The Solana-based tokens marketed as a way to gain exposure to Anthropic and OpenAI before they go public got an unwelcome reality check this week.
The two companies said the transfer of privately held shares to the special purpose vehicles (SPVs) that back the tokens is invalid because any such move requires approval by the corporate board.
The tokens slumped. Anthropic PreStocks (ANTHROPIC), issued by Solana-based platform PreStocks to represent Anthropic shares, dropped 34% in seven days, while OpenAI PreStocks fell 39%, CoinGecko data show.
PreStocks uses SPVs, legal entities set up specifically to hold something on behalf of investors, to hold the shares, and issues tokens on Solana that represent indirect economic exposure to those shares.
“We do not permit special purpose vehicles to acquire Anthropic stock and any transfer of shares to an SPV are void under our transfer restrictions,” Anthropic said in an updated investor warning page.
Any third party claiming to sell its shares through “direct sales, forward contracts, tokenized securities, or other mechanisms” is “likely either engaged in fraud or offering an investment that may have no value due to our transfer restrictions,” the company said.
OpenAI issued a similar warning, saying unauthorized transactions may violate U.S. securities laws and could result in the invalidation of the underlying equity. Both companies named several intermediaries. Anthropic listed Open Door Partners, Hiive and Forge as unauthorized to buy or sell its shares.
While PreStocks tokens claim 1:1 backing through SPVs, neither the platform nor any third-party auditor has published the attestation reports the company promised at launch.
Liquidity is a concern as well. Data from PreStocks shows just over $333,000 in stablecoins and $18,000 in solana (SOL) in Anthropic liquidity as of Wednesday, meaning early buyers sitting on big profits might not be able to fully cash out. This exposes the gap between the implied valuations on the platform and what the underlying SPVs can actually deliver.
The dashboard also shows an implied Anthropic valuation above $1.3 trillion against the platform holding roughly $23 million in total assets, a gap that gave the companies the structural opening to push back.
PreStocks debuted in August 2025 with backing from Republic Capital and is led by CEO Xavier Ekkel. The platform is unavailable to residents of the U.S., Singapore, the European Union, and certain sanctioned jurisdictions, and requires know-your-customer processes for minting and redemptions. Partnerships at launch included Jupiter and Meteora, both decentralized exchanges on Solana.
Americans are sending Washington a clear message: the United States should lead the future of digital finance, not fall behind while other countries write the rules. A new national HarrisX survey of registered voters found that 70% say the U.S. should have already passed crypto legislation, 62% say it is important for America to set the global rules for digital finance, and 60% prefer clear federal legislation over case-by-case enforcement.
That makes the Senate Banking Committee’s decision to mark up the Clarity Act a critical next step toward giving the United States a workable framework for digital asset markets.
For years, Washington treated digital assets as a moving target. The technology evolved quickly, the market was volatile, and policymakers were still sorting out the risks and opportunities. That is no longer the case. Lawmakers, regulators and staff have now spent years studying these markets, engaging stakeholders and wrestling with difficult questions around consumer protection, market integrity, custody, trading and disclosure.
The industry has changed as well. A sector that once spoke in scattered, often conflicting voices has become more disciplined in its engagement with policymakers. That matters because durable legislation comes from sustained engagement, practical proposals and a willingness to work through tradeoffs.
The House made that much clear when it passed the CLARITY Act with strong bipartisan support. That vote did not resolve every outstanding question, but it established something important: digital asset market structure belongs squarely on Congress’s agenda. The Senate now has a chance to build on that foundation.
It is doing so with a stronger policy foundation than it had even a year ago. The SEC and the CFTC have taken steps to improve coordination and clarify how existing law applies to parts of the market. Those efforts are important, but they also underscore the limits of agency action. Only Congress can provide durable rules on regulatory boundaries, registration requirements, market oversight and the treatment of digital assets that do not fit neatly within older frameworks.
Meanwhile, the market has continued to move ahead. Following the signing of the GENIUS Act, stablecoins have grown rapidly and are becoming more connected to mainstream payments infrastructure. Tokenization is moving from concept to institutional experimentation. Major financial firms are testing blockchain-based systems for settlement and other market functions. Public blockchain networks are increasingly part of that activity.
Some of that development is taking place on networks like Solana. PayPal expanded PYUSD to Solana to support faster, lower-cost payment use cases. Visa has included Solana in its stablecoin settlement work. And SoFi, which launched SoFiUSD in December, has said parts of its broader digital asset banking platform are expected to leverage Solana alongside other networks. These examples show how digital asset markets are becoming more connected to real financial activity.
It’s clear: Digital assets are the next generation of financial infrastructure.
Congress should legislate with that reality in mind. A market structure bill has to do difficult, important work. It has to draw workable lines between regulators. It has to establish clear rules for market participants while ensuring robust consumer protections. And it has to account for the fact that blockchain networks and digital asset markets do not map neatly onto categories built for earlier generations of financial products.
That is precisely why markup matters. It requires lawmakers to engage real legislative text in public. Members debate substance, offer amendments, narrow disagreements and test whether a proposal is ready to move. On legislation this consequential, that process is where serious policymaking happens.
For digital asset legislation to last, it must be bipartisan. A framework written on a party-line basis will be fragile from the start. Rules that shape markets endure when both parties help write them. The good news is that more lawmakers on both sides of the aisle now understand the stakes. They understand the need for consumer protection, the importance of market integrity and the cost of leaving a growing sector trapped in legal uncertainty.
The United States has deep capital markets, strong institutions, world-class entrepreneurs and a long history of leading in financial innovation. It should bring those strengths to digital assets as well. Clear rules will protect consumers, strengthen markets and give responsible builders the confidence to operate and invest in the United States.
Digital asset markets will continue to grow. Capital will move. Infrastructure will be built. The question is whether the United States will shape that future with clear rules, credible oversight and the confidence to lead.
The Senate can help answer that question now by moving this legislation forward and closer to the President’s desk. It’s critical that it does.
Crypto wallet provider Ledger put its plans to go public in the U.S. on hold due to difficult market conditions, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Ledger has not filed any draft S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), one of the people said. A confidential filing is typically the first formal step in the IPO process.
The French cryptocurrency security firm has a number of options, and could decide to raise capital privately, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is not public.
In January, reports emerged that Ledger had hired U.S. investment banks for a potential IPO valued at around $4 billion. Goldman Sachs (GS), Jefferies (JEF) and Barclays (BARC) were said to be advising on the offering, which could have come as early as this year.
A Ledger spokesperson declined to comment.
Ledger is best known for its hardware wallets that let people securely store cryptocurrencies offline. Its core business is protecting users’ private keys, the cryptographic credentials that control access to digital assets like bitcoin (BTC and ether (ETH).
After a wave of crypto listings in 2025, several digital-asset firms began rethinking their IPO timelines as weaker token prices, lower trading volumes and volatile equity markets weighed on investor appetite.
Kraken, one of the largest U.S. crypto exchanges, paused its multibillion-dollar IPO plans earlier this year despite having confidentially filed with the SEC in late 2025.
BitGo (BTGO), the only crypto-native company to go public in 2026, offered an early test of investor appetite for digital asset listings. It raised about $213 million in its January IPO, pricing shares above the marketed range at $18 and briefly surging more than 20% in its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) debut.
The momentum proved short-lived. After an initial rally, BitGo shares retreated below their IPO price, underscoring the volatility and uneven investor sentiment facing crypto firms seeking to tap public markets.
The shares are currently trading about 36% below their IPO price.
In March, Ledger appointed former Circle Internet (CRCL) executive John Andrews as chief financial officer and opened an office in New York City as part of a broader expansion of its U.S. operations.
Andrews, who previously led capital markets and investor relations at Circle, joined the crypto security firm as demand from banks, asset managers and stablecoin issuers for digital asset infrastructure continues to grow.
The company said the New York office was part of a multimillion-dollar investment in its U.S. footprint and would serve as a hub for Ledger Enterprise, its institutional infrastructure platform. Ledger also said the expansion would create dozens of new jobs across enterprise and marketing functions.
Read more: Kraken parent Payward seeks fresh funding at $20 billion valuation ahead of planned IPO
Senate Banking Committee members have filed more than 100 proposed amendments to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, according to Politico reporting. The panel is set to convene on Thursday for a long-awaited markup vote that crypto and industry leaders say could reshape digital asset regulation in the United States.
The committee scheduled its executive session for 10:30 a.m. on May 14 at Room 538 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., where lawmakers will debate the amendments and vote on whether to send the bill to the full Senate floor.
The flood of filings follows the release of an updated 309-page draft of the bill earlier this week, expanded from the 278-page version proposed in January.
Senator Elizabeth Warren leads the opposition push, submitting more than 40 amendments alone, with the bulk of proposed changes coming from Democratic members of the Banking Committee.
The wave of filings mirrors the January markup session, which drew 137 amendments before that session was cancelled, signaling that resistance to the bill remains strong even as its supporters push for a final vote.
At the center of the dispute is how the bill handles stablecoin yield products — crypto that offer returns to holders. Banking groups argue such crypto products threaten traditional deposit bases; crypto firms counter that reward programs support liquidity and customer activity without functioning as bank deposits.
The American Bankers Association has sent more than 8,000 letters to Senate offices since last Friday, targeting the stablecoin yield compromise brokered by Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks. That compromise, reached after months of negotiations, prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest or yield to users who hold tokens passively, while preserving exceptions for rewards tied to genuine platform transactions and payment activity.
Senators Jack Reed and Tina Smith filed amendments to tighten those standards further, targeting products that deliver returns in ways that resemble traditional interest-bearing deposit accounts.
The banking lobby maintains the existing compromise language still leaves room for stablecoin platforms to replicate high-yield savings products without meeting bank-level regulatory requirements.
Senate ethics provisions and developer protections
Senator Chris Van Hollen introduced a proposal that would prohibit senior government officials and their families from owning or promoting crypto-related businesses — a demand Democrats say is non-negotiable given President Trump’s close ties to the crypto industry.
Republican sponsors have resisted the provision, with some warning that ethics riders could fracture the coalition needed for the bill to advance.
A recent draft of the bill already included language shielding noncustodial developers from being classified as money transmitting businesses, with that protection extended retroactively to cover past conduct.
The broader stakes for the crypto industry
The CLARITY Act, formally H.R. 3633, passed the House on July 17, 2025, by a 294–134 bipartisan vote before stalling in the Senate through two cancelled markup sessions and protracted stablecoin negotiations.
At its core, the bill would draw a clear jurisdictional line between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, ending years of enforcement-based policymaking that left crypto firms operating under legal ambiguity.
Prediction markets have priced the odds of the bill becoming law in 2026 roughly at 60%, the highest level in months, with the White House setting a July 4 target for a presidential signature.
Committee Chairman Tim Scott had originally targeted a Senate floor vote for September 2025, then pushed that deadline to end-of-year, and most recently said he hoped to reach a full Senate vote by June or July 2026.
Thursday’s markup is the first formal committee vote on the bill in the Senate, and its outcome will determine whether that timeline is still within reach.
A successful Hyperliquid whale opened a $70 million short position, but data suggests this is a technical move.
Rising oil prices and Fed liquidity injections could devalue US Treasuries, boosting Bitcoin as a scarce macro asset.
Bitcoin below $80,000 as Hyperliquid whale flips bearish on crypto
Bitcoin (BTC) failed to sustain bullish momentum on Wednesday, retreating below the psychological $80,000 level. Traders grew anxious as persistently high oil prices applied pressure to inflation and consumer spending. A Hyperliquid whale with $42 million in historical profits flipped bearish, leaving investors to question whether the recent rally is losing its foundation.
The Hyperliquid whale at address 0x8def…992dae recently opened a $70 million bearish position on various cryptocurrencies and synthetic tokens tied to major technology stocks. According to the Hyperdash trading and data platform, the address belongs to Loracle, an early developer within the Hyperliquid ecosystem. This account began betting more aggressively in September 2025.
Related: Bitcoin price targets $79K as US PPI inflation hits highest since 2022
Interestingly, the majority of this whale’s past profits were generated through bullish bets, including several successful trades over the last month. A long position in Bitcoin, Zcash (ZEC), and Toncoin (TON) closed on Monday, netting a $9.2 million profit in just two weeks. On Thursday, the same entity secured a $3 million profit on bullish synthetic tokens linked to oil prices after a nine-day hold.
Hyperliquid whale 0x94d373…c933814 position on May 13. Source: app.trade.xyz
Over the past week, this whale flipped bearishly by accumulating a massive $49 million short position on HYPE. These bets on downside price movements expanded to include a $12.5 million short in Bitcoin, alongside $8 million in synthetic tokens tracking chipmaker Sandisk (SNDK US) and the Nasdaq-100 Index.
Why is the whale shorting BTC, HYPE, and tech stocks?
This bearish assessment is further supported by a $1.7 million long position in a gold-backed stablecoin. However, trade data analysis from app.trade.xyz reveals an algorithmic trading style, with positions typically lasting less than a week. These findings suggest the whale is reacting to short-term technical moves rather than a fundamental breakdown in risk-on assets.
Brent crude oil (left) vs. US 5-year Treasury yield (right). Source: TradingView
The ongoing war in Iran has pushed Brent crude oil prices above $100. This spike likely pushes the US Federal Reserve to expand its balance sheet as US Treasury yields spiral out of control. As US fiscal budget issues mount, investors are increasingly incentivized to seek shelter in scarce assets, especially since higher inflation expectations reduce the appeal of fixed-income investments.
US Federal Reserve total assets, USD millions. Source: St Louis Fed
The US Fed has begun accumulating bonds and mortgage-backed assets to relieve pressure on financial institutions. While providing liquidity eases immediate concerns, this intervention causes inflation to accelerate. This remedy, though efficient, curbs the potential for expansionist monetary policies, as the Fed has less room to trim interest rates effectively.
Even if Bitcoin and tech stocks initially react negatively to signs of an overheating economy, traders will likely eventually exit fixed-income investments as the expansion of the monetary base becomes evident. Lower demand for US Treasuries indicates eroding trust in monetary policy, which serves as a positive driver for Bitcoin over the medium term.
Ultimately, little reason exists to fear this Hyperliquid whale’s bearish bets, even when accounting for the entity’s successful track record.
As Wall Street firms race to bring stocks, bonds and credit products onto blockchain rails, a new Ethereum-based marketplace backed by Animoca Brands is aiming to turn tokenized assets into something crypto investors can use across decentralized finance (DeFi).
NUVA, developed by Animoca and Nuva Labs, is connecting around $19 billion worth of tokenized real-world assets originating on the Provenance blockchain ecosystem, including private credit and Treasury-linked products tied to Figure Technologies Solutions (FIGR), the blockchain firm founded by former SoFi CEO Mike Cagney.
Read more: Mike Cagney’s second act: Turning blockchain into Wall Street’s new plumbing
Tokenized real-world assets have become one of crypto’s fastest-growing sectors. Asset managers and fintech firms view blockchain rails as a way to modernize how financial products are issued, traded and used as collateral. The broader market for tokenized assets could reach trillions of dollars over the next decade, according to multiple industry forecasts.
NUVA was designed as a distribution layer for tokenized assets, allowing them to move beyond closed financial networks and into DeFi markets, giving average retail users access to assets often limited to institutional investors.
It debuts with two flagship products: a Treasury-linked yield vault called nvYLDS, tied to Figure’s SEC-regulated stablecoin YLDS with more than $500 million supply, and nvPRIME, a token tied to Figure’s $18.4 billion portfolio of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). While the former gives investors money market yield, the latter offers high single-digit yield — more than 7% currently — that is mostly accessible to institutions and accredited investors in traditional finance.
Anthony Moro, CEO of Nuva Labs and a former BNY executive, said the goal is to create a marketplace for blockchain-native financial assets rather than wrapped versions of traditional products.
“Nobody really has that unified global distribution layer for blockchain-native assets,” Moro said in an interview. “We thought what was missing was a platform where users could access institutional-grade assets in a simple, composable format.”
Users deposit stablecoins into vaults and receive ERC-20 tokens representing ownership in the underlying assets. Those tokens can then be traded, lent or posted as collateral across Ethereum-based DeFi protocols.
As the NUVA platform expands, Moro said to “look for a wide range of assets to be available to everyone in an easy to use, self-directed and self custodial manner, eliminating Wall Street’s limited access, time lag and high fees.”
Moro argued that many existing tokenization models still rely too heavily on offchain infrastructure and manual reconciliation.
“The way to tokenize assets isn’t a digital twin,” he said. “The Figure loan itself is digitally native. There’s no filing cabinet somewhere keeping the real record.”
Figure has become one of the largest issuers of blockchain-based private credit products through the Provenance network. Moro said the broader vision is to eventually bring a range of tokenized assets onto NUVA from multiple issuers and expand to other blockchains beyond Ethereum.
“Cheaper, faster and safer will win,” Moro said. “That’s how all financial assets eventually come onchain.”
This week’s U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing to consider edits to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act has dozens of amendments to weigh, though it’s likely that almost all of them won’t survive the process of Thursday’s event.
Lawmakers have pushed forward a range of proposed changes for the market structure bill as it approaches the hearing known as a “markup,” from amendments that would establish government-ethics rules to others setting safe harbors for developers to one that would cut out a must-have protection for the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, plus a number of other smaller, technical adjustments.
The list is particularly dominated by a few lawmakers’ names, including Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed. Their items are expected to be a rhetorical wish list as other members of the committee — mostly Republicans — seek to advance the bill without significant overhauls.
Each amendment will be discussed during the hearing and will eventually receive a vote, unless they’re withdrawn. A simple majority will be needed to adopt or reject an amendment. Eventually, the Banking Committee will vote to advance the bill itself.
Here are some highlights, according to a list of the proposals circulated ahead of the hearing:
Senator Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, wants to adopt some of the requests from bank lobbyists to further restrict stablecoin yields, according to one of his 18 amendments.
He would also entirely scrap the section known as the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, which shields software developers that don’t control people’s money from being regulated as money transmitters.
On the same topic, Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto, a Nevada Democrat, wants to “protect software developers by creating a safe harbor from criminal liability for not registering as a money transmitter at the state or federal level.”
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is pushing eight amendments, including one that would institute a major Democratic request: banning the president and other senior government officials from “owning, promoting or affiliating with” digital assets businesses.
Senator Warren would more specifically “prohibit political corruption in banking applications and presidential bank ownership,” seeming to directly target the effort from World Liberty Financial — a company tied to President Donald Trump and his family — to obtain a U.S. banking charter.
Warren, who is also seeking to cut out whole swaths of the current bill regarding the oversight of digital commodities, went farther afield with some amendments, trying to cap credit card interest rates and calling for bank supervisory records involving “Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators.” (The bill itself does include some non-crypto provisions, including legislation targeted at housing championed by Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican.)
Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who has been at the center of illicit-finance negotiations involving DeFi, is proposing “a control test to determine when persons operating non-decentralized finance trading protocols are subject to” Bank Secrecy Act anti-money laundering obligations.
On the Republican side of the committee, Senator Bill Hagerty from Tennessee is seeking a ban of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) issued by the U.S. Federal Reserve. CBDC bans have already been pushed in various other bills by lawmakers, most recently in the House of Representatives’ bill to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Thursday’s session to consider advancing the Clarity Act is likely already well planned for what the Republican majority will allow into the legislation. The last time the Clarity Act was on final approach to a markup in this same committee, it made it to this stage in which some 75 amendments were offered, though that hearing was postponed shortly after.
Previous wrinkles in the negotiation have since been ironed out over four months of talks, clearing a path for committee approval this week. Once that happens, this bill can be merged with the parallel effort that already cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee.
However, some significant changes are still expected after this week, including the effort to resolve the Democrats’ demand for a conflict-of-interest provision on cutting ties between government officials and the crypto sector, most notably seen with the president and his family. A meeting earlier this week on that ethics provision reportedly remained contentious, and Democrats including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand have said the Clarity Act will not get approved in the Senate without it.
Clarity’s advocates need to secure a number of Democratic supporters for the bill if it’s going to clear the 60-vote hurdle that’s standard in the Senate. Then the bill needs to get another approval from the U.S. House, which had already passed a similar bill last year.
In a Wednesday posting on social media site X, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called the bill “strong” and said it “will benefit the American people by making the US financial system faster, cheaper and more accessible.”
“Mark it up,” he said.
Read More: Clarity Act, in the flesh, unveiled by U.S. Senate Banking Committee before hearing
Welcome to our institutional newsletter, Crypto Long & Short. This week:
Dovile Silenskyte provides an alternative to the “bitcoin as a risk asset” narrative.
Joshua de Vos shares insights and analysis on global exchanges.
Top headlines institutions should pay attention to by Francisco Rodrigues.
CoinDesk 80 Leads as Crypto Outperforms Across Asset Classesin Chart of the Week.
Thanks for joining us!
-Alexandra Levis
Expert Insights
Bitcoin vs. gold: 26% relative undervaluation
By Dovile Silenskyte, director of digital assets research, WisdomTree
For years, markets have struggled to classify bitcoin. Currently, the dominant media narrative tends to treat bitcoin as a high-beta expression of investor risk appetite: rising when liquidity is abundant and falling when markets turn defensive.
That framing increasingly misses the bigger structural shift underway.
Bitcoin is evolving into a monetary asset competing for the same macro allocation bucket as gold. Both bitcoin and gold:
Sit outside the traditional fiat system.
Respond to inflation expectations, real yields and confidence in sovereign currencies.
Attract investors looking for scarce and politically neutral stores of value.
The difference is that gold represents monetary defensiveness while bitcoin represents monetary expansion. This distinction changes how bitcoin should be analyzed.
Rather than evaluating bitcoin through an equity or risk-asset framework, we believe the cleaner analytical lens is bitcoin versus gold. The key question is not whether bitcoin will rise in absolute terms, but whether its monetary premium relative to gold is too low or too high given the prevailing macro backdrop.
Our Bitcoin in Gold (BiG) model attempts to answer precisely that question. As of March 31, 2026:
Actual bitcoin/gold ratio: 15.6
Model fair value: 21.1
That gap implies bitcoin is 26% undervalued relative to gold.
Figure 1: The actual bitcoin/gold ratio is sitting clearly below model estimate
Source: WisdomTree, Stooq. From December 31, 2013 to March 31, 2026. Historical performance is not an indication of future performance, and any investment may go down in value.
This gap is not abstract. It reflects current macro inputs embedded in the model. Specifically, bitcoin reacts more aggressively than gold to macro shifts:
Falling real yields / easier liquidity: bitcoin outperforms.
Stronger USD / risk-off: gold outperforms.
Rising inflation expectations: typically supports gold first.
Today’s mix implies a higher bitcoin/gold ratio than observed.
As of March 31, 2026, the model assigns the highest probability for the following three macro scenarios over the coming 12 months, and each of them leads to different outcomes:
Current: no shock; gradual convergence to fair value.
Inflation shock: gold leads initially; bitcoin catches up later.
Risk-off: stronger USD; gold outperforms.
Figure 2: Scenario paths for the bitcoin/gold ratio
Source: WisdomTree. April 7, 2026. Model assumes that macro scenario starts on April 1, 2026 and continues for the next 12-month. Forecasts are not an indication of future performance and any investments are subject to risks and uncertainties.
For investors, there are three practical applications of the BiG model:
Relative value trade: long bitcoin and short gold is one potential implementation approach.
Allocation tilt: if holding both, increase bitcoin weight when the gap is wide.
Macro overlay: combine with real yields, dollar trend and liquidity indicators.
The BiG model is a positioning tool. The edge comes from systematically leaning into dislocations when they are wide and scaling back as they compress. The discipline is straightforward: track the gap, anchor decisions in the macro context and avoid overfitting short-term price moves.
See further detail in Bitcoin vs gold: bitcoin looks 26% undervalued relative to gold blog.
Principled Perspectives
The centralized exchange market is pulling apart
By Joshua de Vos, research lead, CoinDesk Data
Centralized exchanges have long maintained that the industry has reached maturity. CoinDesk’s May 2026 Exchange Benchmark, which evaluates 75 spot exchanges against more than 100 metrics, provides a rigorous test of that assertion. The resulting data is encouraging in some areas and complex in others; most notably, it reveals a systemic vulnerability to market failures that persists even among top-tier venues.
The bar rises
The primary shift this cycle is methodological: the AA grading threshold was raised from 80 to 85, reflecting the higher institutional standards required as the benchmark evolves. Six exchanges met this new criteria: Bitstamp by Robinhood (90.26), Coinbase (88.58), Kraken (87.77), Binance (87.25), Bullish (86.99) and Crypto.com (86.22). For the first time in three years, Bitstamp leads the rankings, overtaking Binance. Meanwhile, Gemini and OKX moved from AA to A status. This reclassification was a direct consequence of the higher threshold rather than a decline in quality, as both exchanges actually improved their individual scores.
The Exchange Grade Distribution highlights a significant evolution over the last three cycles. The most notable change occurred at the bottom of the scale; the number of E-grade exchanges dropped from 11 in November 2025 to just four, with seven venues ascending to the D-tier. This represents the largest single-cycle grade shift in the benchmark’s history. The universe average score rose to 58.42, marking a third consecutive period of improvement, and the number of ‘Top-Tier’ exchanges (rated BB or higher) grew to 21 from 20 last cycle.
Volume concentrates at the top
Top-tier exchanges now command 59% of Q1 spot volume despite making up only 27% of rated venues; a sharp increase from 40% in October 2025. This trend aligns with a long-term pattern of institutional capital gravitating toward venues with verifiable infrastructure. Binance remains the dominant force with 24% of total spot volume, nearly four times that of its nearest competitor. Conversely, MEXC commands 6.25% of global volume but remains C-graded, illustrating a small yet visible disconnect between trading activity and institutional risk standards amongst trading long-tail assets.
October’s lesson
A critical finding this cycle involves the market-wide exchange failures on October 10th, which caused price dislocations across 62 of the 75 benchmarked exchanges and affected at least 571 trading pairs. The incidence of flash crashes was near-universal, impacting 81% of all rated exchanges, including 100% of AA-grade and 100% of B-grade venues. These results suggest that such market failures are systemic, rather than isolated to lower-tier platforms. To better track this, the benchmark has introduced a broader flash crash assessment to monitor venue resilience.
What the data still shows
Transparency continues to trend upward. Proof of Reserves coverage reached 63%, and due diligence questionnaire (DDQ) submissions hit an all-time high with 21 verified responses. However, the regulatory landscape remains fragmented. Despite MiCA being in effect since late 2024, only 16 of the 75 benchmarked exchanges hold a full license, and 66% have no regulatory presence in the EU at all. Notably, HitBTC, Thalex and Woo have yet to establish a regulatory footprint in any jurisdiction.
Looking ahead, the November 2026 cycle opens for exchange submissions in October. As institutional allocation into digital assets deepens and scrutiny from counterparties increases, the cost of operating outside institutional risk frameworks is only rising. The benchmark plays a central role in making that cost visible.
Headlines of the Week
– ByFrancisco Rodrigues
This week’s headlines show a fresh wave of capital flowing into crypto infrastructure as banks, asset managers and tokenization platforms race to build the rails for institutional adoption. That’s even as one of the sector’s largest bitcoin holders flags potential selling pressure.
Circle raises $222 million for Arc, beats Q1 earnings estimates but misses on revenue: The USDC issuer closed the round at a $3 billion valuation for its Arc blockchain token, with backing from BlackRock, Apollo and Bullish, alongside Q1 results that topped earnings expectations but came in light on the top line.
Ripple raises $200 million from Neuberger Berman to expand its Ripple Prime platform: The new facility will fund the buildout of an institutional prime-brokerage offering, addressing rising demand for margin financing and trading services that span both traditional and digital asset markets.
Morgan Stanley brings crypto trading with lower fees than rivals: The bank is rolling out spot crypto on E*Trade at a 50-basis-point transaction fee, undercutting Coinbase, Robinhood and Charles Schwab while giving its wealth clients a bank-run route into the asset class.
Crypto platform Bullish to buy Equiniti for $4.2 billion, building tokenized securities infrastructure: The deal adds regulated transfer-agent, shareholder-record and issuer-services capabilities to the exchange’s stack as it positions for tokenized securities, 24/7 trading and stablecoin-based settlement.
Michael Saylor’s Strategy signals potential bitcoin sale to fund dividend obligations: After reporting a $12.54 billion Q1 loss, the company said it may sell BTC to meet dividend payments, refocusing attention on the leverage, financing costs and potential supply overhang tied to listed bitcoin-treasury firms.
Chart of the Week
CoinDesk 80 Leads as Crypto Outperforms Across Asset Classes
Bitcoin has gained 5.7% month-to-date, outpacing major asset classes including the S&P 500, gold and oil since the start of May 2026. This strength has filtered down the market-caps, with the CoinDesk 80 (CD80) up 15.32% MTD — significantly ahead of large caps — led by ZEC’s 57% rally. The divergence between CD80 and BTC, CD5 and CD20 (all clustered around 3 -5%) suggests momentum is rotating into smaller-cap altcoins as the broader crypto rally extends.
Listen. Read. Watch. Engage.
Looking for more? Receive the latest crypto news from coindesk.com and market updates from coindesk.com/institutions.
Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc., CoinDesk Indices or its owners and affiliates.
In a significant shift in bitcoin’s market structure the amount of supply held by “conviction buyers” has surged to nearly 4 million BTC, according to BitGo data cited by Bitfinex on Wednesday.
Bitcoin in long-term buyers’ hands currently represents a 300% increase since the end of 2025, signaling a massive migration of the crypto’s realized value into large, low-activity entities, according to Bitfinex.
The massive “conviction” capital is valued at just over $320 billion, based on bitcoin’s current price of roughly $80,000.
“While the exact methodology behind BitGo’s ‘conviction buyers’ metric isn’t immediately clear, the broader signal is notable,” said Mati Greenspan, a market analyst and founder of Quantum Economics. “Historically, periods of tightening liquid supply combined with renewed demand have created the conditions for bitcoin’s most aggressive upside expansions.”
The current accumulation trend marks the largest two-quarter surge in high-conviction buying since the 2020 COVID-19 crash, Bitfinex said. Conviction buyers are long-term investors, whether they be individuals or institutional.
Long-term buyers holdings are not part of the estimated 5.6 million BTC that has been inactive for over a decade, according to Jameson Lopp, a core bitcoin developer. The total amount of bitcoin in circulation is 20.03 million currently, according to CoinDesk data.
Bitfinex analysts noted that a growing share of bitcoin’s realized value is no longer circulating on crypto exchanges, but is instead moving into the hands of entities that rarely transact, regardless of price volatility.
This structural shift suggests that long-term holders, ranging from institutional “whales” to corporate treasures, are aggressively absorbing the available bitcoin supply, most notably Strategy (MSTR), the largest publicly traded corporate holder of bitcoin. This company, which is currently sitting on $4.6 billion in unrealized gains, recently increased its total holdings to 818,869 BTC, which it acquired for nearly $62 billion. When supply moves into these low-activity entities, it effectively reduces the liquid supply available on the open market, creating a potential “supply shock” dynamic.
Supporting this narrative of strengthening the market floor, CEX.IO research . Their analysis reveals that nearly 70% of recent buyers’ supply is now in profit, a metric that often serves as a psychological buffer against sell-offs, according to CEX.IO research.
CEX.IO also suggests that as most new bitcoin investors move into the “green,” their urgency to exit positions during minor pullbacks decreases, which helps stabilize the price of BTC.
“People who actually get bitcoin always want to accumulate as much as possible and never want to sell, particularly now with all the new existing ways to borrow against BTC holdings,” Ran Hammer, vice president of Business Development at Orbs, told CoinDesk. “That changes the supply equation entirely, with more BTC structurally removed from the market.”
In a separate email comment to CoinDesk, Connor Howe, CEO and co-founder at Enso, said he believes BTC’s long-term scarcity narrative is maturing from theory into market structure.
“With ETF flows and institutional accumulation becoming more structural than speculative, a larger share of supply is moving into conviction hands,” he said, adding that “this could make future scarcity far more visible when demand accelerates.”
Researchers at the Bosch Center for AI and Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new AI system to improve the dexterity of humanoid robots.
The model, called Humanoid Transformer with Touch Dreaming (HTD), helps robots predict the outcomes of touch and force, enabling them to plan and execute tasks with greater spatial awareness.
The researchers said the system addresses a longstanding limitation in humanoid robotics: coordinating whole-body movement while simultaneously performing advanced object manipulation tasks.
“Real-world humanoid loco-manipulation remains challenging because it requires whole-body stability, end-effector dexterity, and contact-aware interaction under frequent contact changes,” the researchers wrote in the paper’s abstract.
To try to bridge this gap, the team used reinforcement learning and VR-based data collection to teach robots dexterity and manipulation.
The system also combines tactile sensing, multi-view vision and proprioception (a neurological understanding of the body in space) to train robots in manipulation tasks.
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Using this, HTD was trained not only to predict future actions, but also to anticipate how touch and force would evolve during manipulation — a process the researchers dubbed “touch dreaming” and from which the system gets its name.
In tests, HTD improved average task success rates by 90.9% across five real-world manipulation tasks: Insert-T (a specific robot assembly task), book organization, towel folding, cat litter scooping and tea serving.
Looking ahead, the team said they plan to scale HTD’s learning framework, integrate human demonstrations and expand applications to a broader range of tasks such as household chores, assisting customers in retail settings, and industrial and manufacturing environments.
