What happened in crypto over the past 2 weeks? Bitcoin is coming back, the SEC is becoming quite friendly to crypto, and Solana is experiencing a comeback. What else? Read below:
- Bitcoin: Cantor Fitzgerald is pushing deeper into crypto, with a new $3B BTC-focused venture backed by SoftBank and Tether. Japanese hotel operator Metaplanet has boosted its BTC holding to 5000 BTC in a strategic treasury push. Coinbase is launching a Bitcoin Yield fund targeting up to 8% annual returns for institutions. It will be open to non-US investors, too. Grayscale launches ETF focused on BTC treasury-holding and miner companies. Strategy is rising another $21B for Bitcoin buys despite posting a $4.2B loss in the first quarter of 2025. One week ago, Arthur Hayes (the Bitmex guy) was telling us that this may be the last chance to buy BTC below 100K, and it is looking like he was almost right. Since then, Bitcoin went from 88K all the way to 96-98K right now. More than $560M in short positions were liquidated, as BTC went above $94K. Bitcoin had a 12% recovery while traditional markets faltered, showing surprising resilience during the US-China tariffs war. As it is, the cryptocurrency is slowly disappearing from the exchanges, with the public companies quietly accumulating massive BTC positions after the US presidential elections. Some are pointing out that the Bitcoin price is artificially suppressed, but there is a point where its price will just run away. Adam Back was talking about something massive called hyperbitcoinization, the dislocation between the Bitcoin future and today's fiat world, with a potential $100-200 trillion market cap. Presto's research head is jumping on the train, predicting a $210K Bitcoin by the end of the year. Some are even more optimistic, seeing Bitcoin reaching £1M by 2029.
- Ethereum: Vitalik Buterin proposed RISK-V to replace EVM for faster Ethereum execution to improve the layer's efficiency, and help ETH keep up with the faster, newer blockchain networks. Ethereum price is $1827 right now.
- Altcoins and stablecoins: If you are using the Arkada website for the Soneium airdrop already, you can link that with the RhinoFi bridge and gain some Rhino points, just in case we get an airdrop coming soon. A coalition of UK digital economy trade groups is calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to make crypto a strategic focus. As a response, the UK government published a draft legislation that would bring market players, including crypto exchanges and stablecoin issuers, under formal regulation, while also covering market abuse, admissions and disclosure regimes. Not a big fan, but Canary Capital filed for a Tron ETF with built-in staking. CME Group has announced plans to launch cash-settled XRP futures on May 19. Tether's Gold-backed XAUT reached a $770M market cap amid the global gold rush, as they reported a $1B operating profit for the first quarter of 2025. The SEC dropped PayPal's stablecoin probe, clearing the way for PYUSD expansion, and they plan to offer a 3.7% yield on its PYUSD stablecoin balances. Libre, a platform focused on real-world asset tokenisation, plans to bring $500M worth of Telegram corporate bonds on-chain through the TON network. TON did some surprising moves lately, like hiring the MoonPay co-founder as CEO, to save its stalling ecosystem. Sam Altman's Worldcoin brings eye-scanning orbs to six US cities in major expansion (Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville and San Francisco). Worldcoin also introduced World Card, allowing verified humans to spend crypto-to-fiat via the World App anywhere where Visa is accepted. Hyperliquid has captured a 70% market share in on-chain perpetual futures, moving away from the centralised exchanges. Seems that the market is maturing quickly! Keep an eye on the Circle's USDC, as it just jumped to $61B, adding $17B since January. Playing safe with the regulators paid off. ARK added exposure to staked Solana to two of its tech-focused ETFs via a Canadian fund. Solana surged more than 12.7% lately, mostly because the recent token unlocks scared away investors. A single whale who bought one million Solana in 2021 with a 'mere' $27M had the position grow to 1.29M SOL, worth $180M right now. The investor unstaked 100K SOL, which were sent to Binance to be sold. 1inch also joined the Solana ecosystem, as the token outperformed ETH with 33% higher DEX volume and 400% more transactions. LUCE, a Solana-based memecoin named after the Vatican's cartoon mascot, went up 45% after the passing of the Pope. A $330M Bitcoin theft appears to be behind Monero's shocking 50% price surge up to $339, before settling around 289 (still 25% up). Melania's team dumped over $1.5M worth of their memecoin in the last 3 days, yet the token recovered 21%, being only at 96% below its peak of $13.70. Keep an eye on AI trends, as the AI token market exploded in a sudden rally.
- NFTs and blockchain games: Ubisoft partnered with Immutable to launch Might & Magic: Fates, a blockchain card game, bringing the franchise into the blockchain space. I have enjoyed playing Golem Overlord lately on Hive, and it is quite profitable, I would say, with some significant updates lately. On Splinterlands, we have had the Land NFT new update and improved tokenomics introduced on March 18. The presale of its latest Conclave Arcana collection has started now, and we have top buyers prizes, promo card rewards and even a raffle. Check my Holozing article to learn about a new blockchain game that looks full of potential. I am also playing a cute little game called Chain of Legends, which reminds me of Heroes of Might and Magic, even if the overlap is not 100%.
- Good news: Upexi, a small-cap consumer goods company, saw its stock price go up 700% after announcing a $100M investment led by the crypto trading firm GSR, to support a shift into digital asset treasury management centred on Solana. The Federal Reserve joined OCC and FDIC in rescinding crypto warnings for the US banks. Deloitte released a report forecasting that the tokenised real estate market could reach $4 trillion by 2035. Mastercard expands stablecoin payment system, launching a crypto card in partnership with the exchange OKS. Galaxy Digital plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq on May 16. Circle and BitGo are exploring bank charter applications as the US reshapes its stablecoin regulations.
- Bad news: Slovenia proposed a 25% crypto tax on fiat and purchase sales. If the law passes, it will go into effect in January 2026. It looks like more than $380M from Bybit's £1.4B hack vanished without a trace, most probably moved through mixers like Wasabi and Tornado Cash. Russia is launching a state-backed crypto exchange for Super-Qualified Investors. It will be restricted to individuals holding more than 100M rubles (1.2M dollars) in assets, or an annual income of more than 602K dollars. After draining almost $5M from the ZKsynk airdrop contract, the hacker returned 90% of the funds, accepting a 10% bounty offer. Loopscale on Solana had its security breached, losing $5.8M in the process, as the hacker walked away with 5.7M USDC and 1200 SOL after executing a series of undercollateralized loans. Some interesting statistics, $649B in stablecoins were moved through high-risk addresses this year alone, that is roughly 5.14% of dodgy deals, up from 1.63% last year. Former crypto critic Mark Carney wins the Canadian Election.
- Joke of the week: When a clown moves into a building, the whole building becomes a circus. In other news, Trump appointed Paul Atkins as a crypto-friendly SEC chair amid the crypto industry pivot. Some of his filings revealed up to $6M in crypto investments, stakes in Anchorage and Securitize, as well as being married into a billionaire family. Even Michael Saylor endorsed him, saying that SEC Chairman Paul Atkins will be good for Bitcoin. In Europe, the European Central Bank pushed for MiCA rewrite over the US crypto expansion, warning that rising support for the dollar-backed stablecoins could pose risks to the financial stability across the bloc. Donald is busy in his own way, hosting a dinner for the top TRUMP memecoin holders at a golf club near Washington. Despite all this noise, the US Senate began the process of regulating stablecoins with the GENIUS Act vote. Our troll in charge teased a tax plan that could completely reshape crypto investment strategies, suggesting that federal income taxes could be reduced or eliminated once his tariff system is fully implemented. Nobody seems to see the issues with the fact that there is no system in place?
All the best,
George
Why not...
...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- a Hearthstone-like card game) (Golem Overlord - a Play2Earn game on Hive) (Upland - a real-life virtual land) (Holozing - a Pokemon-like game)and ( Chain of Legends - with a hint of Heroes of Might and Magic).
...get crypto while writing on the Publish0x blog, using the Presearch search engine to maximize your income with PRE tokens. Use Torum instead of Twitter. I am also writing for crypto on Hive.
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