Bitcoin breaks the five day losing streak
For the first time in five sessions, Bitcoin closed green. BTC bottomed near 76,757 in early Asia trading, ground higher through the European session, and tagged 78,180 by the New York open before settling around 77,960. The move looks small on a chart. In context, it ended the longest daily losing streak since February and pulled price back above the 50 day moving average that the bull case has been leaning on all month.
The crypto total market cap recovered to roughly 2.68 trillion, up 1.7% on the day. Ethereum added 1.48% to 2,143. Solana held 83.90. XRP pushed back to 1.40. The standout was HYPE, ripping another 20% to 58.64 and now up 55% in a week. Zcash printed a 17% session. Even Dash and Toncoin showed up positive. Fear and Greed lifted from 27 to 29, which is still extreme fear, but the floor stopped falling.
What actually moved the tape was outside crypto. WTI crude lost 4.76% on the day and broke below 100 dollars for the first time since the Iran war began in February. Brent followed it down from 112 last week to 105. The 30 year US Treasury yield, which printed a financial crisis high of 5.19% on Tuesday, gave back nearly 20 basis points and traded back below 5.00%. The 10 year fell back under 4.60%. The dollar index eased to 100.5. None of that resolves anything. What it does is take the worst version of the macro stack off the table for one session, and that was enough for a market that had spent five days waiting for any kind of pause.
ETF flows: the bleeding is slowing, HYPE flips the script
Bitcoin ETFs: still red, but the daily drain has collapsed
US spot Bitcoin ETFs printed a fourth consecutive day of net outflows on May 20, with the complex shedding 70.5 million dollars. BlackRock's IBIT accounted for 61.5 million of that. Fidelity's FBTC lost 10.1 million. Morgan Stanley's MSBT was the only product on the entire tape that printed a positive day, at 1.1 million. The other eight funds combined moved roughly 1 million net.
The arc of the week tells the story cleanly. Monday lost 649 million. Tuesday lost 331 million. Wednesday lost 70 million. That is a 90% reduction in single day outflows across three sessions. The cumulative four day damage is still north of 1.05 billion, but the rate of bleeding has gone from a structural redemption wave to a manageable trickle. The market reading is straightforward. Whatever large allocator was unwinding inside IBIT is either close to done or is being absorbed by spot demand at the 76K to 78K range.
Ethereum keeps degrading quietly
Spot ETH ETFs added an eighth straight session of net outflows, taking the eight day total to roughly 432 million dollars. ETH lost the 2,200 level it had defended through April, traded down to 2,116, and closed near 2,143. The ETH/BTC ratio sits at 0.0276, a 10 month low. Bitmine Immersion bought another 71,672 ETH last week and called the dip an attractive opportunity, but corporate treasury buying has not been enough to offset eight consecutive sessions of fund redemptions. Tom Lee continues to argue the U shaped bottom is forming. The tape is not confirming that yet.
HYPE ETFs print a single day record
The clean signal on the day was actually HYPE. Spot HYPE ETFs took in 25.5 million dollars in net inflows on May 20, a single session record and roughly 17 times the protocol's daily Assistance Fund burn. The 21Shares THYP product alone pulled in 16.7 million, with Bitwise BHYP adding 8.8 million. Cumulative HYPE ETF inflows have hit 54 million across just seven trading days since launch, which Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas called "really good sign of organic interest."
XRP ETFs extended their inflow streak. Solana ETFs added another 3.78 million. The rotation underneath the majors is still doing the work the headline BTC outflows are hiding.
Oil cracked below 100 and the bond market exhaled
The single most important development of the day was not crypto specific. It was crude oil losing the 100 dollar handle. WTI fell 4.76% to 99.20 and Brent gave back almost 6% to settle near 105. That is the biggest single day move in oil since the Iran war started 82 days ago.
The trigger was Trump's confirmation that US-Iran negotiations have entered what he called "the final stages." Iran's Foreign Ministry confirmed Wednesday evening that it had received and was reviewing the latest US proposal. Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir was reported to be traveling to Tehran on Thursday to continue mediating, working off Iran's original 14 point framework that calls for a definitive end to the war, the release of frozen Iranian assets, and an end to what Tehran describes as piracy against its commercial vessels.
Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday that he was willing to wait "a couple of days" for a real answer. He also said he had been "an hour away" from ordering renewed strikes on Tuesday before postponing at the request of leaders from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. His framing was characteristically two sided. The situation is "right on the borderline" and "we're all ready to go." But he also said "if we don't get the right answers, it goes very quickly," which implies he is genuinely giving the diplomatic track a window to close. Markets read the second half of that and repriced.
The bond market responded immediately. The 30 year Treasury yield gave back nearly 20 basis points by Wednesday close. The 10 year fell back below 4.60%, a key technical level. The 2 year held at 4.04%. The German 10 year bund, the UK 10 year gilt, and the Japan 30 year all eased in sympathy. The dollar index slid back to 100.5. The cross asset trade that had been brutally negative for risk for two weeks finally got a real session of relief.
This is the variable to actually watch. The Strait of Hormuz has been functionally closed for 82 days. Saudi Aramco's CEO warned earlier this week that prolonged disruption could push oil market stabilization out to 2027, with roughly 100 million barrels per week of supply at risk. If the negotiation track holds, the path back to 90 dollar Brent is real. If it cracks, the structural energy shock that has been driving global term premium higher comes back fast.
The FOMC minutes were more hawkish than anyone expected
While oil and the long end did most of the heavy lifting for risk on Wednesday, the underlying policy backdrop got more uncomfortable.
The minutes from the April 28 to 29 FOMC meeting, released at 2pm ET, showed that the discussion was far more hawkish than the headline outcome suggested. A majority of policymakers signaled that some policy tightening may be needed if inflation continues to run persistently above the 2% target. Many participants said they would have preferred removing the easing bias from the post meeting statement entirely. The minutes also confirmed the April meeting was the second consecutive gathering to feature more officials open to a rate hike than the one before it.
In other words, the committee that was already the most divided in a generation has been shifting hawkish in the months between meetings, not dovish. The four dissents in April were the most since 1992. The 2 year Treasury yield has climbed from 3.40% on February 27 to roughly 4.10% on Tuesday, a 15 month high. Futures markets now price a 44% probability of a 25 basis point hike by December.
This is the hand Kevin Warsh is about to be dealt. Warsh is sworn in as Fed Chair on Friday, May 22. He inherits a committee that has been actively preparing the groundwork for a possible hike since March, an inflation problem driven by an ongoing energy shock, and a bond market that is now treating the Fed as more likely to hike than to cut. The most important thing to watch over the next two weeks is not the price action. It is what Warsh says in his first public remarks, expected in early June, and how the May 28 FOMC minutes get parsed against the April minutes once they land.
Ed Yardeni published a note on Wednesday calling for the FOMC to adopt a tightening bias at the June meeting and to hike 25 basis points at the July meeting. That was an out of consensus call when he published it. After the April minutes, it is no longer.
SpaceX disclosed 18,712 BTC, twice what the market thought
The S-1 registration statement that SpaceX filed publicly with the SEC on Wednesday confirmed, for the first time, exactly how much Bitcoin Elon Musk's space company is holding. The number is 18,712 BTC, acquired at a total cost basis of roughly 661 million dollars, implying an average purchase price of 35,320 per coin. At current price near 78,000, the position is worth approximately 1.45 billion. The filing recognized the holding at a fair value of 1.29 billion as of the March 31 reporting date. SpaceX recorded an unrealized gain of 955 million on the position in 2024 and an unrealized loss of 112 million in 2025.
The most important detail is the gap between the S-1 and what the on chain trackers had estimated. Arkham Intelligence and Bitcoin Treasuries had been attributing roughly 8,285 BTC to SpaceX based on identifiable wallet addresses. The actual position is more than twice that. The reason is straightforward. The S-1 explicitly states the company uses third party custodians, which means the bulk of the holding never appears on a public address that an analytics firm can tag.
The position has been static since the end of 2024. SpaceX first added Bitcoin in 2021, peaked at 25,724 BTC in February 2021 alongside Tesla's 1.5 billion purchase, sold the entire position down to zero by the end of 2022 in tandem with Tesla, and rebuilt to the current 18,712 BTC level over 2023 and 2024. The company has neither added during multiple subsequent rallies nor trimmed during the drawdowns. The S-1 contains no discussion of future acquisition plans, strategic rationale, custodian identity, or hedging approaches.
For the IPO, Bitcoin will sit on the balance sheet as a roughly 1.45 billion asset whose forward trajectory depends entirely on price action and future board level decisions. SpaceX is targeting a valuation between 1.75 and 2 trillion and a raise of roughly 75 billion dollars, which would make it the largest IPO in capital markets history. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA, Citigroup, and JP Morgan are leading the syndicate. Pricing is targeted for June 11 with trading expected to begin June 12 on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX.
The cleanest read for crypto is this. With 18,712 BTC on its balance sheet, SpaceX now holds more Bitcoin than Tesla, which Bitcoin Treasuries lists at 11,509. It is the eighth largest corporate holder globally. And it spent the entire last bull market quietly holding 1.45 billion in Bitcoin that the market did not know existed. That is the most concrete confirmation in months that the dark pool of corporate Bitcoin treasury exposure is materially larger than what the on chain numbers can see.
HYPE up 55% in a week as Hyperliquid's FDV passes Solana
The other defining story of the week is what is happening to Hyperliquid. HYPE traded at 38.10 on May 14. By Thursday morning it was 58.64. That is a 55% move in seven sessions. Year to date, HYPE is up 101% while Bitcoin is down 12% over the same period. Hyperliquid's fully diluted valuation has now reached 54 billion dollars, which puts it ahead of Solana for the first time. The HYPE/BTC ratio just printed an all time high.
Three catalysts stacking at once
The Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF (BHYP) and the 21Shares Hyperliquid ETF (THYP) both launched last week, and the inflow trajectory has been exceptional. Wednesday's 25.5 million dollar single day net inflow is roughly 8 times the day one number and exceeds the first five days of inflows combined. Bitwise has publicly committed to allocating 10% of its ETF management fee to buying and staking HYPE directly, which adds a structural buy side flow on top of the discretionary one. Grayscale and VanEck both have S-1 filings pending for their own HYPE products.
The on chain accumulation picture is equally striking. Lookonchain reported on Thursday that two wallets associated with Grayscale acquired and staked 510,387 HYPE worth roughly 25 million dollars over the past week. That activity lines up with the S-1 Grayscale filed for a HYPE ETF back in January and looks a lot like a firm building a token reserve ahead of a fund launch. A wallet linked to Galaxy Digital acquired roughly 38,000 HYPE. Another newly created wallet withdrew over 500,000 HYPE worth close to 30 million from Coinbase in two days. Reports also have a16z potentially becoming the sixth largest HYPE holder. None of that is retail flow.
The fundamentals support the move. Hyperliquid has generated roughly 255 million in protocol revenue year to date, more than the next two protocols combined. Roughly 97% of trading fees get routed into daily open market HYPE buybacks, which means the protocol itself is a structural buyer of its own token every single day. RWA open interest on the platform crossed 2 billion. The network is generating roughly 896 million in annualized revenue with fewer than 20 employees.
The SpaceX pre IPO perp pushed it further
Trade.xyz launched a SpaceX pre IPO perpetual on Hyperliquid (SPCX-USDC) on May 18. The reference price opened at 150 dollars per share, implying a 1.78 trillion valuation. Within hours it spiked to 216 and pushed the implied valuation north of 2.5 trillion. It has since settled near 203. The contract is synthetic, collateralized in USDH (Hyperliquid's native stablecoin), capped at 3x leverage. It does not involve any actual SpaceX shares, which is the legal distinction that protects it from the kind of SPV invalidation that crashed the PreStocks tokenized OpenAI and Anthropic products last week. Trade.xyz has signaled OpenAI and Anthropic pre IPO perps are next.
Wintermute and a few other desks have started flagging that HYPE's run looks crowded and that further extension may require either a Solana style price correction or a credible new catalyst. Fair point. The shorter framing is harder to argue with though. Hyperliquid has launched the first credible pre IPO derivative for the largest IPO in history, attracted dedicated ETF flow at a tempo that beats almost every recent crypto ETF launch, and is being accumulated on chain by Grayscale, Galaxy Digital, and a16z in real time. That is a structural narrative, not a short term momentum trade.
Policy and regulation: OCC charters, Warren, and Coinbase's stablecoin play
OCC trust charters now cover nine crypto firms
The OCC has now conditionally approved nine national trust charters tied to crypto firms. The list as of Wednesday includes Ripple National Trust Bank, Paxos Trust Company, First National Digital Currency Bank (Circle), Fidelity Digital Asset Services, BitGo Trust Company, Foris DAX National Trust Bank, National Digital Trust Company, Bridge National Trust Bank, and Coinbase National Trust Company. That covers most of the largest US crypto infrastructure providers.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has been pushing hard against the approvals. Her May 18 letter to OCC Acting Comptroller Jonathan Gould argued that the charters violate the National Bank Act because they let crypto firms operate as de facto banks while sidestepping consumer protection and AML rules.
BitGo CEO Mike Belshe responded with a detailed open letter on May 19. His core argument is that fiduciary custody is structurally different from deposit taking. BitGo does not lend customer assets, does not commingle client property, and holds reserves in segregated, bankruptcy remote accounts. He pointed out that traditional national trust banks already hold art, bullion, farmland, and business interests under the same framework, and that digital assets fit cleanly inside that fiduciary model. He also pushed back on the term "crypto bank" itself, arguing it has no legal meaning and conflates two very different business models.
The Belshe letter is one of the cleanest defenses of the trust charter framework anyone has put in writing. Whether it changes Warren's posture is a different question. The political read here is that the OCC approvals have hardened into a structural fight that will run all the way through the CLARITY Act floor debate.
CLARITY Act reintroduced
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act got reintroduced in the House on Wednesday. The 2025 update includes a small transaction tax exemption, dedicated stablecoin rules, and an IRS review of crypto tax treatment. The political theater of the reintroduction matters less than the calendar. Trump has been targeting July 4 as the signing date. If the Senate Banking Committee advances the bill on the timeline currently being discussed, the framework lines up.
Coinbase Flipcash USDF and the white label stablecoin layer
Coinbase announced on Wednesday that Flipcash, a Solana based digital currency app, had launched USDF, a stablecoin backed 1:1 by USDC reserves. USDF is the third white label product Coinbase has launched since rolling out the program in December alongside Solflare and R2. The model is straightforward. Coinbase handles the reserve, custody, settlement, and fiat onramp infrastructure. The partner brands the token. The economics flow back to Coinbase via the USDC base layer.
This is part of a much bigger structural shift. Stripe launched Open Issuance in September 2025. Western Union launched USDPT in May. Bakkt completed its acquisition of Distributed Technologies Research to build a 24/7 stablecoin settlement layer. Anchorage Digital's CEO confirmed at Consensus Miami that as many as 20 banks and large tech companies are queued up to issue their own stablecoins through the firm. The stablecoin market cap is now 323 billion, up 32% year over year. The white label issuance layer is the fastest growing piece of US payment infrastructure that almost nobody is talking about.
The clean takeaway is that the executive order Trump signed on May 19 to push the Fed toward broader payment rail access does not need to deliver immediate results to matter. The crypto banking and stablecoin infrastructure ecosystem is already building out a layer of regulated US payment plumbing that, if granted master account access in 2026 or 2027, will become one of the largest single shifts in dollar denominated settlement architecture since SWIFT.
EU opens MiCA up for review
In Brussels, the European Commission opened a public consultation on the functioning of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation. Feedback is due August 31. The three areas the consultation is targeting are the stablecoin interest ban, the regulatory treatment of DeFi, and classification gaps for assets that do not fit cleanly into MiCA's existing categories.
The stablecoin interest piece is the most consequential. MiCA currently bans issuers from paying interest to stablecoin holders. That ban has been one of the main constraints on regulated stablecoin adoption in Europe and a significant competitive disadvantage versus US issuers operating under the post Genius Act framework. The DeFi piece signals that the Commission is now ready to engage with the question of how to regulate protocols that do not have a clear corporate operator. The classification gap piece is more technical but no less important for issuers and exchanges trying to comply.
July 1 is the deadline that actually matters in the short term. From that date forward, any firm offering crypto asset services in the EU without formal MiCA authorization has to stop operating in member states. The combination of the July 1 deadline and the August 31 consultation close gives Brussels a clean window to recalibrate the framework before the next phase of European rule making lands in late 2026.
Other industry developments worth tracking
MAS revokes BSquared's license
The Monetary Authority of Singapore revoked BSquared Technology's Major Payment Institution license on May 20, citing risk management failures, misleading statements, and outsourced compliance violations. It is the second major MPI revocation in Singapore this year and another data point that Asian regulators are accelerating enforcement rather than easing it.
A Korean funeral firm loses 33 million on a 2x ETF trade
A South Korean funeral services company named Bumo Sarang lost 33 million dollars in customer prepaid funds on a 2x leveraged BitMine ETF position that went the wrong way during this week's drawdown. The story sounds bizarre, and it is. The structural read is more concerning. Non crypto businesses now have exposure to crypto leveraged products through ETF wrappers, which means corporate risk management failures around crypto exposure can now manifest in industries that have no direct connection to the asset class. Korean regulators are likely to use this as a justification for tighter rules on corporate treasury access to leveraged crypto ETFs.
Nakamoto announces a 1 for 40 reverse split
Nakamoto, one of the crypto treasury companies that boomed during the late 2025 cycle, announced a 1 for 40 reverse stock split on Wednesday following a 99% share price drop. The split is mostly about meeting exchange listing requirements. The broader read is that the corporate Bitcoin treasury wrapper, which looked structurally bulletproof at the end of 2025, has bifurcated. Strategy is buying. A long tail of smaller treasury vehicles is being forced to restructure.
Quick hits
The TON ecosystem cross chain bridge TAC suffered a security incident this week that allowed fake Jetton tokens through, causing a 2.86 million dollar loss. Approximately 90% of the funds were recovered after the response. Bermuda Digital Asset, a Plume Project entity, received a Class M license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority on Wednesday, allowing it to launch regulated on chain Vaults for tokenized assets under an AM compliance framework. Coinbase Markets announced support for Nexus token (NEX) deposits, which sent NEX up roughly 20.51% on the day.
On the geopolitical side, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander warned that any renewed US strikes would escalate the war beyond the immediate theater. US Navy operations seized another Iran linked vessel. An explosion reported on Iran's Qeshm Island was described by state media as the result of neutralizing unexploded munitions, though the explanation has not been independently confirmed.
Technicals: BTC reclaimed the 50 day, now needs to clear the 200 day
Bitcoin is sitting between a rising 50 day simple moving average near 76,800 and a falling 200 day SMA near 81,000. The 50 day caught the dip on Tuesday and Wednesday. Price reclaimed it on Wednesday's bounce. The 200 day has now rejected Bitcoin five times in May. Each rejection has been clean. Each subsequent low has been higher than the prior one, which is constructive structurally, but the rejection at 81K to 82K has to break before the broader path back to the 90s reopens.
Resistance working up from current spot starts at 78,300, then 78,573, then 79,000 (the 0.5 fib retracement of the May high to low), then the round 80,000 psychological line which is also the double bottom neckline that CryptoQuant has been flagging. Above that, the cluster between 81,000 and 82,000 is the 200 day moving average and the 200 day EMA stacked on top of each other. That is the level that decides whether the May correction is a healthy retest or the start of something deeper. Above 82,500, 83,437 is the 0.618 fib, and 84,410 is the next horizontal.
Working back down: 77,200, then 76,500, then the 50 day at 76,800 (now flipped to support), then 75,000 from April consolidation, then 73,500. The CryptoQuant cycle bottom projection has 70,500 as the upper end and 65,900 as the lower end. If the May monthly close holds above 76,000, the Tom Lee bull market dividing line stays intact. If it breaks below, the conversation shifts to the lower band.
Momentum is improving but not confirming. RSI on the 4 hour chart sits at 53, above the neutral 50 line. MACD is approaching zero from below and looks like it wants to cross. The Aroon Up indicator has climbed to 85.71 while Aroon Down has dropped to 14.29, reflecting strengthening upward momentum and fading bearish pressure. Bitcoin futures open interest rebounded to 56.92 billion, up almost 2% in 24 hours. OI weighted funding is positive at 0.0032%, which means longs are paying shorts, but the funding rate is small enough that it does not look frothy.
The bearish framework worth taking seriously comes from CryptoQuant. The Bull Score Index dropped back to 20 from 40 last week, which historically has preceded extended corrections. CryptoQuant's own read is that the current price structure mirrors the failed March 2022 recovery into the 200 day moving average, which was followed by a deeper leg lower. The counter is that the 2022 rejection happened in an environment where ETF flows did not exist, corporate treasury accumulation was a fringe story, and the regulatory backdrop was actively hostile to crypto. None of those conditions hold today. K33 Research's framing remains the most useful counterweight. Retail and leveraged positioning is uniquely defensive, basis and open interest have not built up the way they did before prior capitulations, and the downside risk is correspondingly more contained.
Three scenarios for the next ten sessions
Bullish
BTC clears 78,300 to 79,000 on a daily close, IBIT flows turn positive for two consecutive sessions, oil holds below 100, and Warsh delivers inaugural remarks on May 22 that the market reads as Fed policy continuity rather than a hawkish escalation. Under that setup, BTC pushes through the 200 day moving average at 81,000 to 82,000 over the next week and opens a path toward 85,000 and 88,000 into the June FOMC. The probability is moderate. The trigger is the ETF flow flip. Watch the IBIT print on Thursday and Friday.
Neutral base case
BTC trades the 76,000 to 80,000 range into the May 29 monthly close. ETF flows stabilize but stay net negative for another few sessions. Oil holds 100 to 110. The Senate war powers resolution stays in procedural limbo. Warsh's first remarks land roughly in line with consensus. The May 28 FOMC minutes confirm the hawkish lean of the April minutes without escalating it further. The market sits in the current range until June 16 to 17 FOMC delivers the next directional read. Probability is highest. The playbook is short premium to 80,000, scale under 76,500, and manage carry into Warsh.
Bearish
BTC loses 76,000 on a daily close, IBIT extends to a fifth and sixth consecutive day of large outflows, the 30 year Treasury yield breaks back above 5.20%, and Brent pushes back above 110. The 50 day moving average flips from support to resistance and the conversation moves to the 70,500 to 73,000 range. Probability is moderate. The trigger is the May 29 monthly close. If BTC closes May below 76,000, the bullish frame breaks.
If you are trading the 76K to 82K range this week, Toobit's spot, futures, and risk management tools are built for exactly this kind of macro density. This is not a week to chase any direction. This is a week to size positions for the resolution candle after Warsh's swearing in, the May 28 FOMC minutes, and the May 29 monthly closing.
Analyst views worth tracking
Tom Lee (BitMine) continues to argue that the May monthly close decides the cycle. Above 76,000 keeps the bull market intact. Below 76,000 confirms the cycle is over.
CryptoQuant has the most bearish institutional read on the tape. The combination of weakening spot demand, declining perpetual futures activity, negative Coinbase premium, and net selling from US spot ETFs mirrors the March 2022 setup that preceded the deeper leg lower. The Bull Score Index at 20 is consistent with extended bearish phases in prior cycles. The 70,000 zone is the primary on chain support target.
Wintermute thinks the recent push above 80,000 was driven primarily by short covering rather than spot demand. Spot volume sits at a two year low. The 200 day moving average has rejected Bitcoin five times in May. Wintermute is not calling for a capitulation, but is warning against confusing a squeeze with a structural breakout.
Glassnode framed Bitcoin's recovery to 82K and rejection back below the True Market Mean at 78.3K as a necessary but insufficient condition for a structural bull market transition. Prior cycle work shows that weeks to months of sustained consolidation around the True Market Mean is required before a clean regime shift can be confirmed.
K33 Research sees retail and leveraged positioning as uniquely defensive in this drawdown. Basis and open interest are both lacking the kind of buildup that preceded the November 2021 and May 2022 capitulation events. Downside is structurally limited compared to prior cycles.
Eric Balchunas (Bloomberg) called the HYPE ETF inflow trajectory "really good sign of organic interest" and flagged that the eightfold growth in daily volume since launch is unusual for any crypto ETF outside of the original spot Bitcoin product.
Ed Yardeni sees the FOMC adopting a tightening bias at the June meeting and delivering a 25 basis point hike at the July meeting. Before the April minutes, that was an out of consensus call. After them, it is increasingly the base case.
JPMorgan continues to prefer BTC over ETH and views Ethereum network upgrades as unlikely to reverse the structural underperformance against Bitcoin and against high beta L1 competitors like Solana and Hyperliquid.
Calendar to watch
Friday May 22 is Kevin Warsh's swearing in as Fed Chair. The Manheim used car price index for May lands the same day. Tuesday May 27 brings the April durable goods orders print. Wednesday May 28 is the May FOMC minutes, which will be parsed against the hawkish April minutes for any further escalation. Thursday May 29 is the May monthly close, the candle Tom Lee has been pointing to all month. Saturday May 31 brings the Deribit month end options expiry.
Warsh's first public remarks are expected in early June. June 11 is the SpaceX IPO pricing target. June 12 is the expected first day of trading on Nasdaq under SPCX. June 16 to 17 is Warsh's first FOMC meeting as Chair. July 1 is the MiCA non authorization deadline in the EU. July 4 is the White House CLARITY Act signing target. August 31 closes the EU MiCA public consultation.
Bottom line
May 21 was the first session in two weeks that gave Bitcoin a clean exhale. Oil cracked below 100 dollars, the 30 year Treasury yield came off financial crisis highs, BTC ETF outflows shrank from 649 million on Monday to 70 million on Wednesday, and price reclaimed the 50 day moving average. The macro headwinds did not disappear. They just stopped accelerating for one session. That was enough to break the five day losing streak and put the focus back on whether the next ten sessions can confirm a real bottom.
The structural story underneath is more constructive than the headlines suggest. The Bitcoin ETF complex is still bleeding, but it is bleeding less, and the bleeding is concentrated in one product rather than spread across the tape. The HYPE rally is being driven by real ETF inflows, structural protocol revenue, and institutional accumulation that is now showing up on chain. SpaceX confirmed it holds 1.45 billion in Bitcoin that the market did not know existed. The OCC trust charter framework now covers nine of the largest US crypto infrastructure firms. The CLARITY Act got reintroduced. The EU opened MiCA up for review. The white label stablecoin business is quietly becoming one of the fastest growing pieces of US payment infrastructure. None of that fixes today's chart. All of it points toward a 2026 ecosystem that is structurally larger and more integrated with traditional finance than the one that existed at the start of the year.
The two confirmations that decide May are narrow. First, can BTC close above 76,000 on the May 29 monthly candle. Second, can IBIT stop bleeding. If both confirm in the next six trading days, the path back to 82,500 reopens and the 200 day moving average becomes the level that decides whether the next leg goes to 85,000 or 90,000. If either fails, the conversation moves to 70,500 to 76,000 and the May 28 FOMC minutes plus Warsh's first remarks become the next inflection points.
The risks worth tracking are clear. Iran negotiations breaking down would push Brent back above 110 and probably take the 30 year Treasury yield with it. The Warsh swearing in on Friday could land hawkish enough to spook the front end. ETH losing 2,000 would compound the rotation pressure on the broader majors. A new round of clawback litigation around the early custodian failures could draw more attention to legacy counterparty risk. The Korean funeral firm story is a reminder that crypto leverage is now bleeding into industries that did not exist as crypto exposures even six months ago.
This is not a week for predictions. It is a week for discipline. Wait for the data, the swearing in, and the monthly close. Let the first clean candle after those events land tell you the direction. The cycles that reward patience tend to punish people who chase. Toobit's toolkit is built for exactly this kind of volatility regime.
