Bitcoin fell to $76,000 on May 18, unwinding a short-lived rebound and pushing its market capitalization down to $1.53 trillion. The roughly 2% drop was accompanied by $722 million in long liquidations across the crypto market, compared with nearly $94 million in shorts.

On May 14, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee voted 15–9 to advance the stablecoin-focused CLARITY Act, a move some view as a pivot from enforcement-led policy toward legislative clarity. Ironwallet CEO Ermo Eero said the bill may support domestic capital growth, but argued a truly global crypto framework would still require international treaties and stronger industry self-policing to earn institutional trust.

Bitcoin fell below $78,000 on Saturday morning, touching an intraday low of $77,614 before stabilizing near $78,000. The move pushed 24-hour losses to 3.2%, pulled market cap to $1.56 trillion, and coincided with nearly $700 million in liquidations, including $666 million in longs.

CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) have reportedly urged U.S. authorities to place Hyperliquid under federal oversight, a move the crypto community and the Hyperliquid Policy Center opposed. After the report, Hyperliquid's HYPE token fell from around $46 to $41.49 by May 16 at 3:05 a.m. EDT, a nearly 9% decline. Arthur Hayes also posted a profane rebuttal aimed at CME and ICE while voicing support for HYPE.

Antseed said it launched a decentralized, peer-to-peer AI marketplace on May 15 that links AI users directly with model providers and removes centralized intermediaries. The network starts with 20 providers and supports instant USDC settlement to providers' wallets with 0% platform markups. Antseed also says the system is account-free, aiming to let next-generation AI agents transact without centralized authorization.

On May 15, bitcoin fell to an intraday low of $78,611 before rebounding above $79,000 as risk sentiment soured after the U.S.–China summit ended without a trade breakthrough. Oil prices jumped after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Washington may need to do "clean-up work" in Iran, with WTI briefly topping $105 and Brent settling at $109. The selloff coincided with $382 million in long liquidations across crypto, including $86 million in bitcoin longs.

Monarq, Flare, and Upshift have introduced MXRPY, a managed multi-strategy yield vault for XRP holders on Flare, with a target annual return of about 3% to 4%. Starting May 15, users can access the vault via Upshift and deposit FXRP, with an initial deposit cap set at 500,000 FXRP. The product blends on-chain XRPFi strategies with off-chain options and arbitrage, with weekly Friday withdrawals and an optional instant redemption feature.

The Casper Association on May 12 published a multi-year roadmap that targets regulated real-world asset tokenization, citing an estimated $16 trillion market and adding plans for AI-driven, machine-to-machine commerce. The plan includes EVM compatibility and alignment with ERC-3643 (about $28 billion in on-chain assets), with X402 micropayments slated for 2026 and quantum-safe cryptography targeted for 2027.

On May 13, ADI Foundation and Settlemint said they are partnering to launch a digital securities infrastructure on the ADI Chain within the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) regulatory framework. The system combines ADI’s compliance-focused Layer-2 with Settlemint’s digital asset lifecycle platform to cover issuance through post-trade servicing, as tokenized RWAs stand at about $30.92 billion on-chain.