BUSINESS

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

As bitcoin (BTC) and the wider crypto market await the Fed’s rate decision on Wednesday, an anomaly has emerged that could weigh heavily on market mood: renewed doubt over the passing of U.S. crypto regulation.

Early Tuesday, CoinDesk reported that Senate Democrats are hesitant to push forward landmark stablecoin legislation, citing concerns over President Donald Trump’s growing personal gains from his crypto ventures.

When Trump took office, many observers felt crypto regulation would proceed smoothly. Looking back, that optimism was probably misplaced. With the president actively involved in digital assets through family-linked projects like WLFI and memecoins, opposition has mounted, potentially slowing the regulatory progress.

That might lead investors to reprice regulatory uncertainty just as charts for BTC and XRP are signaling pullback risks. Additionally, according to CryptoQuant, there are signs of renewed weakness in bitcoin demand from U.S.-based investors.

“Over the past month, the premium recovered significantly but is now dropping again — aligning with the recent BTC price correction,” CryptoQuant contributor AbramChart said.

On the positive side, U.S.-listed spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) marked three straight days of net inflows.

Acting CFTC Chairman Caroline Pham told crypto journalist Eleanor Terret that the derivatives market regulator plans to observe a handful of tokenization pilot programs to evaluate the technology and see how well tokenized assets function in the real world .

Speaking of traditional markets and macro, Taiwan dollar forward contracts signal extreme pressure on the U.S. dollar, meaning the greenback could continue to weaken against the Asian currency and probably major currencies like the euro. The broad-based USD weakness may act as a tailwind for crypto. FX market volatility could drive investors to gold and perhaps bitcoin, too, unless it leads to a broad-based risk-off, in which case BTC may feel the heat.

The other bullish development is the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s comments that U.S. rates now carry sovereign credit risk and not just long-term growth and inflation expectations. In other words, rates are artificially high because the U.S. government itself is now the risk premium, as pseudonymous observer EndGame Macro said. So, a shift away from U.S. assets and into alternative investments could continue. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
  • May 6, 7:15 a.m.: Casper Network (CSPR) launches its 2.0 mainnet upgrade, introducing faster transactions, enhanced smart contracts, and improved staking features to boost enterprise adoption.
  • May 7, 6:05 a.m.: The Pectra hard fork network upgrade will get activated on the Ethereum (ETH) mainnet at epoch 364032. Pectra combines two major components: the Prague execution layer hard fork and the Electra consensus layer upgrade.
  • May 8: Judge John G. Koeltl will sentence Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the now-defunct crypto lending firm Celsius Network, at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
• Macro
  • May 6, 9 a.m.: S&P Global releases Brazil April purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data.
    • Composite PMI Prev. 52.6
    • Services PMI Prev. 52.5
  • May 6, 10 a.m.: U.S. House Financial Services Committee and Agriculture Committee joint hearing titled “American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets: A Blueprint for the 21st Century.” Livestream link.
  • May 7, 2 p.m.: The Federal Reserve announces its interest-rate decision. The FOMC press conference is livestreamed 30 minutes later.
    • Federal Funds Rate Target Range Est. 4.25%-4.5% vs. Prev. 4.25%-4.5%
  • May 8, 7 a.m.: The Bank of England announces its interest-rate decision. The Monetary Policy Report Press Conference is livestreamed 30 minutes later.
    • Bank Rate Est. 4.25% vs. Prev. 4.5%
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • May 6: Cipher Mining (CIFR), pre-market, $-0.08
  • May 8: CleanSpark (CLSK), post-market, $-0.11
  • May 8: Coinbase Global (COIN), post-market, $1.88
  • May 8: Hut 8 (HUT), pre-market, $-0.10
  • May 8: MARA Holdings (MARA), post-market, $-0.52
  • May 13: Semler Scientific (SMLR), post-market

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Uniswap DAO is voting on whether to pay Forse, a data‑analytics platform from StableLab, $60,000 in UNI to build an “analytics hub” that tracks how incentive programs are working on four more blockchains. Voting ends on May 6.
  • Arbitrum DAO is voting on whether to put the last $10.7 million from its 35 million ARB diversification plan into three low‑risk, dollar‑based funds from WisdomTree, Spiko and Franklin Templeton. Voting ends on May 8.
  • May 6, 1:30 p.m.: MetaMask and Aave to host an X Spaces session on USDC supplied to Aave being spendable on the MetaMask card.
  • May 7, 7:30 a.m.: PancakeSwap to host an X Spaces Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on the future of trading.
  • May 7, 9 a.m.: Binance to host an AMA on its Binance Seeds program.
  • May 7, 11 a.m.: Pendle to host a Pendle Yield Talk: Stablecoin Alpha X Spaces session.
  • May 8, 10 a.m.: Balancer and Euler to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session.
• Unlocks
  • May 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.55% of its circulating supply worth $13.24 million.
  • May 9: Movement (MOVA) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $8.97 million.
  • May 11: Solayer (LAYER) to unlock 12.87% of its circulating supply worth $55.93 million.
  • May 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.82% of its circulating supply worth $54.97 million.
  • May 13: WhiteBIT Coin (WBT) to unlock 27.41% of its circulating supply worth $1.12 billion.
  • May 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 4.09% of its circulating supply worth $16.34 million.
• Token Launches
  • May 7: Obol (OBOL) to be listed on Binance, Bitget, Bybit, Gate.io, MEXC,and others.
  • May 16: Galxe (GAL), Litentry (LIT), Mines of Dalarnia (DAR), Orion Protocol (ORN), and PARSIQ (PRQ) to be delisted from Coinbase.

Conferences

CoinDesk’s Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

• Day 1 of 2: Financial Times Digital Assets Summit (London)
• Day 1 of 3: Stripe Sessions (San Francisco)
• May 7-9: SALT’s Bermuda Digital Finance Forum 2025 (Hamilton, Bermuda)
• May 11-17: Canada Crypto Week (Toronto)
• May 12-13: Dubai FinTech Summit
• May 12-13: Filecoin (FIL) Developer Summit (Toronto)
• May 12-13: Latest in DeFi Research (TLDR) Conference (New York)
• May 12-14: ACI’s 9th Annual Legal, Regulatory, and Compliance Forum on Fintech & Emerging Payment Systems (New York)
• May 13: Blockchain Futurist Conference (Toronto)
• May 13: ETHWomen (Toronto)
• May 14-16: CoinDesk’s Consensus 2025 (Toronto)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Tokens of some DeFi powerhouses are catching a bid as attention turns to fundamentals in a flat market.
• Hyperliquid’s HYPE token surged 72% over the past week, outpacing most of the top 100 tokens. The platform’s gas-free, order book-based, decentralized exchange model is attracting traders seeking efficient and transparent trading environments.
• AAVE has seen increased activity with the integration of Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin into its V3 Ethereum Core Market. The move aims to bridge traditional finance with DeFi, enhancing AAVE’s appeal to institutional investors.
• Despite a recent security breach on Curve Finance’s X account, CRV managed to post a 40% gain in the past week, demonstrating investor confidence in the underlying protocol.
• Kay Lu, CEO of HashKey Eco Labs, said in a note to CoinDesk that traders are turning to projects with stronger fundamentals and token economics as memecoins fall out of favor.

Derivatives Positioning

• XMR, TAO, ADA lead majors in 24-hour growth of perpetual futures open interest. XRP, meanwhile, has the most negative 24-hour cumulative volume delta, hinting at an influx of selling pressure.
• BTC’s funding rate is barely positive, while ETH has flipped marginally negative, both pointing to weakening of bull momentum.
• CME futures basis climbed to between 5% and 10%, reviving interest in cash-and-carry arbitrage trades, according to Binance Research.
• Flows in the Deribit-listed options market have been mixed with May BTC calls and puts lifted.

Market Movements

• BTC is down 0.19% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $94,160 (24hrs: -0.18%)
• ETH is down 1.09% at $1,795.10 (24hrs: -0.66%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 1.05% at 2,675.34 (24hrs: -0.96%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 7 bps at 2.964%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0046% (5.1147% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is down 0.14% at 99.69
• Gold is up 1.99% at $3,379.76/oz
• Silver is up 2.13% at $32.99/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed +1.04% at 36,830.69
• Hang Seng closed +0.7% at 22,662.71
• FTSE is down 0.18% at 8,580.67
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.14% at 4,719.66
• DJIA closed on Monday -0.24% at 41,218.83
• S&P 500 closed -0.64% at 5,650.38
• Nasdaq closed -0.74% at 17,844.24
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.31% at 24,953.52
• S&P 40 Latin America closed -1.15% at 2,493.86
• U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 1 bp at 4.36%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.74% at 5,629.75
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.05% at 19,845.50
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.61% at 41,067.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 64.91 (0.13%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01910 (-0.52%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 908 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $50.13
• Total Fees: 5.10 BTC / $480,379.20
• CME Futures Open Interest: 143,680 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 28.1 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 7.97%

Technical Analysis

• VIRTUAL, the native token of the Base-native Virtuals Protocol for creating and owning AI agents, has established a base above the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement of the January-April sell-off.
• The breakout means potential for a rally to the 38.2% Fibonacci level of $2.22.
• VIRTUAL is the best-performing coin of the past 30 days.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $386.53 (-1.99%), down 1.25% at $381.68 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $199.40 (-2.7%), down 0.63% at $198.15
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$26.51 (-1.23%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $13.09 (-9.6%), down 1.22% at $12.93
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.90 (-5.84%), down 1.27% at $7.80
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.75 (+0.11%)
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.09 (-8.17%), down 0.62% at $8.04
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $14.26 (-4.74%)
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $33.58 (-7.13%), down 0.24% at $33.50
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $41.28 (-7.84%), up 0.51% at $41.49

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $425.5 million
• Cumulative net flows: $40.63 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.17 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: $0 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.53 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.47 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility has dropped to the lowest since July last year.
• In other words, volatility is cheap, which is when seasoned traders typically prefer to buy options.

While You Were Sleeping

• BlackRock, Citi CEOs to Visit Saudi Arabia Along With Trump (Bloomberg): Several top U.S. CEOs will speak May 13 at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, the day President Donald Trump arrives to seek another $1 trillion in Saudi trade and investment.
• Bitcoin Developers Plan OP_RETURN Limit Removal in Next Release (CoinDesk): Bitcoin Core’s plan to lift the cap has divided developers, with supporters citing cleaner UTXO handling and critics warning of spam risks and a shift away from financial use.
• Watch Out Bitcoin Bulls, $99.9K Price May Test Your Mettle (CoinDesk): Long-term BTC holders may take profits at $99,900, aligning with their historical behavior of selling at 350% paper gains, according to on-chain data from Glassnode.
• VIRTUAL Surges 200% in a Month as Smart Money Pours Into Virtuals Protocol (CoinDesk): The native token of the Base-powered decentralized AI agent platform has surged 207% in the past month, helped by $14.2 million in inflows from smart money, according to Nansen.
• Ukraine Targets Moscow With Drones for Second Straight Night, Officials Say (Reuters): All four Moscow airports were shut for several hours after Russian forces intercepted 19 drones days before the city’s planned World War II victory anniversary celebrations.
• Fed Confronts Lose-Lose Scenario Amid Haphazard Tariff Rollout (The Wall Street Journal): Fed officials are expected to delay rate cuts, fearing premature moves could intensify inflation driven by Trump’s tariffs and strained global supply chains.

In the Ether

Banking giant Citi and SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), the digital assets-focused arm of Switzerland’s main stock exchange, are teaming up to tokenize non-publicly traded shares in a move to streamline a $75 billion market that’s littered with PDFs and paper documents.

Citi will act as a custodian and issuer agent for tokenized versions of late stage, pre-IPO equities on SDX’s regulated blockchain-based Central Securities Depository (CSD) platform, the companies said on Tuesday.

Citi said the platform, which is expected to go live in the third quarter, will exclude U.S. investors, but is otherwise global with an initial focus on Switzerland, Singapore and other parts of Asia.

Private shares in high-growth, venture-backed companies are a large and appealing subset of an alternative asset class that’s valued in the trillions of dollars.

Firms with valuations of a billion dollars and more are remaining private for longer as market conditions dictate delays in IPOs for many. That means the companies are looking to secondary markets to help investors and employees get liquidity. But there’s an access problem, and the transactions themselves are manual and cumbersome.

“The most notable characteristic of private markets is that there is no infrastructure, at least nothing scalable,” Nisha Surendran, digital asset emerging solutions lead at Citi Ventures, said in an interview.

Investors are typically faced with a daunting set of PDFs and paper documents to get through, and the settlement of a transaction can take from five to eight weeks — a process that has to be repeated when the investor wants to exit the position, Surendran explained.

“These investments are also hampered by the fact they don’t flow into investors’ wealth statements like other public securities do. Rather, they end up encapsulated in PDFs or paper documents or on other platforms,” she said.

While recent years have seen many traditional financial institutions looking at the tokenization of real-world assets, the very early days of this trend saw lots of attention focused on blockchain-enabled private markets, but with little actually delivered.

SDX CEO David Newns said many hopeful Web3 projects, which saw blockchain rails as a way to streamline outdated processes and enable easy access and distribution for private markets, came up against regulatory hurdles.

“There’s a very mature digital-securities regulatory environment in Switzerland where we’ve been doing this now since 2021,” Newns said in an interview. “That isn’t the case elsewhere. The technology may have looked like it could address all the challenges, but problems around distribution, holding the instrument, and what that instrument represents legally from an investment perspective were not really solved.”

SDX’s blockchain-based securities depository is built on R3’s Corda distributed ledger technology. Investors get access through the dematerialized securities legal construct in Switzerland, via their broker and custodian, Newns said.

“It means effectively, they turn up in your bank account in the same way that a normal security does,” he said. “It doesn’t require that you as an investor do anything special to access these investment instruments.”

The announcement also marks Citi becoming a custodian on SDX, a move that reflects the bank’s strategy to provide clients with access to new digital asset markets globally including to private market assets, said Nadine Teychenne, Citi’s global head of digital assets, investor services and issuer services.

“This is part of a joined-up project across multiple businesses at Citi,” Teychenne said in an interview.

Digital asset banking group Sygnum and Singapore-based financial institution SBI Digital Markets will help with access to the pre-IPO equities that Citi will bring onto the SDX platform, according to a press release.

Read more: Citigroup Unveils Token Services for Institutional Clients