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BlackRock has purchased an additional 3.14 million shares of MicroStrategy for $535.6 million, BitcoinTreasuries reported. The acquisition increases BlackRock's total holdings in the company to 17.75 million shares, valued at $3.02 billion.

An address believed to belong to crypto custody and banking firm Anchorage Digital purchased an additional 397,000 HYPE, worth approximately $18 million, from Bybit and OKX starting about six hours ago, Onchain Lens reported. The same address has accumulated a total of 2.13 million HYPE, valued at $91.99 million, over the past month.

Goldman Sachs sold its entire holdings of XRP and SOL exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the first quarter of this year. According to Cointelegraph, the investment bank had previously disclosed in its fourth-quarter report that it held approximately $154 million in XRP ETFs from Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, and 21Shares, making it the largest institutional investor in the asset at the time. The firm also divested from all its Solana ETFs, including products like GSOL, BSOL, and FSOL. Goldman Sachs continues to hold over $700 million in BTC ETFs.

Bithumb has announced that it will temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals for Casper (CSPR) starting at 10:00 a.m. UTC on May 19 to support the network's mainnet upgrade.

Standard Chartered is considering acquiring the cryptocurrency custody business of its subsidiary, Zodia Custody, Bloomberg reported. According to a statement released today, the acquisition proposal has received the consent of Zodia Custody's major shareholders and creditors. Margaret Harwood-Jones, Global Head of Financing and Securities Services at Standard Chartered, explained that integrating Zodia's custody business with the bank's own crypto operations would enable expansion into new markets, including the UK and Australia. Meanwhile, Zodia's infrastructure business will be spun off into a separate company called Zodia Solutions.

The first appeal hearing for the inaugural case under South Korea's Virtual Asset User Protection Act is scheduled for next month, Newsdream reported. The hearing comes roughly three months after the initial verdict in February, in which two defendants, including the CEO of a virtual asset management firm, were convicted of market manipulation and received prison sentences and fines. The appeal is being pursued by both the prosecution and the defendants, signaling a contentious legal battle ahead. A key point of contention is expected to be whether prosecutors can successfully prove the approximately 7.1 billion won in illicit gains, a claim for which forfeiture was denied in the first trial. In the initial ruling, defendant A was sentenced to three years in prison, a 500 million won fine, and the forfeiture of about 840 million won. An accomplice, defendant B, received a two-year prison sentence, suspended for three years.

Decentralized prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi are continuing to allow users in India to sign up and trade despite a government warning that the platforms are illegal, Bloomberg reported. India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology recently notified VPN providers that Polymarket and similar prediction market platforms are subject to blocking. Authorities noted that some users are circumventing access restrictions with VPNs and warned that providers enabling such access could face legal liability. The country's stricter online gambling regulations took effect on May 1.

B.AI, a project building financial infrastructure for AI agents by combining AI and Web3, has announced via X that it now supports the Solana network. This update allows users to log in easily using MetaMask and Phantom Wallet. It also introduces new payment and subscription features on the Solana network. Supported cryptocurrencies include SOL, USDT, USDC, and WBTC.

According to data from CoinGlass, short positions worth $421.87 million on major centralized exchanges will be liquidated if BTC surpasses $77,654. Conversely, long positions valued at $375.62 million face liquidation if the price drops below $76,196.

JPYC, the issuer of the Japanese yen-pegged stablecoin JPYC, announced that its testing tool, JPYC Faucet, now supports Kairos, the testnet for the Kaia blockchain. This allows developers to receive testnet JPYC for free, enabling them to verify payment flows and business system integrations on the Kaia network without using real funds. The JPYC Faucet, which provides test tokens simply by connecting a wallet, also supports Ethereum Sepolia, Polygon Amoy, and Avalanche Fuji.

Yuzo Kano, CEO of Japanese cryptocurrency exchange bitFlyer, has pushed back against a government proposal to increase capital gains taxes on stock sales for company founders and executives, arguing the move will trigger a talent exodus. He contended that compensation for venture founders is already "at a very low level." While other countries offer preferential tax rates to attract top talent, Japan is moving in the opposite direction, Kano noted. He explained that most venture founders receive almost no initial salary, citing his own experience of earning just 4.8 million yen (about $33,000) annually only after bitFlyer had achieved some growth. Without the potential profits from his stock holdings, he added, the company itself would have struggled to survive. The Japanese government and ruling party have recently signaled their intent to impose a tax of up to 80% on such capital gains, prompting backlash from Kano and other business leaders.

An anonymous whale address starting with 0x54d purchased 5,001 ETH ($10.6 million) on CowSwap over the past three hours at an average price of $2,110, on-chain analyst EmberCN reported. The address now holds a total of 132,000 ETH, valued at $290 million, which has been acquired through lending protocols such as Aave and Spark. The position's liquidation price is $1,324.

The expansion of AI agent-based financial trading is pushing existing crypto compliance systems to their limits, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. In an interview with CoinDesk, Elliptic CEO Simone Maini said that agent-based commerce will cause an exponential increase in transactions requiring monitoring, a volume that current compliance staff cannot handle. To address this, Elliptic plans to build an "AI agent-type" compliance system to automate transaction monitoring and investigation. The company raised $120 million in a new funding round on May 12, backed by Deutsche Bank and Nasdaq's venture arm. CoinDesk noted that as AI technology also fuels an increase in hacker attacks, the crypto security landscape is turning into an arms race.

Ethereum's price is heavily influenced by spot ETF fund flows, according to an analysis by 10x Research CEO Markus Thielen. He noted a high correlation over the past year between the price of ETH and the 30-day moving average of daily net inflows into its spot ETFs, establishing institutional capital as a key variable. However, Thielen explained that with U.S. 10-year Treasury yields exceeding 4.6% amid rising inflation, the appeal of Ethereum's approximate 2.5% staking yield is relatively diminishing. As ETH spot ETFs have reverted to net outflows in May, he suggested that if this trend persists, the price of ETH is likely to remain range-bound without a clear direction for the time being.

An address associated with leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has purchased an additional 372,000 HYPE ($16.91 million) over the past three hours, Lookonchain reported. The address has now bought a total of 2.11 million HYPE ($90.87 million) since April 14.

Line Next announced that its stablecoin wallet, Unifi, will begin supporting the Japanese yen stablecoin JPYC on May 22.

The Smarter Web Company, a London Stock Exchange-listed firm that has adopted a Bitcoin (BTC) accumulation strategy, has appointed Jon Bird as its new Head of Marketing, the company announced on X. Bird, co-founder of the marketing firm Squarebird, will oversee communications, including brand development, digital marketing, PR, and content. He is also expected to expand the marketing organization.

South Korean crypto exchange Upbit has announced it is delaying the listing of OriginTrail (TRAC) by 30 minutes. Trading is now scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. UTC today.

Swiss cryptocurrency bank Sygnum has announced the completion of a pilot program for on-chain cryptocurrency trading using AI agents. The bank stated this is the first time a regulated Swiss bank has executed on-chain transactions with an AI agent. According to Sygnum, the system allows a client to input a command in natural language text, which the AI agent then uses to execute a multi-step blockchain transaction, with the client providing the final signature. Sygnum plans to commercialize the service after resolving related regulatory and security issues.

Two of seven CoinNess-affiliated chart masters have forecast a decline in Bitcoin's price this week, while five predict a rise. The highest price target among the analysts is $84,000, with the lowest at $73,000. Note: Readers can vote on the price direction and target that aligns with their views via the provided link. We will be giving away coffee coupons to 100 randomly selected participants.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin Depot (BTM), the world's largest Bitcoin ATM operator, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and suspended its global ATM operations, according to The Block. The company had reorganized its management after its money transmitter license was suspended in Connecticut in March, but it faced a crisis as revenue from its core business plummeted. Additionally, Bitcoin Depot suffered approximately $3.7 million in damages from a hacking incident in April. While the company has not yet released its first-quarter earnings, it anticipates a 49.2% year-over-year revenue decline and a net loss of $9.5 million.

The cryptocurrency industry cannot expand further without embracing privacy technology, according to Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Solana infrastructure startup Helius. In a post on X, Mumtaz noted that while retail investors have shown little interest in privacy over the past year, institutional investors have ranked it as their second most important requirement. Privacy technology enables users to conceal transaction amounts and counterparties, a feature an increasing number of crypto projects are adopting.

Capital B, a European listed company that has been strategically accumulating Bitcoin, announced it has purchased an additional 192 BTC for $15.11 million. This brings the company's total holdings to 3,135 BTC.

Major market makers Wintermute and Oros Global have withdrawn approximately $100 million in liquidity from Hyperliquid (HYPE) and moved the funds off-platform, according to an analysis by Hyperinsight. Wintermute has reportedly reduced its operating position from $40 million to $4 million, while Oros Global has scaled back from $80 million to $41 million. Notably, Oros Global, which previously supplied liquidity for 175 assets, has closed all its positions on the platform over the past two hours and withdrawn cryptocurrencies worth around $6 million to Binance. In contrast, Wintermute continues to maintain positions in 111 assets.

South Korean exchange Coinone announced that it has designated THORChain (RUNE) for its delisting watchlist. The exchange explained that it confirmed user damages resulted from a security incident, such as a hack whose cause has not been identified or remedied.