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bitcoinmagazine.com Bitcoin-Backed Loans Could Hit $1 Trillion, Ledn Says — But Most Crypto Holders Still Haven’t Borrowed

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin-Backed Loans Could Hit $1 Trillion, Ledn Says — But Most Crypto Holders Still Haven’t Borrowed Ledn says Bitcoin-backed lending could grow from a $3 billion niche to a $1 trillion market as demand outpaces trust in lending platforms. This post Bitcoin-Backed Loans Could Hit $1 Trillion, Ledn Says — But Most Crypto Holders Still Haven’t Borrowed first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

news.bitcoin.com BNB Smart Chain Shows Quantum-Safe Crypto Works Despite 50% Throughput Drop

Developers behind BNB Smart Chain have demonstrated that post-quantum cryptography can already function on a live blockchain architecture, though the transition comes with major trade-offs in transaction size and throughput. The findings highlight how networks may eventually adapt to the long-term risks posed by quantum computing. BNB Smart Chain Advances Quantum Security Testing BNB Smart […]

forklog.media Canaan to Heat 2800 Homes Through Bitcoin Mining

Canaan has been selected as the supplier of mining equipment for an 8 MW district heating project in a specified Scandinavian region. The project, in collaboration with a local heating systems provider, involves the use of Avalon A1566HA ASIC miners with hydro cooling. These units can produce hot water at approximately 80°C, allowing for direct integration into existing heating networks. Currently, the region has implemented a 2 MW hot water generation system based on 228 A1566HA units. Based on the experiment's results, the client will purchase an additional 692 similar miners. “By combining high-performance computing infrastructure with large-scale heat recovery, this 8 MW project is expected to provide reliable heating to approximately 2800 homes, marking a significant step towards more sustainable and cost-effective heating systems,” Canaan emphasized.    In 2024, a similar project was implemented in Finland by Hashlabs Mining. The company integrated WhatsMiner M63S units from MicroBT into the heating system. In the same year, MARA expanded the use of heat generated from bitcoin mining for residential heating. The second phase of the initiative extended the utility service to a population of 80,000 people. Canaan Reports Quarterly Loss of $88.7 Million In the first quarter, the mining company reported a net loss of $88.7 million. The negative result was largely due to the decline in bitcoin mining profitability and the write-off of exchange rate differences in cryptocurrency reserves. Total revenue for the period was $62.7 million, compared to $196.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. Equipment sales accounted for $42.9 million—a drop of approximately 75%. Mining in the first three months of the year generated $19.1 million in revenue (previously $30.4 million). The company noted the "resilient nature" of its mining operations despite price volatility and hashrate fluctuations. Aggregate capacity across 10 joint mining projects reached approximately 11 EH/s, increasing by more than 10%. The average electricity cost in the firm's portfolio was 0.04 per kWh. Canaan mined 257 BTC over the quarter. The company's cryptocurrency reserves grew to a record 1807.60 BTC and 3951.53 ETH during the reporting period. On May 15, following the latest adjustment, bitcoin mining difficulty increased by 3.12% to 136.61 T.

forklog.media Opinion: AI to Disrupt Real Estate and Erase the Middle Class

A crypto blogger known as The Smart Ape has published a detailed analysis of the economic consequences of widespread AI automation. The starting point was a forecast by Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman, who stated to the Financial Times back in February that AI will automate most office professions within 12–18 months. According to The Smart Ape, the mass displacement of "white-collar" workers could trigger a cascading economic collapse comparable in scale to the 2008 crisis. https://t.co/HGKUGPaXaS— The Smart Ape 🔥 (@the_smart_ape) May 19, 2026 Office Workers as the Foundation of the Credit System The blogger argues that banks lend not to individuals, but to "income trajectories." A lawyer earning $200,000, a consultant with $180,000, an engineer with $160,000 — for banks, these are borrowers of the highest reliability. If AI replaces their jobs, an entire class that underpins the credit system will vanish. Source: The Smart Ape. The author describes a chain of consequences: job loss — depletion of savings — selling stocks to pay off mortgages. If millions of former high-paid professionals start doing this simultaneously, the stock market will slump, and within 6–12 months, mass mortgage defaults will begin. Housing Market More Vulnerable Than in 2008 The Smart Ape points out a key difference from the 2008 crisis: then, the blow was to the periphery of the credit system — subprime borrowers. Now, the most reliable categories are at risk. "U.S. mortgage debt has risen to $12.5 trillion from $10.5 trillion in 2008 — only a 20% nominal increase, although housing prices have nearly tripled in that time. The main capital is concentrated among boomers, while young homeowners remain heavily indebted. The 'lock-in' effect creates additional pressure: millions of Americans took out mortgages at 3% during the pandemic and are unwilling to sell homes at current rates of around 7%. This reduces market liquidity. If forced sales begin, prices may fall faster than fundamentally justified," claims The Smart Ape. The Fed's Dilemma and Redistribution Failure The author believes that the Fed has no good options. Two scenarios are possible: Turn on the printing press again and save banks, as during the 2008 crisis. However, the consequences of the recent inflation spike are still felt: prices for food, rent, and fuel remain high, and global central banks are increasingly betting on gold instead of the dollar. Do not intervene and let banks handle defaults on their own. But this risks a repeat of September 2008, when the financial system began to rapidly lose stability. The blogger emphasizes that since the 1980s, productivity growth has not led to wage increases — the benefits were captured by capital. AI, he says, launches the same dynamic "without brakes." Value will concentrate among a few companies — NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, OpenAI — and a thin layer of engineers around them. Source: The Smart Ape. Why UBI Won't Save Us The most popular response — universal basic income (UBI) — is deemed unrealistic by the author. A modest $1,000 per month for adult Americans would cost the budget $3–4 trillion annually — about two-thirds of all tax revenues. The program would have to be funded by taxing the very companies with "the best lobbyists and the most aggressive offshore schemes." According to The Smart Ape, the real political program will boil down to unemployment insurance and retraining programs for professions that will also disappear. K-shaped Finale The outcome, according to the author, will be a K-shaped economy. At the top — capital owners and AI engineers, at the bottom — former "white-collar" workers who join the ranks of manual laborers and the gig economy. The middle class, as previously understood, will no longer exist. "Suleyman may be wrong about the 18 months. Even if he missed by five years, the direction is set. Those who move forward are those who create the AI that replaces the rest. Learn the tools, get close to those who create them, understand how it works. Waiting will not save you," concludes The Smart Ape. Earlier, Gartner forecasted AI spending to grow to $2.59 trillion.

themerkle.com Integrating Chainlink To Solidify DeFi Between Kraken’s Layer-2 Ecosystem

INK, A Layer-2 blockchain backed by Kraken, is building out its oracle infrastructure by announcing Chainlink will be the network’s primary oracle provider. This marks an important step forward in the continued development of secure decentralized finance infrastructure throughout the ecosystem. This upgrade is made possible via Ink’s involvement in Chainlink Scale, an initiative created to provide low-cost access to enterprise-grade oracle delivery services for blockchain ecosystems. The announcement attracted rapid notice in the DeFi space, as oracle infrastructure is one of the most crucial layers supporting decentralized applications. This also means every lending platform, derivatives exchange, perpetual market and The post Integrating Chainlink To Solidify DeFi Between Kraken’s Layer-2 Ecosystem appeared first on The Merkle News.

blockonomi.com Floki Price Prediction Shows a Reversal Forming While Pepeto Crosses $10 Million and the Binance Listing Gets Closer

The Floki price prediction is starting to show a shift as the meme coin market gained 15% this past week. FLOKI sits near $0.000030 after months of falling, and its Valhalla gaming world keeps it relevant among meme tokens with real products. Pepeto has pulled in more than $10 million in presale money while a [...] The post Floki Price Prediction Shows a Reversal Forming While Pepeto Crosses $10 Million and the Binance Listing Gets Closer appeared first on Blockonomi.

bitcoinist.com Here’s Why Ethereum Is Becoming The Biggest Winner Of The Clarity Act

While a large portion of the cryptocurrency industry is still preoccupied with short-term trends and price speculation, Ethereum is gradually solidifying its position in the background. Even though its price has experienced a sharp pullback from its all-time high, ETH is being hailed as one of the biggest winners in the broader cryptocurrency sector. Ethereum […]

news.bitcoin.com Polymarket Opens Private Company Markets Using Nasdaq Data for 1,600 Unicorns

Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market platform, has launched the first prediction markets tied to private company performance, using exclusive data from Nasdaq Private Market to resolve outcomes. Polymarket Taps Nasdaq Private Market Data to Resolve New Private Company Bets The move opens a segment of financial markets that has long been closed to most […]

bitcoinmagazine.com Bitcoin-Backed Loans Could Hit $1 Trillion, Ledn Says — But Most Crypto Holders Still Haven’t Borrowed

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin-Backed Loans Could Hit $1 Trillion, Ledn Says — But Most Crypto Holders Still Haven’t Borrowed Ledn says Bitcoin-backed lending could grow from a $3 billion niche to a $1 trillion market as demand outpaces trust in lending platforms. This post Bitcoin-Backed Loans Could Hit $1 Trillion, Ledn Says — But Most Crypto Holders Still Haven’t Borrowed first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

forklog.media Aschenbrenner’s picks and shovels

In May 2026 many traders awaited the quarterly Form 13F from the hedge fund Situational Awareness — its founder, Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI employee, had drawn Wall Street’s eye with one of the most profitable AI portfolios of the past two years. The filing deadline passed on May 15th, yet no document appeared. Investors speculated that the fund had requested confidential treatment from America’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), allowing it to hide positions for up to a year. More likely, the managers simply waited until the last day — standard practice for funds shadowed by thousands of traders. On May 18th the report did land — and revealed a radical shift: Aschenbrenner bulked up on AI infrastructure while opening a sweeping short against semiconductor firms. To see why the 24-year-old’s portfolio commands such attention, rewind two years — to a firing, a manifesto and a bet on Bitcoin miners repurposing sites into data centres. Disclaimer ForkLog bears no responsibility for readers’ investment decisions. A wunderkind from Berlin Leopold Aschenbrenner was born in Germany to a family of doctors. He graduated from John F. Kennedy School in Berlin, enrolled at Columbia University and in 2021 became valedictorian of his class. At 17 he received a grant from the economist Tyler Cowen via the Emergent Ventures programme. Cowen called him “an economics wunderkind”. In 2022 Aschenbrenner joined the FTX Future Fund, the charitable arm of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange. He witnessed the company’s collapse from the inside and left before its bankruptcy. Later he recalled: “We were a tiny team, and in a single day everything fell apart and became associated with a giant fraud. It was incredibly hard.” In 2023 Aschenbrenner joined OpenAI’s Superalignment team — a unit led by Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike that worked on controlling a superintelligent AI. There he co-authored a research paper Weak-to-Strong Generalization. In parallel, Aschenbrenner wrote a memo to OpenAI’s board warning about industrial-espionage risks from China and calling the firm’s security “egregiously inadequate”. Earlier, the NYT reported that in early 2023 a hacker broke into the startup’s internal messaging systems and stole information about its AI-technology design. In spring 2024 Aschenbrenner was fired for leaking corporate data. He called the decision politically motivated and described the startup’s security approach as “not robust enough to protect the theft of key secrets if foreign actors penetrated the company”. A month later Sutskever and Leike left OpenAI, after which the company disbanded Superalignment. In June 2024 Aschenbrenner published the essay “Situational Awareness”, which caused a stir across the AI industry. Situational awareness in a hedge fund The essay’s central claim: artificial general intelligence (AGI) will arrive by 2027, the world is unprepared, and firms building the physical infrastructure for compute are the market’s most undervalued assets. On Dwarkesh Patel’s podcast Aschenbrenner explained the investment logic through the scale of the necessary infrastructure. In 2022 the GPT-4 training cluster drew about 10 megawatts and cost roughly $500m. AI compute, he argued, scales by half an order of magnitude each year: by 2024 the largest cluster already demanded 100 megawatts and cost billions. He sketched the trajectory: “By 2026 — a one-gigawatt cluster, the size of a large nuclear reactor. Tens of billions of dollars. By 2028 — 10 gigawatts, more power than most states consume. By 2030 — a trillion-dollar cluster, 100 GW, more than 20% of all U.S. electricity generation. And that’s just the training cluster.” That is only model training — inference would require several times more capacity. Aschenbrenner likened the advantage in the race for AGI to the coalition’s technological lead in the First Gulf War: “Western forces had a 100:1 casualty ratio. Better tank sensors, more accurate missiles, GPS, stealth. A 20–30 year lead — and they just crushed the opponent. A superintelligence applied across a broad range of R&D could compress a century of technological progress into less than ten years.” In September 2024 Aschenbrenner founded the hedge fund Situational Awareness LP. Anchor investors included Stripe’s co-founders, Patrick and John Collison, former GitHub boss Nat Friedman and Safe Superintelligence co-founder Daniel Gross. The minimum ticket is $25m, with a two-year lock-up. According to The Wall Street Journal, in the first half of 2025 the fund returned 47% after fees — versus roughly 6% for the S&P 500. The biggest contributions came from energy and data-centre bets. Fortune reported that by early 2026 the fund’s publicly disclosed exposure to U.S. assets had grown to about $5.5bn from roughly $225m at end-2024. To be clear: this refers not to verified net profit but to the size of positions disclosed in 13F filings — a measure that includes asset appreciation, new capital inflows and potential leverage. What the new 13F shows Form 13F is a quarterly report that funds with over $100m in assets must file with the SEC.  The previous Situational Awareness filing for Q4 2025 listed 29 positions worth $5.5bn with minimal options activity. The new report looks starkly different: 42 positions with disclosed exposure of $13.67bn — nearly tripled in a single quarter. Portfolio by instrument: 66% is in put options, 10% in calls, 24% in outright equities. The fund opened put positions on the biggest chipmakers — all new to the filing: VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) — $2.04bn; Nvidia — $1.57bn; Oracle — $1.07bn; Broadcom — $1.01bn; AMD — $969m; Micron — $584m; TSMC — $535m; ASML — $494m; Intel — $159m. In total — $7.46bn in puts against the semiconductor complex. None of these positions appeared in the prior filing. At the same time Aschenbrenner lifted stakes in energy, data-centre and storage names: Bloom Energy — $879m (the fund’s biggest long); SanDisk — $724m; CoreWeave — $556m; IREN — $401m; Core Scientific — $389m; Applied Digital — $320m. The fund also added to Bitcoin miners: Riot Platforms (+87% shares), CleanSpark (+648%), Bitdeer (+92%), Bitfarms (+188%). New names include Hive Digital and T1 Energy. Positions fully exited include Lumentum, Hut 8, Cipher Mining, Coherent, EQT and Tower Semiconductor. One of the most striking rotations: a $747m call option on Intel replaced by a $159m put. Another detail — call options on certain names held alongside sector-wide puts: Micron — $422m; SanDisk — $389m; TSMC — $355m; CoreWeave — $141m; Bloom Energy — $55m. The mix of index puts and single-name calls suggests Aschenbrenner is not merely shorting chipmakers. He has built a stance that pays if the sector rolls over while select companies — those closest to physical infrastructure and data storage — keep rising. What the puts don’t show Form 13F does not disclose strikes or expiries. The sums shown are the market value of shares controlled by the options (notional value), not the price of the contracts themselves. For “far” or deeply out-of-the-money options the gap can be enormous: the fund could control $7.5bn of stock while paying a fraction of that for the puts. Blogger Jason’s Chips flagged this nuance. On his reading, the puts may be a short-term hedge against geopolitical risk — say, an escalation with Iran — rather than an outright bearish bet on semiconductors. In that case the actual cash laid out for the puts is far smaller than the stated $7.5bn notional. Another caveat matters. A 13F is a snapshot as of the quarter’s last day — March 31st 2026. Almost seven weeks elapsed before publication. Over that span the semiconductor sector rallied, meaning the put positions likely lost value. Aschenbrenner could have closed or added to them — by definition the current book is unknown. Even so, the structure speaks for itself: the largest longs — Bloom Energy, SanDisk and CoreWeave — point to where Aschenbrenner sees the next bottleneck in AI. Long shovels The classic “picks and shovels” strategy dates to California’s gold rush: while prospectors went bust chasing ore, tool-sellers got rich. Aschenbrenner applies the same logic to the AI boom — but one layer deeper. He is not buying model-makers like OpenAI or Anthropic. Nor is he making an unambiguous bull bet on chip designers such as Nvidia or AMD. Instead the fund invests in what models and chips cannot run without: electricity, cooling, fibre, land with grid interconnects and long-term capacity contracts. Bloom Energy — the fund’s largest position — makes solid-oxide fuel cells that can power a data centre autonomously, without tapping an overburdened grid. Standard utility interconnection can take more than five years; a Bloom Energy installation begins delivering power roughly 90 days after it is sited. SanDisk is a wager on NAND flash. AI inference spews data that must be stored: every processed token leans on a stack of HBM and enterprise SSDs. Demand for storage rises alongside compute, yet wins far less investor attention. CoreWeave plays the role of a “non-cloud” for AI workloads. Contracts with Anthropic and OpenAI have turned it into the de facto third hyperscaler of GPU compute after AWS and Azure. Analyst Jim Liu adds insider context: Aschenbrenner worked at OpenAI in 2023–2024, when the startup used CoreWeave’s infrastructure, and saw its software stack from the inside. Since then OpenAI has moved its AI infrastructure in-house and buys only bare metal from CoreWeave. But for the long tail of AI startups without the resources for their own stack, CoreWeave’s cloud remains one of the few viable options. Miners as an AI bet A distinct cluster in the portfolio is Bitcoin miners. These firms already own what is hardest to build from scratch: land near transmission lines, live power contracts and heavy-duty cooling. Converting such a site to AI hosting is cheaper and faster than constructing a new data centre. Compute for neural networks yields two to five times more revenue per kWh than maintaining the Bitcoin network. According to CoinShares, the industry’s aggregate AI-hosting contracts have already topped $70bn. IREN is a vertically integrated miner combining self-owned capacity, energy assets and a GPU cloud. Riot Platforms owns a site in Corsicana, Texas with more than 1 GW — the sort of infrastructure now worth more as AI compute than as hash rate. CleanSpark, whose position rose by 648%, remains a pure-play Bitcoin miner, but the logic is the same: cheap power plus land, with the option to switch to HPC hosting at any time. Aschenbrenner has steadily expanded this sleeve: Bitdeer (+92%), Bitfarms (+188%), and a new stake in Hive Digital. What unites them is control of energy infrastructure — the scarcest input gating AI’s growth. Physics versus valuations The portfolio’s formula runs thus: longs — electricity, fibre, campuses and long-term capacity contracts; shorts — chipmakers whose valuations, in Aschenbrenner’s view, already price the best case. For the past 18 months the fund has focused almost exclusively on power, memory, compute capacity and physical sites. That strategy has made Situational Awareness one of the world’s top-performing funds, and Aschenbrenner is sticking with it. But the appearance of $7.5bn in puts signals this: the semiconductor names that Wall Street has bet on for two years have, in effect, priced in all the good that can happen to them. Chipmakers’ margins risk being squeezed by competition and oversupply, while the physical constraints — power, cooling, grid connections — remain unsolved. Text: Sasha Kosovan

news.bitcoin.com Bitcoin Prediction Markets Show $84K Ceiling as Traders Stack Bets on Polymarket, Kalshi, and Myriad

Prediction market traders have placed more than $100 million in combined volume across Polymarket, Kalshi, and Myriad on where bitcoin’s price lands in May 2026 and beyond, with crowd odds pointing to a market stuck below $85,000 for the near term. Traders Put $37M on Bitcoin All-Time High Milestones as $150K Odds Sit at 1% […]

forklog.media Gartner Predicts AI Spending to Reach $2.59 Trillion

Global spending on artificial intelligence is projected to reach $2.59 trillion in 2026, marking a 47% increase year-on-year, according to a forecast by Gartner. Source: Gartner. Analysts believe the market will continue to grow due to infrastructure, embedded AI models, and expanding corporate demand. They estimate that by 2027, the figure could reach $3.49 trillion. The largest segment will remain AI infrastructure. Gartner expects spending in this category to reach $1.43 trillion in 2026. For comparison, the 2025 figure was estimated at $975.6 billion, primarily involving cloud hardware solutions, network equipment, and semiconductors.  Experts highlighted the role of major tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, which have so far driven the majority of AI spending growth. Gartner anticipates a significant increase in activity from corporate clients this year, describing this period as a turning point for AI adoption in business. Analysts have revised their forecast for spending on AI models, expecting the segment to grow by 110% in 2026. This adjustment increased the spending estimate for the current year by approximately $6 billion. The company attributed the revision to the rapid spread of models embedded in existing software and the growing number of AI agents in workflows. According to Gartner's forecast: spending on models will rise from $15.5 billion to $32.6 billion; expenditure on services will reach $585.5 billion; software spending will increase to $453.2 billion; the AI cybersecurity segment will double to $51.3 billion.  In May, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark predicted the emergence of "self-developing AI" by 2028.

bitcoinmagazine.com Canaan (CAN) Wins Contract to Supply Crypto Mining Heat to Nordic District Heating Network

Bitcoin Magazine Canaan (CAN) Wins Contract to Supply Crypto Mining Heat to Nordic District Heating Network Canaan Inc. landed a Nordic district heating deal using hydro-cooled miners to warm ~2,800 homes, marking a major step toward scalable “hash-to-heat” infrastructure. This post Canaan (CAN) Wins Contract to Supply Crypto Mining Heat to Nordic District Heating Network first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

blockonomi.com Michael Burry Invests in MercadoLibre (MELI), Adobe (ADBE), PayPal (PYPL), Lululemon (LULU) — Issues AI Bubble Alert

Michael Burry purchases MercadoLibre, Adobe, PayPal, Lululemon and Zoetis while warning AI investment mirrors the dot-com bubble of 1999. The post Michael Burry Invests in MercadoLibre (MELI), Adobe (ADBE), PayPal (PYPL), Lululemon (LULU) — Issues AI Bubble Alert appeared first on Blockonomi.

blockonomi.com FanDuel vs BetMGM: Could ZunaBet Be the Surprise Alternative?

FanDuel and BetMGM have dominated the US online gambling conversation for years. Both platforms built their reputations on sports betting, expanded into online casino gaming, and now compete across dozens of states. They spend billions on advertising, hold major licensing deals, and attract millions of users. FanDuel, owned by Flutter Entertainment, is known for its [...] The post FanDuel vs BetMGM: Could ZunaBet Be the Surprise Alternative? appeared first on Blockonomi.

news.bitcoin.com Bitcoin ETFs Post Third-Biggest 2026 Outflow as Blackrock Loses $448M

Bitcoin funds posted their third-largest daily outflow of 2026, signaling a sharp deterioration in institutional sentiment. Ether ETFs extended their losing streak to six straight sessions, while XRP and solana products managed only modest inflows amid the broader selloff. Solana ETFs Stay Positive as Bitcoin and Ether Funds Face Heavy Selling A wave of risk […]

bitcoinmagazine.com Strive (ASST) Stacks Another 382 BTC, Total Treasury Climbs to 15,391 Bitcoin

Bitcoin Magazine Strive (ASST) Stacks Another 382 BTC, Total Treasury Climbs to 15,391 Bitcoin Strive, Inc. added 382 Bitcoin for $30.3 million, pushing its treasury to 15,391 BTC as it continues an aggressive, equity-funded accumulation strategy tied to shareholder Bitcoin exposure growth. This post Strive (ASST) Stacks Another 382 BTC, Total Treasury Climbs to 15,391 Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

news.bitcoin.com AI Financial SEC Filing Flags Going Concern Risk After WLFI Token Decline

AI Financial Corp., the Nevada-based fintech company holding 7.28 billion World Liberty Financial tokens, disclosed in its Q1 2026 SEC filing that substantial doubt exists about its ability to continue as a going concern within the next 12 months. AI Financial Corp Files Going Concern Warning Tied to $1.46B WLFI Token Buy AI Financial Corp. […]

bitcoinmagazine.com SEC Prepares to Open the Door to Tokenized Stocks: Report

Bitcoin Magazine SEC Prepares to Open the Door to Tokenized Stocks: Report The U.S. SEC is putting the finishing touches on a framework that would allow digital, blockchain-based versions of publicly traded stocks to trade on crypto platforms. This post SEC Prepares to Open the Door to Tokenized Stocks: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

forklog.media Bitcoin ETFs Experience Largest Daily Outflow Since January

On May 18, the net outflow from American spot bitcoin ETFs reached $648.6 million, marking the worst daily result since late January. Source: SoSoValue. The primary pressure was on BlackRock's IBIT ($448 million), followed by 21Shares' ARKB ($109 million) and Fidelity's FBTC ($63 million). Other funds showed minor changes. Investors withdrew $86 million from Ethereum instruments. The smaller outflow is likely due to reduced institutional interest in the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Source: SoSoValue. Outflows from crypto products have continued since last week. Between May 11 and 15, bitcoin ETFs lost $1 billion, while ETH ETFs saw outflows of $255 million. Despite a series of sell-offs, the sector's overall result since the launch of the funds remains positive. As of the time of writing, the total net inflow into bitcoin funds since launch has reached $57.6 billion. Source: SoSoValue. Asset management companies control about 6.25% of the digital gold's issuance, with a total value exceeding $100 billion. Ethereum funds have slightly more modest results, with a net inflow of $11.75 billion and $12.2 billion in assets under management (~4.77% of supply). Source: SoSoValue. Market Conditions Outflows from institutional structures occur amid a correction in bitcoin prices. Over the past week, the coin has lost nearly 5%. Currently, the leading cryptocurrency is trading around $76,800. Hourly chart BTC/USDT on Binance. Source: TradingView. Most top-10 altcoins by market capitalization are also in the "red zone." Source: CoinMarketCap. Ethereum has fallen to $2,100 (-7% over seven days), BNB is trading at $640 (-3%), and SOL at $84 (-11%). The cryptocurrency Fear and Greed Index has once again entered the "extreme fear" zone, dropping to 25 points. Source: Alternative.me. An analyst under the pseudonym Darkforst noted the disappearance of realized profits among bitcoin investors. The weekly average is now around $1.7 billion, similar to levels seen at the end of the 2022 bear market. 📉 Realized profits across the market have been almost completely wiped out.With BTC trading around $80,000, very few investors seem able to realize meaningful profits, or at least not on a significant scale.💥 Weekly averaged realized profit is now sitting around $1.7B,… pic.twitter.com/kS4t93Gexc— Darkfost (@Darkfost_Coc) May 19, 2026 "It seems that at a price of around $80,000, only a few investors have been able to realize substantial profits, at least on a significant scale," the expert noted. MN Trading founder Michaël van de Poppe pointed out that a gap remains on the CME at the $79,100 level. #Bitcoin doesn't look great.Far from it. Five consecutive days of red candles, liquidations on the long side, Michael Saylor buying another $2 billion in assets, and there's no momentum at all taking place.There's still an outstanding CME gap at $79,100 waiting for the… pic.twitter.com/PMYTp0sIdy— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) May 19, 2026 He considers this mark a critically important resistance area, the breach of which should restore market momentum. In a negative scenario, the analyst expects a drop to around $65,000. Among the restraining factors, van de Poppe highlighted the rise in oil prices and bond yields.Earlier, JPMorgan suggested that Ethereum might continue to lag behind Bitcoin.

bitcoinist.com XRP Exchange Netflow Data Says Accumulation Is Ongoing, But Who’s Buying?

XRP is moving quietly, but the blockchain activity surrounding it is becoming louder by the day. Fresh exchange flow data has sparked speculation that large buyers may be accumulating behind the scenes while the market remains focused on price consolidation. The question now is who is buying all the XRP leaving exchanges, and why it […]

forklog.media Researchers Uncover ‘Largest Military Insider’ on Polymarket

A network of nine interconnected accounts on Polymarket has been discovered, having earned over $2.4 million from bets related to U.S. military actions. The suspicious activity was identified by the analytical platform Bubblemaps. NEW | 🇺🇸 The biggest military insider?A cluster of accounts made $2.4M betting on US military action with a 98% win rateNo one spotted him before 🧵 pic.twitter.com/rsdjObZ9md— Bubblemaps (@bubblemaps) May 18, 2026 The win rate of these wallets was 98%. Analysts used transaction visualization and discovered a cluster of four wallets created days before the U.S. strikes on Iran on February 28. These accounts bet on events with low odds, each earning about $400,000. Later, experts linked them to five more addresses based on the timing of trades and the size of positions. All nine accounts transferred funds through centralized exchanges within narrow time frames to common wallets. The group exhibited abnormal confidence in event outcomes. Large bets were placed days before: the attack on Iran on February 28; the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei; the ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran. To maximize profits, account holders spread bets across different dates. To divert attention, they made small losing trades. Nicolas Vaiman, co-founder of Bubblemaps, noted in an interview with 60 Minutes that the group is almost entirely focused on U.S. military operation markets and consistently dominates the profit leaderboards. “We spotted nine Polymarket accounts, all connected, who made, collectively,$2.4 million betting almost exclusively on U.S. military operations,” says Nicolas Vaiman, co-founder of the small data analytics firm Bubblemaps.“And now here's the crazy part: 98% win rate.”… pic.twitter.com/YQmRSn30UW— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 17, 2026 Bubblemaps lacks direct evidence linking these wallets to specific individuals or agencies. However, the contact structure and near-perfect success rate "raise serious questions about who is behind them." In April, the U.S. Department of Justice charged active-duty serviceman Gannon Kane Van Dyke, suspected of using classified information for betting on Polymarket.

news.bitcoin.com Bitcoin’s May Rally Toward $80K Ignites Fastest BTC Perpetual Futures Open Interest Growth of 2026

Bitcoin’s push toward $80,000 earlier this month has sparked the fastest growth in BTC perpetual futures open interest recorded so far in 2026, with Binance capturing the largest share of new derivatives capital. Open Interest Posts Strongest 2026 Surge Open interest is the measure of the total value of all active, unsettled futures positions across […]

bitcoinmagazine.com Bitcoin Becomes Lifeline for Activists as HRF Unveils ‘Bitcoin for Nonprofits’ Guide

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Becomes Lifeline for Activists as HRF Unveils ‘Bitcoin for Nonprofits’ Guide The Human Rights Foundation has released a new Bitcoin playbook showing how nonprofits and activist groups can bypass financial censorship and operate independently when governments weaponize the banking system. This post Bitcoin Becomes Lifeline for Activists as HRF Unveils ‘Bitcoin for Nonprofits’ Guide first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

forklog.media South Korea Tests Stablecoin Pegged to Won

South Korea's KB Financial Group (KBFG) has completed the proof-of-concept phase for a stablecoin pegged to the won. KBFG tested a full cycle of financial services based on the asset, reports Yonhap. The pilot involved payment operator KG Inicis, blockchain platform Kaia, and fintech company OpenAsset.  During the pilot, KBFG examined several use cases for the asset: Cross-border transfers: the won-based stablecoin was converted into a dollar equivalent through Kaia's on-chain liquidity and sent to a bank account in Vietnam. The operation took less than three minutes, with fees 87% lower than the SWIFT system; Offline payments: payments via QR code were tested in Hollys coffee shops without using a separate crypto wallet. On the backend, the transaction was automatically executed through a smart contract. Developers focused on transferring the internal settlement infrastructure to blockchain while maintaining the usual user experience. They emphasized that it was not a separate service but an integrated system. KB Kookmin (part of KBFG) is the largest bank in the country with assets exceeding 584.9 trillion won (~$424 billion).  Group representatives stressed their readiness to launch commercial tools as soon as the regulatory framework is established. The adoption of a digital assets law in South Korea is delayed due to disagreements between the central bank and the Financial Services Commission regarding the issuance rules for "stablecoins." In April, Bank of Korea Governor Hyun Song Shin announced plans to expand the use of CBDC and deposit tokens. According to him, this is necessary to adapt the monetary system to digital transformation.