Crypto Daybook Americas: Fintechs, Funds ‘Hoarding Bitcoin’ Even as Bulls Pause for Breath

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The planetary crypto corporate-adoption communicative is thriving adjacent arsenic bitcoin and the wider crypto marketplace instrumentality a bull breather, perchance establishing a basal for a caller high.

Méliuz, a publically listed Brazilian fintech firm, announced Thursday the acquisition of 274.52 BTC. It present holds 320.2 BTC worthy implicit $33.3 million. On Wednesday, Bahrain-listed A1 Abraaj Restaurants Group disclosed an archetypal purchase of 5 BTC with plans to standard holdings significantly.

Eric Trump, the second-eldest lad of President Donald Trump, captured the feeling on time 2 of CoinDesk's Consensus Toronto event: "I'm traveling. I'm connected a plane. Everybody successful the satellite is trying to hoard bitcoin close now. Everybody. I perceive it from sovereign wealthiness funds. I perceive it from the wealthiest families. I perceive from the biggest companies."

While the planetary adoption contention nary uncertainty favors a continued bull market, immoderate caller developments, specified arsenic the crumbling bipartisan enactment for the GENUIS Act aimed astatine creating a nationalist regulatory model for outgo stablecoins and the Coinbase (COIN) data breach, are concerning.

"While galore are cheering COIN's introduction into the S&P 500, it's been rather the week otherwise," Quinn Thompson, main concern serviceman astatine Lekker Capital, said connected X. "Obstructing the stablecoin measure to prolonging their regulatory seizure astatine the industry's expense, losing lawsuit funds and jeopardizing idiosyncratic information and present an SEC investigation. What astonishing timing, too, that this was each announced aft the S&P 500 inclusion pump that insiders sold into."

On Thursday, Coinbase's shares tanked 7% arsenic the speech confirmed an ongoing SEC probe into perchance inflated idiosyncratic metrics from 2021.

Add to the cookware that inflows into U.S.-listed spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) person slowed (see Chart of the Day), alongside large merchantability orders astatine astir $105,000. FTX creditors are acceptable to person implicit $5 cardinal successful distributions starting May 30, arsenic portion of the 2nd signifier of the bankrupt exchange’s court-approved betterment plan.

All this indicates scope for terms volatility successful the abbreviated term. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
  • May 16, 9:30 a.m.: Galaxy Digital Class A shares begin trading connected the Nasdaq nether the ticker awesome GLXY.
  • May 19: CME Group is expected to launch its cash-settled XRP futures.
  • May 19: Coinbase Global (COIN) volition replace Discover Financial Services (DFS) successful the S&P 500, effectual earlier the opening of trading.
  • May 22: Bitcoin Pizza Day.
  • May 22: Top 220 TRUMP token holders volition be a gala dinner hosted by the U.S. president astatine the Trump National Golf Club successful Washington.
  • May 30: The second circular of FTX repayments starts.
• Macro
  • May 16, 10 a.m.: The University of Michigan releases (preliminary) May U.S. user sentiment data.
    • Michigan Consumer Sentiment Est. 53 vs. Prev. 52.2
  • May 20, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases April user terms ostentation data.
    • Core Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.1%
    • Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.2%
    • Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.3%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.3%
• Earnings (Estimates based connected FactSet data)
  • May 20: Canaan (CAN), pre-market
  • May 28: NVIDIA (NVDA), post-market, $0.88

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Uniswap DAO is voting connected a connection to fund the integration of Uniswap V4 connected Ethereum successful Oku and adhd Unichain connected Oku successful a bid to heighten Uniswap’s scope and liquidity migration to V4. Voting ends May 18.
  • Arbitrum DAO is voting connected launching “The Watchdog,” a 400,000-ARB bounty programme to reward assemblage sleuths for uncovering misuse of the hundreds of millions successful grants, incentives and work budgets the DAO has deployed. Voting ends May 23.
  • May 20, 12 p.m.: Lido to big its 28th Node Operator Community Call.
  • May 21: Maple Finance teased an announcement connected the aboriginal of plus management.
  • May 21, 6 p.m.: Theta Network to big an Ask Me Anything league in a livestream
  • May 22: Official Trump to announce its “next Era” at the time of the meal for its largest holders.
• Unlocks
  • May 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 1.95% of its circulating proviso worthy $38.1 million.
  • May 17: Avalanche (AVAX) to unlock 0.4% of its circulating proviso worthy $39.44 million.
  • May 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of its circulating proviso worthy $87.8 million.
  • May 19: Polyhedra Network (ZKJ) to unlock 5.3% of its circulating proviso worthy $31.24 million.
  • May 19: Pyth Network (PYTH) to unlock 58.62% of its circulating proviso worthy $354.45 million.
• Token Launches
  • May 16: Galxe (GAL), Litentry (LIT), Mines of Dalarnia (DAR), Orion Protocol (ORN), and PARSIQ (PRQ) to beryllium delisted from Coinbase.

Conferences

CoinDesk's Consensus is taking spot in Toronto connected May 14-16. Use codification DAYBOOK and prevention 15% connected passes.

• Day 3 of 3: CoinDesk's Consensus 2025 (Toronto)
• May 19-25: Dutch Blockchain Week (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
• May 20-22: Avalanche Summit London
• May 20-22: Seamless Middle East Fintech 2025 (Dubai)
• May 21-22: Crypto Expo Dubai
• May 21-22: Cryptoverse Conference (Warsaw, Poland)
• May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025 (Las Vegas)
• May 27-30: Web Summit Vancouver (Vancouver, British Columbia)
• May 29: Stablecon (New York)
• May 29-30: Litecoin Summit 2025 (Las Vegas)
• May 29-June 1: Balkans Crypto 2025 (Tirana, Albania)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Berachain's autochthonal token, BERA, has dropped 9% successful the past week contempt a leap successful the broader market, with majors similar xrp (XRP) and ether (ETH) and memecoins dogecoin (DOGE), mog (MOG) and others adding much than 15%.
• At $3.55, the BERA terms is present much than 80% beneath its highest of $14.83. The descent follows a important $2.7 cardinal token unlock connected May 6, which introduced accrued selling unit into the market.
• The grim terms enactment illustrates however hype and short-term incentives aren't capable to buoy prices of adjacent fundamentally beardown and utility-focused projects successful the existent marketplace environment.
• The full worth locked successful Berachain's DeFi protocols has dropped from a highest of $3.5 cardinal to astir $1.2 cardinal arsenic of Friday. Before the token issuance, it had been 1 of the astir viral and hyped blockchains successful caller years.
• Meanwhile, inflows to Solana and Ethereum person increased, suggesting a imaginable displacement successful capitalist sentiment oregon a redistribution of assets wrong DeFi.
• Berachain's stablecoin marketplace capitalization has seen a important reduction, with a 36% driblet successful conscionable 7 days to $250 million. This diminution could power liquidity among ecosystem applications.
• Berachain exertion gross has hovered astir $10,000 per time since precocious April, a stark driblet from the supra $100,000 level successful January and February, DefiLlama information shows.

Derivatives Positioning

• Funding rates successful perpetual futures tied to large coins stay beneath an annualized 10%. It shows positioning remains bullish, but not overcrowded.
• ETH, UNI, HYPE, BNB, XRM and AAVE person each seen an summation successful unfastened involvement successful perpetual futures successful the past 24 hours.
• In options market, front-end skews person flipped bearish for BTC and ETH. Major flows featured buying BTC puts financed by selling calls, according to OTC table Paradigm.

Market Movements

• BTC is up 0.28% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday astatine $103,688.48 (24hrs: +1.82%)
• ETH is up 2.62% astatine $2,610.41 (24hrs: +3.06%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 0.92% astatine 3,241.45 (24hrs: +1.44%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 7 bps astatine 3.03%
• BTC backing complaint is astatine 0.0066% (7.2544% annualized) connected Binance

• DXY is down 0.12% astatine 100.76
• Gold is down 0.47% astatine $3,209.33/oz
• Silver is down 0.66% astatine $32.30/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed unchanged astatine 37,753.72
• Hang Seng closed -0.46% astatine 23,345.05
• FTSE is up 0.61% astatine 8,686.08
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.57% astatine 5,443.14
• DJIA closed connected Thursday +0.65% astatine 42,322.75
• S&P 500 closed +0.41% astatine 5,916.93
• Nasdaq closed -0.18% astatine 19,112.32
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.8% astatine 25,897.48
• S&P 40 Latin America closed -0.53% astatine 2,631.31
• U.S. 10-year Treasury complaint is down 3 bps astatine 4.405%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.21% astatine 5,946.00
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.22% astatine 21,446.50
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.32% astatine 42,519.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 62.89 (-0.65%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02528 (2.93%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 848 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $55.41
• Total Fees: 5.42 BTC / $562,026.90
• CME Futures Open Interest: 149,515 BTC
• BTC priced successful gold: 32.2 oz
• BTC vs golden marketplace cap: 9.12%

Technical Analysis

• The illustration shows the ratio betwixt solana and ether's dollar-denominated prices (SOL/ETH) has dropped to a trendline characterizing the uptrend from September 2023 lows.
• A interruption beneath the line, if confirmed, would awesome a prolonged power to ether outperformance comparative to SOL.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed connected Thursday astatine $397.03 (-4.73%), up 1.28% astatine $402.10 successful pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed astatine $244.44 (-7.2%), up 1.44% astatine $247.95
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed astatine $30.57 (-4.35%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed astatine $15.68 (-1.2%), up 1.15% astatine $15.86
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed astatine $8.7 (-2.36%), up 1.26% astatine $8.81
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed astatine $10.51 (+1.84%), up 1.81% astatine $10.70
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed astatine $9.36 (-2.6%), up 1.28% astatine $9.48
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed astatine $16.57 (-2.24%), up 2.11% astatine $16.92
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed astatine $31.79 (-2.3%), up 1.67% astatine $32.32
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed astatine $35.76 (+2.52%), up 2.07% astatine $36.50

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily nett flow: $114.9 million
• Cumulative nett flows: $41.49 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.17 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily nett flow: -$39.8 million
• Cumulative nett flows: $2.50 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.46 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The illustration shows nett inflows into the U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs person slowed.
• The driblet has astir apt played a relation successful keeping the BTC terms scope bound.

While You Were Sleeping

• Gold Set for Worst Week successful Six Months arsenic Trade Calm Dents Appeal (Reuters): Gold faced unit from easing U.S.-China tensions, though the terms dips are attracting buyers amid lingering uncertainty implicit planetary maturation and inflation.
• Japan’s Economy Shrinks for First Time successful a Year (Wall Street Journal): Japan’s GDP shrank 0.2% successful the archetypal quarter, worse than the expected 0.1% drop, raising recession fears arsenic concerns equine that U.S. tariffs could curb exports and hinder investment.
• XRP Slides 4% arsenic Bitcoin Traders Cautious of $105K Price Resistance (CoinDesk): XRP led declines among the biggest cryptocurrencies and, aft a week of dependable trading, bitcoin appears to beryllium signaling a correction amid equity weakness and golden profit-taking, according to FxPro’s Alex Kuptsikevich.
• Bitcoin Bulls Face $120M Challenge successful Extending 'Stair-Step' Uptrend (CoinDesk): Bitcoin’s ascent from $75,000 to $104,000 has slowed adjacent dense merchantability walls, though analysts expect bullish momentum to yet sorb the absorption and propulsion prices higher.
• FTX to Pay Over $5B to Creditors arsenic Bankrupt Estate Gears Up for Distribution (CoinDesk): Disbursements opening May 30 volition instrumentality betwixt 54% and 120% of claims based connected November 2022 valuations, with BitGo and Kraken handling transfers successful 1 to 3 concern days.
• Qatari Cybertrucks, Elite Camels and Trillion-Dollar Vows: Why Gulf Countries Are Going All Out for Trump’s Visit (CNBC): The Gulf’s grounds concern pledges were little astir competing with 1 different and much astir strengthening U.S. ties and securing precocious technologies, said economist Ahmed Rashad.

In the Ether