Blockchain investigator ZachXBT said on Monday that Bitget allowed market makers to run supply-control manipulation that harmed retail traders, citing RAVE, RIVER, SIREN, and LAB. He also pointed to onchain activity around LAB, including 10 newly created wallets withdrawing 100M LAB tokens ($480M, 32% of supply) from Bitget within 12 hours after a sharp price move.

On May 18, the Verus-Ethereum bridge was hit by a coordinated exploit that drained about $11.5 million. The attacker removed 103.6 tBTC, 1,625 ETH, and 147,000 USDC, then swapped the proceeds into roughly 5,402 ETH held at address 0x65Cb25F9. Blockaid said it flagged the incident live and linked the wallet’s initial 1 ETH funding to Tornado Cash.

PeckShield reported that cross-chain bridges suffered eight major exploit incidents in May 2026, with attackers draining a combined $328.6 million. The tally follows April 2026's spike in bridge-related losses, including the approximately $300 million KelpDAO incident on April 18 and Drift Protocol's $200 million-plus exploit days later. Data cited in the report also puts total 2026 hack losses beyond $750 million through mid-April, with May's events adding further losses such as the Verus-Ethereum bridge drain of about $11.5 million.

Bitcoin slipped under $77,000 on Monday, extending a four-day decline as crypto markets saw $657 million in liquidations over 24 hours. Long positions accounted for $584 million of that total, while BTC traded around $76,000–$76,500 at press time with the 50-day EMA at $76,716 in focus.

Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Company increased its position in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) by 16% in Q1 2026, reporting 14.7 million shares worth $565.6 million. The disclosure shows the share count rose even as the reported dollar value slipped from Q4 2025 levels, which the report attributes to a pullback in bitcoin prices from late-2025 highs.

In May 2026, the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) sector rose to $37.5 billion in total market capitalization, representing 100% year-on-year growth. The report highlights institutional participation across tokenized U.S. Treasuries and private credit, while projecting further expansion through 2033–2034 forecasts.

On May 16, Grayscale filed a second amended S-1 for its proposed spot BNB ETF, while Vaneck updated a competing application the same day. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said the Grayscale amendment suggests the SEC is actively reviewing and providing feedback to issuers. The filings outline products that exclude staking and use Coinbase as custodian, with Nasdaq also needing an approved 19b-4 before trading can begin.

Multicoin Capital moved its remaining 286,057 AAVE tokens to Coinbase Prime on May 16, with the position valued at about $26.68 million at the time. The fund built a 338,005 AAVE stake between Oct. 13 and Nov. 25, 2025 at an average entry of $218, and with AAVE near $90 the trade implies an unrealized loss of more than $40 million.

On May 16, a newly created wallet opened a 10x leveraged long in dogecoin for 20 million DOGE, valued at $2.25 million, with liquidation set at $0.10284. With DOGE trading near $0.1086, the liquidation level sits under 10% below spot, tightening downside room. Separately, large holders have accumulated a record 108.52 billion DOGE while the price consolidates below $0.12.