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According to on-chain analyst ai_9684xtpa, an address suspected of belonging to a16z Crypto, the cryptocurrency investment arm of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), withdrew 44,500 HYPE worth $2.16 million from Gate.io a short while ago. The analyst previously noted that a16z Crypto may be the largest external holder of HYPE. Withdrawals from exchanges are typically interpreted as an intention to hold.

Cryptocurrency market analysis firm Kaiko announced today that it has acquired Cometh, a European decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure company. Cometh holds a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) license under the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. The acquisition will integrate Cometh's blockchain engineering and compliance capabilities into Kaiko's existing infrastructure. Kaiko COO Elodie de Marchi-Chouard said the move provides the engineering and regulatory foundation to meet institutional demand for on-chain capital market infrastructure, noting that clients are demanding standards on par with traditional financial markets.

South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb announced that it will temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals for Filecoin (FIL) starting at 9:00 a.m. UTC today to support an upcoming network upgrade.

According to CoinGlass data, a drop in BTC below $75,035 could trigger the liquidation of $1.08 billion in long positions on major centralized exchanges. Conversely, a surge above $78,037 would lead to the liquidation of $543.31 million in short positions.

Whale Alert reported that 250 million USDC has been minted at the USDC Treasury.

Hanwha Investment & Securities will acquire an additional stake in Dunamu, the operator of the South Korean crypto exchange Upbit, News1 reported. The company announced on May 20 that its board of directors approved the cash acquisition of 1,361,050 Dunamu shares for 597.8 billion won ($439.6 million). The purchase, scheduled for June 15, represents 28.91% of Hanwha's consolidated equity capital as of the end of last year. Following the acquisition, Hanwha's total holdings in Dunamu will increase from 5.94% to 9.84%, totaling 3,430,500 shares.

Whale Alert reported that 390,000,040 USDT has been transferred from Spark to HTX. The transaction is valued at about $390 million.

Cryptocurrency analyst Murphy (@Murphychen888) has identified a healthy correction range for Bitcoin (BTC) between approximately $66,000 and $78,000, based on Glassnode's UTXO Realized Price Distribution (URPD) data. In a post on X, the analyst noted that on-chain data from May 15 showed the most significant change of hands occurred at the $66,000 and $78,000 levels. In contrast, little trading took place between $80,000 and $82,000, despite the price remaining in that range for about a week. Murphy added that on May 19, even as the price fell, volume at the $78,000 level increased. Furthermore, the amount of BTC held at an average purchase price of around $76,000 grew from approximately 200,000 BTC to 380,000 BTC, indicating that additional buying pressure emerged despite the price dipping below this cost basis. The analyst predicted that if more volume accumulates in this range, it will form a stronger support level than before.

BIT (formerly Matrixport) has obtained an investment business license and Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) registration from the British Virgin Islands (BVI) Financial Services Commission (FSC), according to a PR Newswire press release. The approval was secured through its affiliate, Matrixport Technologies. This authorization allows Matrixport Technologies to arrange investment product transactions for institutional and professional investors and to provide regulated virtual asset services.

South Korean crypto exchange Coinone announced it will delist Portal To Bitcoin (PTB) at 6:00 a.m. UTC on June 22. The token was placed on a delisting watchlist on March 23 after its issuer failed to disclose or arbitrarily changed important information that could significantly impact the asset's value. The exchange explained that after reviewing submitted materials, it found the reasons for the watchlist designation had not been resolved.

South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb has yet to release a concrete blueprint for the 100 billion won ($74 million) customer protection fund it announced in February, ZDNet Korea reported on May 20. The exchange pledged to establish the permanent fund following an incident involving the incorrect distribution of Bitcoin. To date, details regarding the fund's creation timeline, accumulation method, and operational standards have not been made public. In response, Bithumb stated that it is currently preparing the fund's structure and is considering the overall situation.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has shared several short-term goals to address the network's lack of native privacy, responding to criticism from a user on X. Buterin outlined the following objectives: - Supporting privacy protocol transactions through Account Abstraction (AA) and a censorship resistance mechanism (FOCIL). - Restructuring frame transaction structures to support independent processing via the new EIP-8250 improvement proposal. - Enabling simultaneous withdrawals from shared senders in privacy protocols by using nullifiers as keys. Buterin added that EIP-8250 is slated for inclusion in the next network upgrade, Hegota. He also noted that parallel privacy efforts are underway for the data query stage, including solutions like Kohaku and Private Read.

Thirty-seven major European banks have joined a joint venture named Qivalis to issue a euro-based stablecoin, challenging the dominance of dollar-pegged stablecoins, the Financial Times (FT) reported. According to the FT, 25 institutions, including Intesa Sanpaolo, Rabobank, and ABN Amro, recently joined the venture. Qivalis aims to leverage the participation of these institutions and their existing networks to boost the stablecoin's real-world adoption and gain a competitive advantage over other euro stablecoins.

Global cryptocurrency exchange MEXC has released its May Proof of Reserves report in collaboration with blockchain security audit firm Hacken. According to the report, the reserve ratios for major cryptocurrencies exceeded user deposits, with figures at 293% for BTC, 123% for ETH, 117% for USDT, and 120% for USDC. Hacken stated that it conducted an audit that included verifying the Merkle tree structure, confirming wallet ownership, and assessing the adequacy of reserves, confirming that MEXC's user assets are fully collateralized. MEXC, which publishes its reserve reports monthly, is also in the process of expanding its Guardian Fund for user protection to $500 million. The exchange also recently purchased an additional 1,000 BTC to establish a dual reserve structure composed of USDT and BTC. MEXC announced it will continue to collaborate with Hacken to release regular reports and consistently enhance asset transparency.

Asian Web3 research and consulting firm Tiger Research argued in a new report that power in the DeFi lending market is shifting from protocols to risk curators. The report explained that as the on-chain lending structure becomes more specialized, curators responsible for collateral selection and risk assessment are effectively acting as asset managers. While the current market size is small at approximately $7 billion, it is in an early phase where capital is concentrating among top players. For institutions, the key to entry is not simply deciding whether to participate in DeFi, but choosing which decision-making powers to delegate and which to control directly. The level of control and the risks involved will differ based on three entry strategies: distribution, supply, and management.

Crypto market maker Wintermute stated via X that Ethereum (ETH) is an unsuitable asset for the current macroeconomic environment. The firm added that ETH fell 10.2% last week, with the ETH/BTC ratio hitting 0.0275, its lowest level since July 2025. Spot ETH ETFs also saw net outflows of $255 million, marking the largest weekly outflow since late January. Separately, BeInCrypto noted that potential selling pressure is increasing across exchanges, citing CryptoQuant data showing that ETH reserves on Binance grew from 3.4 million to approximately 3.8 million in May. Additionally, on-chain analyst Darkfost observed that ETH's weekly taker buy-sell ratio on Binance has dropped to 0.91, its lowest since September 2023. Darkfost analyzed that as positions become extremely skewed toward selling, the risk of a short squeeze increases.

Ark Invest, led by Cathie Wood, has purchased $4.4 million worth of Bullish stock over the past two days, according to The Block. The firm bought approximately 520,000 shares on May 18 and an additional 690,000 shares on May 19.

The three major South Korean crypto exchanges Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone have announced an extension of the delisting watchlist designation for KernelDAO (KERNEL). The exchanges stated the extension is to allow for an additional review after receiving clarification from the project team regarding the facts and follow-up measures related to its warning designation.

Hyperliquid generated approximately $11 million in weekly fees, capturing 43% of the total market share, Unfolded reported, citing data from DeFiLlama. The growth was driven by high-margin perpetual futures trading. For comparison, Ethereum generated about $3 million (13%) in fees and Solana approximately $2 million (10%) over the same period.

Lighter, a decentralized perpetual futures exchange (Perp DEX), announced that its forced withdrawal feature has passed an independent verification. The platform explained on X that users can now generate ZK proofs to withdraw their funds directly from the Ethereum (ETH) network, even if Lighter's sequencer halts.

Duan Yongping, chairman of Bubugao Group and known as 'China's Warren Buffett,' holds approximately $19 million worth of Circle (CRCL) stock, Wu Blockchain reported. According to his portfolio, disclosed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 13F filing, he purchased 200,000 shares of Circle in the first quarter at around $9,541 per share. The position accounts for approximately 0.095% of his total investment portfolio.

Despite falling BTC prices and rising U.S. Treasury yields increasing market uncertainty, the options market's implied volatility (BVIV) remains unusually low at around 42%, CoinDesk reported. This suggests the market may not be fully pricing in the actual risks, with options experts describing the current situation as the calm before the storm. They anticipate that volatility could expand, triggered by upcoming macroeconomic events such as the CPI announcement or remarks from the Federal Reserve. This has led to analysis suggesting that a straddle strategy, which bets on a significant price movement regardless of direction, could be effective in the current environment.

BitGo CEO Mike Belshe sent an open letter to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on May 19, rebutting her criticism of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for granting trust bank charters to crypto firms. Warren had previously suggested that such approvals could potentially violate banking laws. In his letter, Belshe argued that the term "crypto bank," used by Warren, is a rhetorical phrase with no legal definition. He explained that BitGo does not lend or co-mingle client assets, instead holding them separately under a fiduciary duty. He contrasted this with depository banks, which operate on a fractional reserve model by lending out customer deposits. According to Belshe, regulations like deposit insurance and capital requirements exist to address the risks inherent in that structure. Applying deposit insurance to a custodial bank that holds assets on a one-to-one basis, he contended, is like "requiring someone who only rides the bus to have car insurance." Belshe further noted that cases of consumer harm involving firms like FTX, Celsius, and Voyager all occurred at institutions that lacked a fiduciary duty. "The trust bank charter is the solution, not the threat," he concluded.

While the supply of non-dollar stablecoins grew from $261 million in May 2021 to $771 million in April 2026, their market share fell from 0.26% to 0.24%, CoinDesk reported, citing data from Artemis. This means dollar-pegged stablecoins account for 99.76% of the total market. The outlet added that most currencies lack liquidity outside their home countries, making it difficult to back global stablecoins. It noted that while some currencies like the euro or yen show potential, market demand remains limited.

Crypto wallet Sorted Wallet has raised $4.4 million in a seed funding round, The Block reported. The round was led by Tether and Gnosis, with participation from Movement, Angel Invest, and others. The funds will be used to expand operations in South Africa and South Asia.