The prolonged blockade could exacerbate global energy instability, heightening geopolitical tensions and impacting international economic dynamics.

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The supertanker's passage may signal a temporary easing of regional tensions, potentially stabilizing global oil markets and trade routes.

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Hezbollah's drone strategy heightens regional instability, complicating peace efforts and reducing the likelihood of Israel's timely withdrawal.

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Continued US-Iran tensions may hinder diplomatic progress, maintaining regional instability and impacting global oil markets and security dynamics.

The post Trump rejects Iran proposal, keeps Hormuz blockade amid tensions appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The expedited arms deal may heighten regional instability, impacting oil markets and reducing chances for diplomatic resolutions with Iran.

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Bitcoin Magazine

From NYSE Gut Punch to ‘One App for Money’: Exodus Bets Self‑Custody Can Power Everyday Life

On stage, co-founder and CEO JP Richardson opened by talking about the company’s derailment at the New York Stock Exchange in May 2024, when Exodus flew 130 employees, friends, and family to Manhattan only to learn the night before that regulators had pulled its listing. 

He described the reversal as a rule change at “the 11th hour” that left a room of supporters stunned and forced the company back into private status despite having, in his telling, followed the playbook. 

That episode ended months later after the U.S. election, when Exodus finally listed on NYSE American in January with the same team, ticker, and business, but under a new administration more open to digital asset companies.

Richardson framed that saga as proof that Exodus can absorb political and regulatory shock while holding to a single principle: money belongs under user control.

Exodus, founded in 2015 in Omaha, built a self-custodial wallet that stores keys on user devices and routes swaps across multiple liquidity providers, offering access to Bitcoin and other assets without ever holding customer funds in company accounts.

Fixing the “pub test” and app sprawl

The CEO argued that crypto still fails normal users on basic usability. He recounted an early experience helping a friend download four different wallets and write a 12-word seed phrase on a cocktail napkin, a ritual he said still defines too many products a decade later. Richardson called this the “pub test”: if a friend in a bar cannot safely set up a wallet without resorting to napkins, the industry has missed the mark. 

He extended that critique to chain tribalism, insisting that consumers do not care whether payments settle on Solana, Ethereum, Arbitrum, or Base as long as the experience works.

To make the point concrete, he asked the audience to pull out their phones and count how many apps they use for money. The typical screen, he said, shows a bank app, person-to-person payment apps, a brokerage account, and often a separate crypto wallet. 

He cast this fragmentation as a structural problem that leaves consumers juggling providers who do not share their interests. 

Exodus wants to replace that cluster with “one app” that holds digital assets, connects to card networks, and routes payments while keeping users in self-custody.

Owning the rails: Monavate, Baanx and Exodus Pay

A central reveal at the summit was the closing of the Monavate and Baanx UK acquisitions, a move that shifts Exodus from “renting the rails to owning them,” in Richardson’s phrase. 

Monavate and Baanx supply regulated card issuing, acquiring, and processing infrastructure in the UK and EU, including BIN sponsorship, Visa and MasterCard membership, and fraud systems that already support crypto brands such as Ledger and MetaMask. 

Exodus previously agreed to acquire their parent, W3C Corp, in a roughly $175 million deal aimed at building an on-chain payments stack; the company later enforced a $70 million secured loan against that group in UK receivership to protect its position.

With those assets, Exodus gains the ability to issue and process cards directly rather than acting as a program that rides on third-party rails. 

CFO James Gernetzke said the combined platform now supports six layers of activity, from the core wallet and swap engine to stablecoin issuance, card programs, and banking rails, giving Exodus “owner economics” on each step of a transaction. 

On stage, he walked through a £100 purchase example, explaining that where Exodus once retained a fraction of the economics as a client of Monavate and Baanx, it now captures a larger share through interchange, processing fees, and interest on float.

Richardson and Gernetzke both made it clear that Exodus is trying to grow past a trading‑centric model after a peak year in 2025, when it generated $121.6 million in revenue and $11 million in adjusted EBITDA on a base of roughly 1.5 to 1.6 million monthly active users.

In early 2026, the limits of that dependence on crypto cycles came into sharper focus: preliminary first‑quarter results show revenue falling to $22.7 million from $36.0 million a year earlier, a $36.4 million net loss on digital assets, and a 22% quarter‑over‑quarter drop in exchange volume to $1.18 billion, even as monthly active users held at 1.5 million and funded users slipped to 1.4 million.

Gernetzke described the tight correlation between trading revenue and Bitcoin’s price as a ceiling the company needs to break. 

Exodus Pay, now live in all 50 states, is the clearest expression of that strategy. Embedded in the core wallet, it lets users spend USD‑backed stablecoins, Bitcoin, and other assets anywhere Visa or Apple Pay works, while keeping keys in self‑custody and turning every checkout into interchange, processing, and float income. 

Later in the Summit at a fireside chat, Richardson cast that stack as infrastructure not only for today’s users but for AI agents that will execute autonomous payments across the same rails.

This post From NYSE Gut Punch to ‘One App for Money’: Exodus Bets Self‑Custody Can Power Everyday Life first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strategy (MSTR) Stock Pops 9% As Bitcoin Price Pumps Back to $78,000

Shares of Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) surged roughly 9% on Friday as Bitcoin clawed back to the $78,000 level.

This movement comes just days after Executive Chairman Michael Saylor delivered a headline-grabbing keynote at the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas.

MSTR climbed above $180 per share during Friday’s session, building on a prior close near $165. The move tracked Bitcoin’s intraday advance, which pushed BTC to $78,961 as of Friday afternoon, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data.

The rally is building up a welcome reprieve for MSTR investors who have endured a brutal stretch — the stock remains down more than 70% from its November 2024 all-time high above $457.

The price action comes amid a broader recovery in Bitcoin that has been grinding higher since a sharp pullback to the mid-$60,000s earlier this year. Bitcoin surged past the $78,000 mark last week as well, propelled by short liquidations and improving macro sentiment following reports of progress in U.S.-Iran diplomatic negotiations. 

Polymarket contracts on May 1 BTC pricing showed 100% confidence the asset would finish in the $78,000–$80,000 range.

As a leveraged proxy for Bitcoin, MSTR tends to amplify BTC’s moves in both directions. Strategy currently holds approximately 818,334 Bitcoin on its balance sheet — roughly 3.9% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist — acquired at an average cost of around $66,385 per coin.

Saylor: Strategy’s STRC is booming

The stock pop also comes on the heels of fresh enthusiasm generated by Saylor’s keynote at the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas last week.

Rather than focusing on Bitcoin price targets or more Bitcoin purchases, Saylor’s pitch centered on STRC — Strategy’s Bitcoin-backed preferred stock — and a sweeping thesis that digital credit is poised to cannibalize trillions of dollars in the legacy credit market.

“The world’s $300 trillion credit market is a much bigger opportunity than the world’s roughly $2 trillion Bitcoin market, and Strategy has built the first product to bridge the two,” Saylor argued during the keynote.

STRC, which pays an 11.5% monthly variable dividend and trades on Nasdaq, has grown to approximately $8.5 billion in notional value in under nine months — larger, Saylor claimed, than the entire existing universe of monthly-paying preferred securities combined. 

“This is going viral,” he told the audience.

BlackRock’s iShares Preferred & Income Securities ETF has already taken a roughly $210 million position in STRC.

Saylor said STRC has financed the acquisition of approximately 77,000 BTC year-to-date in 2026, roughly ten times the net inflow of all U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs combined over the same period. 

This post Strategy (MSTR) Stock Pops 9% As Bitcoin Price Pumps Back to $78,000 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Exodus (EXOD) Announces Official UFC Deal and Revised, Self-Custody Money App

JP Richardson, co-founder and CEO of Exodus Movement (NYSE American: EXOD), opened part of the Exodus Summit today in Omaha, Nebraska, with an announcement about where he thinks the company’s customers already are.

Exodus is becoming the official payments partner of the UFC, Richardson said, with the partnership going live June 1. 

This launch coincides with the UFC staging its “Freedom 250” fight event on the White House lawn to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, making it the first UFC event held on those grounds. Branding will appear inside the octagon, in broadcast spots, and through activation footprints at the venue itself.

“As the fans walk through the gates, you’re gonna see Exodus activation footprints everywhere at the White House,” Richardson said.

Richardson framed the deal in two dimensions: brand exposure and trust. For a financial application, trust is not a marketing metric but rather a result of a solid product. 

Consumers do not experiment with unrecognized brands when their money is involved, and Richardson argued that the UFC’s reach, 700 million fans across 165 countries, provides the kind of repeated, high-stakes visibility that accelerates that trust-building at a scale few media properties can match.

The deal is multi-year. Richardson described the target demographic as crypto-curious, young and digitally native — one that already aligns with what Exodus has spent over a decade building toward. 

A deep dive into Exodus Pay

Later in the day, Ain Sonayen, Chief Product Officer, delivered what amounted to a formal retirement notice for the wallet category, at least as Exodus defines it.

Sonayen’s argument was precise: a wallet is a starting point, not a destination. Exodus began as a wallet because that was the primary entry point for people getting into Bitcoin and crypto in 2014. That era, he said plainly, is over. 

The company is repositioning as a money platform — what Sonayen called a “money OS,” or operating system for money — built around three core experiences: stablecoin cash for everyday spending, crypto for ownership, and expanded utility for more sophisticated users.

Exodus Pay is the first layer of that platform. It ships now, available across all 50 states, with global expansion planned later in 2026. Users can fund the app via Apple Pay, bank transfer, or existing crypto balances. 

Spending works anywhere Visa is accepted. Peer-to-peer sends are free and instant, requiring only a phone number — including to recipients who have not yet installed Exodus, who receive the funds upon signup.

The self-custody distinction matters here more than it might appear. Competing payments products hold user balances on their own balance sheets. If a company freezes an account, the money stops. Exodus Pay keeps private keys on the user’s device; the company never takes custody of the funds. 

In a post-GENIUS Act regulatory environment, that architecture carries both compliance and competitive weight. The stablecoin market exceeded $300 billion in circulation earlier this year, and Exodus Pay said it is among the first consumer products to launch within that framework.

Sonayen also outlined the revenue logic. Payments businesses do not win on transaction volume alone; they win on balances. 

Exodus Pay is engineered to keep money inside the ecosystem — users add funds, earn rewards in any asset including Bitcoin, spend with their card, and earn again. The revenue stack includes stablecoin balances, card interchange, foreign exchange, on-ramps, and utility expansion over time.

CFO James Gernetzke, quoted in the company’s press release, called Exodus Pay “recurring, scalable, and fully ours” following record Q4 earnings — language that signals the company views this launch as the beginning of a fundamentally different business model, not a feature release.

This post Exodus (EXOD) Announces Official UFC Deal and Revised, Self-Custody Money App first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Galoy Pushes Deeper Into U.S. Banking With All-in-One Bitcoin Platform

Galoy is widening its push into U.S. banking at a moment when many institutions still wrestle with how, or whether, to bring Bitcoin into their product stack. 

Ahead of this week’s Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas, Galoy unveiled an expanded version of its Bitcoin-native core banking platform, aiming to turn a fragmented set of experiments into something closer to a coherent operating model for banks and credit unions.

The update bundles six core use cases into a single system: Bitcoin-backed lending, Lightning payments, stablecoin payments aligned with emerging legislative frameworks, Bitcoin exchange under the OCC’s riskless principal model, custody options, and embedded wallet infrastructure. 

Rather than replacing existing core systems, Galoy said the software acts as a “sidecar,” a layer that sits alongside legacy rails. That framing reflects a reality inside most institutions, where replacing core infrastructure remains a multi-year effort few are willing to undertake.

For many banks, the most tangible entry point may be BTC-backed lending. The logic feels familiar. Lenders already understand collateralized loans tied to equities or real estate. Bitcoin introduces volatility, but the structure maps onto existing credit practices. 

What has been missing is tooling that can handle real-time collateral monitoring and liquidation triggers without adding operational strain. Galoy’s platform leans into that gap, offering LTV tracking, accounting systems, and approval workflows that resemble traditional credit processes.

Addressing bitcoin uncertainty

The company also introduced three tools meant to address a quieter obstacle: uncertainty. 

Regulatory posture in the U.S. has shifted in tone but remains complex. Galoy’s “Regulatory Radar” aggregates guidance from federal and state agencies into plain language summaries, a nod to compliance teams that need interpretation as much as raw information.

Meanwhile, its “Portfolio Analyzer” and “LTV Risk Scenarios” tools speak to a deeper concern inside banks: how BTC exposure behaves under stress. By pre-loading data from thousands of U.S. financial institutions, the analyzer allows executives to see how a Bitcoin lending book might fit within their balance sheet. 

The risk scenarios tool pushes further, modeling how sharp price moves could ripple through collateral and capital.

Behind the product expansion sits a broader shift in tone across the industry. A few years ago, Bitcoin in banking often lived in innovation labs or pilot programs. Now, the conversation has moved closer to revenue lines and risk committees. That shift brings a different kind of scrutiny. 

Last year, Galoy launched Lana, software that enables smaller banks to offer bitcoin-backed loans, aiming to expand access and drive down high borrowing rates as more institutions enter the market. 

This post Galoy Pushes Deeper Into U.S. Banking With All-in-One Bitcoin Platform first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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.

The country that gave the world its first crypto ATMs is now preparing to eliminate them entirely. In April 2013, a Vancouver coffee shop installed what would become crypto's most recognizable retail footprint, a machine that let ordinary people convert cash into Bitcoin without a bank account, a broker, or much friction at all.

Thirteen years later, Canada has nearly 4,000 of these machines operating across the country, the highest concentration per capita in the world. And the federal government's Spring Economic Update 2026 has proposed banning them outright.

The proposal didn't come out of the blue. Canadians reported losing more than $704 million to fraud in 2025, bringing total reported losses since 2022 to over $2.4 billion. The government estimates that only 5 to 10 percent of fraud incidents are ever reported, which means the real figures are almost certainly a multiple of what's on paper.

Officials described crypto ATMs in the update as a “primary method for scammers to defraud victims and for criminals to place their cash proceeds of crime.” This kind of language sounds like a public verdict on a product category that's been operating under a compliance framework designed for currency exchange counters and Western Union branches.

Crypto ATMs: Machines that made fraud easy to explain

To understand why Ottawa moved on these machines before any other corner of crypto, we need to think about how regulators communicate risk to the general public, and what makes a target legible enough to act on politically.

Crypto ATMs are physically present. They sit all over the country in convenience stores, gas stations, and shopping malls. They don't require a bank account to use; most transactions under $1,000 only require a phone number, and unlike a bank teller, there's no human interaction capable of recognizing fraud in progress.

That combination of visibility and low verification threshold makes them uniquely exposed to political action. A regulator can point to the machine and explain the problem in a single sentence, which is an advantage that no other corner of the crypto ecosystem currently offers. No one needs to understand DeFi, cross-chain bridges, or stablecoin mechanics to see how they're being scammed out of their money, and that simplicity is now the industry's greatest liability.

A 2023 internal analysis by FINTRAC, Canada's financial intelligence agency, found that bitcoin ATMs are likely to remain “the primary method” fraudsters use to collect and launder funds from victims. That conclusion sat in the background for years while operators continued to expand, and industry-specific regulations never materialized.

When CBC News requested interviews with Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and FINTRAC last fall to ask what action they were taking, neither request was granted. The Spring Economic Update was, in effect, the answer that neither institution had been willing to give on record.

The industry's own compliance record complicates its defense. Nearly a dozen former employees of crypto ATM companies operating in Canada told CBC News that fraudsters tricking scam victims into sending money through the machines is a known problem within the companies, with half of them saying they don't believe the operator they worked for would be profitable without transactions tied to fraud.

That allegation, if accurate, reframes the problem with ATMs in a way that compliance measures alone can't easily address. Warnings, cooling-off periods, and identity checks can blunt fraud at the margins, but they don't address a model that may structurally depend on it.

The FBI has been flagging crypto ATM scams as a growing trend for years, and California moved to cap Bitcoin ATM transactions at $1,000 per day in 2023 to create friction before irreversible transfers are completed. Ottawa's approach is more categorical than either of those responses.

Who actually loses when the on-ramp closes

The government's proposal includes a carve-out: Canadians would still be able to purchase digital assets through other regulated channels, including brick-and-mortar money services businesses already subject to existing oversight frameworks.

This essentially makes the ban a restriction on the unattended cash-to-crypto pipeline rather than a prohibition on crypto access itself, which is an important distinction, though one that matters considerably less to users who relied on these machines because the alternatives weren't available to them.

Some Canadians use crypto ATMs because they're underbanked or cash-dependent, because they're making small purchases and don't want to go through identity verification on a regulated exchange, or simply because the machine is in the corner store where they already buy groceries.

A full ban removes a legal access point for that population without creating a meaningfully equivalent replacement. According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, fraud victims reported theft of $14.2 million in scams through crypto ATMs in 2024, with losses exceeding $4.2 million in the first three months of 2025 alone.

Those figures represent only an estimated 5 to 10 percent of actual incidents, so the harm is real and material. The question is whether its concentration justifies eliminating a channel that also carries legitimate use, and Canada's government has decided it does.

That decision has precedent. Bybit's exit from Canada and the fines levied against Bybit and KuCoin for securities failures show a regulatory environment that's willing to accept access reduction as a byproduct of enforcement. The pattern shows us that when Ottawa decides a compliance problem is serious enough, it prioritizes the problem over the product.

The playbook Canada is writing for everyone else

If enacted, Canada's ban would be among the most comprehensive responses to the crypto ATM fraud problem in any major economy.

The UK effectively restricted crypto ATMs in 2021 by requiring all operators to register with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and as of 2026, no operator has obtained that registration, rendering each machine in practice illegal and subject to enforcement.

Australia took a softer approach, with AUSTRAC imposing per-transaction cash limits in mid-2025 following a joint review focused on fraud and consumer protection. The UK's approach achieved removal through bureaucratic friction rather than legislation, while Australia chose graduated controls.

Canada's route is more direct, and it's emerging from a government that's simultaneously standing up a Financial Crimes Agency with $352.7 million in funding over five years and a mandate to follow illicit money wherever it flows.

The logic and motivation behind this proposal are worth taking seriously beyond their immediate application.

When a retail crypto product becomes associated with fraud in the public mind, particularly fraud targeting vulnerable populations, Canada's current answer is immediate removal.

That's a much different regulatory stance than the industry has historically faced, and it isn't limited to machines in corner stores. Prepaid crypto cards, self-custody apps, stablecoin on-ramps, and any product with a simple retail interface and low verification requirements are all operating inside the same political risk window, even if none of them has reached the ATM's level of public notoriety yet.

Canada's evolving regulatory record suggests that when the fraud association sticks, the product follows.

The country that installed the world's first Bitcoin ATM in a Vancouver coffee shop may be about to become the first major economy to make them entirely illegal. That's a striking inversion, and a signal worth paying attention to well outside Canada's borders.

The post Canada wants to ban crypto ATMs as fraud fears turn Bitcoin access into a political target appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Japan reportedly stepped into the currency market with roughly $35 billion of yen buying, sending the dollar down nearly 3% to 155.5.

Bank of Japan (BOJ) money-market data imply that size is accurate. Once the Ministry of Finance's monthly release confirms it, this would rank as Japan's first official yen-support action in almost two years and the second-largest on record.

The BOJ's own April outlook projects CPI excluding fresh food at 2.5% to 3.0% in fiscal 2026, and economists expect inflation to re-accelerate as oil and yen weakness amplify import costs.

The numbers show that 95% of Japan's crude oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, and the BOJ's baseline scenario assumes Dubai crude will trend toward $70-$80, with no major supply disruption.

Tokyo's political tolerance for importing inflation while the yen slides has limits, and those limits were broken this week.

The BOJ held its policy rate at 0.75% on Apr. 28, with three board members dissenting and arguing for a 1% rate. The Fed also held its policy rate at 3.50%-3.75% on Apr. 29.

That short-rate reality of roughly 275 to 300 basis points is the mechanical reason the carry trade keeps rebuilding. Yen borrowing costs stay low by almost any global comparison, and the spread to US yields makes it attractive to put that capital to work in higher-returning assets.

Intervention without rate convergence only buys time. Reuters reported that 65% of economists in an Apr. 16 poll expect the BOJ to reach 1.0% by the end of June 2026, with further hikes penciled in through 2027.

Why the yen is everyone's problem

BIS data from its 2025 triennial survey shows the yen accounted for 16.8% of all foreign exchange trades worldwide.

Another BIS study on the August 2024 episode estimated yen-funded carry trades at roughly $250 billion, before that unwind, while UBS estimated the total near $500 billion, with only about halfway done at the time.

A separate BOJ paper noted that yen liabilities fund balance sheet expansion is driven by hedge funds and financial intermediaries that are long assets far removed from Japanese currency markets.

CFTC positioning data from Apr. 21 shows leveraged funds in CME yen futures held 80,220 long contracts against 148,717 short contracts, with gross shorts up over 16,000 week over week.

When the yen suddenly strengthens, those shorts need coverage, and the assets those trades were funding need to be trimmed.

BIS data also show that foreign-currency credit denominated in yen contracted by 4.9% during 2025, so the carry complex may already be somewhat smaller, which means the mechanical force of any unwind is lower.

Bitcoin's sensitivity runs through global leverage, as the balance sheets, margin calls, and risk appetites of the same macro funds simultaneously short yen and long higher-yielding assets.

BIS's August 2024 review found that procyclical deleveraging and margin increases amplified the shock across risk assets, and Bitcoin tanked 13% during the washout.

Bitcoin traded in the $78,000 zone on May 1, reaching an intraday high near $79,000. A sudden yen squeeze forces leveraged macro books to cut gross exposure, and traders can sell Bitcoin because it is liquid and held by leveraged books that need to raise cash fast.

The bull case

If the BOJ's three dissenters are right and a June rate hike lands, it will come with a credible tightening cycle that compresses the carry spread, makes a fresh buildup of short-yen positions less attractive, and the dollar softens with it.

The intervention already pushed the dollar index down 0.8%, with the euro, pound, and Swiss franc all gaining. That broad dollar softening is historically a constructive backdrop for Bitcoin, which tends to track global dollar liquidity.

In an orderly adjustment where the BOJ's June hike lands without triggering a disorderly unwind, USD/JPY settles into a tighter range, and global risk markets absorb the repricing without cascading margin calls.

Bitcoin can work through its initial volatility and return to the weaker-dollar, easier-liquidity regime that drove its rally through early 2024.

Coinbase Research's outlook for the second quarter noted that 75% of institutional respondents view BTC as undervalued at current levels, which argues that buying interest waits on the other side of any short-term dislocation.

An 8% to 15% recovery from current levels over a two-to-six-week window is a plausible outcome in this scenario.

The bear case

Repeated interventions, or a sharper repricing of BOJ policy expectations, could squeeze the short-yen trade with enough velocity to force VAR and margin cuts across macro portfolios simultaneously.

In that setup, traders sell Bitcoin because it is liquid and held by leveraged books under pressure.

The August 2024 analog serves as the reference frame, with roughly a 15% drawdown over a matter of days, driven by the same carry mechanics and amplified by forced selling.

Bitcoin sitting at the $78,000 zone presents less cushion for holders with large embedded gains who might sit through a dip.

A drawdown of 8% to 15% is consistent with historical patterns when interventions recur without policy backing.

The post Japan has moved to save the yen again, and Bitcoin traders may pay the price appeared first on CryptoSlate.

After Circle and Bullish delivered blockbuster listings in 2025, crypto exchanges rushed toward public markets with a familiar promise: the industry is finally mature enough for Wall Street. However, the latest research from Kaiko shows that it's not as simple as that.

The crypto exchange IPO wave was supposed to prove that the crypto industry had graduated from speculative boomtown to legitimate financial infrastructure. These companies hired Wall Street bankers, appointed compliance chiefs, and refined their pitch decks to emphasize regulated platforms, recurring institutional flows, and revenue streams diversified enough to survive a bear market.

But Kaiko's analysis found that exchange trading activity, investor appetite, and public-market valuations all remain tethered to Bitcoin price in ways most of these exchanges try to obscure.

When Bitcoin rallies, trading volume surges, we see an increase in listings, and Wall Street rewards the sector generously. When Bitcoin stalls or reverses, however, exchange revenue expectations compress fast, and the infrastructure narrative loses its audience.

The central question for anyone buying into crypto IPOs in 2026 is whether they can generate durable earnings when Bitcoin isn't cooperating.

The year the IPO window reopened

To understand why exchanges are scrambling to go public now, it helps to understand how good 2025 looked from a distance.

Circle priced an upsized IPO at $31 per share in June 2025, raising $1.05 billion and valuing the stablecoin issuer at roughly $8 billion on a fully diluted basis. Its shares surged on their NYSE debut, and the reception sent an unambiguous signal: institutional investors had an appetite for regulated crypto exposure and weren't particularly sensitive to valuation.

Bullish followed in August, pricing above range at $37 per share, raising more than $1.1 billion, and debuting at a total valuation of nearly $13.2 billion. Bankers had a genuine pitch to deliver: regulation was improving, institutional participation was deepening, and crypto companies were no longer the fringe startups that had defined the previous cycle.

The enthusiasm was real, and so were the numbers behind it. What the boom obscured, though, was a structural question that IPO markets tend to defer until earnings season makes it unavoidable: can an exchange sustain its revenue when the underlying asset that drives all of its trading activity decides to go quiet?

Gemini gave us an answer to that question, and it proved to be quite an uncomfortable one.

In September 2025, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss lifted Gemini's IPO price range and targeted a valuation of up to $3.08 billion, reflecting genuine investor demand during the crypto rally. By early 2026, a shareholder lawsuit emerged alleging investors were misled around the IPO period: the company had announced a 25% workforce reduction, market exits, and a projected significant annual loss, with the stock down more than 75% from its $28 IPO price.

As CryptoSlate reported at the time of filing, Gemini had already disclosed a $282.5 million net loss in the first half of 2025 alone. It showed how quickly a company can go from an oversubscribed listing to a Bitcoin-cycle casualty when sentiment reverses.

The mechanism behind that reversal is worth understanding, because it applies to every exchange in the current queue. Crypto exchanges make the overwhelming majority of their revenue when people trade, and Bitcoin still drives the conditions that make people want to trade at all. A Bitcoin rally generates retail excitement, institutional repositioning, altcoin speculation, and elevated volatility across the entire asset class, all of which translate directly into exchange fee income.

When Bitcoin stalls, volumes compress across the industry, and the fee income that justified premium valuations starts looking considerably thinner. The public-market pitch frames exchanges as neutral infrastructure collecting fees regardless of market direction, but the operational reality is that many of them still depend on the most emotionally driven asset in finance to make users show up.

Bitcoin as the underwriter

Kraken's own IPO timeline is also a good example of this.

In November 2025, the exchange had confidentially filed for a US listing and was targeting Q1 2026, having recently been valued at $20 billion after a capital raise involving Jane Street and Citadel Securities. CryptoSlate's own report framed the company as having matured into a disciplined financial institution, and the Q3 2025 numbers backed that framing: $648 million in revenue, $178.6 million in adjusted EBITDA, and platform transaction volume of $576.8 billion. All of these were record figures, achieved during a period of elevated Bitcoin activity and favorable crypto sentiment.

But by March 2026, Reuters reported that Kraken had frozen its IPO plans, with sources indicating the company may revisit a listing when market conditions improve. Kraken's delay turns the whole IPO wave into a referendum on whether the window stays open on its own terms, or whether Bitcoin's direction remains the deciding factor.

The most important analytical distinction the 2025 wave introduced is the one between Circle and a crypto exchange, because Wall Street may eventually price them very differently.

Circle's business is tied to stablecoin circulation, interest income from the reserves backing USDC, and payment infrastructure, all revenue streams that are largely uncoupled from elevated trading volumes or Bitcoin-driven volatility.

Exchanges are structurally different, with earnings that move with crypto market activity rather than against a fixed yield. Infrastructure companies like CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange command premium multiples precisely because their earnings hold up across market cycles.

Crypto exchanges are currently asking for comparable treatment while running businesses that collapse when Bitcoin loses momentum. The next phase of public-market crypto listings may end up separating stablecoin infrastructure companies, which can plausibly claim CME-like earnings characteristics, from exchange operators whose revenue profile looks considerably more cyclical when conditions deteriorate.

Public investors reprice stocks every trading day, and that's the particular difficulty exchanges face upon listing. Private capital can afford to wait through a winter; public shareholders tend not to. The exchanges that survive quarterly earnings scrutiny will be those that can demonstrate revenue genuinely diversified across derivatives, custody, institutional services, and staking rather than leaning on spot trading volumes to carry the business.

The crypto exchange IPO wave retains momentum, but it's no longer sufficient for exchanges to argue they survived the last bear market. Public investors want evidence they can earn through the next one. Until that evidence exists in audited quarterly reports, Bitcoin remains the sector's underwriter, market maker, and ultimate judge, whether Wall Street likes it or not.

The post The crypto IPO wave has one big problem: Bitcoin is still in charge appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Stablecoin issuers spent years asking Washington for clear rules, and now those rules are becoming the industry’s biggest barrier to entry.

The GENIUS Act gave dollar-backed tokens something crypto had wanted since stablecoins became a serious part of the market: a legal home in the US. It defined payment stablecoins, set reserve expectations, created a federal framework for issuers, and moved the sector out of the gray zone that shaped much of its early growth.

That was an undisputed victory for an industry used to enforcement risk, state-by-state licensing, offshore structures, and years of policy drift. But once the law moved from Congress to the agencies, the hard part began.

Treasury, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) are now turning GENIUS into an operating manual. That manual will decide whether stablecoin issuance stays close to its crypto roots or becomes a financial-infrastructure business run by firms with the compliance staff, legal budget, banking relationships, and supervisory experience to survive inside a federal rulebook.

CryptoSlate has already covered the bank-lobby push for a 60-day pause, the fight over stablecoin rewards, and the broader consequences of Congress making digital dollars easier to use. The latest GENIUS scoop now is how its implementation could make bank-grade infrastructure the price of admission.

Washington will turn digital dollars into a supervised business

Treasury’s role sits closest to the part of crypto Washington worries about most: illicit finance. Its proposed rule focuses on anti-money laundering programs, sanctions compliance, counter-terror financing, and Bank Secrecy Act obligations. Treasury said its April proposal is designed to implement the GENIUS Act’s AML and sanctions program requirements while creating a tailored regime for payment stablecoins.

A serious issuer will need customer-risk systems, sanctions screening, suspicious activity monitoring, reporting procedures, trained staff, vendor controls, audit trails, and board-level accountability. The token may still move on a blockchain, but the company behind it will look like a regulated financial institution.

The OCC is building the federal lane for issuers under its jurisdiction. Its proposal covers permitted payment stablecoin issuers, foreign payment stablecoin issuers, and certain custody activities at OCC-supervised entities. That makes the OCC central for crypto firms thinking about national trust charters, custody authority, and the status that comes with federal supervision.

The FDIC is working on the bank side of the map. Its April proposal covers FDIC-supervised permitted payment stablecoin issuers and insured depository institutions, including reserves, redemption, capital, liquidity, custody, and risk management. The FDIC also said the GENIUS Act will take effect on Jan. 18, 2027, or 120 days after final implementing rules are issued, if that date comes earlier.

Together, the proposals move stablecoin issuance away from a token launch model and toward a supervised payments business. The biggest question becomes whether an issuer can manage reserves, redemptions, custody, reporting, compliance, governance, vendor risk, and regulator relations at scale.

That’s where the advantage starts to narrow.

Large banks already have examination histories, treasury operations, risk committees, custody teams, compliance departments, and direct regulatory channels. Large fintech companies have spent years building systems around payments, onboarding, fraud controls, consumer accounts, and money movement. Regulated crypto giants such as Coinbase, Circle, and Paxos operate closer to that world than most token issuers because they already deal with institutional customers, custody expectations, and financial-market oversight.

Smaller issuers face a harsher equation because compliance doesn’t scale down neatly.

A sanctions-screening system costs money whether an issuer has $200 million or $20 billion outstanding. So do legal review, audit support, reporting infrastructure, reserve administration, redemption operations, cyber controls, and executive accountability.

Once those costs become baseline requirements, the advantage moves away from teams that can launch quickly and toward firms that can absorb a fixed-cost regulatory burden.

Compliance is the stablecoin moat

The GENIUS Act may give stablecoins a federal framework, but it's the implementation rules that decide what kind of issuer can operate inside it. That distinction is where the market could bend toward banks, large fintechs, trust companies, and crypto firms with bank-grade systems already in place.

The new stablecoin moat may be compliance capacity.

That moat doesn’t look like the old crypto version of defensibility, like better smart contracts, faster settlements, deeper liquidity pools, or a more aggressive exchange listing strategy. It’s now a reserve committee, redemption processes that work under stress, compliance teams, and a board that signs off on risk policies.

It's also why the implementation phase could reshape the business more than the statute itself. A company issuing a regulated dollar token will need to prove that it can manage cash-equivalent reserves, process redemptions, screen activity, report suspicious behavior, document controls, and protect customer assets. Those are ordinary expectations in supervised finance, but they’re very expensive and hard to implement when applied to a crypto product built for instant, global circulation.

The contradiction is that stricter rules can make stablecoins more useful while making the issuer base smaller.

Clear federal standards could make digital dollars easier to trust. A retailer accepting stablecoins for settlement doesn’t want to study an issuer’s reserve quality every morning. A corporate treasurer doesn’t want to explain to a board why operating cash sits in a token with unclear redemption rights. A payment company needs to know that the asset moving across its rails can survive more than a bull-market week.

Clear reserve, redemption, custody, and reporting standards solve part of that problem. They turn stablecoins into instruments that essentially look and act like bank deposits, money-market funds, card networks, and treasury operations.

That same process will bring stablecoins closer to banks. The issuer that wins under this model will have conservative reserves, formal redemption rights, audited processes, regulator-facing staff, custody arrangements, and distribution through trusted financial channels. The stablecoin will still settle across digital rails in seconds, but the issuer will behave like a supervised financial company.

So GENIUS may make stablecoins safer by effectively making them less crypto-native.

But banks are still fighting the market they help build. Their push against reward structures and their campaign around implementation show that they still see stablecoins as a threat to deposits, especially if tokens or third-party platforms give users a more visible share of Treasury-bill income. The stablecoin rewards fight could push banks toward their own branded digital dollars if crypto platforms retain a rewards lane.

The fight also shows how far stablecoins have entered into banking territory. If digital dollars stay inside offshore exchanges, banks can treat them as a crypto product. But if they become payment instruments used by merchants, fintech apps, corporate treasury desks, and settlement networks, banks have every reason to shape the rules, custody the assets, partner with issuers, or launch products of their own.

The market splits into crypto stablecoins and bank-grade stablecoins

The end result may be a split market.

Some stablecoins will continue to dominate crypto trading, offshore liquidity, decentralized finance, and venues where users care most about depth, speed, availability, and exchange access. Tether and USDT have long held that role across global crypto markets, while Circle and USDC have leaned harder into regulated distribution, institutional use, and US market access. USDC has been gaining in transfer activity even as Tether holds the larger supply base.

Another group of stablecoins may become the regulated dollars used by banks, merchants, payment companies, and corporate treasurers. This category is about institutional trust, legal certainty, and operational comfort. It’s the version of the market that Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, Bridge, and other payments firms are circling as stablecoins move from crypto trading collateral into settlement infrastructure.

Major payments companies have already begun rebuilding around stablecoin rails as regulatory clarity improves, with enterprise adoption tied closely to compliance, custody, and reserve management. That’s the same direction GENIUS implementation points toward: stablecoins as regulated money movement, rather than crypto’s internal dollar substitute.

The FDIC’s proposal also sharpens the line between stablecoins and bank deposits. The agency said deposits held as stablecoin reserves would lack pass-through deposit insurance for stablecoin holders, while tokenized deposits can remain within the existing legal treatment for deposits when structured that way. That distinction gives banks a reason to promote tokenized deposits inside their own systems, while nonbank stablecoin issuers compete on openness, distribution, and settlement reach.

This is an important difference for users. The stablecoin used to trade on an offshore venue may differ from the stablecoin a merchant accepts, a payroll provider settles with, or a corporate treasury team approves. While one market values liquidity and reach, the other values redemption certainty, reserve discipline, and supervisory comfort.

That’s the real implementation fight we're about to witness. The GENIUS Act gave stablecoins a legal home in the US, and the agencies are now deciding what kind of residents can afford the rent.

The next signals will come from the final rules. Watch whether agencies soften or harden compliance timelines, whether banks launch stablecoin products or expand custody partnerships, whether crypto issuers seek trust charters or bank charters, and whether reserve and redemption rules become the main trust signal for corporate users. The most telling detail may be whether smaller issuers can absorb the fixed costs without selling, partnering, or retreating into narrower markets.

The GENIUS Act opened the door for stablecoins. The rulebook will decide whether the market behind that door becomes crypto’s next open frontier or a regulated payments layer built around firms that already know how banks are supervised.

The post The GENIUS Act opened the door for stablecoins, but regulators want to narrow it appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin headed into the Federal Reserve's rate decision this week after failing to cleanly reclaim $80,000, with the institutional bid that fueled its April recovery now visibly softening.

Spot ETF flows have been volatile, the price is sitting below the on-chain levels that define whether recent buyers are profitable, and Jerome Powell's press conference was most likely his final one as Fed chair.

Taken together, those variables make the current zone considerably more consequential than ordinary pre- and post-FOMC consolidation.

The April recovery was well-supported for most of the month. Spot Bitcoin ETF total inflows reached $2.43 billion, supporting a 14.46% price gain to around $78,000 and establishing what looked like a credible approach toward the $80,000 breakout.

On April 27, though, Bitcoin ETF net outflows surpassed $263 million, breaking an inflow streak that had attracted more than $1.2 billion the week prior, and April 28 followed with another $89.7 million in net redemptions.

Bitcoin's institutional cushion is softening at the wrong moment

The composition of those April 28 outflows is where the picture gets more interesting than the headline numbers suggest. BlackRock's IBIT, which has functioned as the primary institutional Bitcoin allocation vehicle throughout 2026, posted $112.2 million in outflows, with ARK Invest's ARKB providing only a partial offset at $41.2 million.

Fidelity's FBTC led the larger April 27 reversal at $150.4 million, followed by Grayscale's GBTC at $46.6 million.

Earlier in the cycle, it was reasonable to explain ETF-level softness as a Grayscale-specific drag from legacy holders still rotating out of the converted trust. What the last two sessions have shown is that the weakness is now more broadly distributed, with IBIT pulling back at a critical point in the price structure alongside the others.

The institutional cushion that supported BTC's move toward $80,000 has thinned, and it continued to do so as the Fed's largest macro event of the week approached.

As CryptoSlate has documented throughout 2026, ETF flows function as a primary transmission channel between macro sentiment and spot Bitcoin demand, and when that channel softens ahead of a policy-setting event, it removes one of the market's key structural shock absorbers.

The cost-basis zone is the first hurdle, not $80,000

The most analytically useful part of the current setup isn't the proximity to $80,000 as a round number, but where Bitcoin is trading relative to the two on-chain thresholds that define the profitability landscape for recent buyers.

BTC is currently around $78,400, placing it just above the True Market Mean of approximately $77,990 but below the Short-Term Holder (STH) cost basis near $78,770.

The True Market Mean represents the average acquisition price of actively circulating coins, excluding lost or dormant supply, so it captures the aggregate cost basis of engaged market participants rather than the whole coin supply.

The STH cost basis reflects the average price at which coins held for under 155 days last changed hands on-chain, making it the clearest proxy for where recent buyers came in. CryptoSlate reports showed that this level has consistently served as Bitcoin's most reliable support during bull phases, and that price breaking below it tends to heighten selling pressure as holders treat any rally as a chance to exit near break-even.

Trading below both levels simultaneously means the average recent participant in the market is sitting on an unrealized loss. That's the psychological environment in which “strong hands” have to prove themselves: absorbing supply from short-term holders who are underwater, maintaining price above the STH bull-capitulation threshold at approximately $77,310, and eventually securing the $77,990 to $78,770 band before $80,000 becomes a realistic target again.

There's a compressed layer of overhead resistance in that band, and any move through it requires buyers to be more aggressive than the ETF data currently suggests they're willing to be.

What Powell's tone changes from here

Wednesday's rate decision has been priced in for weeks, with the CME FedWatch tool showing 100% probability of a hold at the current 3.5% to 3.75% target range, marking a third consecutive pause as the Fed assesses the economic impact of tariffs and elevated energy prices from the Iran conflict.

The decision itself didn't surprise anyone. What was less settled beforehand was what Powell would signal about the path forward, so this meeting carried an extra layer of interpretive complexity, given that it's widely expected to be his last press conference before his chairmanship expires in May.

Kevin Warsh, Trump's nominee, is expected to be confirmed in time to chair the June meeting.

For Bitcoin, the real question was whether Powell's tone on inflation, liquidity, and the timing of future cuts gives risk assets room to recover, or whether he reinforces conditions tight enough to keep sellers anchored around the cost-basis zone.

The more cautious inflation reading, particularly with energy prices elevated by geopolitical risk, validated the current softness and turned the $77,990 to $78,770 band into a ceiling rather than a launchpad.

Bitcoin has already demonstrated it can recover toward $80,000 when conditions cooperate. The harder test now is whether the buyers willing to hold through a volatile macro event can keep the rebound credible when ETF flows are moving against them, and recent holders haven't yet reclaimed break-even.

A hold near $77,300 keeps the thesis alive. Reclaiming the $78,000 to $78,770 zone soon after FOMC would signal that buyers are regaining control. A clean break above $80,000 would confirm that the April recovery was a foundation. Anything less, and Wednesday's session still risks turning what looked like a successful rebound into a distribution zone that sellers were happy to use.

The post Bitcoin’s next breakout will depend on whether investors treat $80K as relief, resistance, or the start of a new recovery appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Crypto Regulation News: Why Stablecoin Yield Is Back in Focus

Crypto regulation news is becoming one of the most important market drivers again, especially as Bitcoin continues to hold near the $78,000 level while traders wait for the next major catalyst. The latest focus is the CLARITY Act, a US crypto market structure bill that could reshape how stablecoins, exchanges, and crypto platforms operate.

The main issue is stablecoin yield. According to recent reports, Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks reached a compromise on language that would restrict crypto companies from offering bank-like interest or yield simply for holding stablecoins. However, the text reportedly still allows rewards connected to real platform activity, such as payments, transfers, or usage-based incentives.

This distinction matters because it could decide how stablecoins compete with traditional banks. If crypto platforms can reward users for active usage but not passive holding, the industry may still keep an important growth tool while avoiding the direct comparison with bank deposits.

What the CLARITY Act Could Change for Stablecoins

The latest draft reportedly includes a section focused on prohibiting interest and yield on payment stablecoins. The goal is to stop stablecoins from acting like interest-bearing bank accounts, especially when users are simply holding tokens without any real transaction activity.

At the same time, the compromise appears to leave room for activity-based rewards. This means crypto companies may still be able to offer incentives linked to platform usage, payments, transfers, or other “bona fide activities.”

For the crypto market, this is not a small detail. Stablecoins are one of the biggest bridges between traditional finance and digital assets. They are used for trading, payments, liquidity management, DeFi, and exchange settlement. Any rule that changes how stablecoin rewards work could directly affect user behaviour, exchange revenue, and capital flows across the market.

Why Banks Are Watching Stablecoin Yield Closely

Banks have pushed back against stablecoin yield because they see it as a potential threat to deposits. If users can hold dollar-backed stablecoins and earn attractive rewards, some money could move away from traditional bank accounts and into crypto platforms.

That is why the new compromise tries to draw a line between passive yield and activity-based incentives. Passive yield looks more like bank interest. Usage-based rewards look more like loyalty points, payment incentives, or platform benefits.

This is where the crypto industry may have gained some ground. A full ban on all stablecoin rewards would have been much more restrictive. But a framework that allows rewards tied to actual usage could help exchanges, payment companies, and stablecoin platforms continue building products under clearer rules.

Why This Matters for Bitcoin

At first glance, stablecoin regulation may not look directly connected to Bitcoin. But it is.

Bitcoin rallies often need liquidity, confidence, and clear market structure. Stablecoins are a major source of liquidity across crypto exchanges. If the US moves closer to a clearer regulatory framework, it could improve institutional confidence and reduce uncertainty around crypto platforms.

Bitcoin is currently trading around $78,000, with a market cap near $1.57 trillion, according to the latest market data shown on TradingView. The asset has remained relatively stable, but the broader market is still waiting for a reason to break higher. A regulatory breakthrough could become that reason if traders believe it will support long-term crypto adoption.

The key question is whether this bill becomes a positive catalyst or another source of uncertainty. If the market sees the CLARITY Act as a balanced framework, Bitcoin could benefit from renewed confidence. If traders believe the rules are too restrictive, especially for stablecoin businesses and exchanges, the reaction could be more cautious.

Could Stablecoin Rules Trigger the Next Bitcoin Move?

The stablecoin yield compromise could trigger the next Bitcoin move because it touches three major market themes: regulation, liquidity, and institutional adoption.

First, clearer rules could reduce the fear that US regulators will continue handling crypto through enforcement instead of legislation. Second, stablecoin clarity could support deeper liquidity across exchanges and payment platforms. Third, institutional investors may be more comfortable entering the market when the rules around stablecoins, exchanges, and token classification become easier to understand.

This does not guarantee an immediate Bitcoin breakout. However, it gives traders a new catalyst to monitor while BTC consolidates near key levels.

If the Senate Banking Committee moves forward with the markup and the bill gains stronger political support, crypto regulation news could quickly become one of the biggest drivers of the market in May.

What Crypto Traders Should Watch Next

The first thing to watch is whether the CLARITY Act moves forward smoothly in the Senate. Any delay, political conflict, or change in the stablecoin language could affect market sentiment.

The second thing to watch is how major crypto companies respond. Coinbase and other platforms have a direct interest in how stablecoin rewards are defined, especially if rewards linked to usage remain allowed.

The third thing to watch is Bitcoin’s reaction. If BTC holds above the $78,000 area while regulatory clarity improves, the market could start pricing in a stronger move toward higher resistance levels. But if Bitcoin fails to react positively, it may suggest that traders are still more focused on macro risks, liquidity conditions, and broader risk appetite.

Conclusion: Stablecoin Regulation Could Be Bitcoin’s Next Catalyst

Crypto regulation news is no longer just a background story. The latest stablecoin yield compromise in the CLARITY Act could become a major turning point for the market.

By blocking bank-like passive yield while allowing activity-based rewards, US lawmakers may be trying to create a middle ground between protecting banks and allowing crypto innovation to continue. For Bitcoin, the impact depends on whether traders see this as a step toward real regulatory clarity.

With BTC still holding near $78,000, the next major move may not come from charts alone. It could come from Washington.

$BTC, $ETH, $USDT, $USDC

As we enter May 2026, the cryptocurrency market stands at a critical technical junction. After a period of consolidation, the "Big Four"—Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Cardano—are displaying setups that suggest a massive volatility expansion is imminent. While individual narratives like ETF inflows and network upgrades provide local support, the overarching theme remains Bitcoin’s dominance and its role as the market's primary liquid engine.

Is the Bull Run Resuming?

Traders are currently asking if the recent sideways price action is a distribution phase or a re-accumulation for the next leg up. Technical indicators suggest the latter. If Bitcoin successfully clears the psychological hurdle of $80,000, it will likely trigger a waterfall effect across the altcoin sector, starting with Ethereum and eventually trickling down to high-cap assets like XRP and Cardano.

Bitcoin (BTC) Prediction: The Road to $90,000

Bitcoin is currently the linchpin of the entire crypto ecosystem. As of early May 2026, the BTC price has shown remarkable resilience, holding support above the $75,000 mark.

• The Catalyst: Renewed institutional demand and easing selling pressure from spot ETFs.
• The Target: Once BTC breaks the $80,000 resistance, the lack of historical overhead supply suggests a swift move toward $90,000.
• The Risk: A failure to maintain the $75,000 floor could delay this rally, as the altcoin market is not yet ready to decouple from Bitcoin's price action.

Ethereum (ETH) Forecast: Breaking the $2,400 Barrier

Ethereum has been trailing Bitcoin in terms of percentage gains, but the technical structure of ETH is tightening.

• Immediate Resistance: The $2,400 level has acted as a multi-month ceiling.
• Breakout Potential: A clean daily close above $2,400 shifts the focus toward $2,800.
• Network Utility: Increased activity on Layer 2 solutions continues to burn ETH supply, providing a deflationary tailwind that supports a higher price floor.

XRP and Cardano (ADA): The Lagging Giants

While BTC and ETH lead the charge, XRP and Cardano (ADA) are currently in a "lagging" phase, characterized by horizontal accumulation.

XRP: The $1.50 Springboard

XRP is currently consolidating within a rising channel. Analysts expect XRP to continue lagging until it breaks the $1.50 resistance. Once this level is cleared, historical price action suggests a "short squeeze" or "fomo" effect that could catapult the price to $2.00 very quickly.

Cardano (ADA): Waiting for $0.28

Cardano remains in a tight range. The key level to watch is $0.28. If ADA can flip this resistance into support, the path to $0.40 becomes clear. However, like XRP, ADA requires a stable or bullish Bitcoin environment to find the necessary volume for such a move.

The "Bitcoin Contingency" Rule

It is vital to understand that these predictions are not independent events. The cryptocurrency market in 2026 remains highly correlated.

Important Note: The targets for ETH, XRP, and ADA are strictly contingent on Bitcoin maintaining its bullish momentum. If Bitcoin faces a significant correction, the "lagging" altcoins are likely to see deeper retracements before any breakout occurs.

As decentralized compute and machine learning models become integrated into financial and creative workflows, certain projects have emerged as clear leaders.

Investors are increasingly looking beyond simple "AI hype" toward protocols that provide tangible infrastructure for the future. In this article, we analyze three AI tokens that demonstrate high utility and strong market positioning.

Why AI and Blockchain are the Future of Investment

In 2026, the synergy between AI and blockchain is no longer theoretical; it is a "multiplicative" force for global efficiency. Blockchain provides the transparent, decentralized layer needed to verify AI data and secure compute resources, while AI offers the "intelligence" to optimize on-chain processes.

• Decentralized Intelligence: Reducing reliance on "Big Tech" silos for model training.
• Resource Efficiency: Tokenizing GPU power allows for a global, borderless marketplace for compute.
• Trustless Governance: AI can manage complex DAO structures with high-speed data analysis.

Top 3 AI Coins to Consider in 2026

1. Bittensor (TAO): The Decentralized Brain

Bittensor remains the premier protocol for decentralized machine learning. By creating a marketplace for intelligence, Bittensor allows different subnets to specialize in various AI tasks—from image generation to complex data analysis—rewarding participants in TAO.

Why TAO is a Strong Contender

As of May 2026, Bittensor has gained massive institutional validation. With recent reports of major tech entities exploring TAO's subnet architecture, the token has shown strong "alpha" performance. The Bittensor price (often compared to the blue chips of the sector) remains a favorite for those betting on a "World Computer" of intelligence.

• Subnet Scalability: Each subnet acts as its own specialized economy.
• Institutional Interest: Rumors of AI-specific ETFs have kept liquidity high.
• Deflationary Incentives: The halving mechanics and staking requirements create a supply crunch as demand for decentralized inference grows.

2. Render (RENDER): Powering the Visual AI Revolution

As AI-generated video and spatial computing become mainstream, the demand for GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) power has hit record highs. Render Network bridges the gap by connecting users who need compute power with those who have idle GPUs.

The Investment Thesis for RENDER

Render transitioned successfully to the Solana blockchain, which significantly lowered transaction costs and improved scalability. This move allowed it to integrate more deeply with AI training and inference workloads, moving beyond its original scope of 3D rendering.

• Burn-and-Mint Equilibrium: This economic model ensures that as network usage grows, the supply of RENDER is managed efficiently.
• Strategic Partnerships: Render's involvement in spatial computing projects with companies like Apple and Meta makes it a critical infrastructure play.
• GPU Shortage Hedge: As centralized cloud providers (AWS, Google) face capacity limits, Render provides a decentralized alternative.

3. DeXe (DEXE): AI-Driven Social Trading and DAOs

While Bittensor and Render focus on infrastructure, DeXe Protocol is revolutionizing how we interact with decentralized finance (DeFi) and governance through AI-enhanced tools. DeXe provides the framework for DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and social trading platforms.

The Role of AI in DeXe

In 2026, DeXe has integrated advanced automated tools that allow for "meritocratic" governance. AI agents within the DeXe ecosystem help analyze trader performance and manage treasury allocations based on real-time data, reducing human error and bias.

• Social Trading Evolution: Users can replicate the strategies of top traders (Executives) with AI-powered risk management.
• Incentive Alignment: The DEXE token is used for governance, ensuring that those with the most "expertise" have a proportional say in the protocol's future.
• Multi-chain Utility: DEXE's presence across multiple chains ensures high liquidity and accessibility.

3 AI Coins to Consider in 2026

Bitcoin Price Breaks 78K

The digital asset market has entered May 2026 with a distinct "multi-speed" dynamic. While Bitcoin has successfully breached the psychological resistance of $78,000, the broader altcoin market remains in a state of watchful consolidation. This divergence has historically preceded periods of significant "catch-up" growth, making the current window a potential strategic entry point for diversified portfolios.

Why are Crypto UP?

If you are looking for the best cryptocurrencies to buy in May 2026, the focus should shift toward established projects currently showing technical resilience. While BTC steals the spotlight, major assets like Ethereum, XRP, and Cardano are building foundations that suggest a breakout is imminent.

In crypto trading, "accumulation" refers to a phase where an asset trades within a tight range after a move, allowing larger investors to build positions without significantly moving the price. Currently, the "Altcoin Dominance" index suggests that capital is still heavily concentrated in Bitcoin, leaving the rest of the market undervalued relative to the market leader.

Top 5 Cryptocurrencies to Buy in May 2026

The following five cryptocurrencies have been selected based on their recent consolidation patterns, upcoming network milestones, and technical support levels.

1. XRP: The $1.40 Consolidation Floor

XRP has spent the better part of the last quarter consolidating around the $1.40 mark. Despite a surge in social sentiment following the integration with major payment providers like Rakuten Pay, the price has remained remarkably stable.

Why Buy: The lack of immediate "news-driven" volatility suggests that the weak hands have been shaken out. Holding the $1.40 support level is crucial; a successful flip of this resistance into support could clear the path toward $1.85.

2. Cardano (ADA): The Known Lagger

Cardano often earns the reputation of being a "lagger" in bull cycles. Currently, ADA is consolidating around the $0.24 - $0.26 range. While it hasn't mirrored Bitcoin’s double-digit gains this month, its historical 2026 forecast suggests May could be its most bullish month yet.

Why Buy: ADA is currently trading at a significant discount relative to its ecosystem growth. For patient investors, this "boring" price action often precedes an explosive "impulse wave."

3. Ethereum (ETH): Targeting the $3,000 Milestone

Ethereum has faced recent headwinds, briefly dipping below $2,300 due to minor security concerns and wallet movements. However, the network remains the undisputed king of DeFi and Layer 2 scaling.

Why Buy: ETH is currently undervalued below $2,500. Technical analysts point to a target range of $2,800 to $3,000 by the end of May, provided it holds the $2,300 support zone. Track real-time on-chain metrics via Etherscan to monitor institutional accumulation.

4. Solana (SOL): The High-Performance Contender

Solana continues to prove its resilience as the fastest smart-contract blockchain. While Bitcoin nears $80k, SOL has maintained a steady upward trajectory without the "blow-off top" behavior seen in previous cycles.

Why Buy: As the go-to platform for retail users and meme-coin launches, Solana’s utility remains at an all-time high. A move back toward its yearly highs is expected as capital rotates out of BTC.

5. Polkadot (DOT): The Interoperability Play

Polkadot remains a staple for those betting on a multi-chain future. With staking rewards still hovering around 11%, it offers a dual benefit of capital appreciation and passive income.

Why Buy: DOT is currently testing critical resistance. If the "Interoperability" narrative gains traction this month, DOT is positioned to lead the Web3 sector.

Crypto Predictions and Targets for May 2026

The "Bitcoin Season" we are currently witnessing is a classic precursor to a potential shift in liquidity. Investors should keep a close eye on the Bitcoin Dominance Chart on TradingView. When this percentage begins to drop while Bitcoin stays flat or climbs slowly, it typically signals that capital is flowing into the altcoin market.

Bitcoin is once again trading in bullish territory, with the crypto market following the broader risk-on mood across global assets. Bitcoin climbed above $78,000, Ethereum moved near $2,300, and several major altcoins turned green as stocks continued to show strength. The rally came alongside strong performance in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, both of which recently pushed into record-high territory as markets reacted positively to easing geopolitical concerns and renewed risk appetite.

But the next test for crypto may not come from the chart. It may come from Washington.

President Donald Trump announced that tariffs on European Union cars and trucks entering the United States will rise to 25% next week, arguing that the EU is not complying with a previous trade agreement. Vehicles produced by European automakers inside the United States would reportedly avoid the tariff.

For crypto traders, this matters because tariffs can quickly bring inflation fears back into the market. Bitcoin may be rallying now, but if investors start pricing in higher import costs, renewed trade tensions, and delayed Fed rate cuts, the current crypto market rally could face a serious macro test.

Why is the crypto market rallying today?

The crypto market is benefiting from a stronger risk-on environment. Bitcoin is holding above $78,000, Ethereum is trading near $2,300, and several large-cap tokens such as Dogecoin, Hyperliquid, and Bitcoin Cash are showing solid gains.

Part of this move is linked to stronger stock market momentum. When the S&P 500 and Nasdaq push higher, crypto often benefits because traders become more willing to take risk. In this environment, Bitcoin is being treated less like a defensive asset and more like a high-liquidity risk asset.

The latest U.S. manufacturing data also added to the picture. The ISM Manufacturing PMI stayed at 52.7 in April, above the 50 level that signals expansion, although it came in slightly below expectations. New orders improved, while employment weakened and prices continued rising.

That creates a mixed signal for crypto. Growth remains strong enough to support risk assets, but inflation pressure is still present. This is exactly why Trump’s tariff announcement matters.

Trump’s EU tariff threat brings inflation back into focus

The proposed 25% tariff on EU cars and trucks could become a new inflation trigger for markets. Tariffs usually increase the cost of imported goods, and if those costs are passed to consumers, inflation can become harder to control.

This is especially important now because markets have been trying to price in a more supportive macro environment. Traders want lower inflation, easier Fed policy, and stronger liquidity. But if trade tensions return, the market may start questioning whether rate cuts can arrive as quickly as expected.

For Bitcoin, this is a key point. The current rally is not happening in isolation. It is connected to liquidity expectations, stock market strength, geopolitical de-escalation, and the belief that inflation will not force the Fed to stay restrictive for longer.

If tariffs push inflation expectations higher again, crypto may lose part of that support.

Why tariffs matter for Bitcoin and crypto prices

Crypto prices are highly sensitive to liquidity. When traders believe interest rates could fall, capital usually moves faster into risk assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins. When inflation rises or rate cuts look less likely, liquidity expectations weaken.

That is why tariffs can affect Bitcoin even if they are not directly related to blockchain or crypto regulation.

The link is simple:

Higher tariffs can raise import costs. Higher import costs can increase inflation pressure. Higher inflation can reduce the chance of near-term rate cuts. Fewer rate cuts can slow liquidity growth. And weaker liquidity can pressure Bitcoin and altcoins.

This does not mean the crypto rally has to stop immediately. But it does mean traders should watch whether Bitcoin can keep holding strength if the macro narrative shifts from “growth and liquidity” back to “inflation and trade war.”

Stocks are at all-time highs, but crypto faces a different test

The strong performance in U.S. stocks is currently helping Bitcoin. When equities rise, especially tech-heavy indexes like the Nasdaq, crypto often follows because both markets attract similar risk-seeking capital.

However, Bitcoin now needs to prove that it can hold above key levels even if macro uncertainty increases.

The $78,000 area is important because it now acts as a short-term confidence zone. If Bitcoin holds this level while tariff headlines grow, it would show that buyers are still in control. But if BTC loses momentum and falls back below this range, the rally could quickly turn into another failed breakout attempt.

Ethereum is also important to watch. ETH is trading near $2,300 but still looks weaker than Bitcoin. If Bitcoin dominance keeps rising while Ethereum underperforms, the market may remain concentrated in BTC rather than expanding into a broader altcoin rally.

What crypto traders should watch now

There are four key signals to monitor.

First, watch Bitcoin around the $78,000 level. A strong hold above this zone would support the bullish case, while a drop below it could signal fading momentum.

Second, watch Ethereum near $2,300. ETH needs to show strength if the market wants a broader crypto rally instead of a Bitcoin-led move only.

Third, watch tariff headlines. If the EU responds strongly or markets begin pricing in a renewed trade war, inflation fears could return quickly.

Fourth, watch Fed expectations. The most important question is whether traders still believe rate cuts are coming soon. If tariff risks delay those expectations, crypto may face pressure even while stocks remain strong.

Can the crypto market rally survive this macro test?

The crypto market still looks strong, but the rally is becoming more dependent on macro stability. Bitcoin above $78,000 is a bullish signal, especially with stocks at record highs and risk appetite improving. But Trump’s EU tariff threat adds a new layer of uncertainty at the worst possible time.

If tariffs revive inflation concerns, the market may start to question the liquidity story that helped support the latest Bitcoin move. That does not cancel the bullish setup, but it makes the next few days important.

For now, Bitcoin is still holding the line. But the real test is whether the crypto market can stay strong if inflation fears return.

$BTC, $ETH, $DOGE, $HYPE, $BCH

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TLDR:

• XRP reserves on Binance dropped from 3.05B to 2.75B, pointing to reduced sell-side pressure in May 2026
• Reserve and price both bottomed in early 2026, with XRP hitting $1.25 before stabilizing near current levels
• Analyst CW8900 warns that a break above $1.48 could trigger mass short liquidations and fuel upward momentum
• On-chain reserve stabilization since February 2026 suggests a potential accumulation phase may be forming for XRP

XRP exchange reserves on Binance have declined from a peak of 3.05 billion to 2.75 billion as of early May 2026. The price sits at $1.39 as of writing, reflecting a modest 0.11% gain in 24 hours.

Trading volume stands at over $1 billion. Analysts are now watching on-chain data closely. The reserve movement suggests a possible shift in market dynamics for the token.

Reserve Decline Points to Reduced Selling Pressure on Binance

XRP reserves on Binance reached their highest point of 3.05 billion in July 2025. At that time, prices were elevated, with the token trading near $3.50 in October 2025.

That peak coincided with large volumes of coins moving onto exchanges. Historically, rising exchange reserves alongside high prices often signal distribution activity.

Source: Cryptoquant

From November 2025 through February 2026, both reserve levels and price fell sharply together. The reserve dropped to a low of 2.55 billion, while price touched $1.25.

This type of simultaneous decline is commonly associated with capitulation in crypto markets. Traders and holders appeared to exit positions in that stretch.

Analyst Zakariya Sharif noted that since February 2026, the reserve has stabilized around the 2.75 billion mark. That stabilization follows the earlier period of heavy outflows and declining prices.

A steadying reserve level typically suggests that active selling has slowed considerably. The market appears to be absorbing the earlier pressure.

Sharif outlined three key patterns worth monitoring going forward. Falling reserves suggest reduced sell-side pressure on the market.

A stable reserve range may point toward an accumulation phase forming among buyers. Any further decline in reserves alongside rising prices would serve as a strong bullish confirmation signal.

Short Position Liquidations Could Push XRP Past $1.48 Resistance

Market analyst CW8900 posted on X that high-leverage short positions on XRP are approaching a liquidation zone.

According to the analyst, a breakout above $1.48 could trigger a cascade of short liquidations. Once that resistance clears, the overhead pressure from shorts would nearly vanish. That scenario could accelerate upward momentum for the token.

The $1.48 level is now being watched as a key technical threshold. Short sellers who entered at lower prices face increased risk if price pushes higher.

A forced liquidation of those positions would add buying pressure to the market. Traders are positioning around this level ahead of a potential breakout.

On-chain data, meanwhile, continues to support a cautiously constructive outlook. The combination of a stable reserve and easing sell pressure adds weight to the technical setup.

However, macro conditions and broader market sentiment remain relevant factors. Neither data point alone offers a complete picture of where XRP heads next.

XRP recorded a 7-day decline of 1.87% despite the short-term price stability. Volume above $1 billion over 24 hours reflects continued market participation.

The price action near current levels will be critical in the sessions ahead. Traders are advised to monitor reserve trends alongside price behavior for clearer directional cues.

The post XRP Exchange Reserves on Binance Fall to 2.75B as Selling Pressure Eases appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Bitcoin has maintained higher highs and higher lows since the $65,000 low, but volume has not followed the price recovery.
  
• Binance controls 25% of total exchange volume, nearly double Bybit’s share, making its data the most critical market indicator.
  
• Sustained low spot trading volumes since February raise concerns that the current rally may lack the strength for a real breakout.
  
• A genuine breakout above $80,000 requires a significant return of spot buyer demand, or a sharp reversal remains a real risk.

Bitcoin is currently facing strong resistance at the $80,000 level. The price has been climbing steadily, but trading volumes in spot markets remain unusually low.

This divergence between price and volume has raised questions about the rally’s legitimacy. Market watchers are now questioning whether this upward move is sustainable.

The situation calls for close attention to on-chain data and exchange activity before drawing any firm conclusions.

Binance Data Remains the Market’s Most Reliable Compass

Bitcoin has held a bullish structure since bouncing off the $65,000 support level. The market has printed a series of higher highs and higher lows since that recovery.

However, the volume accompanying this price climb has not kept pace with the gains. That disconnect is what has analysts on edge heading into the $80,000 zone.

Binance continues to hold the largest share of trading activity among major exchanges. The platform accounts for roughly 25% of total volume across major crypto venues.

Source: Cryptoquant

Its trading volume is nearly twice that of Bybit, its closest rival. Because of this, Binance data carries the most weight when reading overall market direction.

When one exchange holds that level of dominance, its data shapes how traders interpret price movement globally.

A volume spike on Binance would carry far more weight than the same move on any other platform. Conversely, the absence of volume there is equally telling. Right now, the data from Binance is not pointing toward strong buyer conviction.

The lack of volume confirmation since February adds another layer of concern. Spot trading activity has remained subdued even as Bitcoin pushed higher.

Without spot buyers driving the price, the rally could be resting on thinner ground. This is a pattern worth monitoring closely as the $80,000 level comes back into focus.

Volume Confirmation Holds the Key to a Real Breakout

Low-volume rallies carry a well-known risk in financial markets: they often attract aggressive sellers near resistance. Bitcoin approaching $80,000 without rising volume fits this profile closely.

Traders may be walking into a setup designed to trap buyers before a sharp move lower. This is what analysts refer to as a bull trap.

The concept of liquidity hunting also comes into play here. Large market participants sometimes push prices toward key levels to trigger stop orders and collect liquidity.

A move to $80,000 without real demand behind it could be exactly this kind of setup. Once that liquidity is taken, prices can reverse sharply.

For the breakout above $80,000 to hold, spot buyers need to return in force. A sustained surge in buying volume would signal that demand is genuine and broad-based.

Without that, any move above resistance is at risk of reversing quickly. The burden of proof sits firmly on the bulls at this stage.

Bitcoin has shown resilience since the $65,000 low, and the higher high structure is not something to dismiss entirely. Yet history shows that price without volume is a fragile combination.

Traders would do well to watch volume trends in the coming sessions closely. That data, more than price alone, will determine whether $80,000 becomes support or a ceiling.

The post Bitcoin Struggles to Break $80,000 as Low-Volume Rally Raises Red Flags appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Pi Network has set a firm May 15 deadline for all Mainnet nodes to complete the Protocol 23 upgrade.

• The Protocol 23 upgrade takes longer than usual, so node operators are urged to begin the process early.

• Pi Node version 0.5.4 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux via the Pi Desktop application download.

• SuperNodes must maintain a 24/7 connection and pass KYC verification to actively participate in consensus.

Pi Network has announced a mandatory upgrade to Protocol 23 for all Mainnet nodes, with a deadline set for May 15.

The upgrade is described as taking longer than usual to complete, so node operators are advised to plan accordingly.

This development marks another step in Pi Network’s ongoing effort to build a more decentralized and user-driven blockchain infrastructure, as the project continues to expand its node participation framework.

Protocol 23 Upgrade Requirements for Mainnet Nodes

Pi Network shared the upgrade announcement through its official channel, stating that all Mainnet nodes must complete the Protocol 23 upgrade before the May 15 deadline to remain connected to the network.

The Core Team noted that this particular upgrade requires more time than previous updates, urging node operators not to delay the process.

The Pi Node software is currently available at version 0.5.4 and can be downloaded for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.

Operators access the upgrade through the Pi Desktop application, which serves as the gateway for running and managing node activity on the network.

Node operators are grouped into three participation levels: Computer App users, Nodes, and SuperNodes. SuperNodes carry the heaviest responsibility, as they must maintain a 24/7 connection and actively participate in the consensus process that writes transactions to the Pi ledger.

The selection criteria for Nodes and SuperNodes include uptime reliability, a stable internet connection, sufficient hardware performance, and prior contributions to the Pi community. Applicants who meet these thresholds and pass KYC verification are enrolled to serve in the network.

Pi Node’s Role in Progressive Decentralization

Pi Network’s node infrastructure is built on the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), where nodes form trusted groups called quorum slices.

These groups only validate transactions that their trusted peers also agree to, creating a layered security model rooted in community trust.

The security circles established by mobile miners on the Pi app aggregate into a global trust graph. This graph feeds directly into how SuperNodes and Nodes form their quorum slices, linking mobile participation to the broader consensus mechanism.

Unlike traditional proof-of-work systems, Pi’s node model is designed for everyday users running standard desktops or laptops.

The goal is to reduce the technical barrier to participation, making node operation accessible without requiring deep blockchain expertise.

As Pi Network moves further through its Testnet roadmap — covering the Selection, Revision, and Live Testnet stages — the Protocol 23 upgrade supports the infrastructure needed for real transaction testing.

The Core Team has stated that the centralized layer used during testing will eventually be removed once the Mainnet reaches full operational status.

The post Pi Network Mandates Protocol 23 Upgrade for All Mainnet Nodes Before May 15 Deadline appeared first on Blockonomi.

When players research online gambling platforms the same names tend to dominate the early results. DraftKings and Bet365 have been at the top of those results for long enough that they have become the default reference points for any comparison. Searching for a sportsbook, a casino, or an online gambling platform in most major markets will surface one or both of them within the first few results.

In 2026 something is changing in those searches. ZunaBet is appearing alongside the established names with increasing frequency — not as a brand that outspent its way into visibility but as a platform that players are actively seeking out after finding what DraftKings and Bet365 offer and asking whether there is something that does more of what they specifically need.

This article looks at all three. What DraftKings and Bet365 offer, what their limitations are for certain player types, and why ZunaBet is appearing in searches that used to produce only two results.

DraftKings: The Platform That Defined US Online Gambling

DraftKings did not become the dominant US online gambling brand by accident. It was positioned at the right moment — an established daily fantasy sports operator with brand recognition and a user base when the Supreme Court ruling opened state-by-state sports betting across the US. The conversion from fantasy sports audience to licensed gambling customers was faster than most competitors could manage and the platform has built on that foundation consistently.

The sportsbook is the product’s core strength. American sports are covered with a depth and cultural fluency that reflects a platform built by people who understand the US betting market from the inside. NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, college sports — the markets that US bettors care most about are handled at a level that international competitors rarely replicate for this specific context. The app has been refined through years of player feedback and works reliably across devices.

The casino component has grown steadily alongside the sportsbook. A reasonable game library, live dealer content, and the table game standards that US casino players expect. It serves the mainstream US casino audience adequately.

The limitations are structural and well documented among players who have moved past casual engagement with the platform. Withdrawals process through fiat banking with timelines that can stretch to several business days depending on method. Crypto support is limited to Bitcoin in select states and is not a native infrastructure — it is an addition to a fiat system. Dynasty Rewards gives players points that convert through a structure many find less rewarding than the headline tier benefits imply. The platform is geographically restricted to licensed US states.

Bet365: The Platform That Defined International Sports Betting

Bet365 has had more time than almost any competitor to build and refine its product. Operating since 2000, it has constructed a sportsbook that is genuinely without peer on breadth of market coverage — major global sports at full depth, minor leagues that other operators do not price, in-play markets on events that competitors abandon after pre-match, and a live streaming service that lets players watch events within the platform as they bet on them.

For the serious international sports bettor the Bet365 sportsbook is the standard against which everything else is measured. Twenty-five years of market relationship building produces something that newer platforms are still working toward.

The casino product has developed alongside the sportsbook. A large library, strong live dealer content from established providers, and a platform experience that is polished and consistent across devices.

The limitations are significant for specific player profiles. Geographic restrictions eliminate it from the US market and several other significant jurisdictions. The loyalty program delivers meaningful rewards through an invite-only VIP structure that the general player base cannot access — most players operate without a clear or transparent loyalty pathway. Crypto support is minimal. Payment infrastructure follows fiat banking standards with the associated processing timelines.

ZunaBet: The Third Name Players Are Finding

ZunaBet launched in 2026, owned by Strathvale Group Ltd and operating under an Anjouan gaming license. Registered in Belize and managed by a team with over 20 years of combined industry experience, it operates as an internationally accessible crypto-first platform — not a licensed US operator, not a UK regulated platform, but a product built around what a specific and growing segment of players is actively searching for.

The game library is where the product makes its most immediate statement. ZunaBet carries 11,294 titles from 63 providers. That number sits significantly above what either DraftKings or Bet365 carries on the casino side. Slots make up the largest category as they do across the industry, but the live dealer section draws from Evolution’s full catalogue and the RNG table game section covers multiple variants across providers. Hacksaw Gaming, Pragmatic Play, Yggdrasil, BGaming, and dozens of others contribute content with genuinely different mechanical approaches. A player moving from DraftKings or Bet365 to ZunaBet’s casino finds a library that is not just larger but structurally more varied in ways that sustain long-term engagement.

The sportsbook covers football, basketball, tennis, NHL, and other major global sports. Where it extends beyond both established platforms for a growing audience is the esports section — CS2, Dota 2, League of Legends, and Valorant as genuine markets. Virtual sports and combat sports complete a sportsbook that was built to be comprehensive rather than adequate.

Payment support covers more than 20 cryptocurrencies natively — BTC, ETH, USDT across multiple chains, SOL, DOGE, ADA, XRP, and others. No platform processing fees. Withdrawals settling at network speed in minutes. Apps across iOS, Android, Windows, and MacOS with 24-hour live chat support.

Why Crypto vs Fiat Is the Central Comparison

The payment infrastructure comparison between ZunaBet and the two established platforms is the most structurally significant difference in the whole comparison. It is not a matter of features — it is a matter of architecture.

DraftKings and Bet365 were built on fiat banking. Their payment systems are embedded in infrastructure designed before cryptocurrency was a relevant consideration for mainstream gambling platforms. Adding crypto support to a fiat platform produces a crypto-adjacent experience rather than a native one — coins are accepted but routed through processing layers that introduce delays inconsistent with what cryptocurrency is designed to deliver.

ZunaBet was built in 2026 with cryptocurrency as the payment foundation. The result is a withdrawal experience that reflects what crypto infrastructure actually enables — transactions settling in minutes regardless of the day or time, no banking intermediaries, no fees beyond standard network costs. Players who have used both systems do not choose between them neutrally. The experience of a minute-long withdrawal versus a three-day bank transfer is not a preference distinction — it is a quality of life distinction that permanently reframes what acceptable looks like.

For the growing segment of players who hold and use cryptocurrency as their primary financial instrument, the question of whether a platform has native crypto infrastructure is not a feature preference. It is the baseline qualification for being worth their time.

Loyalty Programs: Three Systems, Three Philosophies

The loyalty program comparison across DraftKings, Bet365, and ZunaBet illustrates three different philosophies about what regular players deserve to know about what their activity earns.

DraftKings Dynasty Rewards tells players their points balance and tier position. What those points are actually worth in cash terms requires navigating a conversion and redemption structure that experienced players consistently find less favourable than first impressions suggested.

Bet365’s VIP program tells most players very little. The meaningful tiers are invitation-only and the general player base operates without transparency about what long-term engagement earns them or how to progress toward the levels where it matters.

ZunaBet’s dragon evolution loyalty system tells players their exact rakeback rate before they make a single deposit. Six tiers — Squire, Warden, Champion, Divine, Knight, and Ultimate — with a gamified mascot called Zuno and direct rakeback rates of 1%, 2%, 4%, 5%, 10%, and 20% respectively. Every tier is open to every player. Every rate applies to all activity including sportsbook bets. No conversion process, no invitation requirement, no opacity about what engagement is worth.

A player at ZunaBet’s Ultimate tier receives 20% of their activity value back as a direct cash return. That figure is calculable before joining, verifiable during membership, and consistent across every session. Additional tier benefits — up to 1,000 free spins, VIP club access, double wheel spins — build on a core structure that already delivers substantial transparent value.

The three systems reflect three different answers to the question of what transparency in loyalty means. DraftKings provides partial transparency. Bet365 provides minimal transparency for most players. ZunaBet provides complete transparency from the moment a player considers joining.

The Welcome Bonus

ZunaBet new players receive a bonus across three deposits totalling up to $5,000 plus 75 free spins. First deposit matched 100% up to $2,000 with 25 free spins. Second deposit matched 50% up to $1,500 with 25 spins. Third deposit matched 100% up to $1,500 with 25 spins.

DraftKings and Bet365 both offer welcome promotions competitive within their regulated markets. Terms vary by jurisdiction and are updated regularly — players should verify current offers directly on each platform. ZunaBet’s multi-deposit structure gives players time to explore a platform of this scale before the promotional period ends.

A New Generation of Players and What They Are Looking For

The players who are adding ZunaBet to their consideration set alongside DraftKings and Bet365 share a profile that is becoming more common rather than less. They hold cryptocurrency as a primary financial instrument. They follow esports alongside traditional sports. They have done enough research to know what a points-based loyalty program actually returns and found it insufficient. They expect withdrawals to be measured in minutes because they know that is what the technology enables.

For this player DraftKings and Bet365 represent the previous generation of platform — well-built products for a different player type. ZunaBet represents the current generation — a platform designed around how the audience that is growing actually behaves rather than how the audience that built the market once behaved.

ZunaBet is a 2026 platform and its operational track record is still developing. That context matters and players should factor it into their decisions. Long-term trust is built over time and ZunaBet is still in the early stages of that process.

But the question in the article title — are players also considering ZunaBet alongside DraftKings and Bet365 — has a clear answer in 2026. Yes. And the more they compare on the specific dimensions that matter to them, the more the comparison favours a platform built for the player they are rather than the player they used to be.

The post DraftKings vs Bet365: Are Players Also Considering ZunaBet? appeared first on Blockonomi.

DraftKings and Bet365 occupy different corners of the online gambling world but they share one thing — they are among the most recognised names in the industry globally. DraftKings built its brand in the United States through daily fantasy sports before becoming a major licensed sportsbook and casino operator. Bet365 built its dominance in the UK and international markets over two decades of consistent operation. Both are large, well-funded, and deeply embedded in the markets they serve.

In 2026 a third name has been appearing alongside them in player searches and comparison discussions. ZunaBet launched this year as a crypto-first casino and sportsbook and has been drawing attention from a specific segment of players — those who are comfortable with cryptocurrency, want faster withdrawals, expect larger game libraries, and want loyalty programs that state their value clearly rather than hiding it behind points conversion tables.

This article looks at what DraftKings and Bet365 offer, where their limitations are, and why ZunaBet is gaining the visibility it is among a new generation of online gambling players.

DraftKings: Strengths and Limitations

DraftKings is one of the dominant forces in US online gambling. It holds licences across multiple US states, operates a well-developed sportsbook, and carries a casino product that has grown significantly since the platform expanded beyond its daily fantasy sports origins. Its brand recognition in the US market is substantial — built through years of marketing investment, sports partnerships, and a user base that followed it from fantasy sports into real-money gambling.

The sportsbook is genuinely strong. DraftKings has invested heavily in its betting product — competitive odds, wide market coverage across major US sports, live betting, and an app that has been refined over years of use. For US-based sports bettors operating within a licensed, regulated framework it is a credible and well-built product.

The casino product is solid but not exceptional by the standards of what is now available elsewhere. The game library carries a reasonable selection of slots, table games, and live dealer content. It is sufficient for the mainstream player it was designed to serve.

Where DraftKings draws consistent criticism is on the payment side and the loyalty program. Withdrawals process through fiat banking infrastructure with timelines that frustrate players who expect digital speed. Crypto support is limited — Bitcoin in select states through a process that does not reflect native crypto infrastructure. Dynasty Rewards, DraftKings’ loyalty program, operates on a points system that many players find difficult to calculate real value from.

For players operating within licensed US states who want a reliable regulated experience with strong traditional sports coverage, DraftKings serves that need well. For players who prioritise crypto payments, game library depth, and transparent loyalty returns it is less well suited.

Bet365: Strengths and Limitations

Bet365 is one of the largest online gambling operators in the world by revenue and one of the most recognised brands in international markets. It has been operating since 2000 and has built a reputation for reliability, wide market coverage, and a genuinely comprehensive sportsbook that covers sports and events that smaller operators do not reach.

The sportsbook is where Bet365’s reputation is strongest. Competitive odds, an enormous range of markets across global sports, in-play betting on events that most platforms would not cover, and a live streaming service that lets players watch events they are betting on. For serious sports bettors who want the widest possible market coverage, Bet365 is a difficult platform to argue against on sportsbook depth alone.

The casino product is substantial. Bet365 carries a large game library from established providers and has been adding live dealer content significantly over recent years. The platform is polished and the experience is consistent across devices.

Bet365’s limitations follow a similar pattern to DraftKings. Fiat-first payment infrastructure means withdrawals process through banking channels with associated timelines. Crypto support is minimal. The loyalty program — Bet365’s VIP scheme — is invite-only for the upper levels and opaque in its structure for the general player base. The game library is large but not exceptional at the provider diversity level compared to what dedicated crypto casino platforms now carry.

Bet365’s geographic restrictions are also a factor — the platform is unavailable in several major markets including most US states, leaving a significant global player base unable to access it.

ZunaBet: What a 2026 Platform Looks Like When Built From Scratch

ZunaBet launched in 2026, owned by Strathvale Group Ltd and operating under an Anjouan gaming license. It is registered in Belize and managed by a team with over 20 years of combined industry experience. It does not operate under US state licences or UK Gambling Commission regulation — it is built as an internationally accessible, crypto-first platform.

The game library is 11,294 titles from 63 providers. Put that next to DraftKings and Bet365 and the scale difference is significant. Slots dominate the catalogue but the live dealer section and RNG table games are substantial. Providers include Evolution, Pragmatic Play, Hacksaw Gaming, Yggdrasil, and BGaming among many others. Sixty-three providers means genuine variety across mechanical approaches, volatility profiles, and design philosophies rather than volume built around a small number of suppliers.

The sportsbook covers football, basketball, tennis, NHL, and other major global sports alongside a full esports offering — CS2, Dota 2, League of Legends, and Valorant. Virtual sports and combat sports are also available. For players who bet on both traditional sports and esports in the same session, ZunaBet consolidates everything under one account and one loyalty program.

Payment support covers more than 20 cryptocurrencies natively — BTC, ETH, USDT across multiple chains, SOL, DOGE, ADA, XRP, and others — with no platform processing fees and withdrawals settling in minutes. Apps run on iOS, Android, Windows, and MacOS with 24/7 live chat support.

Crypto vs Traditional: The Infrastructure Difference

The comparison between ZunaBet and the traditional platforms on payment infrastructure is not a matter of degree — it is a structural difference with practical consequences.

DraftKings and Bet365 were built on fiat banking. Their payment systems route through banks, card networks, and e-wallet processors. A Bet365 withdrawal processed through a UK bank transfer takes one to three business days on a good week. A DraftKings withdrawal through PayPal takes 24 to 48 hours. These are the platform’s better options — standard bank transfers take longer.

ZunaBet was built crypto-first. Withdrawals settle in minutes because the infrastructure was designed to handle them at network speed rather than through intermediaries. For a player who has experienced both, the difference is immediately felt and permanently remembered. The five-day wait becomes unacceptable once the alternative is known.

The coin support breadth adds further distance. DraftKings supports Bitcoin in limited states. Bet365 has minimal crypto support. ZunaBet supports twenty-plus coins natively. For players who hold diverse crypto portfolios the practical difference is significant — no forced conversions, no third-party processing, no fees beyond standard network costs.

Loyalty Programs: Three Different Models

The loyalty program comparison across the three platforms reflects the different eras in which they were built.

DraftKings Dynasty Rewards operates on a points accumulation model. Players earn Dynasty Dollars through play, convert them through a tier structure, and redeem for various options. The value is real but the calculation is not straightforward and the effective return per dollar spent requires effort to determine.

Bet365’s VIP program is largely invite-only at the meaningful tiers. The general player base has limited visibility into what the loyalty structure actually delivers at levels they can realistically reach. For most players it functions as a background benefit rather than a calculable return.

ZunaBet’s dragon evolution loyalty system runs across six clear tiers — Squire, Warden, Champion, Divine, Knight, and Ultimate — with a gamified mascot called Zuno and direct rakeback rates of 1%, 2%, 4%, 5%, 10%, and 20%. These are cash returns on activity. No conversion. No invite-only upper tiers. No calculation required beyond multiplying activity by the stated percentage. A player at the Ultimate tier receives 20% back on everything. Additional benefits at higher tiers include up to 1,000 free spins, VIP club access, and double wheel spins.

The difference in transparency is stark. A player can calculate their ZunaBet loyalty return in seconds. The equivalent calculation for DraftKings requires reading the Dynasty Rewards structure and for Bet365 requires being invited to a tier that reveals what it offers.

The Welcome Bonus

New players at ZunaBet receive a bonus across three deposits totalling up to $5,000 plus 75 free spins. The first deposit receives a 100% match up to $2,000 with 25 free spins. The second receives 50% up to $1,500 with 25 spins. The third receives 100% up to $1,500 with 25 spins.

DraftKings and Bet365 both offer welcome bonuses competitive within their respective regulated markets. The terms and structures vary by jurisdiction and are updated regularly. ZunaBet’s multi-deposit structure is designed to give players time to explore a platform of this scale before the promotional period ends rather than front-loading everything into a single session.

The Honest Assessment

DraftKings wins on US state regulatory compliance, brand recognition, and traditional sports depth for US-based players. It is the right choice for a player who needs a licensed US operator and wants a reliable, familiar experience.

Bet365 wins on international sportsbook depth and market coverage. For a serious sports bettor outside the US who wants the widest possible range of markets it is a strong platform with a long track record.

ZunaBet wins on game library scale, crypto payment infrastructure, loyalty program transparency, esports coverage, and coin support breadth. For the player who prioritises these dimensions — and a growing number do — it is the most complete option currently available.

ZunaBet launched in 2026 and is still building the operational track record that DraftKings and Bet365 have accumulated over years. That gap is real. But what it launched with represents where online gambling is going rather than where it has been — and for the new generation of players driving that direction, it is the platform they keep finding when they search.

The post DraftKings vs Bet365: Plus Why ZunaBet Is Gaining Attention in 2026 appeared first on Blockonomi.

Bitcoin is trading at $78.3k as the first weekend of May opens. It has done something it has not managed since the cycle peak, which is closing above the 100-day MA and breaking out of a long-term descending channel that contained the entire bearish trend.

The move comes alongside strong daily RSI readings, a successful retest of the breakout level on the 4-hour chart, and an on-chain supply picture that explains precisely why the road ahead gets harder from here, and why it may be worth it anyway.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily chart, BTC has been pushing toward the higher boundary of the mid-term ascending channel after reclaiming the 100-day moving average, which has descended to the $72k zone. The RSI is climbing toward 70, showing consistent bullish readings while still leaving room for follow-through, as an overbought state has not been reached yet.

The immediate test remains the $80k supply zone, which has capped the price on every approach since February. A clean daily close above this area would open the path toward the $90k level, with the 200-day moving average also in the way near the $85k mark. On the downside, the lower boundary of the current zone at $75k is now the first line of support to defend, followed by the 100-day moving average located just below this level.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart shows a textbook post-breakout structure. The asset broke above the $75k level, pulled back to retest it, which is labeled explicitly on the chart, and has since pushed back toward the $79k region with the RSI also climbing above 60, showing a clear bullish shift in momentum. The structure is clean, and the retest adds conviction to the move.

The upper channel boundary and the $80k psychological level are converging as the immediate ceiling. A 4-hour close above the recent highs near $79.5k, with the RSI also holding below the overbought region, keeps the bullish structure intact and targets the $82k-$84k supply zone above. In case of any pullback, the $75k area can prove critical again, as it’s the major nearby support level on this timeframe.

On-Chain Analysis

With 64.2% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply currently in profit, the recovery from the February low has made meaningful progress, but the remaining 35.8% underwater tells the more important story. The bulk of that loss-making supply was acquired between $80k and $125k during the late 2025 distribution phase, meaning BTC is now entering the price range where a large cohort of holders approaches breakeven, and the incentive to sell intensifies.

Historically, crossing the 75–80% supply-in-profit threshold has marked the point where correction-driven overhead pressure meaningfully subsides, and momentum can sustain. The current reading of 64.2% confirms that the threshold has not yet been reached, which explains why the $80k–$90k zone has acted as such a stubborn ceiling.

Each push higher converts more underwater holders into profit-takers, but it also reduces the pool of forced sellers, and if the price can clear $80k, the supply-in-profit curve could accelerate rapidly toward levels that have historically preceded the next significant leg higher.

The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: BTC Closes Above 100-Day MA as Bulls Eye Breakout appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Last year was a significant one for real-world assets (RWAs), as the sector saw intensified competition, regulatory progress, and an influx of traditional institutional players. In fact, the RWAs sector performed so well that it outpaced stablecoins in growth.

According to CoinGecko’s RWA Report 2026, RWAs grew from 2.7% the size of stablecoins to 6.4% as the pace of tokenization accelerated in 2025. The report examines the sector’s growth from January 2025 through the end of Q1 2026.

RWAs Outpace Stablecoins in Yearly Growth

Within the last 15 months ending March 2026, the market cap of tokenized RWAs more than tripled from $5.42 billion to $19.32 billion. This represented a 256.7% growth from January 2025.

The RWAs sector comprises four asset classes: treasuries, commodities, stocks, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Tokenized treasuries have remained the largest asset class, adding $9 billion in market cap from January 2025. This accounted for a 225.5% increase during the reporting period. CoinGecko noted that momentum for this asset class surged after its market cap exceeded the $10 billion mark for the first time on February 11, 2026.

Despite the growth, the market share of tokenized treasuries fell slightly from 73.7% to 67.2% because other asset classes recorded notable growth. Commodities accounted for 28.7%, while stocks and ETFs captured 2.5% and 1.5%, respectively, by the end of Q1 2026.

The growth in tokenized commodity market share was driven by gold-backed tokens — Tether Gold (XAUT) and PAX Gold (PAXG). The market cap grew 289% from $1.43 billion to $5.55 billion within the report period. XAUT and PAXG accounted for 89% of the market cap growth. Notably, spot trading for tokenized gold surpassed the $84.6 billion traded in 2025 to reach $90.7 billion in Q1 2026.

RWAs Perpetuals Gain Traction

Furthermore, the market cap of tokenized stocks grew from $2.09 million in June 2025 to $486.69 million in March 2026. Tech companies like Circle, Tesla, Nvidia, and Alphabet led the charge. Spot trading volumes for this asset class totaled $15.1 billion by the end of last quarter, surpassing the $14.8 billion traded in the second half of 2025.

As for tokenized ETFs, this asset class recorded broad-based growth, with a market cap that rose from $0.62 million in July 2025 to $297.5 million by March 2026. It currently accounts for half the size of tokenized stocks.

Interestingly, the RWAs perpetuals volume grew from $313 billion for the whole of 2025 to $524.8 billion by Q1 2026. With this level of growth, 2026 is likely to see double the volume recorded for 2025.

The post Tokenized RWAs See Strong Growth in 2025, Outpacing Stablecoins: Report appeared first on CryptoPotato.

2026 has been quite eventful for the cryptocurrency industry, mostly driven by the developments in the war between the US/Israel and Iran. It began with a massive nosedive to $60,000 and was followed by an impressive 30%+ recovery by early May.

Now, though, this rather notable rally has reached a major resistance and Ali Martinez warned that a technical indicator has flashed a major sell signal.

Indeed Sell in May and Go Away?

The analyst told his over 165,000 followers on X that the Tom DeMark (TD) Sequential indicator has flashed red for bitcoin on the 3-day chart, marking the “first major bearish pivot of the year.” He added that the same tool timed perfectly the aforementioned rebound from the early February lows of $60,000 to almost $80,000, which was neared twice in the past 10 days or so.

Martinez warned that if bitcoin fails to stabilize and dips decisively below $67,500, which has emerged as the most crucial level now, it could “trigger a new bearish countdown, potentially extending the correction.”

Previously, the same analyst suggested that bitcoin could find a new bottom beneath $55,000 if the current structure breaks down.

“While the macro trend remains constructive, the TD Sequential is a high-authority timing tool. For those looking to manage risk, the $67,500 level is the primary floor to watch for trend validation,” he concluded.

It’s worth noting that BTC ended April on a high note, posting a near 12% increase. It became the best-performing month since the previous April.

Strong Resistance

Fellow analyst Ted Pillows also weighed in on the cryptocurrency’s latest price performance, especially the Friday increase to over $78,000, which came after reports that Iran had sent another peace proposal to the US. Although it was rejected by  Trump hours later, BTC maintained the $78,000 level and has remained there for about 24 hours.

Pillows noted bitcoin has tested a “strong resistance zone” at around $80,000 lately, which has rejected both attempts in the past few weeks. May has been historically a positive month for BTC, but more adverse developments on the war front could quickly turn the tables once again.

$BTC is back above the $78,000 level.

Now, Bitcoin has entered a strong resistance zone.

Do you think BTC will break above $80,000 this month? pic.twitter.com/gDOWAEhfJl

— Ted (@TedPillows) May 2, 2026

The post Bitcoin Price Faces Risk as Proven Indicator Signals Major Sell-Off appeared first on CryptoPotato.

April turned out to be the best month for the cryptocurrency markets on different fronts since late last year, with BTC posting a double-digit surge and the spot Bitcoin ETFs attracting almost $2 billion.

At the same time, the exchange-traded funds tracking the world’s largest altcoin stopped a five-month painful streak, in which they bled well over $2.5 billion.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs Turn Green YTD

After a record-setting July 2025 in which the funds tracking bitcoin gained over $6 billion, investors continued to pour money into the financial vehicles in September and October, as roughly $3.5 billion flowed into each month. However, the tides turned in November when the same amount was withdrawn as the entire crypto market bled out. Over $1 billion was pulled out in December and another $1.6 billion in January.

February saw a substantial reduction in investor exodus, but it was still in the red, with net outflows of $206 million. March finally snapped this four-month streak, with net inflows of $1.32 billion. April was even better. Aside from the nearly 12% monthly surge in the underlying asset, the ETFs attracted just shy of $2 billion, according to data from SoSoValue, marking the best monthly performance since October last year.

Moreover, the positive flows for March and April have managed to reverse the year-to-date numbers as the cumulative flows for 2026 now stand at almost $1.5 billion.

BlackRock’s IBIT remains the undisputed leader in terms of overall flows, followed by Fidelity’s FBTC.

ETH ETFs Break Streak

While the BTC ETFs managed to break their negative streak in March, the Ethereum counterparts couldn’t. The funds tracking ETH bled out heavily in November (-$1.42 billion), followed by another $616 million in December, $353 million in January, $370 million in February, and a more modest $46 million in March.

This five-month negative streak, which became the worst in the spot Ethereum ETFs‘ history, finally ended in April. Investors poured $356 million last month, but the YTD performance remains negative, with over $410 million leaving the funds in just four months.

Once again, the (first) product launched by BlackRock (ETHA) is the undeniable market leader, followed by Fidelity’s FETH.

The post Bitcoin ETFs Attract Almost $2B in April as 2026 Turns Green appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The team behind the controversial project has outlined the new deadline for the completion of the latest protocol update, version 23.

At the same time, the native token has calmed at around $0.18 after the most recent volatility, but history shows that its fluctuations could return once the community anticipates new updates.

V23 Is Coming

Pi Network’s major protocol upgrades began in late February with the introduction of version 19.6. The following one, v19.9, arrived in early March, while perhaps the most significant, v20.2, which laid out the foundations for smart contract capabilities, was implemented by PiDay (March 14).

The team continues with frequent protocol upgrades in April as well, with version 21 deployed at the beginning of the month, while, as reported earlier today, version 22 came at the end of the month, even though it was confirmed on May 1.

The Core Team first only hinted at the next in its roadmap, version 23, and told the vast number of Nodes to wait for more information on the matter and it didn’t take long before it was announced.

Earlier today, the only official X account linked to Pi Network said protocol update 23 will be implemented by May 15. As usual, all Nodes have to complete the necessary steps to ensure they are not disconnected from the network.

The Pi Mainnet is upgrading to Protocol 23 – Deadline: May 15.

All Mainnet nodes are required to complete this step before the deadline to remain connected to the network. This upgrade takes longer to complete, so plan accordingly.

Details here: https://t.co/9VehO7hhj1

— Pi Network (@PiCoreTeam) May 2, 2026

Will PI Pump in Anticipation?

The project’s native token has performed somewhat differently from the rest of the market, as it seems that it’s influenced mostly by internal activities rather than the overall crypto trend. Last week, while BTC and most alts stood still and even charted some losses, PI went on an impressive run, surging from $0.17 to $0.20.

As the market began its post-FOMC recovery on Thursday, PI was rejected at that monthly high and slumped to $0.17. The gains coincided with growing anticipation for the announcement of the new protocol update, alongside another team statement regarding the completion of over 526 million tasks from a million verified users.

As such, the question now is whether PI will outperform in the following weeks before version 23 is officially deployed.

The post Pi Network’s New Deadline: What Does the Next Big Update Mean for the PI Token appeared first on CryptoPotato.