Hot News

• Bitcoin benefited from the market's continued optimism about potential trade agreements between the United States, the United Kingdom and China. Last week, the price of Bitcoin increased by about 10.42%. Institutional adoption continued to expand. Traditional financial institutions such as Stripe and Robinhood have integrated cryptocurrency functions. New Hampshire has become the first state in the United States to establish Bitcoin reserves, which has attracted widespread attention. At the same time, Ethereum successfully completed the Pectra upgrade, becoming a potential turning point. Ethereum outperformed Bitcoin by 18% in the past week, setting a record for the strongest weekly performance since May 2024. However, the amount of gas burned on the Ethereum chain has not changed significantly. Net inflows into Ethereum ETFs this week will be one of the key indicators to watch for investor sentiment.

Macro Outlook

• The United States and the United Kingdom announced a trade deal that would reduce UK car tariffs to 10% and eliminate steel tariffs, expanding US ethanol and beef exports while maintaining British food standards.

• The United States and China launched trade agreement negotiations in Geneva. Representatives of both sides said that the two-day talks had made significant progress and consensus, and a joint statement is expected to be issued on May 12.

• India and Pakistan have been engaged in air strikes against each other over the Kashmir massacre. Although a ceasefire was brokered by the United States, it has been violated and the conflict continues.

• Russia is expected to start peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on May 15.

• The US ISM service industry PMI index rose to 51.6 in April, higher than the market expectation of 50.6.

• The Fed kept interest rates unchanged at the May FOMC meeting and said that the current monetary policy is flexible enough and that it can wait for clearer economic signals before considering whether to make adjustments. The Fed also said that private domestic final demand (PDFP) excluding net exports, inventory investment and government spending grew by 3% in the first quarter, which is different from the negative growth of GDP in the same period.

Upcoming economic calendars include:

• May 13 (Tuesday) 8:30 p.m.: U.S. inflation rate for April will be announced

• May 15 (Thursday) 8:30 p.m.: U.S. PPI index and retail sales data for April will be released

• May 16 (Friday) 10:00 p.m.: Release of the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index for May

Cryptocurrency Market Overview

• Stripe launched60 new feature upgrades, including an optimized checkout suite that integrates stablecoin payments, stablecoin accounts designed specifically for businesses, and a Visa card denominated in USDC .

• Bridge launched USDB, a stablecoin backed by cash and money market funds. Bridge was acquired by Stripe in October 2024 at a valuation of US$1.1 billion.

• Strike, the bitcoin payments app founded by Jack Mallers, has announced the launch of Strike Lending , a cryptocurrency lending platform.

• Strive plans to merge with the listed company Asset Entities to provide a tax-free Bitcoin-to-stock conversion program. Qualified investors can exchange their Bitcoin holdings for stocks at an equivalent amount without having to pay capital gains tax immediately. Tax liability will only be borne when the stocks are sold.

• Coinbase launched x402 , an open source payment protocol built on the HTTP protocol that supports a "pay-per-use" model, such as charging per AI token, per loaded text, or per minute of content viewed.

• Coinbase also partnered with Riot Games to become the exclusive cryptocurrency exchange and blockchain partner for the League of Legends and Universe global esports tournaments.

• Coinbase acquires crypto options exchange Deribit for $2.9 billion, marking the largest cryptocurrency merger in history.

• Meta is reportedly exploring the feasibility of using stablecoins for cross-border payments.

• It is reported that Robinhood plans to provide U.S. securities trading services to European retail investors through a blockchain-based platform, and is currently considering using the Arbitrum or Solana network.

• New Hampshire became the first state in the United States to pass a Bitcoin reserve bill, allowing the state treasurer to invest up to 5% of state funds in precious metals and digital assets with a market value of at least $500 billion. Arizona 's SB1373 Bitcoin Reserve Bill (allowing no more than 10% of approved funds to be invested in digital assets) is still awaiting the final signature of Governor Hobbs. However, Hobbs has approved another bill, HB2749, to establish a Bitcoin and Digital Asset Reserve Fund. Texas ' SB21 Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill, which allows special funds to invest in cryptocurrencies with a market value of more than $500 billion, currently needs to be passed by a full vote of the House of Representatives before June 2.

• The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) explicitly stated that national banks and federal savings institutions can engage in crypto asset custody, trading and stablecoin business without prior approval , provided that sound risk management measures are in place, and revoked previous restrictive guidelines.

• The GENIUS Act, a stablecoin legislation, failed to pass the Senate, with several Democratic lawmakers expressing concerns about the bill's lack of anti-money laundering and national security requirements. The latest revised version incorporates compliance requirements for foreign stablecoin issuers targeting U.S. users, and expands the definition of digital asset service providers, including developers, validator nodes, and self-custody wallet providers, who must comply with the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering regulations.

• The U.S. SEC is considering issuing an exemption order to allow institutions to use distributed ledger technology to issue, trade and settle securities, thereby removing regulatory barriers and promoting the implementation of new products and services.

Layer 1 and Layer 2 Public Chains

• Ethereum has completed the Pectra upgrade, adding smart wallet functionality, doubling the second-layer network blob capacity, and optimizing the validator staking experience.

• Unichain implements a TEE sorting mechanism to effectively prevent transactions from being attacked by MEV and is independently verifiable.

• Polygon announced the integration of CDK OP Stack as part of its Multistack initiative. Developers can use OP Stack with ZK’s pessimistic proofs, eliminate the seven-day waiting period for fraud proof withdrawals, and remove Superchain taxes.

• Tether officially launched on the Kaia network, expanding its stablecoin support on the LINE Mini Dapp platform.

• ZKsync now achieves fullEVM equivalence , providing developers with a seamless protocol onboarding and integration experience.

• Berachain's Boyco unlock is now live, and Berachain's TVL has fallen 45% since May.

• Monad launches Testnet-2 , which is mainly for validators to participate in order to help optimize the decentralization issues when the mainnet goes online. The testnet will last for ten weeks, so the mainnet may be launched in the third quarter of 2025.

• Particle Network announced the first batch of protocols integrating Universal Account . These decentralized applications are the first applications of UniversalX's non-cross-chain concept.

Dapps

• Aave announced that its Horizon protocol has partnered with Ant Group to build a customized RWA market on Ethereum.

• Superstate, the RWA platform and USTB issuer, has launched a new platform, “ Opening Bell ”, which allows companies to issue SEC-registered shares directly on the blockchain. SOL Strategies will be the first company to issue shares on the blockchain.

• Space and Time's native token SXT has been officially launched. It has multiple uses such as serving as a pledge asset to ensure the integrity of ZK coprocessor-verified data, incentivizing data providers, and serving as a payment token for querying and writing data.

• Chainlink has launched the Chainlink Reward program, which allows the Chainlink Build protocol to distribute its tokens to users and LINK stakers. Space and Time will distribute 2% of its total token supply to LINK stakers through this program.

• Boop.fun launches its native token BOOP . The platform is a celebrity meme issuance platform on Solana, and the tokens will be migrated to Raydium after issuance. BOOP will be distributed daily to creators and meme holders on its platform. BOOP stakers can receive 60% of all SOL transaction fees, graduation token airdrops, and another 30% of transaction fees will be used to repurchase BOOP.

• Superseed, an automatic repayment lending protocol, has released its native token SURP . SURP will become the first “super collateral” with zero interest and automatic repayment mechanism.

• The decentralized validator network protocol Obol issues its governance token OBOL and uses it for ecosystem protocol rewards.

• Kaito launches a dashboard showing the Total Value Distributed (TVD), which provides a clearer picture of the total rewards distributed to yappers, stakers, and holders.

• Zerebro co-founder Jeffy Yu faked a suicide video and published a false news report on legacy.com in an attempt to fake his death.

• Across announced Across Prime . During the intended transaction period, funds are no longer locked in the custody contract, but are directly transferred to the relayer in a margin model, with the intention of improving capital efficiency and saving gas fees.

• Ethereum NFT project Doodles issued its native token DOOD and launched it on Solana.

• Backpack launched Lend SOL , which provides a 12.24% APY stacked income. The income comes from lending and staking, and the asset can be used as perpetual collateral on the exchange.

• ListaDAO has partnered with World Liberty Finance to incorporate the USD1 stablecoin into its lending market.

• Resolv, a dual-ticket neutral strategy stablecoin protocol, released the economic model of its token RESOLV . The token will be launched with an initial supply of 20%, and its uses include governance, incentive issuance, cooperative agreement rewards, and cumulative points multiplication.

Governance/Project Updates

• Fluid is expected to announce its multi-chain expansion plans next week, and community members speculate that the announcement may be integrated into the Solana network.

• The U.S. SEC will hold a roundtable meeting on May 12 to discuss the issue of on-chain tokenization.

• Stacks’ non-custodial wrapped Bitcoin (sBTC ) is expected to launch Cap-3 phase on May 15.

• Sonic is expected to make a major announcement related to “ sharding ” on May 15th.

• InfiniFi announced that it has completed a $3 million financing led by Electric Capital. InfiniFi will combine liquid income assets with illiquid income assets (such as Pendle) to allow vault holders to obtain higher "semi-liquid income".

• US President Trump will host a dinner on May 22, inviting the top 220 TRUMP token holders to join in the celebration.

• Liquity v2 is expected to be redeployed in mid-May.

• Taiko has begun transferring protocol ownership to Taiko DAO , and the overall decentralized governance process is expected to be completed by June 2025.

• Aave has proposed to incorporate PEPE into the AAVE lending platform as supporting collateral.

• Aave proposed to Uniswap to integrate Uniswap V4 LP as collateral that can be used to lend GHO, and promised to share 50% of the GHO lending profits with Uniswap. In exchange, Aave requested $3.3 million worth of UNI from Uniswap as 18 months of operating funds, 1.1 million UNI as ecological grants, and 1.2 million UNI as liquidity incentives.

• Curve Finance proposed to remove veCRV from the whitelist , allowing completely permissionless staking of CRV. While the proposal does not directly increase CRV staking requirements, it allows CRV held in multi-signature wallets to participate in governance and opens up developers to experiment with other yield-enhancing strategies with veCRV.

• Berachain proposed a new token economic model, POL v1.1 , which implements a fixed 20% initial fee for the incentives distributed to BGT stakers and introduces its fees into the protocol's own liquidity (COL), such as the BERA/HONEY trading pair.

• Sei Network proposed to terminate support for CosmWasm , citing low adoption of Cosmos native development, and said it would switch to supporting only the EVM architecture to simplify the developer and user experience.

• By integrating Espresso Network 's proposal, Stargate will greatly improve the cross-chain confirmation efficiency between supported chains and eliminate the risk of blockchain reorganization.

• Lido proposed a dual governance proposal LIP-28 , which allows stETH holders to express "exit intention" when encountering controversial proposals. Proposal examples: If 1% of stETH expresses an exit, the execution of the proposal will be delayed; if 10% of stETH expresses an exit, the proposal will be suspended.

Token Unlock

• APTOS tokens were unlocked on May 12, accounting for 1.83% of the total supply.

• IMX tokens will be unlocked on May 16th, with the unlocked amount accounting for 1.35% of the total supply.

• ARB tokens will be unlocked on May 16, accounting for 1.95% of the total supply.

• VANA tokens will be unlocked on May 16th, accounting for 1.47% of the total supply.

• APE tokens will be unlocked on May 17, accounting for 1.93% of the total supply.

• MELANIA tokens will be unlocked on May 20th, accounting for 5.67% of the total supply.

• PLUME tokens will be unlocked on May 21st, accounting for 5.43% of the total supply.

• INIT tokens will be unlocked on May 24th, accounting for 1.68% of the total supply.

• GRASS tokens will be unlocked on May 31st, accounting for 1.34% of the total supply.

• OP tokens will be unlocked on May 31st, accounting for 1.94% of the total supply.

• SUI tokens will be unlocked on June 1st, accounting for 1.75% of the total supply.

• ENA tokens will be unlocked on June 2, accounting for 1.62% of the total supply.

Click here to subscribe to weekly market insights and exclusive in-depth research.