Kevin Warsh is expected to be sworn in as the 17th Federal Reserve Chair at the White House on Friday, May 22, a shift XWIN Research Japan says could show up first in Bitcoin's on-chain indicators. The firm highlights the Coinbase Premium and exchange netflows as early gauges of U.S. institutional demand and potential risk-off positioning, with BTC last trading just above $77,000 after dipping near $76,000 and stalling around $78,000.

WLFI saw a major profit-taking wave on May 18, when 1.8 billion tokens were sold at a profit, alongside record "age consumed" activity. The move followed Binance launching a USD1/BTC pair tied to WLFI's USD1 stablecoin, while WLFI later traded near $0.061 with a roughly $1.9 billion market cap.

Ethereum has shed more than half of its peak value over the past nine months, and an on-chain analyst says the usual dip buyers have not appeared. In a May 21 report, Easy On Chain said derivatives-led optimism is not being matched by spot demand, alongside declines in fund holdings and a persistently negative Coinbase Premium Index through May.

Hyperliquid's HYPE moved above $57 on Thursday, putting it within about 2% of its roughly $59 all-time high set in September 2025. The move followed a short squeeze that erased about $21 million in HYPE futures positions in 12 hours and pushed 24-hour liquidations to $30.6 million on the short side versus $1.08 million in longs. HYPE was up nearly 17% over 24 hours, more than 46% over seven days, and over 111% year over year at the time of writing.

Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said on May 18 that rising oil prices have been a key factor weighing on Ethereum, arguing the inverse ETH-oil correlation is at a record high. He made the comments as ETH traded near $2,100, down about 3% in 24 hours and 12% over the past month. Lee added that while the move may be near-term "noise," he still views tokenization and agentic AI as longer-term tailwinds into 2026.

A reported exploit on the Verus-Ethereum bridge drained $11.58 million from a cross-chain contract holding ETH, tBTC, and USDC. Security firms said the attacker converted the haul into about 5,402 ETH and moved the funds to another wallet, while VRSC showed limited immediate market reaction.

A federal financial disclosure filed by Donald Trump on May 14 says his portfolio bought shares of MARA Holdings, Coinbase, and Strategy between January and March 2026. The report lists MARA as a March 30, 2026 transaction in the $15,001 to $50,000 bracket, and notes the assets are managed by a third-party institution rather than Trump directly.

The Senate Banking Committee voted 15-9 on Thursday to advance the CLARITY Act, moving the crypto market structure proposal out of committee. Ahead of the vote, banking advocates highlighted figures including $154 billion in 2025 illicit crypto receipts and a 162% year-over-year rise, while others argued enforcement and on-chain controls are increasingly limiting laundering.

Bitwise plans to launch an ETF tied to Hyperliquid’s HYPE token, with shares set to begin trading May 15 on the NYSE under the ticker BHYP. The firm says the fund uses Bitwise’s in-house staking infrastructure and its prospectus lists a 0.34% sponsor fee, which it intends to waive for the first month on the first $500 million in assets.