Uncategorized
Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Stability Above $100K Is Cementing New Psychological Floor
By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
The big story in financial markets is not just global bond-market jitters, it’s also bitcoin’s (BTC) stability above $100,000.
BTC has held above that level for 11 straight days after jumping sharply from around $75,000 in early April. Some might interpret that as a sign of uptrend exhaustion, but it could also be the market normalizing the six-figure mark.
Think of it like this: When BTC first hit $100,000, many people likely thought, «This is crazy. It’s too expensive» and perhaps refrained from buying or even took profits on their holdings. But the longer it stays there, the more the price feels normal and becomes anchored in people’s minds. In other words, don’t be surprised if buying activity picks up across the spectrum of products tied to BTC.
Confidence got a boost on Monday after Strategy, the largest publicly traded BTC holding firm, disclosed that it has recently bought 7,630 BTC at an average price of over $103,000.
«This aggressive buying campaign is aimed at solidifying $100K+ levels as the new floor for Bitcoin. ETF inflows echoed that strength,» Valentin Fournier, lead research analyst at BRN, told CoinDesk in an email.
According to Fournier, a price rise in ether (ETH) «seems driven more by organic demand than institutional flows — a potential sign of rising retail activity and decoupling performance between bitcoin and altcoins.»
In other key developments, the market cap for Ethena Labs’ synthetic stablecoin, USDe, has surged 35% to $5 billion in just over seven days, CoinDesk data show. The token maintains a soft peg with the U.S. dollar through an automated delta-hedging strategy that shorts bitcoin and ether perpetual futures to offset changes in the prices.
The jump had some market observers drawing parallels with the sharp rise in the market cap weeks before BTC and the wider market went bonkers in November. Back then, Ethena’s ENA token chalked out a five-fold rally to $1.25. Let’s see if history repeats itself.
The U.S. Senate on Monday voted in favor of the GENUIS Act, advancing the stablecoin bill to the final stage. «The bill … could significantly boost market confidence and provide long-awaited clarity for issuers and investors alike, but doesn’t fully address offshore stablecoin issuers like Tether, which continue to play an outsized role in global liquidity,» Vugar Usi Zade, COO at Bitget, said in an email. «For U.S.-based issuers, compliance will now come with steeper costs, likely accelerating consolidation across the market and favoring well-resourced players who can meet the new thresholds.»
In traditional markets, yields on longer-duration bonds continued to rise across the advanced world, signaling growing concerns about the fiscal debt sustainability. The 30-year Japanese government bond yield hit a record high above 3%. Stay alert!
What to Watch
- Crypto
- May 22: Bitcoin Pizza Day.
- May 22: Top 220 TRUMP token holders will attend a gala dinner hosted by President Trump at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington.
- May 30: The second round of FTX repayments starts.
- Macro
- Day 1 of 3: Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem will co-host the three-day meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors in Banff, Alberta.
- May 20, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases April consumer price inflation data.
- Core Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 0.1%
- Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.2%
- Inflation Rate MoM Est. -0.2% vs. Prev. 0.3%
- Inflation Rate YoY Est. 1.6% vs. Prev. 2.3%
- May 21, 2 a.m.: The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics releases April consumer price inflation data.
- Core Inflation Rate MoM Est. 1.2% vs. Prev. 0.5%
- Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.6% vs. Prev. 3.4%
- Inflation Rate MoM Est. 1.1% vs. Prev. 0.3%
- Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.3% vs. Prev. 2.6%
- May 21, 8 a.m.: Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases retail sales data.
- Retail Sales MoM Est. 0.1% vs. Prev. 0.2%
- Retail Sales YoY Est. 2.2% vs. Prev. -1.1%
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- May 20: Canaan (CAN), pre-market
- May 28: NVIDIA (NVDA), post-market, $0.88
Token Events
- Governance votes & calls
- Arbitrum DAO is voting on launching “The Watchdog,” a 400,000-ARB bounty program that would reward community sleuths for uncovering misuse of the hundreds of millions in grants, incentives and service budgets the DAO has deployed. Voting ends May 23.
- Arbitrum DAO is voting on a constitutional AIP to upgrade Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova to ArbOS 40 “Callisto”, bringing them in line with Ethereum’s May 7 Pectra upgrade. The proposal schedules activation for June 17. Voting ends on May 29.
- May 20, 12 p.m.: Lido to hist its 28th node operator community call.
- May 21: Maple Finance has teased at an upcoming announcement on the future of asset management.
- May 21, 6 p.m.: Theta Network to host an Ask Me Anything session in a livestream
- May 22: Official Trump to announce its “next Era” at the day of the dinner for its largest holders.
- Unlocks
- May 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.89% of its circulating supply worth $22.28 million.
- June 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 1.32% of its circulating supply worth $169.82 million.
- June 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.34% of its circulating supply worth $11.24 million.
- June 12: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.7% of its circulating supply worth $15.16 million.
- June 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.79% of its circulating supply worth $58.02 million.
- Token Launches
- May 20: Deadline for users to claim their Xterio (XTER) airdrop on Binance Alpha.
- June 1: Staking rewards for staking ERC-20 OM on MANTRA Finance end.
- June 16: Advised deadline to unstake stMATIC as part of Lido on Polygon’s sunsetting process ends.
Conferences
- Day 2 of 7: Dutch Blockchain Week (Amsterdam)
- Day 1 of 3: Avalanche Summit London
- Day 1 of 3: Seamless Middle East Fintech 2025 (Dubai)
- May 21-22: Crypto Expo Dubai
- May 21-22: Cryptoverse Conference (Warsaw)
- May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025 (Las Vegas)
- May 27-30: Web Summit Vancouver
- May 29: Stablecon (New York)
- May 29-30: Litecoin Summit 2025 (Las Vegas)
- May 29-June 1: Balkans Crypto 2025 (Tirana, Albania)
- June 2-7: SXSW London
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
- TokenFi is facilitating what it calls the first-ever tokenization of a consumer AI robot, the Floki Minibot M1, giving the platform a unique real-world use and a strong narrative in the increasingly crowded market for RWA applications.
- The Floki Minibot M1 presale and tokenization go live May 23, the same day TokenFi debuts its RWA tokenization module, aligning a high-profile product drop with core platform functionality — a powerful driver for platform visibility and utility for TokenFi’s TOKEN.
- TokenFi’s association with Rice Robotics, which works with companies like Nvidia, Softbank and 7-Eleven Japan, lends legitimacy to the project’s RWA ambitions and strengthens long-term investor confidence in TOKEN, which sits at a $60 million market capitalization as of Tuesday.
- TokenFi will benefit from an upcoming RICE token airdrop to Floki and TokenFi holders, offering direct value accrual and potentially incentivizing new buyers and stakers of TOKEN in anticipation of eligibility.
- The TokenFi team said Monday it would be the title sponsor of the West Indies cricket team’s tour of Ireland 2025, bringing its brand to viewers globally through broadcast partners like TNT Sports, Supersport and Fancode, giving the token a visibility boost among retail audiences.
Derivatives Positioning
- Bitcoin CME futures open interest has risen to the highest in three months in a sign of renewed uptick in institutional activity. ETH’s open interest has jumped to its highest since March.
- Still, positioning in both markets remains light compared with December.
- On offshore exchanges, perpetual funding rates for major coins remain below an annualized 10%. It’s a sign that while traders are using leverage to take bullish bets, the market is far from being frothy.
- On Deribit, BTC and ETH calls continue to trade pricier than puts across timeframes, indicating a bullish bias.
- Block flows on Paradigm have been mixed, with calendar spreads both bought and sold.
Market Movements
- BTC is down 0.51% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $105,181.50 (24hrs: +2.12%)
- ETH is unchanged at $2,519.42 (24hrs: +4.46%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 0.42% at 3,171.22 (24hrs: +2.84%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 13 bps at 3.04%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.0074% (8.1227% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is down 0.2% at 100.22
- Gold is up 0.13% at $3,233.79/oz
- Silver is up 0.31% at $32.45/oz
- Nikkei 225 closed unchanged at 37,529.49
- Hang Seng closed +1.49% at 23,681.48
- FTSE is up 0.5% at 8,742.80
- Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.25% at 5,440.56
- DJIA closed on Monday +0.32% at 42,792.07
- S&P 500 closed unchanged at 5,963.60
- Nasdaq closed unchanged at 19,215.46
- S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.29% at 25,971.93
- S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.56% at 2,638.56
- U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 1 bp at 4.46%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.29% at 5,965.25
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.4% at 21,440.25
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 42,870.00
Bitcoin Stats
- BTC Dominance: 63.86 (-0.04%)
- Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02401 (0.29%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 853 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $54.3
- Total Fees: 6.87 BTC / $717,919
- CME Futures Open Interest: 157,875 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 32.4 oz
- BTC vs gold market cap: 9.17%
Technical Analysis
- The chart shows the XMR/BTC ratio has broken above the swing high resistance from September 2024, confirming a bullish trend reversal higher.
- The pattern points to continued monero (XMR) outperformance relative to bitcoin.
Crypto Equities
- Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $413.42 (+3.41%), up 0.4% at $415.06 in pre-market
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $263.99 (-0.93%), up 1.11% at $266.93
- Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$31.49 (+3.01%)
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.32 (+0.68%), up 0.49% at $16.40
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $8.97 (-1.97%), up 0.88% at $9.04
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $10.85 (+0.65%), up 0.55% at $10.91
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.84 (+0.61%), up 0.51% at $9.89
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $18.13 (+0.72%)
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $43.27 (+5.85%), up 4% at $45
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $33.91 (-4.21%), up 3.21% at $35
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
- Daily net flow: $667.4 million
- Cumulative net flows: $42.41 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~ 1.19 million
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flow: $13.7 million
- Cumulative net flows: $2.54 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~ 3.47 million
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
- The annualized premium or basis in ETH futures trading on the CME is close to topping the 10% mark for the first time since early February.
- It shows traders are taking leveraged bullish bets on ETH.
- The widening basis could entice cash and carry arbitrage traders, leading to accelerated inflows into the U.S.-listed spot ether ETFs.
While You Were Sleeping
- Bitcoin ETF Inflows Surge as Basis Trade Nears 9%, Signaling Renewed Demand (CoinDesk): U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs drew $667.4 million in net inflows on May 19, the most since May 2, as rising basis trade yield and bitcoin’s strength above $100,000 revived institutional interest.
- Bitcoin and Gold in Sweet Spot as Bond Market ‘Smackdown’ Exposes the U.S. Fiscal Kayfabe: Godbole (CoinDesk): Bond markets are challenging the illusion of U.S. fiscal stability and safe haven status. BTC and gold stand to gain.
- KuCoin Enhances Point-of-Sale Mobile Payments With AEON (CoinDesk): KuCoin introduced a crypto payment service in select Asian markets through a tie-up with AEON.
- Will Trump’s Tariff Climbdown Save the US From Recession? (Financial Times): Trump’s tariff rollback eased recession fears, but lingering uncertainty, elevated trade barriers and rising prices continue to weigh on confidence, spending and business investment across the U.S. economy.
- U.S. Treasury Yields Slip as Fed Signals Just One Rate Cut in 2025 (CNBC): Yields edged down early Tuesday after a Monday spike, as Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic flagged tariff-driven inflation risks and analysts said the U.S. downgrade won’t shake Treasury markets.
- Divided GOP Closes In on Tense House Vote (The Wall Street Journal): GOP infighting over Medicaid rules, tax breaks and climate subsidies is stalling Trump’s push to extend 2017 cuts, which would add nearly $3 trillion to projected deficits over the next decade.
In the Ether
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued crypto company Unicoin and three executives on Tuesday night on fraud charges, saying the company raised over $100 million for tokens that were not actually backed by the real estate its executives claimed.
The SEC sued Unicoin, CEO Alexander Konanykhin, former board chair Maria Moschini, senior vice president and general counsel Richard Devlin and former chief investment officer and investor relations officer Alejandro Dominguez on securities law violations,
Among its allegations, the SEC said Unicoin never actually owned the real estate properties it told investors it had acquired, and that those properties’ values were inflated.
«For example, between September 2023 and January 2024, the Promoting Defendants announced acquisitions of properties in Argentina, Thailand, Antigua, and the Bahamas, purportedly with appraised values totaling more than of $1.4 billion; in fact, the majority of those transactions never closed and the actual combined value of the four properties was no more than $300 million,» the complaint said.
The defendants also «overstated the Company’s sales» of its rights certificates, suggesting in social media posts and to investors that it had raised far more funds than it actually had, the SEC alleged. While Unicoin claimed it had made $3 billion in sales by June 2024, it actually never sold more than $110 million in its rights certificates, according to the complaint.
Moreover, Unicoin advertised its rights certificates, including by promising outsized returns of up to 9 million percent, the SEC alleged, pointing to marketing efforts on taxi cabs, ferries, «office building elevator screens,» digital billboards, coasters, television programs, news websites and public wi-fi kiosks.
«Additional examples of the Promoting Defendants’ statements include: (a) social media and website posts that touted potential returns of 9,000,000% based on bitcoin’s 9,000,000% growth in the past 10 years and told investors to ‘take advantage of the early days of Unicoin and get them today,’ highlighting that ‘Bitcoin experienced a tremendous rise in value, transforming early adopters into millionaires, and even billionaires,'» the filing said.
Read more: Unicoin CEO: Why Are We Still Under the SEC’s Gun?
Unicoin received a Wells notice from the SEC last December, informing the company that the regulator — then under the leadership of former Chair Gary Gensler — intended to file securities fraud charges. Last month, Konanykhin sent a letter to Unicoin’s shareholders, informing them that the company had rebuffed the SEC’s attempt to settle the charges, rejecting what he described as an “ultimatum” to attend a settlement negotiation meeting by April 18.
“We declined to show up,” Konanykhin told CoinDesk in an April interview, adding that the SEC had made certain pre-meeting demands he deemed “unacceptable” and claiming that the SEC’s probe had caused “multi-billion-dollar damages” to the company.
Read more: Unicoin CEO Reject’s SEC’s Attempt to Settle Enforcement Probe
Neither Konanykhin nor a spokesperson for Unicoin responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment by press time. In a press release shared earlier this year in response to a Wall Street Journal article, a spokesperson said, «Unicoin, the only fully U.S.-registered, U.S.-regulated, U.S.-audited, and U.S.-publicly reporting cryptocurrency company, has consistently complied with all regulations.»
According to court documents, the SEC is seeking disgorgement and civil penalties.
Apex Group, a financial services provider with more than $3 trillion in assets under administration, said on Tuesday it had acquired a majority stake in Tokeny, a Luxembourg-based firm that helps institutions tokenize real-world assets (RWA) on public blockchains.
According to the deal, Apex expects to take full ownership of Tokeny over the next three years, after first investing in the company in late 2023, Apex said in a press release. The companies did not disclose the terms of the acquisition in the press release, and a spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
The acquisition comes as more traditional financial firms are looking at tokenization as the next frontier in capital markets, using blockchain technology for moving assets like bonds, funds and other securities.
For institutional investors, the process promises simpler cross-border transactions, faster settlement and new liquidity channels. Tokenized assets could be a $18 trillion market by 2033, a report from BCG and Ripple last month projected.
«Tokenization is a foundational shift in how assets will be managed, distributed, and accessed,» Apex founder and CEO Peter Hughes said in a statement. «Our strengthened partnership with Tokeny is key to delivering on our vision to be the infrastructure provider in the digital era of finance.»
Tokeny’s infrastructure has already been used to tokenize over $32 billion in assets, supporting the full life cycle of tokenized securities — from issuance to transfer to compliance — and is best known for establishing ERC-3643, a widely used standard for compliant digital asset transfers, the press release said.
Apex said Tokeny’s team and tools will be brought in-house, and it aims to offer clients a turnkey infrastructure for blockchain-based finance, layering smart contracts and decentralized protocols on top of its traditional services.
Read more: Ripple, BCG Project $18.9T Tokenized Asset Market by 2033
«Sell in May and go away,» goes the Wall Street adage for equity markets every summer. For bitcoin BTC, though, some analysts say this season could mark a break from tradition.
«As we get into the European summer months, the sense is it’s more likely a case of ‘buy in May and go away’ than any significant headwinds or selling pressure,» said Paul Howard, director at crypto trading firm Wincent in a market note.
A confluence of positive regulatory developments around digital assets in the U.S. and increasing institutional buying both via exchange-traded funds and spot allocation is poised to push BTC higher in the next months, Howard said.
U.S.-traded spot bitcoin ETFs, for example, pulled in $667 million in net inflows on Monday with BTC pausing just below its January record, underscoring persistent demand, he noted. The vehicles attracted $3.3 billion in May, per SoSoValue. On top of that, there’s been a flurry of companies joining Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR) adding bitcoin to their treasury, financed by debt and stock issuances.
«As we edge closer to a $4 trillion market cap for digital assets, we will see BTC cross all-time-highs in the coming weeks,» Howard said. The total crypto market cap currently stands at around $3.3 trillion, per TradingView data.
Historically, summer months have been slow for crypto assets, but macro and political forces are also converging in ways that could disrupt the typical seasonal lull, analysts at crypto analytics firm Kaiko pointed out.
The Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision in June will precede Donald Trump’s July 9 tariff deadline for trade partners, both of which could trigger market-wide volatility, the report said.
Bitcoin options markets are already flashing signs of investor anticipation, Kaiko analysts said. Strike prices at $110,000 and $120,000 for the June 27 expiry have drawn heavy volume, suggesting bets on BTC making a record-breaking move, the report noted.
Bitcoin briefly topped $107,000 during the Tuesday session, gaining 1.2% over the past 24 hours and trading just 2% below its January record high.
SEC Charges Unicoin, Top Executives With $100M ‘Massive Securities Fraud’
Apex Group Buys Majority Stake in Tokenization Specialist Tokeny as RWA Trend Soars
Sell in May? Bitcoin Tops $107K, Could Hit Record Highs This Summer Say Analysts
-
Fashion7 месяцев agoThese \’90s fashion trends are making a comeback in 2017
-
Entertainment7 месяцев ago
The final 6 \’Game of Thrones\’ episodes might feel like a full season
-
Fashion7 месяцев ago
According to Dior Couture, this taboo fashion accessory is back
-
Entertainment7 месяцев ago
The old and New Edition cast comes together to perform
-
Business7 месяцев ago
Uber and Lyft are finally available in all of New York State
-
Sports7 месяцев ago
Phillies\’ Aaron Altherr makes mind-boggling barehanded play
-
Entertainment7 месяцев ago
Disney\’s live-action Aladdin finally finds its stars
-
Sports7 месяцев ago
Steph Curry finally got the contract he deserves from the Warriors