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Crypto PAC Backed by Anchorage and Chainlink Announces Endorsements for 2026 Midterms

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Crypto PAC Backed by Anchorage and Chainlink Announces Endorsements for 2026 Midterms

A political action committee (PAC) that claimed to “support candidates working to advance digital asset and blockchain policy in the United States” announced its picks for the 2026 election cycle, potentially influencing key races with money from the crypto industry.

In a Thursday notice, the Blockchain Leadership Fund said it had endorsed ten candidates for the 2026 US midterm elections, four in the Senate and six in the House of Representatives. Chainlink Labs and Anchorage Digital announced the launch of the PAC in March amid other committees that spent heavily in the 2024 US election cycle, like Fairshake.

The PAC’s picks included Republicans Barry Moore, Kurt Alme and Jon Husted for US Senate races in Alabama, Montana and Ohio, respectively, and Houston Gaines, Jim Kingston and Jon Bonck for House runs in Georgia’s 10th district, Georgia’s 1st district and Texas’ 38th district, respectively. It will also support Democrats Angie Craig’s run for the US Senate in Minnesota and Adrian Boafo, and Christian Menefee and Don Davis for House races in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. 

“We believe constructive bipartisan participation is critical to ensuring the US remains a global leader in financial technology and the future of finance,” said an Anchorage Digital spokesperson. “We remain committed to supporting responsible innovation and constructive policymaking that brings digital assets further into the regulatory perimeter and strengthens trust in the ecosystem.”

Funding for Blockchain Leadership Fund. Source: FEC

The committee, which is a hybrid PAC set up to allow contributions directly to candidates as well as independent expenditures, said it may announce support for other candidates “who support responsible digital asset policy” before the midterm elections in November. As of Thursday, filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) showed only $175,000 in funding for the Blockchain Leadership Fund: $100,000 from Anchorage and $75,000 from Chainlink.

Related: Georgia primary to test crypto PAC’s support for Democratic candidate

The Blockchain Leadership Fund’s endorsements came after some of its chosen candidates won their respective primaries on Tuesday. Kingston and Gaines won Republican primaries in Georgia, and Moore will go to a runoff for Alabama’s US Senate seat after failing to secure a majority of the vote.

All three already benefited from a combined $8.5 million in media spending by the Defend American Jobs PAC, a Fairshake affiliate, which also poured about $350,000 into media to support Bonck in Georgia. Another PAC affiliated with Fairshake, Protect Progress, spent more than $4.1 million to support Menefee in his Texas runoff against incumbent Al Green and more than $2 million on media for Boafo in Maryland.

Crypto spending ahead of Texas Senate race, Trump gets involved

While Menefee and Green are set to go head-to-head next Tuesday, money from the crypto industry is also flowing into Texas over a Republican primary for one of the state’s US Senate seats.

The Fellowship PAC, an $11 million committee funded by Cantor Fitzgerald and Anchorage Digital, reported to the FEC on Wednesday that it would be spending $500,000 to support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for US Senate. The filing came more than a month after Fellowship reportedly withdrew funding for media on Paxton in response to pressure from Republican leaders toward Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, connected to Cantor Fitzgerald.

Truth Social post endorsing Ken Paxton for US Senate. Source: Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would be supporting Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn. State Representative James Talarico won a March Democratic primary, and will face off against the Republican candidate to be decided after a Tuesday runoff between Paxton and Cornyn.

Magazine: 5 tech predictions the mainstream media got horribly wrong

Pump.fun Launches USDC-Paired Liquidity Pools for Token Launches

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Pump.fun Launches USDC-Paired Liquidity Pools for Token Launches

Pump.fun now allows coin creators to launch with USDC-paired liquidity pools instead of SOL, raising starting market caps to $4k and increasing early-stage supply costs by 67% to improve token distribution and ecosystem health.

Pump.fun, a Solana-based token launch platform, has introduced USDC-paired liquidity pools as an alternative to its existing SOL-paired bonding curve mechanism.

The move comes as SOL price changes pushed bonding curves to their limits, with starting market caps dropping to approximately $2,000 and bonding occurring at ~$30,000. USDC pairs establish a $4,000 starting market cap and $58,783 bonding threshold, designed to create more stable trading conditions and fairer token distribution for early-stage coins.

The structural change makes early-stage token supply significantly more expensive to acquire. Bonding a USDC-paired token costs ~$12,161 compared to ~$7,276 for SOL tokens—a 67% increase. Purchasing the first 30% of supply costs ~$1,682 for USDC tokens versus ~$998 for SOL tokens. Pump.fun positions this higher entry cost as a mechanism to prevent supply abuse and mitigate token upside throttling at lower market capitalizations.

The platform highlighted that USDC pairs reduce retail friction by eliminating reliance on SOL price fluctuations, which previously caused wallet balance volatility during trades. This structure was “designed with stability and more importantly a healthier ecosystem in mind,” according to the announcement.

The USDC pairs feature does not alter Pump.fun’s existing commitment to programmatic buybacks and burns of its native $PUMP token. The platform will continue directing 50% of all revenue generated from both USDC and SOL pair launches toward purchasing and burning $PUMP tokens, consistent with historical buyback operations visible on-chain.

Sources: Pump.fun Official Announcement | Solscan Example Buyback Transaction

Harvard Offloads Entire $87M ETH Position

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Harvard Offloads Entire $87M ETH Position

Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard University’s endowment fund, sold all of its Ether (ETH) holdings after just one quarter, according to its Q1 2026 United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

The endowment no longer holds the $87 million in BlackRock iShares Ethereum Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF) shares, which it held in Q4 2025, according to its Q1 2026 SEC filing.

Harvard also reduced its exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) in Q1 2026, offloading about 2.3 million Bitcoin ETF shares. The endowment fund still holds more than 3 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, valued at nearly $117 million.

Harvard’s asset holdings as of Q1 2026. Source: SEC

The change in holdings follows a turbulent year for ETH, which has fallen by over 50% from the all-time high of nearly $5,000 reached in August 2025, and several high-profile departures at the Ethereum Foundation (EF), the organization that oversees the ecosystem.

Related: Dartmouth endowment invests in Solana ETF, holds $14M in crypto exposure

Key personnel leave the Ethereum Foundation, as the organization receives flak

Julian Ma and Carl Beek, two researchers at the EF, recently announced their departure from the organization, bringing the total number of departures in 2026 to eight.

Josh Stark, a longtime researcher and former project manager at the Foundation, also left the organization in April. The departures follow several organizational and leadership changes at the EF, which began in January 2025.   

Source: Josh Stark

In March, the EF published a mandate outlining its goals and its focus on upholding decentralization, privacy, open-source software code and censorship resistance.

However, the mandate and the overall stance of the organization were met with mixed reactions from the crypto community.

The core pillars outlined in the EF’s mandate are “great” and “worth fighting for,” according to journalist Laura Shin, but the EF should also focus on tokeneomics and raising the price of its native asset, she added. 

“The Ethereum Foundation seems to want to sit back on its laurels and act above it all when all its competitors are all getting down and dirty on the field to gain market share,” Shin said.

Magazine: Why is Ethereum Foundation selling? BTC futures warning signs: Market Moves

BTC long-term holder supply rises by more than 2 million coins

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BTC long-term holder supply rises by more than 2 million coins

Bitcoin’s long-term holder (LTH) supply is approaching all-time highs. Currently, 16.3 million BTC is held by this cohort, defined as investors who have held bitcoin for at least 155 days.

LTH supply has increased from 14.12 million BTC around the time of bitcoin’s record high above $126,000 in October, to the current 16.3 million BTC. In the past month alone, LTH supply has risen by roughly 200,000 BTC.

The only other time LTH supply was higher was in January 2024, when it reached 16.4 million BTC ahead of the U.S. spot bitcoin ETF launch, one of the most anticipated events in bitcoin’s history. In the months that followed, nearly 2 million BTC was distributed by this cohort as bitcoin rallied.

Typically, during periods of price weakness or full bear market conditions, long-term holders, often viewed as the smarter money, begin increasing exposure after divesting during the previous bull market. During both the 2015 and 2019 bear markets, LTH supply increased as investors accumulated during price weakness.

However, since the ETF launch in January 2024, LTH supply has largely fluctuated between 14 million and 16 million BTC. Now, it appears to have broken out of a 2.5-year downtrend, suggesting long-term holders are once again accumulating rather than distributing during bitcoin’s depressed price levels.

Harvard Endowment Cuts Bitcoin ETF Holdings by 43%, Exits Ethereum Fund Entirely

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Harvard Endowment Cuts Bitcoin ETF Holdings by 43%, Exits Ethereum Fund Entirely

Harvard Management Company slashed its BlackRock Bitcoin ETF position by roughly 43% in Q1 2026 and fully exited its Ethereum ETF stake, according to SEC filings.

Harvard University’s endowment reduced its exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs during the first quarter of 2026, according to SEC filings. Harvard Management Company cut its holdings in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) by approximately 43% and completely liquidated its position in BlackRock’s spot Ethereum fund, data from the latest 13F regulatory filings show.

The endowment’s retreat from crypto spot ETFs contrasts sharply with moves by other major institutional investors. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala increased its IBIT stake by 16% to approximately $566 million during the same period, signaling divergent appetites for Bitcoin exposure among large asset holders.

The 13F filing requirement mandates that institutional investment managers with more than $100 million in assets under management disclose their holdings quarterly to the SEC, providing transparency into major portfolio shifts across equities and certain other securities. Harvard’s reduction of Bitcoin ETF exposure and complete exit from Ethereum ETF positions mark a significant de-risking of the endowment’s digital asset allocation.

The move reflects changing institutional sentiment around spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in early 2026, roughly six months after the SEC approved spot Ethereum ETF products alongside existing Bitcoin ETF offerings.

Sources: SEC EDGAR Filing | BeInCrypto | Crypto News

This article was produced with the help of AI flows.

Unchained And Bitcoin Park Hit The Road For Bitcoin Pizza Day With “The New Rules Of Bitcoin”

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Unchained And Bitcoin Park Hit The Road For Bitcoin Pizza Day With “The New Rules Of Bitcoin”

AUSTIN, Texas – May 20th, 2026 – In celebration of Bitcoin Pizza Day on May 22, Unchained, a Bitcoin financial services company founded in 2016 by Joe Kelly and Dhruv Bansal, and Bitcoin Park are hosting special screenings of “The New Rules of Bitcoin,” a short film produced in partnership with The Atlantic’s brand studio Atlantic Re:Think, in ten major US cities. The film highlights three core ideas: Bitcoin is not what you think, Bitcoin is long term thinking, and Bitcoin is true ownership. These ideas lay the groundwork for Bitcoin’s distinction from other cryptocurrencies, with its unique blend of long-term wealth preservation and direct, collaborative custody.

On May 22, 2010, a programmer paid 10,000 bitcoin for two large pizzas to be delivered to his home in the first documented real-world bitcoin transaction. An amount worth around $760 million today, highlighting Bitcoin’s incredible rise to become a mainstream global asset. 

Screenings will run this week in Fort Worth, Kansas City on Friday 5/22, 7 PM, at Buffalo State Pizza Company, Chicago, Washington D.C., Portland, Nashville, Austin, Tampa Bay, and Lexington, Kentucky on Friday, 5/22, 6pm at Goodfellas Pizza. Through The New Rules of Bitcoin Roadshow, Unchained and Bitcoin Park are equipping local meetups with a free screening kit, a discussion primer, and pizza sponsorship for the first 100 meetups— bringing Bitcoin’s story to communities face-to-face, just like on the original Pizza Day. 

“Bitcoin Pizza Day is a reminder that adoption happens peer-to-peer,” said Jonathan Sexton, the Chief Commercial Officer at Unchained. “Every new bitcoiner was, at some point, brought in by another bitcoiner. We made this film with The Atlantic to give the community a tool to share Bitcoin with a new audience, and to help people who are still unsure about bitcoin to give it another look. And the roadshow is the platform to help bring about the next wave of adopters.”

“Since 2022, we’ve experienced in-person meetups work to bring new people into the bitcoin ecosystem, meetup after meetup,” said Rod Roudi, co-founder of Bitcoin Park. “Bitcoin education is at the core of most meetups and this time, supported by a really cool new film. Grassroots, word of mouth is how Bitcoin spread in the first place, and it’s how it will continue to spread.”

This Pizza Day, Unchained is waiving the first trading fee on all new retirement accounts created before June 1st that move from any crypto competitor. To learn more, book a consultation with one of Unchained’s U.S.-based bitcoin experts here. 

About Unchained

Unchained is a Bitcoin financial services company founded in 2016 by Joe Kelly and Dhruv Bansal and headquartered in Austin, Texas. The company built its services around collaborative custody, a multisignature structure in which clients hold their own keys while Unchained provides the financial infrastructure around them. Since its first bitcoin-backed loan in 2017, Unchained has originated more than $1 billion in loans, secured more than 100,000 BTC on its platform, and reported zero capital losses.

The company offers vaults, IRAs, a trading desk, commercial loans, inheritance planning, and its Signature advisory service for individuals and businesses. Its Bitcoin IRA is the only retirement account in the market that gives clients direct key control. In 2025, Unchained received a Wyoming trust charter through its subsidiary Gannett Trust, expanding its fiduciary and wealth advisory capabilities.

Unchained’s open-source wallet Caravan remains available to the public as a standalone tool, independent of any commercial relationship with the company. To learn more, visit unchained.com. 

About Bitcoin Park

Bitcoin Park is a community-supported campus founded in 2022 with locations in Nashville, Tennessee and Austin, Texas. Its mission is to support and accelerate the grassroots freedom tech movement by creating a home for mission-obsessed Bitcoiners, builders, and freedom fighters to work, learn, collaborate, and build.

Programming runs on three rails of freedom tech — AI, energy, and bitcoin — across meetups, workshops, and summits spanning custody & treasury, energy & mining, grassroots adoption, healthcare, payments, policy, and more.

AI Freedom Lab anchors the AI rail — Bitcoin Park’s initiative advancing sovereign, collaborative, and decentralized infrastructure so anyone can build on their own terms.

The capstone is Imagine IF, a summit of summits, held in Nashville the first week of October each year — a call to action for dreamers, builders, and believers to shape the world we want to live in, where AI, energy and converge in service of human flourishing and creative optimism. Each “Imagine IF…” talk plants a seed for what’s possible when bold imagination meets human action. To learn more, visit imagineifnashville.com 

Media Contact 

Melrose PR | [email protected]

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored press release. Readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence before acting on any information presented in this article.

Mark Cuban Sells Most Of His Bitcoin, Calls It Failed Hedge

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Mark Cuban Sells Most Of His Bitcoin, Calls It Failed Hedge

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has parted with most of his Bitcoin holdings, saying the asset failed to deliver on its core promise as a hedge against fiat currency weakness and geopolitical turmoil.

Cuban made the remarks during an interview with Front Office Sports, where he said Bitcoin “has lost the plot.” The Shark Tank personality and former Dallas Mavericks owner had long positioned Bitcoin as a superior alternative to gold, citing its fixed supply and decentralized structure. That conviction has eroded.

“I always thought it was a better version of gold than gold,” Cuban said. “But gold just blew up and went to $5,000. Bitcoin dropped.”

The billionaire pointed to price behavior during the U.S.-Iran conflict as the moment his confidence broke. Gold surged through the period of heightened tensions, setting a record above $5,500 per ounce earlier this year. 

Bitcoin, meanwhile, struggled to hold momentum. Cuban said he expected Bitcoin to rise each time the dollar fell. It did not.

“Every time the dollar dropped, Bitcoin should’ve gone up,” he said. “It’s not the hedge I expected it to be.”

Bitcoin traded near $77,500 on Thursday, down roughly 30% over the past year and 38% below its all-time high of $126,080 set in October. Gold, despite its own pullback from recent peaks, remains up more than 37% over the same 12-month stretch and commands a market cap above $31 trillion — the largest of any asset in the world.

Bitcoin has outperformed gold since the Iran conflict

The data does offer a counterpoint to Cuban’s critique. Since the first signs of U.S.-Iran conflict emerged in late February, Bitcoin has risen more than 16% while gold has fallen over 15%. Bitcoin’s defenders argue that framing matters — the asset’s performance depends on the window of analysis chosen.

Cuban acknowledged a distinction within the crypto space. He expressed less disappointment in Ethereum, which he sees as underpinned by real utility through decentralized finance and blockchain applications. He was categorical about meme coins and speculative tokens, calling them “garbage.”

His earlier crypto profile was broader. In 2021, he held a portfolio split roughly 60% Bitcoin, 30% Ethereum, and 10% in other assets. He was a vocal NFT enthusiast, displayed his wallets publicly, and even accepted Dogecoin as payment for Mavericks merchandise. He once predicted Dogecoin would reach $1 and function as a stablecoin.

Cuban said the crypto sector as a whole has disappointed him by failing to find mainstream utility. “It hasn’t found an application for grandma,” he said.

Petition Against South Korea’s 22% Crypto Tax Hits 50K Threshold

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Petition Against South Korea’s 22% Crypto Tax Hits 50K Threshold

A petition to scrap a 22% tax on crypto investment gains in South Korea reached the 50,000-signature threshold required for the country’s Finance and Economic Planning Committee to review objections to the new tax regime.

The 22% tax, set to take effect in January 2027, imposes financial and reporting “burdens” on investors, while also limiting upward mobility for younger individuals, who are locked out of housing markets due to skyrocketing real estate prices, according to the petition.

The petition now has more than 52,000 signatures. Source: South Korea Assembly

The petition also said that taxing crypto gains at 22%, while giving other asset classes preferential tax treatment, undermines South Korea’s share of the crypto market. In a translated statement, the authors of the petition wrote:

“If taxation is enforced in order to secure short-term tax revenues, it is likely to lead to greater losses in the long term, namely, a contraction of industry and an outflow of capital and talent abroad.”

South Korea is a key crypto hub in the Asia-Pacific region, and in March 2025, about 32% of the country’s population owned cryptocurrencies, according to local news agency Yonhap. However, ownership has declined so far this year as crypto prices remain under pressure.

Related: South Korea plans July rules for tokenized securities

South Korea’s crypto market contracts as tighter controls are proposed

The total value of crypto held by South Koreans declined from about 121.8 trillion won ($83.3 billion) in January 2025 to about 60.6 trillion won ($41.4 billion) in February 2026, according to industry data.

Daily trading volumes on the five largest crypto exchanges in the country, which include Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax,  also fell from $11.6 billion in December 2024 to just $3 billion in February.

Daily trading volume for South Korea’s largest crypto exchanges. Source: CoinGecko

Tighter Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations and Know Your Customer controls in South Korea are also driving investors away from the sector, critics of the policies say. 

In March, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) proposed that all crypto transactions above 10 million won ($6,630) sent to or from foreign crypto wallets should be automatically flagged as suspicious.

Crypto industry advocacy organizations in the country have pushed back against the new rules, arguing that the reporting requirements would create an operational burden for exchanges.

Magazine: South Korea gets rich from crypto… North Korea gets weapons

Bitcoin Trader Sees Breakout Move ‘Soon’ With BTC Circling $77,000

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Bitcoin Trader Sees Breakout Move ‘Soon’ With BTC Circling $77,000

Bitcoin (BTC) focused on $77,000 on Thursday as analysis eyed a minimum 5% BTC price move.

Key points:

  • Bitcoin waits for a breakout move as it circles the $77,000 mark.
  • Analysis sees risk in shorting price at current levels, with bears in the firing line.
  • Macro hurdles keep risk assets down across the board, while US bond yields cool.

Trader sees 5% BTC price move “soon”

Data from TradingView showed BTC price action sticking to a narrow range, with leveraged positions on either side of spot.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

“Some big clusters right around price. Most notably: the ~$78K area and the $76.5K-$77K area in the short term,” trader Daan Crypto Trades wrote in his latest analysis on X. 

“Price has been in a pretty tight price range the past few days so expecting some larger 5%+ move to occur here soon again.”

Crypto liquidation history (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass

Data from CoinGlass revealed that short positions had taken the majority of losses across crypto over the 24 hours to the time of writing.

“Bears on $BTC are getting SQUEEZED in real-time,” X analytics account Cryptic Trades commented. 

“While the price is going up, the Open-Interest has dropped by over 12K. This is exactly why you don’t short a BULLISH BACKTEST.”

BTC/USDT one-hour chart with open interest data. Source: Cryptic Trades/X

Cryptic Trades remained optimistic about BTC market strength despite the loss of various support levels in recent days. Holding above $74,000, it continued, was the “most likely outcome.”

“Shorting here, or hedging your spot holdings simply doesn’t make sense from a technical perspective, because the market structure remains intact,” it argued.

BTC/USD three-day chart. Source: Cryptic Trades/X

Oil returns to triple figures on Iran cues

Bitcoin and other risk assets faced familiar macro headwinds on the day, with WTI oil prices heading back above $100 per barrel.

Related: BTC price ‘bull trap’ at $76.5K? Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

The US-Iran war remained the key catalyst amid mixed reports over uranium enrichment and a permanent toll on oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

CFDs on WTI crude oil one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The day prior, US President Donald Trump had sent oil and US bond yields lower with hints that an Iran peace deal was near.

“It’s the same recipe, if this trend is prolonged and the deal is likely finalized, you’ll see yields continue to fall even more, especially in Japan,” crypto trader and analyst Michaël Van de Poppe responded. 

“If those yields come down –> risk-on assets to rally even higher.”

US 30-year treasury yield one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Blockchain.com files with SEC for U.S. IPO

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Blockchain.com files with SEC for U.S. IPO

Blockchain.com said it confidentially filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed initial public offering (IPO).

The number of shares to be offered and the proposed price range have not yet been determined, according to an announcement on Thursday.

A confidential filing allows companies to begin the SEC review process before publicly disclosing financial details tied to the listing. The IPO remains subject to market conditions and completion of the SEC review process.

Blockchain.com is a cryptocurrency financial services company that offers a range of products tied to digital assets, including a crypto exchange, wallet services, institutional trading and lending products.

The company held talks last year about going public in the U.S. through a merger with the a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), according to reports.

Crypto firms entered 2026 expecting a blockbuster year for IPOs after public debuts from companies including Circle (CRCL) and Bullish (BLSH) (the parent company of CoinDesk) helped reopen investors to digital-asset businesses last year.

But deteriorating market conditions, weaker trading volumes and disappointing post-listing performance from newly public companies like BitGo (BTGO) have since cooled investor appetite.

As a result, several major firms, including Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, Ethereum app builder Consensys and hardware wallet maker Ledger, have either delayed or paused their IPO plans altogether while they wait for market conditions to improve.

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