What happened in crypto in the past week? This week Bitcoin went up, then went down. A lot. Stil didn't make above $82K. Ethereum Foundation finally sorted the bling signing issue. Altcoins are just stuck. I found a way to expose myself to BTC via BlackRock, using Freetrade. . Feel free to check them. What else? Read below:
Bitcoin: BTC showed strenght early in the week, but faltered to a weak finish. Yeah, Bitcoin pulled back after its biggest profit day since December. And then it dropped. Bitcoin ETFs had their worst outflow day since January on May 13, $635M in one day. Strategy acquired 3273 BTC for $2.55M, to a total of 818.334 BTC. Then bought another 535 BTC on May 11. Its average cost is now $75540. A BTC whale opened a short on 1000 BTC at $68K, the position was sitting on nearly $13M losses. Bhutan is quietly offloading 70% of its BTC holdings, directing proceeds toward national development. Reserves could run out before October, but Bhutan mined its stash at zero cost using surplus hydroelectric power. Long term Bitcoin holders have accumulated nearly 4M BTC since the end of 2025.
Ethereum: The Ethereum Foundation rolled out a new standard called Clear Signing, displaying plain language descriptions of what is moving and where before a user approves any transaction, as blind signing has been one of the most exploited vulnerabilities across the ETH ecosystem. Charles Schwab launched direct spot BTC and ETH trading for retail clients today.
Altcoins and stablecoins: Western Union launched its own stablecoin, USDPT on Solana. Base partnered with Succint Labs to bring zk proofs to Base Azul, the L2s latest upgrade. Circle raised $222M for Arc, a new institutional layer 1 blockchain using USDC as its native gas token, featuring sub-second finality, opt-in privacy and quantum resistance at launch. A real monster, so this is indeed possible now! Binance is doing some good work, with its AI security infrastructure blocking more than $10.5B in potential user losses between January 2025 and end of March 2026, as AI tools now account for 57% of the exchange's fraud controls. BNB reclaimed the $660 value. Tokens claiming indirect exposure to Anthropic and OpenAI dropped sharply after both companies said the backing structures violate share-transfer rules. Coinbase became Hyperliquid's official stablecoin partner, the official USDC deployer on HYPER, as USDC supply on Hyperliquid has doubled year-over-year to $5B.
- NFTs and blockchain games: Strange thing, Bored Ape NFTs just doubled in floor price, from 5 ETH to 10 ETH in the past month. I have also enjoyed playing Golem Overlord lately on Hive, and it is quite enjoyable, I would say, with no significant updates lately. On Splinterlands, we have had the Land NFT new update and improved tokenomics, and the new cards from the Conclave mini collection are up and running.
Good news: Amazon Web Services launched a system on May 7 letting AI agents pay for digital services autonomously using USDC, on Base and Solana. They would take money even from AI robots, as long as they got money to pay, right? Klashi raised $1B at a record valuation of $22B. What can go wrong? Kraken bought HK stablecoin firm Reap, connecting traditional finance with digital asset payments. BlackRock is filing for more tokenized treasury funds. Vitalik said that AI will replace UI, taking over wallets, interfaces, and front end apps across blockchain networks, while humans remain the underlying principals. MoonPay just built an AI that trades for you, converting plain English instructions into automated trading strategies withotu any coding required, launching initially on Polymarket. The US Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chair on May 13, and some noted that his confirmation records included disclosed crypto holdings. CME is launching a crypto index futures product in June.
Bad news: Germany is weighting the removal of its one-year tax-free holding period for crypto gains, targeting an additional $2.3B in state revenue. They will lose the status of preffered crypto destination, pushing activity towards offshore platforms operating outside MiCA framework, losing profits long-term. The proposed changes are part of a broader fiscal package aimed to close a 98B Euro deficit, with cuts to health spending and pension outlays, as well as new levies on alcohol and tobacco. Fun fact, Austria just did this in 2022, so they could already check what will happen when you do it, you may think! Trump Media lost nearly half a billion on crypto bets, BTC alone generated $244M in unrealized losses. Yet, they may get their money back in bull market. If they survive that long! Kraken replaced LayerZero with Chainlink's CCIP citing security risks exposed by April's $292M Kelp DAO exploit.
- Joke of the week: World Libery Financial strikes back against Justin Sun, with a lawsuit for defamation against the Tron founder. How do I see the story? TRUMP was marketed to many suckers, to buy as much as they want. Sun bought and try to sell some over the counter, to make some extra profit. They caught that early, and kind of confiscated Sun tokens. Sun shouted 'Thief' looking to get his money back. Obviously they said they are not thiefs, he is the thief for trying to make money for himself instead of alowing World Liberty to get the money from suckers. Best comedy ever! Time to pay for your mistakes soon, as the Senate voted on May 14 to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act with 15 votes for and 9 against.
All the best,
George
Why not...
...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- a Hearthstone-like card game) (Golem Overlord - a Play2Earn game on Hive) (Upland - a real-life virtual land) (Holozing - a Pokemon-like game)and ( Chain of Legends - with a hint of Heroes of Might and Magic).
...get crypto while writing on the Publish0x blog. I am also writing for crypto on Hive.