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ETH Surges 20%, Biggest Gain Since 2021 as Pectra Upgrade Helps Restore ‘Confidence’

Ethereum’s ether ETH led the market in early Asia hours as traders reacted favorably to the protocol’s recent Pectra upgrade, sending the token up nearly 20%, the biggest gain since 2021, and trading above $2100 according to market data from CoinDesk.
The move comes amid a broader crypto market rally that coincided with bitcoin BTC soaring past $100,000 for the first time in three months.
Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade, its most substantial overhaul since the 2022 Merge, represents a sweeping protocol hard fork, as CoinDesk previously reported.
The upgrade consolidates validator operations by raising the staking limit from 32 to 2,048 ETH (via EIP-7251), advances wallet usability through account abstraction mechanisms allowing temporary smart contract functionality (via EIP-7702), and implements nine other Ethereum Improvement Proposals.
«ETH is finally catching up after lagging behind BBTC for most of the year. While BTC is nearing its all-time high, ETH is still down nearly 50% from its 2024 peak,» Ming Jung from Presto Research wrote to CoinDesk in a note.
The Pectra upgrade, Jung said, «helped restore some confidence, and with ETHBTC down nearly 40% year-to-date at 0.02, it’s not surprising to see buyers stepping in at these levels.»
In a recent research report, CryptoQuant wrote that weak network activity on the Ethereum blockchain, which hasn’t grown since 2021, suggests that a recovery to prior highs isn’t imminent despite the rally.
In a market update, Flowdesk wrote that they see the crypto market broadly regaining momentum, with bitcoin passing $100K and a return to risk appetite, with investors shifting from caution to chasing higher-yield altcoins and structured products.
«We’re seeing a recycling of sell flow into higher-momentum plays, a shift from the caution that’s defined the last two months. While still below Q4 2024 levels, beta appetite is clearly building,» Flowdesk wrote.
March Zheng, General Partner of Bizantine Capital, told CoinDesk in a message that traders should remember that Ethereum has typically been the main on-chain altcoin indicator for risk-on, and its sizable upticks generally lead to broader altcoin rallies.
Elsewhere in crypto, bitcoin (BTC) is trading above $102.5K as ETF inflow continues to be positive. In a recent note, Standard Chartered said that its second quarter target of $120,000 might be «too conservative. Other market observers consider current upside targets to be «too low.»
Meanwhile, the CoinDesk 20, a measure of the performance of the largest digital assets, is up over 10%.
Read more: Breakout Alert: Ether, Bitcoin Cash-Bitcoin Ratio Break Downtrends as DOGE, SHIB Bottom Out
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Gemini Secures MiFID II License From Malta to Offer Derivatives in EEA

Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, said it secured a MiFID II license from Malta allowing it to offer derivative products across the European Economic Area.
The license from Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) will enable the company to offer perpetual futures and other derivatives across the European Union’s 27 nations plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, once the required conditions are met, Gemini said Friday.
«There are technical and operational steps to ensure we launch these products in a compliant and secure manner, which we hope to do so in the coming months,» a Gemini spokesperson said.
Exchanges have been moving into derivatives as the next frontier for revenue growth. One of the largest crypto exchanges, Coinbase (COIN), on Thursday said it agreed to pay $2.9 billion to buy bitcoin BTC and ether ETH options platform Deribit. The purchase gives it an immediate «dominant foothold» in the derivatives space, a note from Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer said at the time.
In Europe, Gemini is following in the footsteps of rival Kraken, which secured a MiFID license in February by buying a Cyprus-based investment firm.
«This is a hugely exciting development in our 2025 European expansion, as it puts Gemini one step closer to offering our derivative products to both retail and institutional users in the EU and the EEA,» the company said.
Read more: In $2.9B Deal, Coinbase Agrees to Buy Deribit to Expand in U.S. Options Market
UPDATE (May 9, 15:26 UTC): Adds Gemini comment in third paragraph.
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Bettors Lose Millions Predicting the New Pope as Polymarket Edge Fizzles Out

Bettors on crypto prediction platform Polymarket have, in recent months, developed an enviable reputation for beating the bookies.
So it came as a surprise on Thursday when they got the outcome of the papal conclave very wrong indeed.
Winner Robert Francis Prevost wasn’t among the favorites, with bettors only giving the US-born cardinal around a 1% chance of succeeding Pope Francis ahead of the result.
Polymarket bettors, like traditional betting markets, gave Cardinal Pietro Parolin the highest odds, at 28%.
With over $28 million of bets placed on candidates other than Prevost, the result was a total wipeout for many bettors.
The event throws into question the perceived heightened accuracy of betting markets like Poymarket over conventional polls.
Polymarket lets users bet on the outcomes of everything from soccer fixtures to political elections. Unlike traditional betting platforms, where the house sets the odds based on its best diligence, Polymarket odds are a real-time reflection of the bets placed by users.
Simply put, the more demand there is for a certain outcome, the higher the odds and the prices paid for the bets are.
In November, Polymarket gained mainstream notoriety when bettors gave Republican candidate Donald Trump significantly higher odds than most other sources to win the US presidency.
“Polymarket prices seem to be wrapping up the views of smart money pretty well,” Koleman Stumpf, an economics professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, told CoinDesk at the time, noting that Polymarket bettors appeared to have a slight edge in predicting the election outcome.
A historical data analysis conducted by New York City-based data scientist Alex McCullough showed Polymarket previously predicted the outcome of world events one month out with 90% accuracy.
What went wrong?
The reason Polymarket bettors got the papal conclave result so wrong is that the event is extremely hard to predict, Domer, one of Polymarket’s top pseudonymous bettors, said on X.
“It’s like walking into a store that doesn’t communicate with the outside world,” he said. “Not even the participants themselves would probably know how to handicap it.”
Since it’s hard for bettors to find an edge with such an esoteric bet, many likely defaulted to following the opinions of traditional betting markets and the media, resulting in the close alignment of odds between Polymarket and other betting markets like Betfair.
The rarity of papal conclaves may also have made things difficult.
Pope Francis, the previous pope, was appointed in 2013, years before blockchain-based betting platforms like Polymarket existed. It’s also possible that many Polymarket bettors likely had no prior experience betting on the event.
Political elections, where Polymarket odds have lined up closer to results, are much more frequent and widely understood.
According to Domer, the real edge in betting on the papal conclave is not choosing the correct candidate but rather betting against those with too-high odds.
He chalked up the high odds of heavy favorites Parolin, and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who Polymarket bettors gave a 20% chance of winning, to their popularity with the public and the media.
«The pricing for Parolin and Tagle were way too high, and high for not very good reasons,” he said.
Read more: Polymarket is 90% Accurate in Predicting World Events: Research
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CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: Uniswap (UNI) Surges 13.5% as Index Trades Higher

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.
The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3138.72, up 6.0% (+178.07) since 4 p.m. ET on Thursday.
Nineteen of assets are trading higher.
Leaders: UNI (+13.5%) and NEAR (+11.7%).
Laggards: BCH (-0.6%) and POL (+1.1%).
The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.
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