Led by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, Strategy (MSTR) added modestly to its bitcoin holdings last week.

The company purchased 1,895 BTC for $180.3 million, or an average price of $95,167 each, according to a Monday morning SEC filing.

The buys were funded via sales $128.5 million of common stock and $51.8 million of STRK preferred stock. The common stock sale notably used up the remainder of MSTR’s 2024 $21 billion at-the-market offering. MSTR last week introduced a new $21 billion ATM offering.

Strategy now holds 555,450 bitcoin purchased for $38.08 billion, or an average price of $68,550 each. At bitcoin’s current price around $94,000, the holdings are worth north of $52 billion.

MSTR is lower by 2.7% in premarket action.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is calling for a major simplification of the protocol, aiming to reduce its complexity to a level closer to Bitcoin’s while preserving its unique strengths in programmability and scalability.

In a blog post published Saturday, Buterin argued that Ethereum’s growing technical sprawl — from its consensus mechanisms to its virtual machine — has made it harder to maintain, audit, and onboard new developers.

He proposed a multi-year strategy to shrink Ethereum’s “consensus-critical” codebase and reduce the risk that the protocol becomes too technocratic and fragile.

“Even a smart high school student is capable of fully wrapping their head around and understanding the Bitcoin protocol,” Buterin wrote. “A programmer can write a client as a hobby project.”

High complexity

Ethereum’s base layer has become increasingly complex due to feature additions, new consensus designs, and legacy code requirements. While this has enabled powerful use cases like smart contracts and zero-knowledge proofs, it has also increased the risk of bugs, made protocol upgrades harder, and raised the barrier for new developers.

In contrast, bitcoin’s core protocol remains relatively unchanged and minimal: blocks, transactions, proof-of-work, and coin outputs.

Area of simplification proposed by Buterin includes an overhaul of Ethereum’s current consensus layer (the “beacon chain”), which involves complex mechanics like epochs, slot shuffling, and sync committees.

Another is patching the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) incrementally, but eventually replacing it entirely with a simpler virtual machine like RISC-V. This lightweight, open standard could bring performance boosts for zero-knowledge provers and drastically reduce code complexity.

However, one of the main challenges is preserving backwards compatibility with existing Ethereum applications.

Buterin outlined a phased approach where the current EVM and the new VM could run side-by-side, and legacy functionality could be moved into “non-consensus” layers.

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The outlook for bitcoin (BTC) looks bullish even after the largest cryptocurrency pulled back to $95,000 from Friday’s highs above $98,000 and the total crypto market capitalization dropped under $3 trillion

Among the signals, U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs are rapidly absorbing supply. Last week, the 11 ETFs registered a cumulative net inflow of $1.8 billion, equating to over 18,500 BTC, six times more than the 3,150 BTC mined, according to data sources Farside Investors and HODL15Capital. (See Chart of the Day)

On-chain activity has also picked up, suggesting a bullish outlook. According to data source IntoTheBlock, the number of active BTC addresses topped 800,000 on Sunday, «While it is still far from its highs, the rebound signals a clear pickup in on-chain engagement; often a sign of renewed market demand,» the firm said on X.

As for DeFi, the number of on-chain transactions involving wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) continues to rise, having doubled since January, indicating investor interest in bitcoin-backed decentralized finance.

Still, long-term holders may step up their selling as the price nears $100,000, potentially slowing rate of increase, analysis from Glassnode shows.

In ether’s (ETH) case, data from CryptoQuant show that the number of ETH held by the so-called accumulation addresses increased by 22% to 19.04 million ETH in two months. Ethereum is set to implement the Pectra upgrade on Wednesday to boost scalability, usability and validator efficiency, doubling the blob data capacity per block and lowering the costs for layer-2 protocols.

On the macro front, the Federal Reserve interest-rate decision is due this Wednesday. According to ING, the near-term inflation concerns, highlighted by survey data, limit the Fed’s ability to ease and the central bank is likely to push back against the calls for rate cuts. The bank, however, said that the recent softening of the GDP suggests scope for easing in the second half.

«Volatility is coming,» PowerTrade said, pointing to the Fed decision, U.S. ISM services PMI and the Bank of England rate decision as catalysts this week. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
  • May 5, 11 a.m.: The Crescendo network upgrade goes live on the Kaspa (KAS) mainnet. This upgrade boosts the network’s performance by increasing the block production rate to 10 blocks per second from 1 block per second.
  • May 6: 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 5, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases (Final) U.S. April purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data.
    • Composite PMI Est. 51.2 vs. Prev. 53.5
    • Services PMI Est. 51.4 vs. Prev. 54.4
  • May 5, 10 a.m.: Institute for Supply Management (ISM) releases U.S. April economic activity data.
    • Services PMI Est. 50.6 vs. Prev. 50.8
  • 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 7, 7 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%
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • May 6: Cipher Mining (CIFR), pre-market, $-0.07
  • May 8: CleanSpark (CLSK), post-market, $-0.01
  • May 8: Coinbase Global (COIN), post-market, $2.08
  • May 8: Hut 8 (HUT), pre-market
  • May 8: MARA Holdings (MARA), post-market
  • 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 5, 4 p.m.: Livepeer (LPT) to host a Treasury Talk session on Discord.
  • 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, 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 0.56% of its circulating supply worth $13.59 million.
  • May 9: Movement (MOVA) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $9.85 million.
  • May 11: Solayer (LAYER) to unlock 12.87% of its circulating supply worth $88.46 million.
  • May 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.82% of its circulating supply worth $58.36 million.
  • May 13: WhiteBIT Coin (WBT) to unlock 27.41% of its circulating supply worth $1.13 billion.
  • May 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 4.09% of its circulating supply worth $17.02 million.
• Token Launches
  • May 5: Sonic (S) to be listed on Kraken.
  • May 7: Obol (OBOL) to be listed on Binance, Bitget, Bybit, Gate.io, MEXC, and others.

Conferences

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

• May 6-7: Financial Times Digital Assets Summit (London)
• May 6-8: 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

• Memecoin markets are not attracting celebrity hype anymore.
• Prices of the GORK token, which references a parody AI chatbot that itself mimics XAI’s Grok chatbot, failed to jump higher over the weekend even as technocrat Elon Musk widely referenced the Gork X account.
  

  — gorklon rust (@elonmusk) May 3, 2025

• Musk even changed his X picture to the one used by Gork. He later added pit viper sunglasses — a reference to Mog Coin — after a MOG holder asked Musk to «put those» on.
• GORK, which was issued last week, zoomed to an $80 million market capitalization in four days, but did not rise after Musk’s references, a possible sign of fatigue among memecoin speculators. Such an endorsement last year would probably have led to a massive spike in prices.
• That muted reaction highlights a broader shift in memecoin dynamics: Celebrity engagement no longer guarantees price momentum. In 2023 and early 2024, even a single tweet or like from high-profile figures could trigger double- or triple-digit percentage gains in minutes.
• But the market has since matured, or, arguably, burned out. Now, traders seem more focused on liquidity depth, tokenomics and narrative stickiness than quick-hit endorsements.
• GORK’s stalled reaction, despite Musk’s implicit nod, suggests that attention alone isn’t enough — memecoins need sustained community traction or utility memes to drive value.
• It also hints that retail appetite may be cooling, especially as memecoins become more saturated and short-term rotations grow more competitive.

Derivatives Positioning

• Monero’s (XMR) perpetual futures market looks overheated, with annualized funding rates nearing the 100% mark. Extreme bullish positioning often translates into sudden price pull backs.
• BCH and SUI markets face the opposite situation with bias for shorts driving funding rates to minus 20% or lower. This could potentially lead to a short squeeze and a big move higher.
• BTC futures open interest on the CME rose to $14.01 billion on Friday, the highest since Feb. 21. ETH open interest remains flat near recent lows under $1.5 billion.
• On Deribit, BTC calls trade at a premium to puts across multiple time frames, risk reversals show. In ETH’s case, bullishness is seen only after the end-May expiry.

Market Movements

• BTC is down 1.27% from 4 p.m. ET Sunday at $94,447.49 (24hrs: -1.07%)
• ETH is down 0.77% at $1,819.25 (24hrs: -0.39%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 0.70% at 2,721.32 (24hrs: unchanged)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 3 bps at 2.90%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0007% (0.7512% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is down 0.34% at 99.69
• Gold is up 2.29% at $3,316.45/oz
• Silver is up 1.4% at $32.43/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed +1.04% at 36,830.69
• Hang Seng closed +1.74% at 22,504.68
• FTSE closed on Friday +1.17% at 8,596.35
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.35% at 5,266.20
• DJIA closed on Friday +1.39% at 41,317.43
• S&P 500 closed +1.47% at 5,686.67
• Nasdaq closed +1.51% at 17,977.73
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.95% at 25,031.51
• S&P 40 Latin America closed -2.94% at 2,227.14
• U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 8 bps at 4.32%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.75% at 5,666.00
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.90% at 20,013.75
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.61% at 41,174.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 64.65 (-0.21%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01928 (+0.52%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 886 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $50.30
• Total Fees: 3.40 BTC / $321,456
• CME Futures Open Interest: 145,920 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 28.9 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 8.18%

Technical Analysis

• TON traded at the support level offered by the trendline connecting lows registered in March and April.
• Potential violation of trendline would signal an end of the corrective bounce from first-quarter lows, exposing the yearly low of $2.43.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $394.37 (+3.35%), down 2.38% at $384.98 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $204.93 (+1.8%), down 1.81% at $201.22
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at $26.84 (+11.6%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $14.48 (+3.06%), down 2.56% at $14.11
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $8.39 (+7.98%), down 2.15% at $8.21
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.74 (+2.22%), down 1.49% at $8.61
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.81 (+1.61%), down 2.50% at $8.59
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $14.97 (+2.6%)
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $36.16 (+8.49%)
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $44.79 (+10.92%), up 2.66% at $45.98

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $674.9 million
• Cumulative net flows: $40.20 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.16 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: $20.1 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.52 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.46 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows the U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs snapped up over 18,000 BTC last week, significantly outpacing the new supply from miners.

While You Were Sleeping

• President Donald Trump Denies He’s Profiting From TRUMP Token: (NBC): In an interview with «Meet the Press» moderator Kristen Welker, Trump said he hasn’t checked his crypto token’s value.
• Maldives Could Soon Become a Crypto Hub Thanks to Dubai Family Office’s $9B Commitment (CoinDesk): A Dubai-based family office tied to Qatari royal Sheikh Nayef plans to invest up to $8.8 billion in a Maldives financial hub over five years, with $4 billion already committed.
• Kyrgyzstan’s Gold-Backed Dollar Pegged Stablecoin USDKG to Debut in Q3 (CoinDesk): The stablecoin will be backed by $500 million in gold from the Kyrgyz Ministry of Finance, with plans to expand reserves to $2 billion.
• Why the U.S. Senate Crypto Bill Is in Turmoil (Politico): Nine Democrat senators pulled support Saturday for a revised stablecoin bill, citing diluted anti-money laundering rules, systemic risk concerns and Trump family ties to a $2 billion crypto deal.
• Chinese Exporters ‘Wash’ Products in Third Countries to Avoid Donald Trump’s Tariffs (Financial Times): Authorities in Asia are investigating intermediaries helping Chinese firms reroute goods through nearby countries, where shipments are repackaged and relabeled to obtain new origin certificates.
• OPEC+ Supply Hike Forces Wall Street to Redo Sums, Yet Again (Bloomberg): Saudi Arabia appears willing to accept weaker oil prices to rein in overproducing allies, undercut U.S. shale rivals and demonstrate cooperation with Washington amid global inflation concerns.

In the Ether