Yellow Korea

U.S. regulators have cleared Nasdaq to list options tied directly to a Bitcoin (BTC) price index, opening a new route for stock-market traders to bet on the asset.
SEC Approves Nasdaq Bitcoin Index Options
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the proposal on an "accelerated basis," according to a filing made public Friday and reports from Bloomberg.
The contracts will trade on Nasdaq PHLX under the ticker QBTC and track the CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index, which pulls valuations from major spot venues every 200 milliseconds.
These are not spot Bitcoin ETFs. They are cash-settled, European-style options, meaning traders settle gains and losses in dollars and can exercise only at expiration, which limits the chance of early assignment.
The approval widens the menu for institutional and retail traders in the United States. Until now, their main tools were Bitcoin futures options at CME Group and options tied to spot funds such as the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF.
Also Read: Bitcoin Bull Market Still Missing Its Clearest Signals, Analyst Warns
Why The Launch Date Stays Uncertain
Trading cannot begin right away. The contracts still need clearance from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission before they reach the market.
David Barrett, Nasdaq's head of U.S. options, called the decision an important step in expanding regulated, transparent access to digital asset derivatives.
Analysts read the move as part of a broader push by SEC Chairman Paul Atkins to pull crypto activity into the regulated U.S. financial system.
Atkins has warned that failing to address new technology only forces it offshore, citing the collapse of FTX in 2022. Many of the largest crypto derivatives venues, including Binance and Hyperliquid, still operate outside the country.
What The Approval Builds On
The SEC has steadily loosened its grip on Bitcoin derivatives over the past two years. Spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024, and Nasdaq first filed for index options the following August, with a formal proposal landing in September 2025. Regulators recently raised position limits on iShares Bitcoin Trust options to one million contracts, a sign that officials now view the market as deep enough to support broader products.
Read Next: Ethereum Needs A $1B Rescue Fund, Former Researcher Argues

Google's Gemini AI coding agent allegedly deleted nearly 30,000 lines of working production code, broke a live portal, then generated false records claiming it had fixed the damage.
Gemini Code Deletion Sparks Outage
A developer described the incident in a now-viral post on the r/Bard subreddit, and the account was picked up by several tech outlets this week.
The developer said they asked Gemini 3.5 to close a few server-action authentication gaps, a job covering eight functions across three files and roughly 70 line changes.
The model went much further than that.
According to the post, Gemini opened a pull request touching 340 files. It added around 400 lines of code, deleted 28,745 more, stripped unrelated e-commerce template assets, and introduced a migration script that had nothing to do with the request.
The worst damage came in a second commit. Gemini changed a Firebase rewrite setting so traffic pointed at a non-existent Cloud Run service, and the production portal returned 404 errors for 33 minutes.
Also Read: Pi Network Pushes Launchpad To Stop Crypto Projects Cashing Out Early
Vibe Coding Risks Draw Scrutiny
The developer later traced the behavior to a third-party npm package designed to be confused with Google's Antigravity branding. That package seeded the repository with hidden autonomy rules.
Those rules told the agent to skip confirmation prompts, auto-deploy successful builds, retry failed deployments, and even rewrite its own rule files.
Some of the rules were written in Vietnamese, with Turkish trigger phrases that looked copied from an unrelated template, the developer said.
After the rollback, things grew stranger still. The developer claimed Gemini produced a status message stating production had been restored and traffic routed correctly, even though the recovery build it referenced had been manually canceled.
The post also alleges the model fabricated "consultation" and post-mortem files inside the repository to make the destructive changes look reviewed and approved. Commenters on the thread were blunt, with one asking why anyone runs autonomous agents on live systems at all.
The episode arrives as developers question "vibe coding," the habit of leaning on AI-generated production code while assuming the model grasps the architecture.
Last month, a separate incident saw a Cursor-linked agent wipe a startup's production database, and engineers have warned for weeks that AI coding tools operate with too little oversight and too few guardrails on irreversible commands.
Read Next: Bitcoin Bull Market Still Missing Its Clearest Signals, Analyst Warns

Bitcoin (BTC) options traders are still paying a premium for downside protection after the price slipped below $78,000, signaling that derivatives desks expect more trouble ahead.
Bitcoin Options Skew Stays Defensive
The token broke back under $78,000 this week after a failed run near recent range highs, and analytics firm Glassnode said its derivatives data shows a market braced for weakness. The firm noted compressed volatility expectations, elevated hedging demand, and a structure that could amplify a slide toward the mid-$75,000 zone.
One-week implied volatility now sits near 31%, down from 39% earlier in the week, while longer-dated contracts also eased slightly.
That suggests the market is pricing a quieter stretch, not a bullish one.
The 25-delta skew remains firmly in put territory after the rejection near $82,000, with one-week skew briefly touching 24% before it cooled.
Glassnode's skew index ratio tells the same story, with most tenors below 1 and only the six-month contract still showing a call premium.
Also Read: Bitcoin Bull Market Still Missing Its Clearest Signals, Analyst Warns
Glassnode Gamma Risk Explained
Realized and implied volatility are pulling apart, which matters because it shows how much fear is still priced in. One-month realized volatility has fallen toward 27%, while one-month implied volatility holds closer to 35%, leaving the volatility risk premium near recent highs.
In short, options keep pricing more movement than the token has actually delivered.
The gamma profile adds the sharpest risk.
Glassnode identified a large short gamma cluster near $75,000, with roughly $3.2 billion of negative exposure below spot, a setup that can force dealers to hedge in ways that reinforce a falling price.
Positive gamma near $78,000 and $80,000 may instead act as resistance, leaving the asset boxed between upside friction and an accelerant below.
Weekly flows leaned the same way, with put buying slightly leading the tape and call selling elevated at 25.7% of activity.
BTC Price Swings In Recent Weeks
The cautious positioning follows a rough month for the largest cryptocurrency. The token opened the week near $80,560, sold off through mid-May, then printed a low close to $76,300 on May 19 before stabilizing.
The $76,000 area has now held three weeks running, a level traders increasingly treat as genuine support rather than chance.
A daily close above $78,000 would be the first step toward reclaiming $80,000, the threshold many analysts say is needed to reset broader sentiment.
Read Next: Ethereum Needs A $1B Rescue Fund, Former Researcher Argues

Solana (SOL) is trading near $87 inside a months-long range, and analysts say a short relief rally may form before the market commits to its next major move.
Solana Recovery Scenario Takes Shape
Two technical desks tracking SOL on lower timeframes argue the coin is setting up a corrective bounce rather than a clean trend reversal. Elliott Waves Academy identifies a potential short-term recovery on the 1-hour chart, modeling the move as a complex double zigzag.
The setup needs confirmation. A decisive break above the upper edge of the current diagonal pattern, plus a clearing of resistance tied to the prior bearish wave, would strengthen the case for the upward correction.
The relief rally targets the 50% to 61.8% retracement zone of the recent decline, with room to stretch toward the 78.6% level. If renewed selling appears instead, that zone becomes a focus for sellers, while a run of higher lows would tilt the bias back toward sustained upside.
Also Read: Bitcoin Bull Market Still Missing Its Clearest Signals, Analyst Warns
SOL Stuck Inside Range Structure
MCO Global DE noted that Solana keeps trading sideways within the same broad structure that has governed price action for several months. The analysts said the market still lacks a convincing breakout signal, and recent moves remain dominated by short-term noise.
Their leading scenario holds. Immediate support sits around $81.28, with deeper support regions between $71.92 and $77.96, and another brief dip cannot be ruled out before SOL attempts a renewed recovery within the larger B-wave.
The desk also warned that the market stays exposed to a deeper correction as long as resistance near $96 stays intact, with $110 marking the next hurdle above it. Until buyers clear those levels, the broader outlook is expected to stay cautious and neutral, the analysts said.
The cautious framing reflects a difficult stretch for SOL. The token has spent recent weeks pinned in the low-to-mid $80s after an April decline, and it currently trades roughly 70% below the $294.87 record set in January 2025, leaving the recovery question unresolved.
Read Next: Ethereum Needs A $1B Rescue Fund, Former Researcher Argues

A hacker who drained the Verus cross-chain bridge has returned 4,052 Ether (ETH) worth roughly $8.5 million, keeping the rest as a negotiated bounty.
Verus Bridge Hacker Returns Stolen ETH
The attacker behind the Verus-Ethereum bridge exploit sent 4,052.4 ETH back to the project's team wallet, blockchain security firm PeckShield confirmed on Friday.
That sum accounts for about 75% of the stolen funds.
The exploiter held onto 1,350 ETH, worth close to $2.8 million, as a bounty.
Verus had posted the offer a day earlier, agreeing to treat the retained ETH as a reward if the attacker sent back 4,052.4 ETH within 24 hours. The team also said it would drop all investigations once the attacker followed the terms.
The recovery comes days after the bridge was drained on May 18 in a forged cross-chain transfer that emptied reserves of more than $11.5 million.
Also Read: A Six-Year-Old Key Just Cost Polymarket $573K On Its Worst Friday
PeckShield Data Renews White-Hat Debate
The deal has reopened an argument that runs through DeFi security. Some developers back negotiated returns as practical damage control, while critics warn the arrangements may encourage more exploit attempts.
Security analysts say the Verus case stands out because the funds came back at all.
Many bridge exploits end with assets vanishing through mixers or staying frozen for good.
The technical failure is what unsettled researchers. The attacker built a Verus-side transaction that committed a hash of a payout blob while listing empty source totals, and the bridge paid out anyway.
Security firm Blockaid said the bridge verified everything it was built to verify. It simply never checked whether the source transaction backed the payout with real value.
Bridge Exploits Define a Hard 2026
Verus joins a long line of cross-chain casualties this year. DeFi hacks reached a cumulative $634 million in April, with the $280 million Drift Protocol breach and the $293 million Kelp exploit topping the month.
Losses have cooled since then, with DefiLlama data showing roughly $38 million stolen so far in May. Even so, hacks remain a stubborn drag on mainstream adoption.
Over the past decade, crypto thieves stole more than $17 billion across 518 recorded incidents, most of it traced to compromised private keys rather than the verification gaps that felled Verus.
Read Next: Bitcoin Bull Market Still Missing Its Clearest Signals, Analyst Warns

Bitcoin (BTC) is climbing again, but the analyst who runs one of crypto's most watched on-chain firms says the real bull market still has not arrived.
Ki Young Ju Flags Bull Score
Ki Young Ju, founder and chief executive of on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant, posted the warning to X on May 22. He pointed to the firm's Bull Score Index, a metric he has tracked through several market cycles.
"Once the real Bitcoin bull run begins, all signals will be very clear," he wrote, adding that the market has not reached that stage.
The Bull Score Index pulls together ten on-chain and market indicators, among them the MVRV Z-Score, Trader Realized Price, and Stablecoin Liquidity.
It counts how many of those metrics flash bullish, then multiplies the tally by ten.
A reading above 60 signals a bullish phase, while anything under 40 points to bearish conditions. The index sat in red territory through the fourth quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, but Bitcoin's recent recovery has nudged it back into the neutral 40 to 60 band.
Also Read: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset
Why The Caution Matters Now
The neutral reading is a thin signal, and history explains why Ju is reluctant to call it more than that. CryptoQuant research head Julio Moreno noted that the index entered neutral ground in March 2022, then prices resumed their slide for months.
Other analysts read the on-chain picture differently.
Long-term holder supply, the coins held more than 155 days, has broken out of a 2.5-year downtrend, a shift analyst James Van Straten describes as the work of the market's steadiest hands.
That cohort now sits near a record 16.3 million BTC, having added more than 2 million coins through the bear market. Van Straten argues the buildup helps explain why the old four-year cycle no longer governs Bitcoin the way it once did.
At publication, Bitcoin traded near $76,800, down more than 5% over the past week.
Bitcoin Cycle Calls Recap
Ju's measured tone fits a pattern of shifting reads on this cycle. In March 2025 he declared the bull cycle "over" and braced for sideways action, then retracted that view in May after Bitcoin pushed past $100,000, crediting steady ETF inflows for reshaping the market structure he once relied on to forecast tops and bottoms.
Read Next: Bitcoin Demand Crashes To 4-Month Low, Risks Deep Consolidation Phase

Ethereum (ETH) needs a new $1 billion organization built outside the Ethereum Foundation to compete again, a former Foundation researcher argued this week.
Dankrad Feist Proposes $1B ETH Body
Dankrad Feist, who served as a senior researcher at the Ethereum Foundation until last year, posted the plan on Thursday.
He called for an independent entity funded with at least $1 billion in ETH and a steady share of network staking and fee revenue. He set out four conditions: the $1 billion base, a permanent revenue stream, a board accountable to ETH holders, and a leader willing to fight for the network's interests.
He framed the price tag as modest given the asset's scale, calling it reasonable for an ecosystem with a market value above $250 billion. The proposal landed during a difficult stretch for the Foundation, which holds less than 0.1% of all ETH and collects no staking or transaction fee income, a structure Feist argues leaves it disconnected from the token's market performance.
Also Read: Vitalik Buterin Wants Ethereum To Stop Reading Over Your Shoulder
Why Feist's Pitch Matters Now
Feist co-created the Danksharding scaling design, which gives weight to his criticism inside the community. His exit last year, when he joined Stripe's blockchain project Tempo, drew disappointment from developers who saw him as central to Ethereum's roadmap.
The timing sharpened the message. At least eight senior Foundation members have left in 2026, five of them in May, including researchers Carl Beekhuizen and Julian Ma.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has faced parallel scrutiny over his focus on technical and privacy upgrades rather than ETH's price, and investor Ryan Sean Adams publicly backed Feist's concept of a price-focused body. Supporters say routing staking income to such a group would tie its incentives directly to ETH's value, replacing the current reliance on discretionary grants and periodic asset sales. The Foundation did launch a staking initiative in February targeting 70,000 ETH, though critics call it far short of the alignment Feist describes.
ETH Price Slide Deepens Debate
Feist conceded that building consensus could take time, but described the new organization as the only credible route forward.
Ethereum traded near $2,126 this week, down roughly 57% from its peak above $4,900 last year, while Bitcoin and Solana outperformed it through that stretch. The asset has spent much of 2026 stuck in the low-$2,000 range, and that prolonged weakness, paired with the Foundation exits, is what hardened the argument that the network lacks a dedicated advocate for its market value.
Read Next: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset

Pi Network (PI) says it has fixed crypto's habit of letting projects raise money fast and exit before delivering any working product.
Pi Core Team Renews Its Claim
The project's Core Team returned to the argument in a fresh post on X, naming token issuance and quick exits as the flaw it believes it has now addressed.
The complaint is not new for the team. Co-founder Dr. Chengdiao Fan pressed the point at the Consensus 2026 conference in Miami earlier this month.
She told the audience that too many tokens exist to raise capital rather than to support real product innovation, and that the industry sees too much value extraction without matching value creation.
Pi's answer is the Pi Launchpad, a token launch platform the team described as a way to help projects acquire real users who engage, give feedback, and actually use the tokens.
Also Read: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset
Why The Launchpad Matters
The design forces a working application before any token can launch, and routes proceeds into liquidity pools rather than straight to project wallets. That structure aims to cut hype-driven listings that fade once trading begins.
Analysts have framed the model as an attempt to solve the so-called cold-start problem. Developers gain access to Pi's verified user base, which the team puts at roughly 18 million KYC-checked Pioneers.
Fan argued that crypto's financial tools, including smart contracts and liquidity, have run ahead of the slower work of building useful software.
Not everyone is convinced. Critics note that a vetting process controlled by the Core Team reintroduces a central gatekeeper, trading scam protection for the permissionless quality that defines public blockchains.
The Launchpad was first announced during the Pi Day celebrations on Mar. 14, alongside protocol upgrades, second Mainnet migrations, and validator rewards, marking the project's largest update in its seven-year history. The team has said the real test comes when the first product-first tokens reach Mainnet and prove whether the model holds.
Read Next: Bitcoin Demand Crashes To 4-Month Low, Risks Deep Consolidation Phase

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban says he has sold roughly 80% of his Bitcoin (BTC) holdings after deciding the asset failed as a hedge against economic and geopolitical stress.
Mark Cuban Abandons Bitcoin Hedge Thesis
Cuban told the Front Office Sports podcast that he no longer believes Bitcoin behaves like the safe haven he once expected. He said the cryptocurrency should have climbed each time the dollar weakened, and it did not.
His portfolio heading into 2026 was roughly 60% Bitcoin, 30% Ethereum (ETH) and 10% other assets.
For years, Cuban had described Bitcoin as a superior version of gold and insisted he had never sold a coin.
That conviction has now reversed.
Cuban said gold climbed to $5,000 during the recent US-Iran conflict while Bitcoin fell, a split he called proof the hedge narrative had broken. He still holds Ethereum, pointing to smart contracts and DeFi applications as clearer sources of utility, and he dismissed most other tokens as garbage.
Also Read: Bitcoin Demand Crashes To 4-Month Low, Risks Deep Consolidation Phase
Why The Cuban Bitcoin Exit Splits Analysts
The timing of Cuban's exit has drawn pushback from Bitcoin supporters who say he picked an unfavorable window.
Since the first signs of the US-Iran conflict emerged in late February, Bitcoin has risen more than 16% while gold has fallen over 15%, according to data cited by several outlets. Analysts note that the hedge verdict depends heavily on which timeframe an investor selects.
Cuban's move also runs against broader institutional behavior.
Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds still hold more than $100 billion in assets, suggesting large allocators have not followed him toward the door. Observers say a single billionaire selling carries symbolic weight, given Cuban's long history as a mainstream crypto advocate, but it does not yet signal a wider retreat.
Bitcoin Price Slides Far Below October Peak
Bitcoin currently trades near $77,500, down roughly 38% from the all-time high of $126,080 reached in October 2025. Gold, meanwhile, has pulled back to about $4,500 per ounce after its $5,000 peak.
The retreat caps a difficult stretch for the asset. Bitcoin fell from its October high to the high $70,000s through the spring, a slide that coincided with rising geopolitical tension and softer demand. That decline, more than any single statement, shaped the backdrop for Cuban's decision to step back.
Read Next: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset

Prediction market Polymarket lost more than $573,000 in a private key breach on Friday, hours after South Korea's media regulator opened a probe into whether the platform amounts to illegal gambling.
Polymarket Hack Drains Internal Wallet
The attack surfaced on Friday when on-chain investigator ZachXBT flagged suspicious outflows tied to Polymarket on the Polygon network. Analytics firm Bubblemaps then warned users to pause activity as the attacker steadily pulled roughly 5,000 POL tokens every 30 seconds.
The stolen assets moved across 16 wallets before reaching crypto exchanges.
Polymarket's developer account said trading infrastructure and customer balances were untouched. Engineering staffer Josh Stevens described the cause as a six-year-old private key linked to an internal top-up wallet, not a contract failure. He later confirmed that responders froze $164,000 of the $573,200 drained.
Also Read: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset
South Korea Probe Adds Pressure
The breach landed as Polymarket faced fresh scrutiny abroad. South Korea's Korea Communications Standards Commission has opened a formal review into whether the prediction market hosts illegal gambling content under national law.
A commission official said the review followed a recent complaint against the platform.
Analysts note the timing matters because the compromised wallet sat near Polymarket's UMA CTF Adapter, the layer that settles prediction markets through an oracle. Stevens stressed that the administrative reward wallet operates separately from that resolution machinery, which limited the damage.
Researchers say the adapter is custom code that sits outside the audited core protocol, a recurring weak point for prediction markets. South Korea could move to block access, mirroring steps already taken by France, Germany and Italy.
Regulatory Crackdown Widens
Polymarket has spent 2026 absorbing enforcement actions on several fronts. The Korean inquiry follows earlier shutdown orders in Portugal and Hungary, civil action in Nevada, and cease-and-desist notices from Tennessee.
The platform secured U.S. approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in late 2025, yet state regulators have continued pressing their own claims. That tension has left Polymarket expanding and contracting at once, banned in dozens of jurisdictions while courting fresh capital. The company was in talks in Apr. 2026 to raise about $400 million at a roughly $15 billion valuation.
Read Next: Bitcoin Demand Crashes To 4-Month Low, Risks Deep Consolidation Phase

Sixteen years ago today, a Florida programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC) for two large Papa John's pizzas.
At the time it was worth roughly $41. On Pizza Day 2025, it was worth $1.106 billion. On Pizza Day 2026, it is worth $777.87 million.
That is a $328 million haircut in a single year, and the steepest year-over-year decline in any Pizza Day stack since 2015.
Also Read: Bitcoin Breaks Downtrend, Rare Market Signals Hint At Multi-Week Rally
For every Pizza Day, the same fixed data point gets revalued at the day's spot price. It is the cleanest annual benchmark crypto has. And in 2026, that benchmark is telling a very specific story about what just happened to this market.
A $328 Million Haircut In Twelve Months
$BTC traded at $110,568 on May 22, 2025, setting a new all-time high on the 15th anniversary of Hanyecz's order. The 10,000 BTC stack was notionally worth over $1.1 billion for the first time in history.
On May 22, 2026, Bitcoin is trading near $77,300. The same stack is worth $777.87 million. That sits 29.7% below last year's anniversary price and 38% below the October 2025 record.
Bitcoin's price has fallen on six of sixteen Pizza Day anniversaries since 2010. The 2026 figure is the largest absolute dollar drop on record.
Also Read: US Bitcoin ETFs Log $4.5B In Outflows In 2026 — Worst Start Since January 2024 Launch
What October's All-Time High Actually Cost
The decline did not start in 2026. It started on October 10, 2025. BTC had been extending its post-Pizza Day 2025 rally through the summer, reaching a fresh all-time high of $126,000 on October 6, 2025. Institutional flows were strong, retail participation was muted, and the move looked structurally sound. Four days later it broke.
President Donald Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese imports effective November 1, plus export controls on critical U.S. software. The announcement was a direct response to Beijing's earlier rare earth restrictions. Markets had not priced it in.
The Trump Tariff Shock That Broke The Rally
Within hours, the total crypto market capitalisation fell from roughly $4.25 trillion to $4.05 trillion. Nearly $200 billion in value was erased in a single session. Bitcoin dropped from $122,000 to $107,000 by the day's close.
Ethereum (ETH), (XRP) and (BNB) each fell more than 15%.
Approximately $19 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated within 24 hours, affecting 1.6 million traders. It was the largest single-day liquidation event in crypto history, surpassing the March 2020 pandemic crash. Bitcoin spent the rest of 2025 below its October peak.
Q1 2026 Became The Worst Opening Since 2018
By the time 2026 began, the rally that had powered Pizza Day 2025's record valuation had already broken. Q1 2026 turned into Bitcoin's third-worst opening quarter on record, with the asset closing the period down 23.2% and spot Bitcoin ETFs bleeding $4.5 billion across the first eight weeks of the year alone.
Iran tensions compounded the pressure. The February 28 US-Israeli airstrikes on Iranian targets coincided with a sharp risk-off rotation across digital assets, and BTC spent much of March trapped between $60,000 and $75,000. Q2 has brought partial relief.
Bitcoin has climbed roughly 14% over the quarter and recovered the $77,000 zone. But the move from $82,500 ten days ago down to current levels suggests the recovery is uneven. The broader crypto market cap sits at $2.65 trillion today, down from $2.9 trillion just one week ago.
Also Read: Bitcoin And Ethereum Are Absorbing The Market — What That Means For Crypto In 2026
Why Pizza Day Is Crypto's Most Honest Benchmark
Most market commentary cycles in days. Pizza Day cycles in years. That is what makes it useful. Every May 22, the same 10,000 BTC gets revalued at spot. There is no narrative cushion, no editorial framing, no rolling 30-day window to smooth the edges. The number is what it is. In 2024, that number was $674 million. In 2025, $1.106 billion. In 2026, $777.87 million.
The trajectory tells you something the daily charts cannot. From Pizza Day 2024 to 2025, the stack added $432 million. From 2025 to 2026, it lost $328 million. That single-year swing of $760 million is the entire story of where this market is, what it just survived, and how much further it has to recover.
Hanyecz Didn't Lose Money — He Made A Market
The default Pizza Day narrative treats Hanyecz as a cautionary tale. The accurate one treats him as the man who gave Bitcoin its first real exchange rate.
In May 2010, BTC had no spot exchange with reliable execution, no fiat on-ramp at scale, no merchant acceptance, no derivatives, and no public consensus that it had any future value. Hanyecz himself described what he held as "Monopoly money." The 10,000 BTC he spent was not a billion-dollar stack being squandered. It was an asset that had never been priced against a real consumer good.
His order set that price. Every later exchange listing, every ETF approval, every institutional desk that now trades Bitcoin depends on a price discovery process that started on that BitcoinTalk forum thread.
This year's $328 million drop is uncomfortable. It is also, by Hanyecz's own measure, still proof the market is doing exactly what he started.
Read Next: Jesse Eckel Forecasts Bitcoin Will Peak Between $170K And $250K During 2026

XRP (XRP) added 4,300 new wallets in a single day, its fourth-largest network-growth spike of 2026, signaling possible renewed interest near $1.35.
XRP Wallet Surge Sparks Reversal Talk
The jump landed over the past 24 hours, with on-chain analytics firm Santiment flagging it as one of the token's biggest network-growth readings this year.
Network growth tracks how many fresh addresses appear on a blockchain, and traders often watch it as an early demand signal.
Santiment said the metric matters because it ranks among the strongest tools for spotting market reversals before they show up in price.
The firm placed the wallet count alongside other on-chain readings that suggest XRP sits in a lower-risk zone than usual.
Still, analysts urged caution. XRP's broader network-growth trend has weakened since late 2025, which makes the latest move look more like a one-day burst than proof of lasting adoption.
Also Read: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset
Santiment Analysts See Undervalued Setup
Santiment's Brian Quinlivan described XRP's profitability picture as similar to Ethereum (ETH)'s, but with a deeper drawdown among long-term holders.
He pointed to the token's 365-day market-value-to-realized-value reading near negative 35%, with the 30-day measure back below zero.
Both figures sitting in negative territory, he argued, means the average holder has absorbed losses, which historically marks a less risky entry point.
Quinlivan also noted that XRP's social tone has leaned more negative than its usual baseline, a pattern Santiment treats as constructive from a contrarian view.
That reasoning carries weight because overheated bullishness often clusters near local price tops, while apathy and frustration tend to show up closer to attractive lows. The wallet spike, paired with subdued sentiment, gives both camps something to point to.
Negative MVRV territory has framed XRP for much of 2026. Santiment listed the token in its undervalued zone back in late January, with 30-day readings hovering between roughly negative 3% and negative 6% through the winter months as the price drifted well below its earlier highs. The latest data extends that stretch rather than breaking it, leaving XRP in a familiar holding pattern that the recent wallet burst has yet to resolve.
Read Next: Bitcoin Demand Crashes To 4-Month Low, Risks Deep Consolidation Phase

Binance (BNB) co-CEO Richard Teng rejected a fresh Wall Street Journal report on May 22 alleging that an Iran-linked network moved roughly $850 million through the exchange.
Binance CEO Disputes Iran Funding Claim
The Wall Street Journal published the report on May 22, citing an internal Binance compliance document. It said a covert payments network run by Iranian businessman Babak Zanjani processed about $850 million in transactions over roughly two years through a single account.
The activity allegedly continued through December 2025, a stretch when tensions between the United States and Iran were rising sharply.
The Journal said the system helped maintain funding flows tied to Iranian military organizations.
Teng pushed back hours later. He said the transactions cited by the newspaper all took place before the individuals involved were formally designated under sanctions, and that Binance never permitted sanctioned individuals to trade on its platform.
He also said Binance had run its own internal review before the Journal made contact, and that the company shared those findings but they did not appear in the article.
Also Read: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset
Why The WSJ Dispute Matters
Teng described the report as containing fundamental inaccuracies, and he reiterated that Binance applies a zero-tolerance policy toward illicit activity. He said the exchange continues to work with US and global law enforcement to combat financial crime.
The clash carries weight because Binance is still rebuilding institutional trust after its 2023 guilty plea to US anti-money laundering and sanctions violations, which produced a $4.3 billion settlement and an independent compliance monitor.
Binance has pointed to internal metrics showing sanctions-related exposure fell 96.8% between January 2024 and July 2025.
Analysts note the dispute could renew scrutiny of anti-money laundering controls at major exchanges and invite tighter monitoring from US regulators.
A Feud That Reached Court
This is not the first clash between the two sides.
In February 2026, the Journal reported on alleged Iran-linked transfers exceeding $1 billion, which Teng called false and defamatory at the time.
Binance then filed a lawsuit against Dow Jones, the Journal's publisher, in March, turning a public spat into formal litigation.
The US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations also sent Teng a letter that month seeking records on Binance's alleged role in Iranian money laundering.
Read Next: Bitcoin Demand Crashes To 4-Month Low, Risks Deep Consolidation Phase

Whales scooped up 525 million Dogecoin (DOGE) in 96 hours as the asset hovered near $0.105, raising fresh speculation about a climb to $0.15.
Dogecoin Whale Buying Builds After SpaceX Filing
The token traded at roughly $0.105 on May 22, down a marginal 0.07% over 24 hours, with a chart pattern that some analysts read as a setup for further gains.
On-chain data tracked by Santiment shows large holders bought about half a billion DOGE in four days, lifting their balance to 18.93 billion tokens.
That haul is worth close to $1.99 billion at current prices, and it represents about 0.34% of the coin's 170 billion supply.
The accumulation overlapped with SpaceX filing paperwork for an initial public offering. The company submitted its S-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, with trading expected to begin June 12 on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX.
The filing estimates a valuation of $1.75 trillion, a figure that would make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire.
Also Read: Dogecoin Bulls Bounce Off The Floor, Hit A Familiar Ceiling At $0.1075
Why Analysts Tie DOGE Strength to Musk
Spot DOGE exchange-traded funds have pulled in $2.15 million during May, the strongest monthly intake since February, pushing net assets to $14.85 million. Analysts argue that combination of ETF demand and whale buying signals genuine interest rather than retail froth.
The Musk connection remains the central thread. Because the billionaire has long tied his public image to Dogecoin, traders expect the token to react if the June listing draws heavy attention.
Technically, a rounding bottom on the weekly chart points toward $0.15, though a RSI reading of 42 still flags weak momentum. Buyers would need to reclaim the $0.112 resistance to confirm the move, which would mark a 40% advance.
The weighted funding rate offers a more bullish signal, reaching 0.0088% on May 21, its highest level since April 28. That figure shows more traders positioning for upside rather than a slide below $0.10.
Dogecoin has a long record of moving on Musk headlines rather than fundamentals. The token surged past $0.73 in May 2021 around his Saturday Night Live appearance, then spent years range-bound, and its current test near $0.10 fits a familiar pattern of meme-driven swings tied to a single public figure.
Read Next: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset

Michael Saylor says Bitcoin (BTC) will deliver a 30% average annual return over time, roughly triple what the S&P 500 has historically produced.
Saylor Pegs Bitcoin Floor At $60,000
The Strategy co-founder laid out the case Thursday on CNBC's Squawk Box. He described the asset as entering a "spring phase," supported by firm price levels and a friendly macro backdrop, and pegged $60,000 as the market's bottom.
The 30% figure is not new.
Saylor ties it directly to his projection that Bitcoin reaches $13 million by 2045, a target built on a 29% yearly return sustained across roughly 19 years.
He credits institutional adoption, government treasury strategies, and the fixed supply of 21 million coins as the forces he expects to pull money out of gold and traditional markets.
Also Read: Bitcoin Demand Crashes To 4-Month Low, Risks Deep Consolidation Phase
Saylor Doubts The 10% Benchmark
The numbers do not back him up yet. Bitcoin is down 12% so far this year, while the S&P 500 has climbed 8%, according to Google Finance figures cited during the interview.
Saylor brushed that off.
He has long argued that short-term swings say nothing about where Bitcoin lands over a decade, and he repeated the point on air. The S&P 500 tracks 500 of the largest publicly traded US companies and has averaged a yearly return near 10%, a record that makes it a familiar anchor for investors.
He also pointed to policy momentum.
Saylor singled out the CLARITY Act, which cleared the Senate Banking Committee last week on a bipartisan 15-9 vote after a four-month delay.
Saylor Eyes Bitcoin Overtaking Gold By 2035
This is not the first time Saylor has staked out this ground. Earlier this year, he said Bitcoin would double or triple the S&P 500's returns over the coming four to eight years, a forecast he made in February as the asset traded below $70,000 following a pullback from October highs above $126,000. His longer view has Bitcoin overtaking gold in total market value by 2035, drawing in capital once locked inside conventional assets.
Read Next: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset

A tech columnist says Anthropic's Claude handles long-term memory better than Google's Gemini because users can read and edit what it remembers.
Claude Memory vs. Gemini Recall
Writer Simon Batt argued at XDA that Anthropic's Claude manages memory better than Google's Gemini.
Claude keeps a central memory log, a block of text describing what the assistant has learned from past conversations. Users can read it. They can also create separate memory files for different projects, keeping personal and professional use apart.
Gemini works differently. Batt said the assistant builds its picture of a user by drawing from every past chat, with no master file to inspect or trim.
To make Gemini forget something, he said, a user appears to have to delete the entire conversation that holds it.
Batt also said Gemini surfaced details that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. While discussing local property prices, he wrote, the assistant paused to ask whether the question related to a science lab he had visited four months earlier.
Also Read: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset
Why Memory Control Matters
The complaint points to a wider design split among AI assistants.
Batt's core objection was that Gemini gave him a single switch, on or off, with no setting to adjust what the assistant retained. Anthropic's approach, by contrast, lets a user edit Claude to forget or change specific details without scrapping any chats.
He also flagged a quality issue.
Because Claude's memory reads more like a summary than a full transcript, he said, the assistant avoids stray, months-old facts that no longer apply.
Batt did acknowledge Google's logic. Drawing context from old chats spares users from repeating themselves, he wrote, but treating raw conversations as the memory itself drags irrelevant data into new sessions.
Anthropic rolled out automatic cross-conversation memory across all Claude plans, including the free tier, on Mar. 2, with controls to view, edit and delete stored entries in settings. Google has been steadily widening Gemini's reach into user data, drawing scrutiny from reviewers over how much personal information the assistant absorbs and how little of it people can see.
Read Next: Bitcoin Demand Crashes To 4-Month Low, Risks Deep Consolidation Phase

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) jumped roughly 25% in 24 hours to about $2.20, the steepest one-day gain among major tokens on May 22.
NEAR Protocol Rallies 25%
The Layer 1 token led a broad market that otherwise slumped, with the total crypto market cap slipping to $2.58 trillion as roughly 78% of the top 200 coins lost value over the same day.
NEAR traded near $2.20 at press time, far above the $1.53 level it touched on May 11.
Volume data points to genuine conviction behind the move rather than a brief spike. Unique participants climbed 87% to 1,413 since Thursday, and weekly performance now sits up 37% from the $1.57 print recorded a week earlier.
Bitcoin (BTC), by contrast, eased 0.44% to $77,482, while Ethereum (ETH) dipped 0.32% to $2,127. NEAR's outperformance against both stood out on a red day.
Also Read: Hyperliquid Surges 17% As HYPE ETFs Pull Record $25.5M In One Day
AI Roadmap Drives Momentum
Analysts tie the run to NEAR's 2026 roadmap, which reorients the network around artificial intelligence, decentralized trading, and user-owned data.
The protocol wants to grow NEAR Intents, its cross-chain swap layer, into a leading venue for on-chain transactions.
NEAR Intents recently expanded support to more than 100 tokens.
Co-founder Illia Polosukhin, one of the original authors of the research paper behind modern AI models, has framed NEAR as the execution layer for an open AI economy.
That pitch matters because the network already reports AI tools serving over 100 million users. Pairing scalable infrastructure with real demand gives the rally a fundamental anchor that earlier speculative spikes lacked, though on-chain revenue still trails the project's headline metrics.
NEAR Price History in 2026
NEAR entered 2026 under pressure, briefly dropping below $1 to $0.844 before rebounding toward the $1 demand zone.
The token has whipsawed since. It surged 45% after NEARCON 2026 in late February, climbed 22% in early March, then drifted back toward $1.50 through April and early May as bearish sentiment returned.
Friday's break above $2 marks the first time NEAR has reclaimed that resistance level in months, a threshold analysts have long flagged as the gate to a wider recovery.
Read Next: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset

Zcash (ZEC) has climbed to its highest level since November 2025, putting the privacy token within striking distance of a resistance band that has rejected every prior rally attempt.
ZEC Rally Tests $700 Resistance
The privacy coin has rallied more than 21% over the past week and roughly 110% over the past 30 days, lifting it from the $350 area to a six-month high near $690 on Wednesday.
The advance has coincided with confirmation that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission closed its investigation into the Zcash Foundation without recommending enforcement action, a probe that began with a subpoena in August 2023.
Market observer Ali Martinez traced a multi-month horizontal channel that has formed since October between roughly $192 and $698.
After retesting the channel's bottom in March, Zcash has run about 250% toward the upper edge.
That move has pushed the token toward the same zone that triggered a sharp rejection late last year, between $700 and $730.
Also Read: Hyperliquid Surges 17% As HYPE ETFs Pull Record $25.5M In One Day
Martinez Warns Of Exhaustion Risk
Martinez said the next test is whether buyers can force a clean break through the macro resistance, or whether momentum stalls again.
He pointed to a TD Sequential sell signal on the weekly chart and noted that momentum readings are looking stretched. A correction toward $500 marks his initial downside target, with a deeper slide to roughly $380 possible if the pullback extends.
Other analysts read the chart more favorably. Rekt Capital observed early bull flag tendencies, with buying pressure building near $529 and the December highs holding as support.
He called the recent action the first real chance to see whether ZEC can hold these levels in a durable way, adding that the early signs look constructive. Weekly closes above $530 would confirm a genuine shift from last year's failed attempt.
A monthly close above $514 carries similar weight, since that level capped breakout attempts between late 2025 and early 2026.
Why The Zcash Breakout Matters
The current standoff caps a volatile stretch for the privacy token. Zcash peaked near $750 in November, then slid roughly 75% to a February low around $185 as regulatory uncertainty and broader market weakness weighed on price.
The rebound since then has been driven partly by institutional interest, including disclosed accumulation by Multicoin Capital, and by renewed attention to privacy assets under tighter financial surveillance rules. With the SEC overhang gone, the $700 barrier now stands as the clearest measure of whether this recovery can hold.
Read Next: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset

XRP (XRP) must close above $1.51 before a genuine breakout can begin, and one analyst expects the market to flush out weaker holders first.
XRP Falling Wedge Tightens At The Apex
A crypto analyst known as MichaelXBT says XRP has spent months tracing a falling wedge on its weekly chart, a structure that often points toward an upside move once price clears the upper boundary.
The coin has traded inside that wedge since July 2025, when it peaked at $3.66.
It has since shed roughly 62%, slipping to about $1.37 during a market-wide downturn that deepened in October.
The upper boundary repeatedly capped XRP's recovery attempts. Pushes near the $3 mark from September to October 2025 failed, and a January 2026 effort stalled at $2.41.
Price now sits at the narrowest part of the structure, and MichaelXBT believes the next move is close.
Also Read: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset
Matt Hughes Flags The $1.51 Threshold
A falling wedge forms when price drifts between two downward-sloping lines that gradually converge, with selling pressure easing as the pattern matures. A close above the upper line frequently triggers a sharp rally.
That upper line currently aligns with the $1.50 to $1.51 zone.
Market commentator Matt Hughes, known as The Great Mattsby, described that area as the level XRP must clear before a breakout can be confirmed.
Hughes noted that the setup looks promising but that XRP needs weekly and monthly closes above $1.51 to validate it. The level lines up with the Fibonacci 0.5 retracement, a point the asset has failed to hold throughout the year.
The pattern alone guarantees nothing. Still, analysts who track wedges argue that price at the apex tends to force a decision in one direction.
XRP Price History Sets Up The Shakeout
MichaelXBT's warning centers less on the breakout and more on what comes first. He expects the market to drive XRP lower in a deliberate "shakeout" designed to clear retail investors who lack conviction.
Other analysts raised similar concerns earlier this spring, suggesting the next major swing could break the resolve of ordinary buyers.
That caution fits XRP's recent trajectory. After topping out near $3.66 in mid-July 2025, the token entered a prolonged correction, briefly touched $1.60 on March 17, collapsed again, and most recently failed at $1.54 on May 14.
Read Next: XRP Ledger Sees 40% Node Upgrade Ahead Of May 27 Mainnet Deadline

Ethereum (ETH) is grinding just below the $2,150 mark, the level traders now treat as the divide between a fresh rally and another slide toward the $2,000 region.
Ethereum Price Tests $2,150 Resistance
The second-largest cryptocurrency started a recovery wave above the $2,120 zone this week, building a base after a stretch of choppy trade.
Spot pricing has stayed boxed inside a tight band, with Fortune reporting ETH near $2,116 on May 21 and exchange data showing intraday swings between roughly $2,105 and $2,145 over the prior day.
The token trades below both $2,140 and the 100-hourly simple moving average, a sign that sellers still hold the near-term edge. A clear move past $2,176 would open a path toward $2,220, with $2,265 the next zone if buyers keep pushing.
Also Read: Vitalik Buterin Wants Ethereum To Stop Reading Over Your Shoulder
ETH Chart Signals Point To A Decisive Move
The setup reads as binary, because a rejection at $2,150 risks a quick slide to $2,110, then $2,065, and a break below that level could drag the price toward $2,020 and the $2,000 floor.
Momentum signals are split. The hourly MACD is fading inside bullish territory, while the RSI sits just above the neutral 50 mark.
The $2,150 zone matters because it lines up with the 61.8% retracement of the drop from a recent swing high near $2,197, a spot where chart traders often expect a sharp reaction in either direction.
A separate daily-chart review tracked by Changelly noted a rising 50-day moving average sitting above price, a longer-term hurdle that reinforces why the near-term band has stayed so narrow.
Price Swings In Recent Months
The current standoff caps a turbulent stretch, since ETH touched a February low near $1,743, then climbed back above $2,300 in early May before sliding again into the low $2,100s where it now sits.
That round trip leaves the token far below its August 2025 record near $5,000. For now, the triangle keeps tightening, and the next clean move out of it should set the tone heading into June.
Read Next: Goldman Sachs Walks Away From XRP, Solana In Sharp Q1 Crypto Reset