias and kept the language in the text, while three officials argued that the language was already too accommodating.

For Bitcoin, the consequence is a macro environment where a dovish pivot has become harder to price, even as the March Summary of Economic Projections still showed a median 2026 fed funds rate of 3.4%, implying one cut this year.

Futures markets came away pricing little chance of that cut materializing by year-end, with some traders putting a small probability on a hike over the next twelve months.

The oil hinge

The Fed's inflation problem traces to an external energy shock that Powell said the central bank cannot control.

Brent oil averaged $103 per barrel in March, with the EIA forecasting a peak near $115 in the second quarter, followed by a decline below $90 in the fourth quarter.

Both headline and core inflation are running hot through separate channels, as energy is pushing up PCE, while tariff effects continue to work through core goods prices.

That two-channel setup prevents the Fed from quickly looking through the oil shock because the committee must first confirm that higher energy costs are not feeding into inflation expectations before justifying a cut.

Near-term inflation expectations are already running higher, according to Powell's own account. Bitcoin sits below a heavy supply zone at the moment, and the macro case for absorbing that supply has the least near-term traction.

Where Bitcoin gets stuck

Glassnode's latest report places Bitcoin's key resistance at the True Market Mean, near $78,000, and the short-term holder cost basis around $79,000.

Both levels converge into a supply zone between $78,000 and $80,000 that BTC has already tested and rejected. The pattern Glassnode describes is a classic bear-market rally structure: price rallies to the breakeven zone for recent buyers, those holders distribute into strength, and incoming demand fails to absorb the supply at that level.

Spot BTC trading near $75,900 puts it below that resistance band and close to $76,000, which Glassnode flags as a downside short-gamma zone.

At that level, dealer hedging flows carry a structural bias to amplify price movement in either direction, selling into any further weakness or buying into any break higher, turning $76,000 into a volatility trigger.

The main support sits between $65,000 and $70,000, with the -1 standard deviation band near $68,000 as the first meaningful structural floor.

A test of $68,000 would put the short-term market structure on trial, with the threshold Glassnode identifies as the level below which distribution accelerates, and the broader base weakens.

Two outcomes

In the bull case, oil follows the EIA's base path lower through the second half of 2026, headline inflation cools, and the Fed's one implied cut becomes more credible again.

If that repricing begins and BTC clears $80,000, Glassnode says the $82,000 short-gamma zone could force dealers to buy into strength, amplifying the move.

Perpetual futures positioning has already flipped to its most negative level on record, building deep fuel for a squeeze. A sustained break above $80,000, with spot and ETF flows confirming the move, would pull the market toward the lower band of Glassnode's overhead supply cluster near $84,000.

In the bear case, oil stays elevated through the EIA's second quarter peak and keeps headline inflation sticky enough to push any cut into late 2027.

Bitcoin keeps failing at the True Market Mean and short-term holder cost basis, and the market retreats toward the $65,000-$70,000 support cluster.

The $68,000 band then becomes a waypoint. If ETF flows fail to stabilize and spot demand remains thin, the structure below $68,000 deteriorates, opening a path toward the deeper accumulation zone from which the current rally launched.

Between those two outcomes, the oil path is the deciding variable.

Powell stated that the committee cannot calibrate away an external energy shock the way it manages a domestic demand cycle, so Bitcoin bulls need oil to cooperate at least as much as they need Powell to soften his tone.

Glassnode's positioning data adds asymmetry to an otherwise cautious picture, as perpetuals are at a record net-short level, suggesting the market has already priced in considerable pain.

Even a plateau in the inflation narrative, with oil stalling below its second-quarter peak, or a single cooler PCE print, could be enough to trigger a sharp upside move from that positioning.

Glassnode also says spot selling is easing, and ETF AUM has begun to stabilize, two early signs that distribution at current levels is losing momentum.

The breakout and retest scenarios both hinge on real demand arriving in the $78,000-$80,000 zone before macro uncertainty forces another leg lower.

The post Here’s why Bitcoin is stuck below $80,000 and what Powell’s FOMC meeting did for BTC price appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Elon Musk has voiced a harsh critique of the digital asset industry. Testifying in a federal court in Oakland, California, on April 30, 2024, Musk addressed the legitimacy of the broader crypto market. His statements have sparked intense debate among investors, especially given his historical role as a primary influencer of Bitcoin prices and meme coins.

Did Elon Musk Say Cryptos are a Scam?

Elon Musk explicitly stated during his testimony that while "some" cryptocurrencies have merit, the vast majority of the market consists of "scams." This comment was made under oath as Musk faced cross-examination regarding OpenAI's early financial strategies and its transition from a non-profit entity to a for-profit powerhouse.

To understand the weight of Musk's testimony, one must look at the Initial Coin Offering (ICO). An ICO is a fundraising method where a company issues its own digital tokens in exchange for investment, similar to an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in traditional equities. Musk’s "scam" comment was specifically triggered by questions regarding a 2018 proposal for OpenAI to launch its own ICO to fund its massive compute requirements.

The OpenAI Lawsuit: Why Crypto Surfaced

Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, is currently suing the organization and its CEO, Sam Altman. He alleges that the company breached its "founding agreement" by becoming a closed-source subsidiary of Microsoft rather than staying a non-profit dedicated to humanity.

• The 2018 ICO Plan: Internal documents surfaced showing OpenAI considered a token sale to raise capital.
• Musk’s Stance: While OpenAI claims Musk was aware of and supported the shift toward profit-seeking, Musk testified that he felt "betrayed" by the direction the company took.
• The "Scam" Label: When asked about his view on the industry that would have hosted an OpenAI token, Musk delivered his viral verdict, distancing himself from the thousands of speculative projects in the space.

Why Crypto Prices Didn't Collapse

Historically, a single tweet from Musk could send Dogecoin or Bitcoin into a tailspin. However, the current market reaction has been uncharacteristically muted.

Major assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum remained relatively stable following the testimony. Analysts suggest that the market has become "Musk-fatigued," meaning investors are no longer reacting impulsively to his personal opinions. Furthermore, since Musk acknowledged that "some" assets have merit—and his company Tesla still holds over 11,500 BTC—the comments were viewed more as a critique of "shitcoins" rather than a total abandonment of the technology.

Musk’s Complex Relationship with Cryptocurrencies

Despite his courtroom skepticism, Musk remains a central figure in the industry. Tesla’s balance sheet continues to carry significant Bitcoin holdings, and Musk’s social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), continues to integrate payment features that many speculate will eventually include crypto.

Bitcoin (BTC) has officially closed the month of April 2026 on a high note, posting a significant 11.87% gain. After a turbulent first quarter that saw the asset retreat from its early 2026 peaks, this monthly candle represents a decisive "flip" in market sentiment. More importantly, the Bitcoin price successfully closed above its Monthly Previous High (MPH) of $75,900, a level that analysts have watched as the primary indicator for macro continuation.

Is Bitcoin Bullish Again?

The April monthly close at approximately $76,580 confirms that the "Q1 correction" has likely found its floor. By closing above the previous month’s highest point, $BTC has invalidated the series of lower highs that characterized the start of the year. This technical feat suggests that the crypto news cycle for May will be dominated by discussions of a potential run toward the $80,000 mark.

The Significance of the Monthly Previous High (MPH)

In technical analysis, the Monthly Previous High is a critical pivot used to gauge long-term trend strength.

• Support/Resistance Flip: When the price closes a month above the previous month's peak, that level ($75,900 in this case) transitions from a ceiling into a structural floor.
• Trend Confirmation: Closing above the MPH indicates that demand is sufficient to absorb sell pressure even at elevated prices, suggesting a high probability of further upside.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: Technical Deep Dive of April Momentum

The recovery witnessed in April was supported by a combination of technical indicators and institutional participation that had been absent during the March dip.

1. Moving Average Convergence

As of May 1, 2026, $Bitcoin is trading comfortably above its key moving averages. The 20-day EMA ($72,150) has crossed back above the 50-day EMA ($70,400), creating a "bullish cross" on the daily timeframes. This alignment often acts as a springboard for price discovery phases.

2. Institutional Buy-Side Pressure

The Bitcoin price recovery coincides with a resurgence in Spot ETF inflows. According to data from April, institutional players resumed accumulation as the price stabilized above $70,000, providing the liquidity needed to breach the $75,900 barrier.

Macro Outlook and May Support Levels

The successful April close establishes a new foundation for the remainder of the quarter. However, traders should watch the retest of the breakout zone to confirm the strength of this move.

Bitcoin Future: A Decisive Breakout for BTC in May 2026

Bitcoin’s performance in April has effectively neutralized the bearish pressure that mounted in the early months of 2026. By turning the $75,900 resistance into a confirmed monthly support, the market has cleared a major technical hurdle. Investors are now looking toward the $80,000 region as the next logical milestone in this macro cycle.

The "Digital Gold" Divergence: Why Bitcoin Just Crashed

The relationship between Gold and Bitcoin has reached a fever pitch in 2026. Historically, these two assets have been viewed as siblings in the "store of value" category, but their recent price action tells a more complex story of liquidity rotation and market psychology.

When Gold recently peaked at an all-time high of $5,589 per ounce on January 28, 2026, the crypto market didn't celebrate. Instead, Bitcoin [BTC] experienced a sharp -33% correction, sliding toward the $81,000 mark. While this might look like a decoupling, historical cycles suggest this "shakeout" is often the precursor to an explosive bull run for digital assets.

Does Bitcoin Always Drop When Gold Peaks?

Not "always," but the correlation often turns negative at critical structural peaks. In August 2020, Gold hit what was then a record high, and Bitcoin immediately cooled off with a -21% retracement. Fast forward to January 2026, and we see a similar script: Gold reaches a parabolic peak, and Bitcoin sheds roughly a third of its value.

The pattern indicates that at the height of a Gold rally, liquidity is often "tapped out" or moving into defensive postures before rotating back into higher-risk, higher-reward assets like $Bitcoin.

Comparing the 2020 and 2026 "Gold Peaks"

To understand where we are going, we have to look at where we’ve been. The current market structure bears a striking resemblance to the 2020 cycle.

The Liquidity Rotation Theory

In finance, "Liquidity Rotation" refers to capital moving from one asset class to another. When Gold reaches a "blow-off top" (a rapid increase in price followed by a steep drop), investors often take profits. That "sideline cash" doesn't stay idle for long. In 2020, that capital flowed directly into the crypto market, fueling a 559% rally that took BTC from $11,000 to over $60,000 in less than a year.

Why the -33% Bitcoin Drop Matters Now

The 2026 drop has been more severe (-33% vs -21%) due to the increased presence of institutional leverage and Spot Bitcoin ETFs. However, the fundamental "why" remains the same:

• Profit Taking: Investors hedging with Gold and BTC simultaneously often sell the "winner" (Gold) and reduce exposure to the "volatile" (BTC) during a macro shift.
• Margin Calls: When Gold fell nearly 10% in a single day in late January, it forced liquidations across multi-asset portfolios, dragging BTC down with it.
• The "Spring" Effect: Much like a compressed spring, Bitcoin's deep corrections during a secular bull market often provide the necessary energy for the next leg up.

Strategic Positioning: Is the Bottom In?

Analysts suggest that the current Bitcoin/Gold valuation is at historic lows. This typically marks a "generational bottom" for the Bitcoin-to-Gold ratio. If the 2020 fractal repeats, the -33% drop we just witnessed is the final hurdle before Bitcoin targets the $150,000 - $200,000 range.

What to Watch Next

• The $80,000 Support: BTC must hold this level to validate the "2020-style" recovery.
• Gold Consolidation: If Gold continues to bleed toward $4,500, expect BTC to start outperforming as the "risk-on" alternative.
• ETF Inflows: Watch for a reversal in ETF outflows, which peaked at $800 million during the January crash.

Following a volatile April that saw significant institutional interest through US-based spot XRP ETFs, XRP is currently consolidating within a well-defined range.

With the regulatory "dark clouds" largely cleared in the wake of landmark 2025 rulings, the market now focuses on adoption. However, the price of XRP faces new challenges, including shifting macroeconomic sentiment as Federal Reserve leadership transitions and global liquidity cycles evolve.

XRP Price Analysis: The Technical Blueprint

The daily chart for XRP/USD reveals a complex but structured price action. After a sharp decline from the $1.90 levels earlier in the year, the XRP coin has established a series of horizontal support and resistance zones that will dictate its trajectory in May.

Key Support and Resistance Levels

Based on the current technical setup, these are the levels to watch:

• Major Resistance ($1.8000): This is the "holy grail" for bulls in May. A break above this level would signal a full trend reversal and a potential run toward the $2.00 mark.
• Intermediate Resistance ($1.4500 - $1.5000): XRP has struggled to maintain candles above the $1.45 mark. This zone acted as a rejection point in mid-April.
• Immediate Support ($1.2931): The orange line on the chart represents a "must-hold" level. It has served as a reliable floor during the recent consolidation phase.
• Critical Floor ($1.2000): If selling pressure intensifies, the $1.20 psychological level is the final line of defense before a deeper correction.

Indicators and Momentum

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is currently hovering around 44.30, suggesting that the XRP coin is neither overbought nor oversold. This neutral stance provides "fuel" for a move in either direction. Historically, when the RSI bounces from the 40-level while the price holds horizontal support, it often precedes a bullish relief rally.

Will XRP Price Go Up in May 2026?

While technicals provide the "where," fundamentals provide the "why." Several key events are scheduled for May that could spark volatility for the XRP coin:

1. Institutional ETF Inflows

In April 2026, XRP ETFs saw consistent net inflows, suggesting that despite the stagnant price action, institutional "smart money" is accumulating at these levels. If this trend continues into May, the reduced exchange supply could lead to a "supply shock" if demand spikes suddenly.

2. The RLUSD Stablecoin Integration

Ripple’s stablecoin, RLUSD, is expected to see wider integration across European corridors in May. Increased utility for the XRP Ledger (XRPL) often correlates with positive sentiment for the native XRP coin, as it serves as the bridge asset for high-liquidity transactions.

3. Macroeconomic Shifts

The broader crypto market is currently influenced by Bitcoin's attempt to stabilize above previous all-time highs. As Jerome Powell’s term as Fed Chair nears its end in May 2026, uncertainty regarding future interest rate cuts may lead to increased volatility in risk assets like Bitcoin.

XRP Price Prediction May 2026: High and Low Targets

Given the current data, we can project two primary scenarios for the upcoming month:

The Bullish Case (High Target: $1.85)

If Bitcoin breaks its current resistance and the XRP ETF volumes accelerate, the XRP coin is positioned for a breakout.

• Target: A move past $1.50 would likely see a rapid squeeze toward the $1.80 - $1.85 resistance zone.
• Probability: Moderate, contingent on market-wide momentum.

The Bearish Case (Low Target: $1.15)

If macroeconomic headwinds (high inflation or hawkish Fed signals) dominate, XRP could test lower liquidity zones.

• Target: A breakdown of the $1.29 support would likely lead to a retest of the $1.15 - $1.20 area.
• Probability: Low to Moderate, as institutional buying provides a strong "floor."

How to Trade XRP Coin?

For those looking to trade the $XRP coin in May, the strategy remains "wait and see" near the $1.45 resistance. A daily close above $1.45 with high volume would be a classic entry signal for a swing trade toward $1.80. Conversely, long-term holders may view the $1.25–$1.30 range as a value accumulation zone.

As of April 30, 2026, the primary driver of market sentiment is the $2.44 billion net inflow into US spot Bitcoin ETFs. This figure nearly doubles March’s performance, suggesting that the "institutional winter" is over. Furthermore, the U.S. SEC has recently issued a statement clearing the path for decentralized user interfaces to operate without broker-dealer registration, a massive win for the DeFi sector.

Institutional Resurgence: The Bitcoin ETF Boom

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) have dominated the headlines. IBIT alone captured over 70% of the month's total inflows, bringing its total holdings to approximately 812,000 BTC.

• April Net Inflows: $2.44 Billion
• Total AUM for US Spot ETFs: ~$102 Billion
• Market Leader: BlackRock (IBIT) holding 49-62% of the ETF market share.

This structural shift indicates that large-scale capital is now absorbing supply faster than daily mining output, providing a strong floor for the Bitcoin price.

SEC Regulation: A Win for Decentralized Finance

In a surprising move this month, the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets issued a "no-action" stance regarding "Covered User Interface Providers." This allows software developers to offer interfaces for trading crypto asset securities without the burden of registering as traditional brokers, provided they do not exercise discretion over transactions.

This development is a significant milestone for the DeFi ecosystem, reducing the legal risks for developers of self-custodial wallets and decentralized exchanges.

Altcoin Watch: Ethereum and Solana Market Trends

While Bitcoin leads, Ethereum is holding steady near $2,270. Despite a slight dip today, analyst sentiment remains bullish, with long-term Ethereum price predictions suggesting a climb toward $8,000–$10,000 as staking ETFs gain traction.

Meanwhile, Solana is making waves in the real-world utility space. South Korea’s Shinhan Card has begun testing stablecoin payments on the Solana network, highlighting the chain's growing dominance in the payments sector.

Comparison of Key Assets (April 30, 2026)

Global Impact: Expansion and Security

The crypto industry's reach continues to expand globally. The payments network Mesh recently announced a major expansion into the Asia-Pacific region after reaching a $1 billion unicorn valuation. On the security front, the FBI led a successful global operation, arresting 276 individuals involved in "pig butchering" scams, a move praised by the community for cleaning up the industry's reputation.

A Seoul court has reversed March sanctions that would have restricted the exchange's core functions over alleged compliance failures.

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the rare Western entry in the open-source top tier, but it costs multiples more than Chinese rivals that beat it on benchmarks.

The admission in federal court is a rare acknowledgment of the use of distillation techniques as AI firms compete to build more capable and cheaper models.

Analysts warn that the Bitcoin rally was fueled by speculative futures trading, mirroring conditions that preceded the 2022 crypto crash.

OpenAI's new opt-in security feature requires passkeys, limits recovery options, and excludes chats from training.

User count on the XRP Ledger is nearing extremely high values.

The biggest Dogecoin whales now hold the highest amount of DOGE ever, likely positioning for the historic SpaceX IPO and X Money launch in the coming weeks.

Shiba Inu is ready to make a move above the level that can open path towards higher resistance levels.

Billionaire Elon Musk has told an Oakland jury that most cryptocurrencies are "scams."

Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz is once again pouring cold water on the hyper-bullish $10,000 XRP price targets frequently hyped by social media influencers.

Solana has been outperforming Bitcoin in recent sessions, and the rotation into higher-beta plays is lifting memecoin markets across networks.

Based Eggman ($GGs) and Shiba Inu are both seeing fresh momentum, with Based Eggman pushing past $315K raised in Stage 3 of its presale. The best crypto presale tier on Base is where the cleanest setups are showing up right now.

How SOL Leads the Memecoin Breakouts

When Solana leads, capital tends to rotate down the risk curve into memecoins and presales. The Solana ecosystem has carried much of the memecoin energy through past cycles, and that flow eventually spills into other networks.

Base benefits as the Ethereum-aligned alternative. Buyers looking for memecoin exposure outside Solana increasingly find their entry points through the top crypto presale conversation on Base, and Based Eggman ($GGs) is leading that group.

How Based Eggman Is Different From Other Crypto ICOs

Based Eggman ($GGs) is the native currency for a Web3 gaming and Social-Fi platform on Base. The token powers play-to-earn arcade tournaments, streamer tipping through Social-Fi infrastructure, and staking that’s already enabled during the presale.

Early holders can compound rewards before $GGs hits exchanges, which is unusual for a project still in Stage 3.

The current Stage 3 price is $0.010838, with $314.8K raised and over 40.31 million tokens sold. The campaign is tracking around 26% of its stage goal, with roughly four days and six hours remaining before the next price tier opens.

The BASED-50 bonus code adds 50% extra tokens, putting the effective entry near $0.0072 per token. That’s a meaningful gap below the Stage 3 sticker price and well below where the next tier opens.

The smart contract has been audited by leading blockchain security firms, per the project. Safety and transparency are positioned as core priorities, which matters in a category where audit transparency is often missing. The combination of working utility and structural integrity is what separates Based Eggman from typical memecoin presales.

What’s Ahead For Shiba Inu

Shiba Inu has built out one of the deeper memecoin ecosystems, with ShibaSwap, Shibarium Layer-2, and the BONE/LEASH token structure giving it more infrastructure than DOGE or PEPE. 2026 forecasts put SHIB at $0.00003 to $0.00005, with deflationary burns providing structural support over time.

The two projects appeal to different buyer profiles. Shiba Inu is the established play with broad exchange access, while Based Eggman is the early-stage Base presale with asymmetric upside potential. Both fit in a diversified memecoin allocation, but they answer different questions.

Why This Setup Matters Now

SOL outperformance creates the macro backdrop, but the best crypto presale picks are where retail capital looks for the next leg. Stage 3 of Based Eggman is closing in roughly four days, and the BASED-50 bonus stays active until the next price tier opens.

For readers tracking the top crypto presale conversation heading into Q2, the practical decision window is right now.

Final Word

Solana leadership lifts the broader memecoin market, but the cleanest setups are in Base presales with working utility. Based Eggman ($GGs) is the name leading that group, with Shiba Inu offering the established alternative for buyers who prefer exchange-listed exposure.

More Information on Based Eggman Presale Here:

Website: https://basedeggman.com/

X (Twitter): https://x.com/Based_Eggman

Telegram: https://t.me/basedeggman

The post Memecoin News: Based Eggman and Shiba Inu Gain Traction as Solana Outpaces Bitcoin appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• RIOT shares surge following Q1 earnings highlighting data center business expansion
• Partnership with AMD doubles capacity to 50 megawatts for high-performance computing
• Bitcoin mining income declines while diversification strategy gains traction
• Company maintains robust financial position with 15K+ Bitcoin holdings
• Infrastructure-focused approach positions Riot beyond conventional mining operations

Shares of Riot Platforms (RIOT) experienced significant upward momentum following the release of impressive first-quarter financial results and announcements regarding its expanding data center operations. The stock closed at $17.24, posting a 7.88% increase, and continued climbing to $17.60 in pre-market trading. Investor enthusiasm centered on the company’s strategic pivot toward high-density computing infrastructure and newly secured client contracts.

Riot Platforms, Inc., RIOT

Infrastructure Business Reshapes Revenue Portfolio

Riot Platforms demonstrated accelerated momentum in its transformation into a data center service provider throughout Q1 2026. The infrastructure segment contributed $33.2 million to quarterly revenues, representing the first substantial income from this division. This performance underscored the company’s deliberate strategy to reduce dependency on cryptocurrency mining alone.

The enterprise signed a significant agreement with Advanced Micro Devices for 50 megawatts of committed capacity, bolstering its credentials in high-performance computing services. This arrangement featured a 25 megawatt capacity increase, effectively doubling AMD’s original deployment. The development illustrated rising market appetite for enterprise-grade power infrastructure and computational resources.

Riot capitalized on its established energy assets to efficiently expand operations and satisfy client demands. The organization advanced infrastructure projects across Texas and Kentucky facilities while enhancing technical expertise. Consequently, Riot established itself as a significant player in digital infrastructure provision.

Quarterly Results Show Evolving Business Dynamics

Riot posted quarterly revenues totaling $167.2 million, marginally exceeding the $161.4 million recorded in the comparable period. Income from Bitcoin mining operations fell to $111.9 million, attributed to decreased average cryptocurrency valuations and intensified network competition. The worldwide hash rate expanded considerably, elevating mining complexity throughout the sector.

The company mined 1,473 Bitcoin during the three-month period, compared with 1,530 Bitcoin in the prior-year quarter. Per-Bitcoin production costs increased to $44,629, reflecting heightened network difficulty and operational variables. Nevertheless, enhanced power credit arrangements helped mitigate escalating expenses.

Engineering services generated $22.2 million in revenue, demonstrating consistent expansion from $13.9 million in the year-ago quarter. This growth reinforced Riot’s diversification objectives and infrastructure buildout initiatives. The multi-stream revenue composition signaled a progressive evolution toward a more diversified operational framework.

Financial Resilience and Forward Strategy

Riot preserved a commanding liquidity profile with 15,679 Bitcoin on its balance sheet as the quarter concluded. These digital asset reserves represented approximately $1.1 billion in value at current market valuations. The firm also maintained $282.5 million in cash reserves, providing capital for continued expansion initiatives.

Riot employed a vertically integrated operational model encompassing mining, engineering services, and data center development. This comprehensive framework enabled cost optimization while facilitating efficient operational scaling. The strategy additionally supported sustained growth opportunities in high-density computing sectors.

Riot reinforced its positioning as a digital infrastructure solutions provider while navigating changing market dynamics. The enterprise continued its expansion trajectory beyond traditional mining into data center offerings and corporate partnerships. This strategic transformation underpinned continued progress in both operational performance and equity market valuation.

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Key Takeaways

• ServiceNow shares jumped approximately 2.5% during extended trading hours, buoyed by positive sentiment from Atlassian’s robust quarterly performance in the enterprise software sector.
• First quarter fiscal 2026 revenue reached $3.77 billion, representing 22.1% growth compared to the prior year period, while earnings per share met analyst projections at $0.97.
• Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow maintains his Buy recommendation with a $132 price objective, suggesting approximately 49% potential appreciation from present trading levels.
• Shares have tumbled significantly from the 12-month peak of $211.48, with Friday’s opening price at $88.40 hovering close to the 52-week bottom of $81.24.
• Analyst consensus leans heavily positive, featuring 32 Buy recommendations among 37 total ratings and a consensus price objective of $138.06.

ServiceNow (NOW) shares are experiencing upward momentum in after-market trading, climbing roughly 2.5% following Atlassian’s impressive earnings report that elevated optimism throughout the enterprise software industry. This positive movement arrives after a challenging period for the stock, which has plummeted from its 12-month peak of $211.48 to Friday’s opening price of $88.40 — dangerously close to its 52-week floor of $81.24.

ServiceNow, Inc., NOW

The company’s fiscal Q1 2026 financial results, unveiled on April 22nd, demonstrated overall strength. Revenue totaled $3.77 billion, surpassing the $3.75 billion analyst consensus and marking a 22.1% year-over-year increase. Earnings per share aligned perfectly with expectations at $0.97. However, market participants concentrated on concerning elements: postponements in significant enterprise contracts, especially within Middle Eastern markets, and escalating expenses related to AI investments and recent corporate acquisitions. This mix compressed profit margin forecasts and triggered a selloff.

Several Wall Street analysts believe the market reaction was excessive.

Barclays Maintains Conviction

Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow is challenging the more pessimistic narrative. He contends the Q1 shortfall regarding deal closure timing represents cyclical trends and macroeconomic uncertainty rather than fundamental weaknesses in the underlying business model.

“The first quarter is always a seasonally small quarter,” Lenschow emphasized, highlighting geopolitical tensions and widespread spending hesitation as transitory obstacles. His perspective suggests this quarter’s deceleration stemmed from timing factors, not indications that AI technologies are eroding ServiceNow’s established customer relationships.

He also rejected concerns about competitive disruption, characterizing NOW as “one of the best-positioned software names” and maintaining its extensive integration within enterprise IT infrastructure positions it as a primary AI adoption beneficiary rather than a victim.

Lenschow retains his Buy rating alongside a $132 price objective, suggesting approximately 49% appreciation potential from current trading levels. He recognizes near-term volatility is probable, with shares potentially trading sideways until concrete evidence of AI revenue generation emerges. He’s monitoring the upcoming analyst day presentation and stronger AI product revenue contributions expected later in 2026 as key catalysts.

Analyst Community Remains Optimistic

Overall Wall Street sentiment continues decidedly favorable. Among 37 analysts tracking NOW, 32 assign Buy ratings, 4 recommend Hold, and only 1 rates it Sell. The consensus 12-month price objective stands at $138.06, indicating approximately 56% upside potential from current valuations.

Citigroup elevated its target to $158 while preserving its Buy stance. Raymond James reduced its objective from $160 to $130 but maintained an Outperform rating. KeyCorp adopted a contrarian position, establishing an $85 price target with an Underweight designation.

Regarding institutional positioning, Danske Bank expanded its NOW holdings by 506.7% during Q4, purchasing an additional 699,633 shares. Institutional investors currently control approximately 87% of outstanding shares.

Insider transactions paint a contrasting picture. Jacqueline Canney divested 8,927 shares at an average price of $89.60 on April 24th, decreasing her stake by 23.21%. Collectively, company insiders sold 25,164 shares valued at roughly $2.5 million throughout the previous three months.

The stock trades at a P/E ratio of 52.68 and sits well below its 200-day moving average of $135.26. Management increased its subscription revenue guidance following the Q1 report, highlighting AI-powered monetization as a critical growth driver for the remainder of 2026.

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Key Takeaways

• On April 30, NuScale Power (SMR) stock climbed more than 10% following Amazon’s announcement of three agreements supporting small modular reactor initiatives, featuring a $500 million stake in competitor X-energy.
• Despite not being directly involved in Amazon’s partnerships, NuScale benefited from the positive sentiment spreading across the entire SMR industry.
• Short sellers covering their positions intensified the upward movement as the share price accelerated.
• NuScale holds the distinction of being the sole American firm with Nuclear Regulatory Commission-certified SMR technology.
• With a market capitalization hovering around $3.88 billion, the stock had declined more than 20% year-to-date prior to this rally.

Shares of NuScale Power (SMR) climbed more than 10% on April 30, 2026, propelled by widespread optimism throughout the nuclear energy industry after Amazon revealed three strategic partnerships supporting small modular reactor development — highlighted by a $500 million commitment to competitor X-energy.

NuScale Power Corporation, SMR

Amazon’s announcement didn’t include NuScale among its chosen partners. Yet the stock rallied regardless.

This reaction reveals much about investor sentiment within the SMR market. When a technology giant commits hundreds of millions toward clean energy infrastructure, every company in that ecosystem benefits. Market participants rushed into nuclear-related equities en masse.

A short squeeze magnified the gains. NuScale has attracted significant short interest, and as share prices rose, pessimistic traders scrambled to exit their bearish bets. This forced buying created additional upward momentum.

NuScale’s Current Position

Trading at approximately $3.88 billion in market capitalization, NuScale occupies a compelling position. Competitor Oklo — another dedicated SMR developer — commands a valuation nearly triple that size. Before Wednesday’s surge, NuScale shares had declined more than 20% since the year began.

What distinguishes NuScale from competitors: it stands alone as the only American enterprise possessing Nuclear Regulatory Commission certification for its SMR technology. Securing this regulatory approval required years of effort and cannot be quickly duplicated. In an industry still establishing credibility, this achievement carries significant weight.

However, Bank of America research suggests substantial SMR deployment won’t materialize until 2030 or later, potentially extending to 2035. While the underlying technology exists, commercial markets remain undeveloped.

Long-Term Outlook and Challenges

NuScale’s business model emphasizes utility-scale installations. This differentiates the company from Oklo, which pursues smaller, customized deployments — such as dedicated power systems for individual data center facilities. Both approaches have merit. Neither has achieved large-scale validation.

Bank of America estimates the broader nuclear sector opportunity could reach approximately $10 trillion over three decades. Within that landscape, research indicates the SMR segment specifically may represent $1.5 trillion. Even capturing a modest portion would generate substantial returns relative to NuScale’s present valuation.

One market observer noted: a 2,000% appreciation from current levels would still leave NuScale’s market cap below $100 billion.

Yet such extraordinary gains would demand perfect execution across multiple fronts — sustained expansion in AI data center requirements, nuclear energy capturing meaningful market share of that demand, SMR technology achieving real-world commercial success, and NuScale’s utility-focused design emerging as an industry standard. This represents a considerable series of contingencies.

Daily trading activity for SMR averages approximately 27 million shares, demonstrating intense market attention on this equity. Technical indicators entering the week suggested bearish momentum, making Wednesday’s spike particularly noteworthy.

Despite the recent pop, NuScale’s year-to-date performance remained negative, with shares still down roughly 20% through April’s closing session.

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Key Highlights

• Canadian pension giant Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), overseeing $142B in assets, acquired 1.38M MSTR shares valued at approximately $219M
• AIMCo’s purchase represents its inaugural investment in a Bitcoin-focused treasury corporation
• Weekly Bitcoin acquisitions by Strategy plummeted 91%, declining from 34,164 BTC to just 3,273 BTC due to changes in capital sourcing
• MSTR finished April with a 33% gain, marking its first monthly advance after eight consecutive months of declines totaling 75%
• Strategy’s Bitcoin reserves reached 818,334 BTC, maintaining a narrow lead over BlackRock’s 810,077 BTC holdings

Strategy (MSTR) secured a significant institutional investor this week when AIMCo, a fund managing approximately $142 billion in assets, acquired 1.38 million shares of MSTR valued at roughly $219 million. The transaction represents the Canadian pension manager’s initial foray into Bitcoin treasury corporations.

Strategy Inc, MSTR

In Thursday’s premarket trading, MSTR climbed 1.03% to reach $159.82 following the announcement. This uptick came after the stock experienced a 4.54% decline in the previous session, settling at $158.19 on Wednesday.

AIMCo joins a growing roster of institutional investors expanding their MSTR positions. Capital Group recently increased its holdings by 4.32 million shares through its American Funds Fundamental Investors vehicle, elevating its total position to 10.33 million shares with a current valuation of approximately $1.63 billion.

Vanguard made its own strategic addition during April, acquiring over 1.2 million shares valued at $195 million at the time of purchase. The investment giant now controls slightly more than 2 million shares through its VOE ETF, presently worth around $323 million.

Significant Slowdown in Bitcoin Accumulation

Strategy’s most recent Bitcoin acquisition showed a dramatic decrease compared to the preceding week. The company secured 3,273 BTC for $255 million, a stark contrast to the 34,164 BTC purchased for $2.54 billion the week before — representing a 91% reduction in acquisition volume.

The deceleration stemmed from Strategy’s funding approach. Instead of utilizing its preferred STRC stock, the company relied on common stock sales this time, which constrained the amount of capital available for deployment.

Despite the reduced acquisition pace, market sentiment suggests Strategy will maintain its accumulation strategy. Polymarket data indicates only a 10% likelihood that the company will liquidate any Bitcoin holdings before 2026 concludes.

Strategy’s cumulative Bitcoin position now totals 818,334 BTC, obtained through investments exceeding $61.8 billion. This positions the company marginally ahead of BlackRock, whose Bitcoin holdings stand at 810,077 BTC.

MSTR’s Turnaround and STRC Dividend Stability

April marked a significant reversal for MSTR. The stock concluded the month at $165, representing a 33% increase — the first monthly gain following eight consecutive months of losses. Between August 2025 and March 2026, the stock had experienced a cumulative 75% decline.

Bitcoin demonstrated similar strength during April, advancing 12% to deliver its strongest monthly performance since April 2025.

Regarding the preferred shares, Strategy maintained the STRC dividend rate at 11.5% for May, the third straight month at this level. STRC’s volume weighted average price for April registered at $99.76, sufficiently close to its $100 par value to justify keeping the rate unchanged.

STRC currently trades at $99.75 and has remained below par value since April 15.

Strategy is evaluating the possibility of transitioning to semi-monthly dividend distributions for STRC as a measure to minimize price fluctuations.

TipRanks analysts maintain a Strong Buy consensus rating on MSTR, with a mean price target of $283.33.

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This Friday, we examine Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Hyperliquid in greater detail.

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum closed the week in the red, down 3%, after sellers returned at the $2,400 key resistance level. Hopefully, the price will not close this week with a bearish engulfing candle, as that would imply a major reversal awaits.

With the bullish momentum stalling, this cryptocurrency could be gathering its strength for another attempt at the key resistance in May. This would make the ongoing pullback short-lived.

Looking ahead, ETH really needs to break above $2,400 to enter a sustained rally. If that level can turn into support, then the price will have a clear path towards $2,800 next. Another failure there would put bears in charge as they eye $2,000 again.

Ripple (XRP)

XRP closed the week down 5% after the price failed to hold above $1.4. This places it into a large pennant that is expected to break before mid-May. A pennant at this time could imply continuation of the pre-existing bearish trend.

Hopefully, buyers can consolidate here and reclaim $1.4 as support. Anything less than that gives sellers the upper hand, which could lead to lower lows, which would resume the downtrend.

Looking ahead, XRP continues to remain flat between $1.6 and $1.3, which has been ongoing since February. However, sellers appear to be better positioned which could send this cryptocurrency into new lows, with $1 as a key target.

Cardano (ADA)

ADA is also struggling after closing the week with a 2% loss. While the percentage point loss is low, the most concerning aspect is that this cryptocurrency has not yet managed to break above the $0.24 support level.

The longer buyers fail to push ADA higher, the more likely sellers will attempt another go against the key support with the hope that they can break it and send Cardano into lower lows.

Looking ahead, this cryptocurrency has been flat since the start of 2026, unable to make higher highs. With the momentum clearly on the bearish side, it could be that ADA may need to go lower before buyers return again. That implies a price under $0.24 with $0.20 as a key target.

Binance Coin (BNB)

BNB has been hugging the key $580 support level but has been unable to rally. This enabled bears to have the upper hand and close the week with a 3% loss. Buyers also appear absent, which can also be seen on the volume profile, which is falling.

The price has been consolidating flat above $580 since early February. There was one attempt to break the resistance at $690, but sellers reacted quickly and stopped the breakout.

Looking ahead, Binance Coin appears to be taking a pause in its price action, which could be building up pressure for an eventual breakout. Right now, sellers seem to have a better chance at being successful. If so, their next key target is found at $500.

Hype (HYPE)

HYPE is in trouble since its price broke below this bearish wedge that mirrors the one from late 2025. Back then, the price entered a sustained correction that saw HYPE lose over 64% of its valuation.

If this is to repeat, then HYPE could fall under $20 in the future. While that remains uncertain, the price is now bearish and closed the week with a 2% loss. However, because the volume is falling, the conviction from sellers appears weak.

Looking ahead, HYPE is unlikely to make new highs considering this price action. Nevertheless, the price could find strong support at $36 or $30 that could encourage buyers to return, despite any renewed correction.

The post Crypto Price Analysis May-01: ETH, XRP, ADA, BNB, and HYPE appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The highly negative trading period for bitcoin, which lasted several consecutive months, ended in March and improved significantly in April as the asset posted its first double-digit price surge in almost a year.

With Ethereum also ending the month well in the green, the question is now whether the leading digital assets can maintain their run, or the old saying ‘sell in May and go away’ will come to fruition again.

BTC’s Best Month in a Year

Although 2025 was considered a bullish year, with the US regulatory landscape improving and BTC reaching a few all-time highs, including over $126,000 in early October, the cryptocurrency actually had only two months with double-digit price increases: April and May.

The last three months of the year were deep in the red (as were February, March, and August), and the first two of 2026 extended those losses. In fact, January and February 2026 ended with declines of 10.17% and 14.94%, respectively, which only intensified the bearish market structure.

The updated figures for March showed that the streak broke with a minor increase, even though this actually depends on the different time zones. However, since we are taking the data from CoinGlass, we can safely say that March was a green month, with a 1.81% increase.

The first meaningful recovery after the five-month slumber, though, came in April, as BTC surged 11.87%. This was its best month since April, when it added over 14% in value. The 2026 performance solidified April as one of bitcoin’s strongest months, with an average gain of 13% since 2013. It trails only October (19.92%) and November (41.12%).

Historically speaking, May has also been a positive month for BTC, with an average increase of 7.66%. The past two brought double-digit gains, but the previous three were deep in the red – especially May 2021, when bitcoin plunged by over 35%, which is the asset’s worst month since November 2018.

ETH in the Green, Too

Ethereum actually had 9 red months in 2025, and was on a six-month negative streak that started in September and finally ended in March, with a 7% increase. April was slightly more impressive, bringing a 7.3% jump for the largest altcoin.

In fact, April is ETH’s second-best month since CoinGlass began tracking its data in 2016. The asset has gained almost 19% on average during that month. What’s even more bullish for the Ethereum fans is that May is the absolute leader in this regard, with an average gain of over 28.5%.

So, if history is any indication, May should be a good month for the two market leaders. However, we all know that historical performances do not necessarily translate into future moves, especially when global uncertainty remains as high as it is now.

The post Bitcoin Ended April With Biggest Monthly Gains in a Year: What’s Next? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

A South Korean court has temporarily halted the six-month partial business suspension imposed on crypto exchange Bithumb, offering relief to the platform as it challenges regulatory action.

The Seoul Administrative Court’s Second Administrative Division, led by Judge Gong Hyeon-jin, approved Bithumb’s request for a stay of execution on the same day it was filed, and has effectively paused the sanction until a final court decision is reached.

Regulatory Crackdown Paused

The suspension had been ordered in March by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which also levied a fine of 36.8 billion won ($24.6 million), although it remains unclear whether the financial penalty is included in the suspension.

Authorities had accused Bithumb of committing approximately 6.65 million violations of South Korea’s financial regulations, particularly under the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information. These included millions of failures related to customer identity verification and lapses in blocking transactions that should have been restricted.

Apart from the company penalties, authorities had then warned Bithumb’s chief executive and handed a six-month suspension to its reporting officer. The issues came to light during inspections of South Korea’s top five crypto exchanges, Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax, carried out between 2024 and 2025.

The disciplinary measure would have restricted new users from depositing or withdrawing digital assets. The enforcement had already been delayed after Bithumb filed both an administrative lawsuit and a stay request shortly before the penalty was due to take effect.

Promotion Mishap

Separately, Bithumb is facing another legal matter linked to a payout error earlier this year. In April, the exchange had asked the court to freeze 7 BTC that had not been returned after it mistakenly distributed Bitcoin instead of Korean won during a February promotional event. The blunder happened when Bithumb planned to send a total of 620,000 won to 249 users, but due to an input error, it processed the payments in BTC, which briefly resulted in an unusually large transfer before it was reversed within minutes.

Most of the funds were later recovered after the exchange reached out to recipients, but a small group refused to return the remaining assets, which led Bithumb to pursue a provisional seizure. This legal measure allows assets to be temporarily locked before a formal civil lawsuit is filed.

Some users have argued they are not obligated to return the funds since the error came from the exchange. However, legal experts cited in local reports say the case falls under unjust enrichment, meaning recipients must return assets received by mistake.

The post Bithumb Wins Temporary Lifeline as Court Halts Six-Month Ban appeared first on CryptoPotato.

On-chain data and technical analysis provided by popular analyst Ali Martinez show that bitcoin’s current price structure is mimicking the 2022 bottoming cycle, which is both good and bad for the asset.

The negative part also comes from the behavior of whales, who have been sending BTC to exchanges en masse lately.

BTC 2026 vs 2022

The 2022 bear market was quite brutal, propelled mostly by the adverse developments within the cryptocurrency industry, including the collapses of Terra and FTX and the subsequent fallout for many linked entities. BTC plunged from the then-all-time high of almost $70,000 to under $16,000 in a year.

Martinez outlined several similarities between the price moves at the time and the cryptocurrency’s current setup. More precisely, he believes there could be another major rejection, as it happened when BTC tapped $25,000 in August/September 2022 before it was driven south to the aforementioned low.

If his chart is to mimic the 2022 scenario, bitcoin could find itself dumping below $55,000 after getting rejected at around $80,000-$82,000.

Bitcoin $BTC is showing similarities to its 2022 bottoming structure.

If this holds, we could see another push higher before a final leg down. pic.twitter.com/D1u55JxfZ0

— Ali Charts (@alicharts) May 1, 2026

This key resistance level is also reinforced by significant sell walls from whales at $79,000-$80,000, as mentioned by CW. Recall that BTC was stopped on a couple of occasions at $79,500 in the past few weeks, and each retracement pushed it south by several grand.

BTC to Exchanges

The second major catch, as hinted at above, that could hinder the asset’s progress has been the recent behaviors of large investors. Further data from Martinez revealed that more than 10,000 BTC have been sent to centralized exchanges by these market participants, worth $770 million at today’s prices, which is typically a pre-sale step.

In the meantime, another analyst, Crypto Tony, believes bitcoin’s minor rebound to $77,600 over the past 12 hours will result in another rejection. On the positive side, the cryptocurrency ended April with the most substantial gains since April 2025, surging by 11.87%, according to CoinGlass data.

The post Bitcoin Structure Mirrors 2022 Bottom – But There’s a Big Catch appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Toobit, one of the most popular international centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, is now unveiling a new high-yield XRP subscription within its Earn Series. It offers an industry-leading APR of 30%.

Limited-Time 30% APR for XRP Holders

This limited-time subscription follows the successful rollout of multiple high-utility Earn products, including recent double-digit yield offers that were available on Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Solana (SOL) through Toobit’s Earn series.

Some of the XRP fixed earn highlights include:

• APR: 30%
• Term: 3 days (Fixed)
• Campaign period: May 5, 2026, 10 AM UTC — May 8, 2026, 10 AM UTC
• Total capacity: 14,300 XRP

The XRP fixed earn product enables users to maximize short-term returns on major-cap cryptocurrencies. By subscribing to the 3-day plan, holders are able to secure a guaranteed yield, which will likely outpace market averages. At maturity, principal and interest are automatically credited to the user’s Spot Account.

Important Considerations

Because of the 30% APR and the limited 14,300 XRP cap, subscriptions will be first-come, first-served. Traders can access the subscription via the Toobit website or the latest version of the Toobit app.

It’s also important to keep in mind that as of early 2026, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) has managed to establish a new adoption record with total activated wallets already surpassing 8.1 million. This represents a steady 3.39% increase in just the first quarter of the year.

This growth is also mirrored by an increase in institutional confidence. 25% of institutional investors also reportedly plan to add XRP to their portfolios this year.

Moreover, the newly-launched XRP spot ETFs have already captured close to $1.5 billion in cumulative flows. This signals that there is a notable shift in XRP’s narrative from a speculative asset to a core institutional-grade instrument for global liquidity and cross-border settlements.

The post Toobit Announces 30% APR Fixed Earn Opportunity for XRP Holders appeared first on CryptoPotato.