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7 Solana ETF candidates filed S-1 applications, but many 'controversies' with the SEC lie ahead

ETF analyst James Seyffart stated that all updated S-1 filings "I believe include language on staking".

Seven Solana ETF candidates submitted S-1 reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 13; however, Bloomberg's ETF analyst James Seyffart doubts that approval will happen as early as next week. "I think there needs to be back-and-forth communication between the SEC and the issuing entities to work out the details, so I doubt that. If anyone remembers the launch of the Bitcoin ETF, there were *MANY* filings submitted in the months leading up to the launch", Seyffart said in a post on Friday. U.S.-based spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024, more than a decade after Gemini cryptocurrency exchange co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss submitted the first application for a spot Bitcoin ETF to the SEC in 2013.
"Staking language" has been included in all filings
On June 13, Fidelity Investments submitted its initial S-1 registration report for its Solana ETF product at $147.33, while 21Shares, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale Investments, Bitwise Investments, and Canary Capital submitted amended S-1s.
VanEck — the first U.S. company to file for a spot Solana ETF in June 2024

Seyffart stated, "I believe they all include staking language." While Seyffart agreed with the perspective of a user on X that "lessons learned" from previous approvals could help expedite the process. #Solana⁩

This is what happened in cryptocurrency today

1. Blockchain $TON went down for a short time
2. The French authorities have charged 25 individuals linked to a series of kidnappings and attempted kidnappings related to cryptocurrency
3. Co-founder of Strategy Michael Saylor has raised his hand to introduce the Joe Rogan Experience.
#CryptoToday

U.S. Court Freezes $57 Million USDC Allegedly Linked to LIBRA Scandal
A federal court in Manhattan has frozen approximately $57 million worth of USDC believed to be related to the controversial memecoin Libra.

A U.S. federal court has frozen approximately $57.65 million worth of stablecoin USDC in a class-action lawsuit related to the controversial memecoin Libra. Onchain data shared with Cointelegraph by the class's attorney, Max Burwick, shows that nearly $57 million in USDC was frozen on May 28 after the Manhattan court agreed to a temporary freeze.
"Yesterday, a federal court in SDNY [Southern District of New York] issued a temporary restraining order at our request, Burwick Law, supported by Tim Treanor, freezing approximately $57.65 million USDC held at Circle," he added, noting that the court is expected to hold a hearing on June 9 to determine whether the assets will remain frozen during the class action.
Burwick is representing Omar Hurlock and other plaintiffs in the class action against cryptocurrency investment firm Kelsier Ventures and three co-founders Gideon, Thomas, and Hayden Davis on March 17, accusing them of creating the cryptocurrency Libra (LIBRA) and deceiving investors to withdraw over $100 million from one-way liquidity pools.
The lawsuit also names blockchain infrastructure companies, KIP Protocol and CEO Julian Peh, along with Meteora and co-founder Benjamin Chow, as defendants. #protocol

Jack Dorsey's Block will bring Bitcoin payments to Square by 2026
Block, Inc. is rolling out Bitcoin payments on Square, and merchants will be able to hold Bitcoin or automatically convert it to fiat currency in real-time.

Jack Dorsey's financial services company Block, Inc. will launch a Bitcoin payment service on Square, the company's payment processing platform, which is expected to begin deployment later this year before a full launch in 2026.
The company announced this plan at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas on May 27, where Block showcased the feature at the BTC Inc. merchandise store.
Merchants will be able to accept Bitcoin payments through existing Square hardware using the Lightning Network, Bitcoin's faster and lower-cost layer 2 scaling solution.
Dorsey stated on X: "Merchants can choose to hold Bitcoin or automatically convert it to fiat currency in real-time."
The company said it expects to begin deployment in the second half of 2025, reaching all eligible Square sellers by 2026, depending on regulatory approval.
This move builds on Square's existing BTC Conversion feature, which allows merchants to automatically convert sales to BTC. For consumers, payments are as simple as scanning a QR code, with Square handling the technical issues behind the scenes and Lightning enabling almost instant payments.

Block's Bitcoin product lead said: "The goal of this is to empower merchants who want more options when accepting payments."

Why is the price of Bitcoin stuck?
The price of Bitcoin has been stuck below $100,000 since February, and data suggests this trend may continue, depending on the emergence of new catalysts.

Key points to remember:
Bitcoin has increased by 10% over the past week, but the resistance above continues to hinder the rise to $100,000.

$BTC shows strength as the week opened on April 28, rising 10% over the past seven days and trading at $95,500.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and Bitstamp shows that the BTC price has been below $100,000 since early February, as shown in the chart below.

Bitcoin lacks the $100,000 catalyst
The BTC/USD pair increased by 30% from the low of $74,400 reached on April 7 to above $95,000, with the recovery mainly due to the easing of trade tensions between the US and China.

Although this price increase was accompanied by $3.06 billion in spot ETF inflows, there are still doubts whether that figure is enough to pull Bitcoin out of its consolidation state.
In the latest newsletter sent to subscribers of the Telegram channel, trading firm QCP Capital argued that Bitcoin's separation from stocks last week reinforced the view that it is a "hedge against political instability and uncertain monetary policy".
QCP Capital explained that this has allowed BTC to easily surpass the $90,000 level and also added that this would help push the price higher.
However, BTC changed in the middle of the week, separating from gold and rising alongside US stocks, mainly due to reactions to macroeconomic factors.

BONK price increased 60% in a week as Solana memecoin makes a comeback

The open interest in BONK futures has tripled over the past week as the Solana-based memecoin sees an influx of investors.

Key points to note:
BONK price has risen 73% since April 22, reaching a five-month high of $0.00002167.
BONK open interest surged 290% to $43.2 million.

$BONK the second largest memecoin based on Solana by market capitalization, is on track to continue the recovery that began on April 22. BONK has increased about 73% from its low on April 22 of around $0.00001247, bringing the price to a daily high of $0.00002167 on April 28.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows BONK is trading at $0.00001923, up 3% in 24 hours and 60% over the past seven days.

Trading volume of BONK has increased by 98% in the past 24 hours to $478 million, and the company's market capitalization also surged to $1.7 billion on April 28 before returning to the current level of $1.5 billion.
Let's examine the factors driving BONK's price increase over the past week.

Memecoin recovery across the board
The price surge of BONK over the past seven days reflects increased price volatility across the cryptocurrency market, including the memecoin sector. Most memecoins recorded double-digit gains over the past week. Top memecoins DOGE and Shiba Inu have increased by 3% and 5% over the past seven days.

Trump Official (TRUMP), the memecoin related to U.S. President Donald Trump, recorded a weekly increase of 73%, while Brett of Base rose 83% during the same period. #rebound

Ethereum Foundation reshuffles leadership, separates board and management
The Ethereum Fund has clarified the roles of the board and management team as it seeks to strengthen the ecosystem amid a sharp decline in Ether prices.

The Ethereum Foundation, the organization supporting the development of the Ethereum blockchain, has restructured its leadership to separate the responsibilities of the management team and the board of directors.

The board will act as a “security council to protect the heart and soul” of the fund and set the vision for Ethereum, while the new management team will focus on implementing the strategy and operations of those visions, the Fund said in a blog post on April 28.

The post from April 28 revealed that Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz K. Stańczak were appointed as co-CEOs on March 2 to realize those visions — focusing on supporting anti-censorship, open-source innovation, privacy, and security.

Wang and Stańczak's roles take effect on April 28 as the foundation sets a two-year term for Stańczak to address some of Ethereum's biggest challenges. Stańczak's new role will balance with his work as the founder of Ethereum infrastructure company Nethermind and an upcoming venture capital firm focused on Ethereum.

Bastian Aue and Josh Stark are also members of the management team, with Aue focusing on organizational strategy, recruitment, and training, while Stark is primarily tasked with project implementation, communications, and marketing.

How to Buy a Home with a Cryptocurrency-Backed Loan
Explore platforms that offer cryptocurrency mortgage services, allowing you to use digital assets like BTC and ETH to finance real estate purchases without needing to sell your assets.

Key PointsCryptocurrency-backed mortgages allow you to use assets like Bitcoin or Ether as collateral to secure a loan without selling your assets. This process involves selecting a lender, securing your cryptocurrency, valuing the asset, and finalizing the loan terms. These mortgages offer tax advantages, streamlined approval processes, and the ability to maintain the value of your cryptocurrency investment while still accessing liquidity. Platforms like Nexo provide suitable solutions, but thorough research is essential to ensure security and regulatory compliance.
Cryptocurrency-backed mortgages are a game-changer in real estate financing as they allow you to use digital assets like Bitcoin or Ether as collateral for a home loan.

Instead of selling your cryptocurrency, you use it as collateral to secure the funds to purchase real estate. This approach has gained popularity as more people explore alternatives to traditional financing.
Furthermore, as cryptocurrency adoption grows, cryptocurrency-backed mortgages are positioning themselves as a bridge between decentralized finance (DeFi).

ZachXBT detects suspicious Bitcoin transfer worth $330 million causing a surge in Monero
ZachXBT detected a Bitcoin theft worth $330 million, and the funds were laundered through Monero, causing the price of XMR to soar.

Onchain detective ZachXBT flagged a suspicious transaction involving 3,520 Bitcoin (worth $330.7 million) that may indicate a major theft. The transaction was reported on April 28, witnessing funds being transferred from a potential victim's wallet to the address bc1qcry...vz55g.
After the transfer, the stolen funds were quickly laundered through more than six instant exchange platforms and converted into the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero.

According to data from CoinMarketCap, the large-scale conversion caused the XMR price to spike by 50%, reaching a daily high of $339.

At the time of writing, XMR has stabilized somewhat but is still up 25% in the past 24 hours, trading at $289.
When asked if North Korea's Lazarus Group was behind the attack, ZachXBT dismissed the hypothesis, stating that "it is highly unlikely" and suggesting that independent hackers were the actual perpetrators.

Researcher proposes to increase Ethereum's gas limit by 100 times in 4 years
Dankrad Feist of Ethereum has put forward a four-year plan to increase Ethereum's gas limit by 100 times, theoretically boosting the blockchain's TPS to 2,000.

Theoretically, the gas limit of the Ethereum mainnet could increase 100-fold and reach 2,000 transactions per second according to a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) presented by researcher Dankrad Feist from the Ethereum Foundation.
Feist, who named the blockchain's data storage solution "danksharding" after himself, introduced EIP-9698 on April 27, which will introduce a "defined gas limit growth schedule" starting from epoch 369017 or around June 1.
This proposal will gradually increase the gas limit by a factor of 10 over about two years, or 164,250 epochs, when the final increase of ten times will occur.
Feist stated that Ethereum clients will need to vote for this proposal for it to take effect.
He added: "By introducing a predictable exponential growth model as a default for clients, this EIP encourages a sustainable and transparent gas limit trajectory, in line with anticipated advancements in hardware and protocol efficiency."
Since $ETH can sometimes reach 20 TPS in blocks dominated by simple transactions, increasing the gas limit 100 times could theoretically raise ETH's TPS to 2,000. Feist's proposal would better position Ethereum to compete with names like Solana, which is currently handling non-voting TPS from 800 to 1,050 and has a theoretical TPS of 65,000.

Nike sued for $5 million in damages for shutting down the NFT platform RTFKT
A proposed class action lawsuit seeks $5 million in damages from Nike, alleging that the company violated consumer protection laws and several state laws on unfair competition and trade practices.

Nike has faced a class action lawsuit accusing the sportswear giant of conducting a compensation campaign for shutting down the non-fungible token (NFT) platform RTFKT in January. A group of RTFKT users led by Jagdeep Cheema claimed in the class action filed in federal court in Brooklyn on April 25 that they suffered "significant damages" due to Nike promoting sneaker-themed NFTs to attract investors, only to later shut down the platform.
The lawsuit claims that the NFTs are unregistered securities, as Nike sold them without registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The lawsuit accuses the company of using its "iconic brand and marketing power to hype, promote, and support the unregistered securities that RTFKT sold."
The lawsuit argues that: "Because the value of Nike NFTs derives from the success of a certain promoter and project — here, Nike and its marketing efforts — investors bought this digital asset with the hope that its value would increase in the future as the project became increasingly popular based on the Nike brand." #NIKE

The new Bitcoin price could reach an all-time high in May — Here’s why
Data shows that Bitcoin could reach a new high faster than most investors expect.

Key points to remember:
The strong liquidation has impacted Bitcoin's price level of $95,000.
The weakening correlation of Bitcoin with stocks highlights its increasing independence as an asset.
The optimistic position of institutional investors contrasts with the caution of retail traders, supporting the price momentum above $100,000.

Bitcoin increased by 11% from April 20 to April 26, demonstrating resilience by staying close to a two-month high of around $94,000. This slight relief rally came after signals from the Trump administration regarding easing import taxes, as well as strong corporate earnings reports.
Investor confidence in Bitcoin was further boosted by a record net inflow of $3.1 billion into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over five days. However, a key BTC derivatives indicator shows signs of a downturn, raising questions about whether the $100,000 target is still realistic.
Perpetual Bitcoin futures are favored by retail traders because their prices closely track the spot market. A positive funding rate means buyers are paying to maintain their positions, thus a reversal in this rate is often associated with a bearish trend.

A strong negative funding rate recorded on April 26 is very unusual in a bullish market, as it indicates stronger demand from sellers.

Bitcoin ETFs over $3 billion 'bender', recording the first week of inflows in 5 weeks.
ETF analyst Eric Balchunas pointed out how quickly Bitcoin ETFs are transitioning from “number 1 to number 5.”

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) Bitcoin in the United States have seen over $3 billion flow in this week, marking the first week of consecutive inflows in five weeks.
On April 25, Bitcoin number 11. According to Farside data, the ETF saw $380 million in inflows, raising the total for the week to about $3.06 billion over five consecutive days of inflows. The last time the Bitcoin ETF had a full week of inflow days was the week ending March 21.
The strong inflow week turned April into a positive month.
ETF analyst Eric Balchunas stated in a post on April 24 on X that "ETFs are in a Bitcoin frenzy."
Balchunas said, “What’s really remarkable here is the speed of the move from number 1 to number 5,” while predicting that some of that moving flow could be due to “the base deal coming back into effect.”

In the context of ongoing financial and macroeconomic instability, spot Bitcoin ETFs have experienced a volatile April, with nine out of a total of 18 trading days so far showing outflows.
However, the strong inflow of capital over the past week has turned this month into a positive one, raising the total net inflow for April to about $2.26 billion.

Bitcoiner Jack Mallers swears he won't let Twenty One distract him from Strike
CEO of Strike, Jack Mallers, reiterated his commitment to Strike, stating he expects "net profits to reach 8-9 figures by 2025".

CEO of Strike Jack Mallers stated that his new role as CEO of Bitcoin fund management company Twenty One Capital will not distract him from leading Strike, while revealing that the platform processed over $6 billion in transaction volume in 2024.
"This is not a shift in my commitment; rather, it is an expansion of that commitment," Mallers said in a letter to Strike investors on April 25.
Every decision is based on whether it is "good for Bitcoin" or not
"If Bitcoin wins, humanity wins. Every business decision I make starts with a question: Is this good for Bitcoin? Twenty One exists because I believe it is good for Bitcoin and therefore, good for the world," Mallers said.
Mallers explained that Strike, a Bitcoin payment platform, and Twenty One Capital have different goals. He stated that Strike focuses on making "Bitcoin accessible globally", while Twenty One aims to increase "Bitcoin ownership per share (BPS) and pioneering financial instruments based on Bitcoin".
"These are separate companies, but they share the same philosophy: Bitcoin wins, we win," he said.

This event follows the announcement of the launch of Twenty One Capital on April 23, backed by Tether, SoftBank, and Cantor Fitzgerald.

The capital city of Ljubljana in Slovenia has been ranked as the most cryptocurrency-friendly city in the world.
Ljubljana, Slovenia, has become the most cryptocurrency-friendly city in the world, surpassing famous cryptocurrency hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore.

The capital of Slovenia — Ljubljana — has been honored by the migration consultancy firm Multipolitan as the most cryptocurrency-friendly city in the world.

The city ranks higher than Hong Kong and the economic powerhouse Zurich in Switzerland, which scored the same in the Cryptocurrency Friendly City Index, according to the 2025 Cryptocurrency Report.
This index includes 20 cities and ranks the level of cryptocurrency friendliness based on regulations, tax environment, lifestyle factors, and digital and cryptocurrency infrastructure.
Multipolitan stated that their assessment considered areas such as the city’s licensing framework, capital gains tax rates, GDP per capita, housing affordability, and internet speed.

“The presence of cryptocurrency ATMs and the rate of retail adoption have been analyzed to reflect each city’s embedded cryptocurrency culture,” the report explains. “A high density of these assets has achieved the highest scores.”
The city-state of Singapore and the capital of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, after tying for second place.

ARK Invest raises price prediction for Bitcoin from 1.5 million to 2.4 million dollars in 2030
ARK Invest estimates that the price of Bitcoin could rise to between 500,000 and 2.4 million dollars by the end of 2030 as Bitcoin continues to be adopted by institutions and nations.

The billion-dollar asset management firm ARK Invest has increased its "bullish" price target for Bitcoin from 1.5 million dollars to 2.4 million dollars by the end of 2030, primarily due to institutional investors and Bitcoin increasingly being accepted as "digital gold".
ARK's "bear" and "base" scenarios for Bitcoin price

Research analyst David Puell of ARK stated in a report on April 24 that the bearish price targets have also risen to 500,000 dollars and 1.2 million dollars.
The bearish price targets and new base targets have been raised from ARK's previous Bitcoin price predictions of 300,000 dollars and 710,000 dollars on February 11.
ARK's price forecast is modeled based on the total addressable market (TAM) of Bitcoin, the penetration rate — the percentage of TAM that Bitcoin can capture in certain scenarios.

Puell, who estimates that Bitcoin will achieve a penetration rate of 6.5% into the 200 trillion dollar financial market in the best-case scenario (this figure excludes gold), stated: "Institutional investment contributes the most to our bullish trend".

Bitcoin's acceptance as "digital gold" is also a key factor contributing to this high estimate, as Puell estimates that it could capture up to 60% of the 18 trillion dollar market capitalization of gold (2024 figures) by the end of 2030 in the bullish scenario.