This is a daily technical analysis by CoinDesk analyst and Chartered Market Technician Omkar Godbole.

Bitcoin’s BTC bull run has stalled, with emerging technical signals pointing to a possible price pullback.

The leading cryptocurrency by market value traded near $108,000 at press time, probing the bullish trendline, characterizing the sharp rise from $75K to record highs over $110K, TradingView data show.

There has been little bullish action in the past 24 hours despite reports that the Trump family media company plans to raise $3b billion to buy cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

A key momentum indicator called the 30-day rate of change (ROC), which measures the percentage increase or decrease in bitcoin’s price over the past month, has chalked out a «bearish divergence.»

The bearish pattern happens when an asset’s price rises, but momentum indicators like the 30-day rate of change (ROC) fail to confirm the same, hinting at potential weakness and price correction.

Although bitcoin remains within a bullish upward channel, the 30-day ROC is forming lower highs, signaling a bearish divergence and weakening momentum.

Additionally, the daily chart moving average convergence divergence (MACD) histogram, an indicator widely used to gauge trend strength and changes, has flipped negative, indicating a bearish shift in momentum.

All this means that BTC could dive out of the bullish ascending channel, potentially revisiting the major psychological resistance-turned-support at $100,000.

The broader outlook remains constructive, consistent with the recent golden cross of the 50- and 200-day simple moving averages (SMAs).

Good Morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the markets:

Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.

Uniswap’s UNI token surged from $6.00 to $6.65 over the past 24 hours, pushing the token up 5%, while the broader market gauge CoinDesk20 Index fell 1.8% in the last 24 hours. This momentum coincides with Uniswap recording its highest monthly transaction volume since February, processing over $73 billion in trades and generating more than $380 million in revenue this year, as institutional interest grows and a notable whale re-entered the market by acquiring nearly $4 million worth of UNI.

SCB10X’s New CEO Sees US-Asia Crypto Dealflow, AI Opportunities

Kaweewut Temphuwapat, the new CEO of SCB10X, the venture arm of Thailand’s SCB bank, sees significant opportunities emerging at the intersection of AI, crypto, and Web3. «We definitely [are] going more on AI and also crypto and AI plus crypto,» Temphuwapat told CoinDesk, highlighting these hybrid investments as firmly «under our radar.»

He predicts clearer crypto regulation in the U.S. will fuel increased deal flow into resilient Asian markets, noting SCB10X’s early success investing in Ripple: «We are an early investor in Ripple of 10 years ago… we’ve used that technology for the last five to six years in our SCB App.»

Temphuwapat praised Thailand’s proactive and innovative regulators, highlighting the country’s robust payments infrastructure. He expects Thai banks, including SCB, could soon directly hold crypto tokens on their balance sheets, initially through regulatory sandboxes: «The intention is there… they allow us to do [it] in a small scale.»

Trader James Wynn Shifts From Billion-Dollar Bitcoin Bets to Memecoins, Goes Long Pepe

Pseudonymous trader «James Wynn,» known for high-stakes crypto bets on decentralized platform Hyperliquid, has shifted focus from billion-dollar bitcoin positions to memecoins, recently placing a leveraged $1 million bet on Pepe (PEPE), CoinDesk reported earlier.

Previously, Wynn closed a massive $1.2 billion bitcoin long position at a $17.5 million loss, before pivoting to a $1 billion short position at 40x leverage, effectively wagering their entire $50 million wallet balance on bitcoin’s downside. That short briefly netted Wynn about $3 million in profit before closing, marking one of the largest trades ever executed fully on-chain.

Wynn announced stepping back from perpetual trading after securing a cumulative profit of $25 million, earned from an initial investment of just over $3 million. The trader’s latest high-leverage PEPE position has already gained $500,000 amid a nearly 6% rise in the memecoin’s value.

Strategy Buys Another 4,020 Bitcoin for $427M, Total Holdings Surpass 580K BTC

Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, purchased an additional 4,020 BTC between May 19 and May 25 for roughly $427 million, bringing its total holdings to 580,250 BTC, CoinDesk previously reported. The acquisition was funded through three separate at-the-market equity programs, including sales of common and preferred stock totaling approximately $427 million.

These latest bitcoin purchases were executed at an average price of $106,237 per coin, pushing Strategy’s total investment in bitcoin to over $40.6 billion, at an average cost basis of $69,979 per coin. The acquisitions reflect the company’s ongoing commitment to expanding its sizable bitcoin holdings through regular capital raises and share issuances.

Market Movements:

• BTC: Bitcoin holds steady near record levels around $109,000, consolidating gains despite tariff-induced volatility, as long-term investors continue accumulating amid macroeconomic uncertainty.
• ETH: Ethereum maintains resilience above $2,500 amid volatility and cautious whale behavior, supported by continued institutional inflows into spot ETH ETFs.
• Gold: Gold dips slightly on tariff delay but stays above $3,310 as deficit concerns fuel bullish outlook.
• Hang Seng: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng opened lower, trading above 23,304, led by tech losses, including Meituan’s 4.9% decline.
• Nikkei: Japan’s Nikkei 225 dipped 0.13% Tuesday morning as markets assessed Trump’s tariff delay.
• S&P 500: Closed for Memorial Day.

Elsewhere in Crypto…

• What It Was Like Inside the Trump Crypto Dinner (Decrypt)
• Solana eyes Alpenglow for next-gen consensus layer (Blockworks)
• Trump media group plans to raise $3bn to spend on cryptocurrencies (Financial Times)
• Pakistan Taps Surplus Power Capacity to Fuel Bitcoin Mining, AI Data Centers (CoinDesk)

Bitlayer, a Bitcoin Layer 2 built on the BitVM paradigm, has partnered with three of the world’s largest bitcoin BTC mining pools — Antpool, F2Pool, and SpiderPool — in a first-of-its-kind collaboration to accelerate the real-world adoption of BitVM, a breakthrough technology focused on enabling Bitcoin-native DeFi.

Bitcoin’s ecosystem has lagged behind other Layer 1s like Ethereum for years due to technical limitations — especially its lack of support for Turing-complete smart contracts. Bitlayer’s BitVM paradigm addresses this by offering Bitcoin-equivalent security and Turing completeness without altering Bitcoin’s core protocol or compromising its foundational design.

But turning that vision into reality requires the cooperation of miners — the entities that create new blocks and validate transactions in exchange for BTC. That’s precisely what this new partnership secures.

The three mining pools, representing over 36% of Bitcoin’s total computing power (hashrate), have agreed to support non-standard transactions (NSTs) — a critical piece of BitVM’s challenge-response mechanism, the firms said. Their support removes a key bottleneck to BitVM deployment and brings the system closer to widespread use.

NSTs are transactions that are valid under Bitcoin’s consensus rules but are not relayed by the default Bitcoin Core software, making them hard to get confirmed on-chain without miner cooperation.

Under this partnership, Antpool, F2Pool, and SpiderPool will serve as guardians of the BitVM Bridge, ensuring NSTs are reliably included in blocks and become part of Bitcoin’s immutable ledger.

The BitVM bridge is a special tool that facilitates secure and reliable movement of BTC into other blockchain ecosystems — such as rollups, cross-chain protocols, and smart contracts — without relying on centralized intermediaries. It opens the door for broader Bitcoin DeFi applications while preserving the network’s robust security guarantees.

“BitVM represents the most credible path to bring on-chain validation to Bitcoin while maintaining its core security. This partnership solves the critical last-mile challenge of getting Non-Standard Transactions included on-chain,” said Kevin He, co-founder of Bitlayer, in a press release shared with CoinDesk.

A win for miners

This isn’t just a milestone for Bitlayer — it’s a strategic win for miners as well, especially as they face dwindling income due to per-block BTC rewards being cut in half every four years.

Andy, CEO of Antpool, noted that Bitlayer’s BitVM can help drive new economic activity and fee-based income for miners.

«Built on BitVM, Bitlayer enables BTC to flow into DeFi and Layer 2 ecosystems. That means more use, more fees, and long-term sustainability for miners,» Andy said in the press release.

Leon Liang, chief strategy officer at F2Pool, emphasized the importance of innovation, saying, «we want to support high-quality projects like Bitlayer that expand what Bitcoin can do.”

SpiderPool CTO Kenway spoke to the broader potential of Bitcoin as a financial services platform, stating, «This partnership lets us unlock new possibilities for Bitcoin DeFi. It enhances Bitcoin’s utility while reinforcing miners’ central role in the ecosystem.”

Demand for bitcoin DeFi is growing rapidly

Bitlayer’s collaboration with mining giants follows recent integrations with major Layer 1 ecosystems like Sui, Base, Arbitrum, and Starknet. Together, these partnerships reflect a growing demand for secure, Bitcoin-native DeFi infrastructure that scales.

Bitlayer is actively onboarding more validators and early adopters to help secure and expand the BitVM Bridge — and to build what could become the cornerstone of Bitcoin’s next evolution.