TLDR Bitcoin price dropped sharply this week and briefly touched $76,000 during increased selling pressure. Bitcoin whale wallets holding at least 100 BTC increased to 20,229 over the past year. Large Bitcoin holders continued accumulation despite market volatility and shifting investor sentiment. Data showed that these whale wallets now hold Bitcoin worth at least $7.7 [...] The post Bitcoin Whales Increase Holdings During Market Pullback appeared first on Blockonomi.

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Hassabis's stance on AI-driven productivity could reshape labor markets, influencing regulatory landscapes and impacting AI-crypto dynamics. The post Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis criticizes AI job cuts, advocates for productivity gains appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Price Slides Below $77,000 as ETF Exodus Tops $1 Billion Bitcoin price has fallen below $77,000 amid heavy ETF outflows, large-scale liquidations, and weakening capital inflows. This post Bitcoin Price Slides Below $77,000 as ETF Exodus Tops $1 Billion first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Decentralized finance platform Echo Protocol suffered a security breach on its Monad network deployment after an attacker compromised an administrative key. Liquidity Limits Prevent Massive Losses Echo Protocol, a decentralized finance ( DeFi) platform focused on bitcoin liquidity, was hit by a security exploit on Monday, May 18, after an attacker compromised an administrative key […]

Gemini Omni's native multimodal capabilities could revolutionize enterprise AI, enhancing efficiency and security across diverse industries. The post Google unveils Gemini Omni, its first native multimodal AI model built for enterprises appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Google's Gemini updates could challenge decentralized AI projects by setting a high benchmark for integrated, centralized AI services. The post Google updates Gemini app with Daily Brief and new AI video model appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

TLDR Zcash Foundation confirmed that the US SEC closed its investigation without taking enforcement action. The report stated that the inquiry began after a subpoena issued in August 2023. Zcash Foundation said the closure removed regulatory pressure and improved operational clarity. The network continued to function smoothly despite internal disruption at Electric Coin Company. Blocks [...] The post Zcash Foundation Confirms SEC Closure While ZEC Price Surges appeared first on Blockonomi.

The sanctions could strain humanitarian efforts in Gaza, complicate international banking, and intensify scrutiny on crypto transactions. The post US imposes sanctions on Gaza flotilla organisers for alleged Hamas support appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Google updated Gemini with Spark, Daily Brief, Omni video tools, and a redesigned interface as monthly users topped 900 million. The post Google rolls out Gemini 3.5 Flash, Spark agent, and new video generation tools appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a formal letter to OCC Comptroller Jonathan Gould on May 18, 2026, accusing the agency of illegally granting national trust charters to at least nine crypto companies and demanding full records by June 1. Warren Targets OCC Over Crypto Bank Charters That Allegedly Bypass Federal Safeguards Elizabeth Warren, the ranking member […]

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said Hyperliquid is undervalued as HYPE gains 77% this year and its buyback model drives value. The post Bitwise CIO says Hyperliquid is undervalued as HYPE leads large cap crypto gains appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Ripple, the company associated with the XRP cryptocurrency, has secured the 16th spot on the prestigious 2026 CNBC Disruptor 50.

Polymarket is expanding its prediction market ecosystem via Nasdaq Private Market, a union between well-known leading exchanges to tokenize performance of private companies trading markets for the first time in history. This is a substantial shift from standard prediction markets, which have historically been focused on publics events (e.g., elections, macroeconomic statistics, price of crypto-assets). This allows users to trade outcomes based on when private companies reach specific milestones, such as an increase in company valuation, initial public offering date, as well as sales on the secondary market. According to the company, this integration creates opportunities for retail investors to The post Polymarket Partners Nasdaq Private Market To Bring Prediction Markets Of Private Companies appeared first on The Merkle News.

Canaan mining maker posted an $88.7m net loss in Q1 2026 on revenue of $62.7m as Bitcoin prices and hashprice both fell sharply. Canaan Inc. reported in a May 19 press release that Q1 2026 revenue reached $62.7 million, in…

Wintermute launched its first DeFi vault product, Armitage, supporting collateral types unavailable on competing curator platforms. Wintermute, the algorithmic trading firm and liquidity provider, entered the DeFi vault curation space on May 19 with the launch of Armitage, a new…

Senator Elizabeth Warren is taking a new aim at the crypto industry, now challenging how the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has handled national trust bank charters for digital asset firms.  Her latest concern centers on the OCC’s approvals—some granted on a conditional basis over recent months—at a time when the conventional […]

Citadel Advisors, a powerful Wall Street hedge fund founded by billionaire Ken Griffin, has reportedly made a series of moves into Spot XRP ETFs, according to unverified reports circulating across the crypto markets. The firm, known for its highly disciplined approach to investing and its massive influence across global financial markets, is said to have […]

The SEC's IPO rule overhaul could streamline public listings, potentially boosting market access for startups and tech firms, but may reduce investor transparency. The post SEC proposes major overhaul of IPO rules to ease public listings appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Is SOL headed toward $78 or even lower?

The Bitcoin miner said the investment will support development of its River Bend AI data center campus as the company expands its long-term AI infrastructure business.

The Massachusetts lawmaker asked the US Comptroller of the Currency to provide all communications between the agency and Donald Trump potentially related to the charter approvals.

Bitcoin Magazine Btrust Appoints New Board of Directors to Steer Next Phase of Bitcoin Development Btrust has completed a major governance transition, appointing Janet Maingi, Bruno Garcia, and Laurence Aderemi as its new Board of Directors following a global, values-driven selection process. This post Btrust Appoints New Board of Directors to Steer Next Phase of Bitcoin Development first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Bitcoin has slipped below the 100,000-block mark to its next halving, putting the fifth reward cut on track for around mid-2028 at block 1,050,000 and setting up the first full halving cycle dominated by spot ETFs. According to halving trackers…

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About one in ten American adults used or held cryptocurrency in 2025, up from 7% in 2024, as spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs helped pull retail investors back into digital assets, according to new Federal Reserve data. According to FinanceFeeds and a…

Polymarket has struck a deal with Nasdaq’s private-markets arm to launch prediction markets tied to private-company valuations, IPO timing and secondary trading, opening a new way for retail and institutions to bet on and benchmark unicorns before they list. According…

Lolli, the bitcoin rewards platform owned by Thesis*, has partnered with Kard to let its more than 600,000 users earn bitcoin automatically on everyday card purchases without browser extensions, promo codes, or checkout changes. Lolli Drops Checkout Friction as Kard Deal Turns Linked Cards Into Bitcoin Earning Tools The announcement, revealed May 19, 2026, and […]

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The delay in military action highlights the potential for diplomatic solutions but underscores the risk of regional instability affecting global markets. The post Trump delays military strike on Iran amid ongoing negotiations appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

China's military collaboration with Russia could reshape global power dynamics, enhancing China's strategic capabilities against NATO forces. The post China reportedly trains 200 Russian troops for Ukraine deployment appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine TD Cowen Raises Strategy (MSTR) Price Target to $400 on Bitcoin Accumulation and Balance Sheet Shift TD Cowen has raised its price target on Strategy (MSTR) to $400, pointing to its strong bitcoin accumulation and shift in financing strategy. This post TD Cowen Raises Strategy (MSTR) Price Target to $400 on Bitcoin Accumulation and Balance Sheet Shift first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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TLDR Polymarket has launched prediction markets tied to private company milestones for retail traders. The platform partnered with Nasdaq Private Market to provide verified data for contract outcomes. Traders can speculate on events like IPO timing and valuation targets without owning company shares. The contracts resolve based on real data and follow a yes or [...] The post Polymarket Opens $5 Trillion Private Market to Retail Traders appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR Elizabeth Warren questioned the OCC over its approval of crypto-focused trust bank charters. She argued that these firms operate like banks while avoiding strict federal banking regulations. Warren stated that the approvals could pose risks to consumers and the financial system. She requested records of communications between the OCC and Donald Trump or his [...] The post Senator Elizabeth Warren Challenges US Regulator Over Crypto Bank Approvals appeared first on Blockonomi.

Stablecoin infrastructure startup Checker has raised $8m across pre-seed and seed rounds to scale its single-API platform for banks and fintechs, after processing more than $3b in transactions over the past year. According to The Block, Checker has closed an $8m…

Solana price remained under pressure after failing to break above the key $98 resistance zone, with multiple bearish chart patterns and weakening derivatives data raising the risk of a deeper correction below the $80 support level. According to data from…

Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini are urging U.S. senators to strike a clause from the Digital Asset Market Structure Bill that would bar exchanges from listing tokens deemed “readily susceptible to manipulation,” warning it would effectively kill compliant listings for small-cap…

Pi Network price remained under intense pressure on Monday as rising token unlock concerns, worsening technical indicators, and persistent selling from early miners continued dragging the token toward fresh multi-month lows. According to data from crypto.news, Pi Network (PI) price…

Deloitte has acquired Web3 infrastructure company Blocknative in a talent-focused deal that will see the startup wind down its APIs and gas oracle network next month, even as the Big Four firm deepens its push into crypto consulting. According to The…

Zcash price remained firmly in focus this week after completing one of the strongest standalone rallies in the cryptocurrency market, with a newly formed golden cross pattern now raising expectations that bulls may attempt another breakout above the key $600…

Ondo price extended its recovery this week after confirming a bullish continuation setup on the daily chart, with rising demand for tokenized real-world assets and strong platform growth metrics reinforcing the bullish outlook. According to data from crypto.news, Ondo (ONDO)…

AI trading startup Moment, founded by ex-Citadel Securities quants, has raised $78m in new funding led by Index Ventures after signing major wealth managers to its automated fixed income and equity trading platform. According to Bloomberg, Moment raised $78m after a…

Zcash Foundations Q1 report highlighted SEC clarity and network upgrades as ZEC trades near $570 after a 160% rebound. The post Zcash Foundation Q1 report highlights SEC clarity as ZEC extends privacy coin rally appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Checker's funding highlights growing investor interest in stablecoin infrastructure, potentially reshaping DeFi and regulatory landscapes. The post Checker raises $8M from Galaxy Ventures and others to build stablecoin infrastructure appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

TLDR Uphold President Nancy Beaton identified retail and institutional demand as the main drivers of XRP interest. She stated that retail investors are focused on earning yield directly through XRP on the XRPL network. The upcoming XLS-66 Lending Protocol aims to enable structured lending and passive income opportunities. Validator voting for the XLS-66d amendment has [...] The post Uphold Cites Yield and Tokenization Driving XRP Demand Growth appeared first on Blockonomi.

Strive Asset Management has cemented its position as a top-ten public Bitcoin treasury holder after acquiring an additional 382 BTC for approximately $30.3 million.

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Samsung and SK Hynix hit record Q1 2026 earnings. Compare their AI memory strategies, analyst ratings, and find out which stock offers better value now. The post Samsung (005930.KS) vs SK Hynix (000660.KS): The Ultimate AI Memory Stock Showdown for 2026 appeared first on Blockonomi.

Wintermute debuts Armitage, a non-custodial DeFi vault platform with institutional yield strategies, cross-chain support, and real-time risk management tools. The post Wintermute Introduces Armitage: A New Era for DeFi Vault Management appeared first on Blockonomi.

Billionaire investors loaded up on Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Delta, and Uber in Q1 2026. Discover what Buffett, Ackman, and Tepper bought and why. The post Billionaire Investors Pile Into Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Delta (DAL), and Uber (UBER) During Q1 2026 appeared first on Blockonomi.

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 […]

Google's AI advancements highlight a shift towards decentralized AI infrastructure, impacting tech ecosystems and crypto market dynamics. The post Google I/O 2026 kicks off with Gemini updates and a quieter battle for AI’s soul appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Tor's shift to decentralized funding could enhance internet freedom, but success hinges on overcoming identity verification challenges. The post Tor Project leads Web3 crowdfunding campaign for internet freedom starting May 19 appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

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.

• #bitcoin

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.

Bitcoin (BTC) has resumed its downward trend after failing to hold above the $80,000 support level.

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TD Cowen raises Strategy (MSTR) price target to $400, citing faster bitcoin accumulation. Stock trades at $165.42 amid challenging market conditions. The post TD Cowen Raises Strategy (MSTR) Price Target to $400 Amid Bitcoin Growth appeared first on Blockonomi.

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Walmart (WMT) reaches record $134.71 ahead of Q1 earnings. Analysts expect $174.94B revenue, 22% e-commerce growth, with most maintaining Buy ratings. The post Walmart (WMT) Stock Reaches Record Peak Before Q1 Earnings Release appeared first on Blockonomi.

Tech stocks fell Tuesday as Treasury yields exceeded 4.6% and the 30-year yield hit 5.2%. Markets eye Nvidia earnings and Iran negotiations. Full analysis. The post Tech Sector Tumbles as Treasury Yields Surge Past 4.6% – May 19 Market Analysis appeared first on Blockonomi.

Spot XRP ETFs record net inflows for nine days, absorbing sell pressure and potentially supporting an XRP price recovery over time.

The UK central bank said digital money should remain trusted and interoperable as it weighs stablecoin reforms and near-24/7 settlement to support tokenized markets.

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.

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.

Bernstein keeps Outperform on Ryanair (RYAAY) stock with $78 target despite Q4 loss. Analysts see the airline positioned to benefit from rivals' struggles. The post Ryanair (RYAAY) Stock: Bernstein Maintains Bullish Stance Despite Earnings Disappointment appeared first on Blockonomi.

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 […]

Agilysys (AGYS) stock jumped 15% after reporting Q4 earnings that beat estimates, with record revenue and FY2027 guidance above analyst consensus. The post Agilysys (AGYS) Stock Soars 15% on Strong Q4 Earnings and Upbeat Guidance appeared first on Blockonomi.

Polymarket's IPO prediction markets democratize access to private company valuations, potentially reshaping financial transparency and regulation. The post Polymarket launches prediction markets for IPOs and valuations of private companies appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

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 […]

Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI co-founder and ex-Tesla AI director, joins Anthropic to lead pretraining research for Claude AI at the $61.5B valued company. The post AI Pioneer Andrej Karpathy Joins Anthropic to Lead Claude Pretraining Research appeared first on Blockonomi.

Nvidia (NVDA) stock draws bullish analyst ratings ahead of Q1 earnings May 20, with price targets up to $352 and revenue forecasts exceeding $81B. The post Nvidia (NVDA) Stock: Analysts Set Price Targets Up to $352 Ahead of May 20 Earnings appeared first on Blockonomi.

AT&T (T) stock gained 1.7% after the company reaffirmed Q2 free cash flow guidance and its plan to reach 60 million fiber locations by decade's end. The post AT&T (T) Stock Rises on Reaffirmed 60M Fiber Target and $45B Shareholder Return Plan appeared first on Blockonomi.

The top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization posted mixed 24-hour moves, with meme coin MemeCore leading gains and several large-cap names like Flare slipping into the red. According to CoinMarketCap data, MemeCore (M) was the strongest performer among the top 100 by…

Ethereum price remained under pressure on Monday as ETF outflows and weakening technical indicators pushed traders to closely watch the key $2,000 support zone. According to data from crypto.news, Ethereum (ETH) traded around $2,112 at press time on May 19…

Large Bitcoin holders increased their positions throughout volatile market conditions.

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The Ethereum Foundation's leadership changes may challenge its strategic shift, impacting network governance and community engagement. The post Ethereum Foundation faces scrutiny after high-profile departures shake leadership appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan suggests Wall Street is fundamentally mispricing Hyperliquid, targeting a $600 trillion global asset market rather than just a crypto sandbox.

Bitget Wallet integrated xStocks, adding 130 tokenized equities and expanding its RWA offering to over 300 assets. The post Bitget Wallet adds over 130 tokenized equities through xStocks integration appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Karpathy's move to Anthropic could intensify AI competition, pushing advancements in data-centric approaches and decentralized compute solutions. The post Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic to lead pre-training team appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

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.

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Bitwise CIO says Hyperliquid targets the $600T global asset market as ETFs, USDC support, and tokenized stock momentum grow. The post HYPE hits highest level since October near $48 as Bitwise CIO calls Hyperliquid a super app appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Global internet freedom has declined for 15 consecutive years, with more countries restricting access to more of the internet, according to Freedom House.

5,800 users in two hours. One QR code. One bow that went viral.

BTC price stayed pinned below $77,000 amid rising US bond yields and oil prices, with market analysts saying Bitcoin is now at a "crucial level of support."

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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

Of all the major digital assets, XRP has the most to gain from the CLARITY Act becoming law, and the reason is not hype. It is history. XRP spent four years as the defendant in crypto’s most consequential lawsuit, and…

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% […]

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More than 10,000 Bitcoin have been sold at a loss by short-term holders in recent days, adding fuel to analysts’ predictions that BTC price will fall to $65,000.

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Polymarket and Nasdaq Private Market team up to launch prediction markets for private company valuations, IPO timing, and unicorn milestones worth $5 trillion. The post Polymarket Teams Up With Nasdaq to Bring Private Company Trading Markets appeared first on Blockonomi.

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 […]

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"If Bitcoin keeps dropping we may see ADA do the same as well," one analyst forecasted.

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