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Belize Bank Expands e-commerce Acceptance in the Cloud with BPC, Marking a Decade of Payments Modernization

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Belize Bank Expands e-commerce Acceptance in the Cloud with BPC, Marking a Decade of Payments Modernization

WHY THIS MATTERS

The launch of cloud-based e-commerce acquiring by The Belize Bank Limited, announced on May 6, 2026, represents a pivotal moment for the Caribbean nation’s financial infrastructure. By consolidating its ATM, POS, and online transactions into a single SmartVista stack, the bank has effectively removed the “fragmentation tax” that has historically hindered local merchants. This matters because Belize is currently navigating a high-stakes transition toward a digital economy, driven by the National Digital Infrastructure Plan unveiled in late 2025. For Belizean businesses, this milestone means they can finally accept Visa, Mastercard, and American Express online with the same institutional-grade fraud protection and settlement speed previously reserved for physical retail.

This expansion is the culmination of a decade-long partnership with BPC, a global leader in payment orchestration. By opting for a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model, the bank has bypassed the prohibitive costs of maintaining on-premise legacy hardware, allowing it to scale its merchant services in lockstep with Belize’s booming digital commerce sector. In a region where “de-risking” by global correspondent banks has often stifled growth, The Belize Bank’s ability to take full control of its acquiring infrastructure provides a crucial layer of self-reliance and stability for the country’s financial system.

The Belize Bank Limited is redefining the country’s digital economy with the launch of cloud-based e-commerce acquiring. By expanding its SmartVista-powered capabilities to include secure online transactions, the country’s most enduring full-service bank is removing barriers for Belizean merchants. This milestone marks ten years of payments innovation alongside BPC, reinforcing The Belize Bank’s commitment to driving a modern, secure, and accessible financial future.

Belize’s payments landscape has steadily shifted toward digital over the past decade, supported by national efforts to modernize payments and widen access to formal financial services. As more consumers and merchants move to online channels, The Belize Bank sought to ensure local businesses can accept secure e-commerce payments with the same reliability and control the bank has built across its nationwide acceptance footprint, positioning Belize Bank to remain the top choice for merchants and consumers as Belize’s digital economy scales.

Now, the bank operates a single acquiring stack across ATM, POS and e-commerce, with omnichannel fraud protection covering card-not-present activity. The extension offers the bank’s merchants improved continuity and faster enablement for new payment capabilities. For cardholders, the recent upgrade translates into a smoother online checkout experience, stronger transaction security, and wider acceptance of digital payments as more local merchants expand into e-commerce.

The Belize Bank originally selected BPC SmartVista to migrate from legacy technology and consolidate ATM and POS acquiring under a single modern platform, bringing enhanced payment acceptance, greater control over transaction routing, fees, and scheme connectivity. Leveraging that, and opting for a service model, the bank has now expanded its acquiring business into e-commerce for Visa, Mastercard, American Express acceptance.

“This milestone reflects a decade of trusted delivery and continued investment in the payment services our customers and merchants rely on,” said Monica Daryanani Urbina, Chief Banking Officer, The Belize Bank Limited. “Choosing BPC early in our modernization journey positioned us to take control of our acquiring infrastructure and be one of the driving forces behind Belize country digital transformation. Today’s e-commerce expansion builds on that foundation. It enables us to support Belize’s booming digital economy with secure online acceptance, more scheme coverage, and a platform we can continue to scale.”

Mariflor Alice Guier, Account Manager and New Deals Developer for central Americas, BPC, added: “The Belize Bank Limited has pursued a clear strategy of consolidation and modernization of legacy stack without compromising security or service continuity. We are proud to mark ten years of partnership and to support this latest step into acquiring e-commerce, delivered by BPC as a service. The Bank continues to evaluate opportunities to enhance its payment and merchant services capabilities as part of its broader digital transformation agenda.

FF NEWS TAKE

The Belize Bank is executing a “platform consolidation” masterclass that many larger regional banks would do well to study. By moving to a unified, cloud-native stack, they have transformed e-commerce from a complex “add-on” into a core, scalable utility. The inclusion of omnichannel fraud protection for card-not-present (CNP) transactions is particularly savvy; as more Belizeans shop online via platforms like E-Kyash and DigiWallet, the risk of sophisticated cyber-fraud rises. This “security-first” approach ensures that consumer trust—the most fragile element of a developing digital economy—is protected from day one.

However, the real test for The Belize Bank will be the “last mile” of merchant enablement. While the cloud infrastructure is now live, the success of this initiative depends on how quickly the bank can onboard the thousands of SMEs that still operate primarily in cash. With the Central Bank of Belize pushing for 70% internet penetration and a more formal economy, The Belize Bank’s new E-Commerce API (part of its Open Banking suite) is the exact tool needed to bridge the gap between traditional banking and the “Agentic” commerce future. If BPC and The Belize Bank can maintain this pace of innovation, they may turn Belize into a blueprint for how small, open economies can achieve digital sovereignty through strategic fintech partnerships.

Bitcoin Price Holds Near $82,000 As ETF Inflows Surge And CLARITY Act Battle Intensifies

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Bitcoin Price Holds Near $82,000 As ETF Inflows Surge And CLARITY Act Battle Intensifies

Bitcoin price hovered in a tight range around 82,000 today, extending a week of steady but cautious gains as structural forces, not retail hype, set the tone for the market.

At time of writing, Bitcoin price trades near 82,000, up about 0.65% from Sunday morning but still roughly 22% below its level a year ago and far off the October 2025 peak above 126,000. 

Over the past week the coin has held mostly between 80,000 and 82,000. The latest leg higher came late last week after the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio signaled reduced risk of further military escalation with Iran, which eased pressure on the dollar and crude oil and supported risk assets.

Behind the calm price band sits a surge in activity from U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange‑traded funds. U.S. issuers drew about 1.9 billion dollars of net inflows in April, the strongest month since October 2025 and enough to flip year‑to‑date flows positive, while cumulative inflows since the products launched in 2024 now stand near 58 billion dollars. 

Those funds hold more than 1.3 million BTC and absorb several hundred coins a day on average, well above fresh mining supply at recent points in April, which tightens liquid supply on exchanges.

Bitcoin ETFs logged nine consecutive days of net inflows through early May, totaling about 2.7 billion dollars and removing an estimated 33,000 to 35,000 BTC from tradable supply. The bulk of that demand has concentrated in BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC, turning IBIT in particular into a proxy for institutional sentiment on the asset.

The CLARITY Act is the center of attention

Regulation now sits on equal footing with flows as a driver of price. In Washington, the CLARITY Act, a wide‑ranging market‑structure bill that would define jurisdiction for most digital assets between the SEC and CFTC, is approaching a markup in the Senate Banking Committee, with a floor vote targeted for summer after a compromise over stablecoin yield. 

That process builds on last year’s GENIUS Act, which created a full regime for payment stablecoins and set a July 2026 deadline for follow‑on rules.

On Sunday, the American Bankers Association launched a last-minute lobbying campaign against the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, with ABA CEO Rob Nichols urging bank executives across the country to pressure senators ahead of Thursday’s Senate Banking Committee markup. 

In a letter to member banks, Nichols warned that the bill’s stablecoin yield provisions could drive deposits out of traditional banks and into payment stablecoins, which he said would threaten financial stability and economic growth. The effort sparked immediate backlash from crypto advocates and lawmakers supporting the legislation. 

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said the banking industry had already won concessions during prior White House negotiations, while Senator Bernie Moreno accused banks of trying to kill innovation and pledged to support advancing the bill.

The White House is also continually working on a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve framework that would govern how the government manages seized coins without direct budget outlays, a plan that, if written into statute rather than left as an executive program, would cement state‑level participation on the demand side of the market.

Crypto platform Kraken is raising capital at $20 billion valuation ahead of its planned IPO

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Crypto platform Kraken is raising capital at $20 billion valuation ahead of its planned IPO

Payward, the parent company of crypto platform Kraken, is raising new capital at a $20 billion valuation, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Kraken declined to comment on the raise.

The latest fundraising round comes as the company ramps up spending on takeovers.

Most recently, it bought stablecoin-focused payments firm Reap for $600 million and digital asset derivatives platform Bitnomial for $550 million as it continues to scale up ahead of a planned IPO. Payward was valued at $20 billion in both transactions.

Its biggest deal came in 2025 with the $1.5 billion acquisition of NinjaTrader, a U.S.-based retail futures platform and CFTC-registered futures commission merchant. The acquisition gave Kraken a major foothold in the U.S. derivatives market while expanding its reach to a broad base of active futures traders.

Payward said it confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on November 19, marking the first step toward a potential public listing.

CoinDesk reported in March that the company had paused its IPO plans amid unfavorable market conditions. Sources said the firm remains interested in going public, though likely only once market conditions improve.

At Consensus Miami last week, Payward and Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi said the exchange is “80% ready” to go public.

Kraken is a U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange that lets users buy, sell and trade digital assets, including bitcoin and ether, using either fiat currencies or crypto. The company has expanded beyond spot trading into products such as derivatives, staking and custody, transforming itself into a broader full-service crypto platform.

In recent years, the Wyoming-based firm has adopted a more focused but increasingly strategic acquisition strategy aimed at expanding beyond core crypto trading into derivatives and broader multi-asset market infrastructure.

Deutsche Börse stake

Deutsche Börse (DB1), the owner of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Xetra, announced in April that it had taken a $200 million stake in Payward.

The stake, acquired through a secondary share sale, represented roughly 1.5% of the company. The transaction valued Payward at $13.3 billion, down from the roughly $20 billion valuation attached to previous fundraising rounds. Payward did not receive any proceeds from the transaction.

Last November, Kraken said it had raised $800 million in two tranches to support its push into bringing traditional financial products onchain. The round included backing from investors such as Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital and Tribe Capital, while Citadel Securities later agreed to a separate $200 million strategic investment at a $20 billion valuation.

Read more: Kraken parent goes for the OCC charter in bid to become a federal crypto bank

Circle (CRCL) is trying to prove it’s more than just a stablecoin company with $3 billion blockchain

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Circle (CRCL) is trying to prove it’s more than just a stablecoin company with $3 billion blockchain

Circle’s (CRCL) upcoming Arc blockchain and its $222 million token presale are raising a broader question for crypto investors: should Circle still be valued mainly as a stablecoin issuer, or as an infrastructure company building the rails for digital finance?

Alongside its quarterly earnings this week, the company announced a major fundraising round for Arc ahead of a planned summer launch, valuing the network at roughly $3 billion backed by investors including a16z crypto, Apollo, BlackRock and ARK Invest.

While earnings results were mixed, the news resonated well with investors, as Circle shares surged more than 15% on Monday, suggesting the launch addresses a critical compliance gap for Wall Street.

“We have built what we believe will be one of the most institutionally-ready networks in the world,” Allaire explained during the earnings call, describing Arc as a system designed to be operated by financial institutions with the “trust required for global economic infrastructure.”

Circle’s share performance on Monday (TradingView)

While this move was cheered by the market and some analysts, including Clear Street’s Owen Lau, who called Arc a “second growth engine” for the USDC issuer, there are still questions about the valuation of Circle’s shares versus Arc’s token, as well as rising competition.

The move also comes as Congress advances stablecoin legislation that could eventually allow banks, fintechs and payment firms to issue their own digital dollars. That prospect has led some investors to question whether stablecoins themselves may become commoditized over time.

What is Arc?

The Arc chain, in test mode since October with plans to go live this summer, is Circle’s attempt to expand its stablecoin business into a broader infrastructure layer.

During the company’s Monday earnings call, CEO Jeremy Allaire pitched Arc as an “economic operating system” designed for payments firms, asset issuers and capital markets.

“We built the highways for USDC,” Allaire said on the earnings call. “Now we’re opening them to other stablecoin and real-world asset issuers.”

The idea, he said, is to make stablecoins and tokenized assets easier to move, while keeping the level of control, compliance and reliability that large financial players expect. The chain is also being built to be ready for AI agents gaining ground in finance, he added.

Allaire’s comments are signs of where the stablecoin industry is heading. The industry’s market cap is at an all-time high, rising above $320 billion. Almost every crypto or traditional firm is either building a stablecoin or rails to service the industry, touting a more efficient, less expensive alternative to legacy systems. A16z, lead investor in Arc’s fundraising, perhaps put it aptly when it said that stablecoins are becoming “one of the most important tools for global finance.”

However, the VC firm noted that the underlying blockchain infrastructure remains fragmented and is largely optimized for crypto-native users rather than banks and corporations. According to a16z, this is where Arc comes in, by aiming to bridge that gap, offering fast settlement, configurable privacy and known validators, features that align more closely with institutional requirements, the firm said.

“As the world’s finance moves onchain, we believe that a handful of blockchain networks will together emerge as the new backbone of the financial system,” a16z partners Ali Yahya and Noah Levine wrote. “Arc is in a strong position to become one of them,” they added.

Circle shares vs Arc token

However, given Arc’s token presale, questions remain about how Arc affects Circle’s valuation in the long term: Why should one buy the shares if they can now buy the token?

To Clear Street’s Lau, they are “two very different concepts.”

He described Arc as the infrastructure layer while USDC operates as an application running on top of it. “You have one more tunnel for your apps to run on. It just means that you have more channel, more opportunity to expand your USDC down the road,” Lau told CoinDesk in an interview.

Lau compared Arc to Ethereum or Solana — layer-1 blockchains that support applications, payments and tokenized assets. In a note earlier on Monday, he argued the network could reinforce USDC adoption, particularly as Circle pushes into AI-driven payments, tokenized finance and commercial settlement systems.

Still, Lau acknowledged Arc remains highly speculative, at least for now.

“It depends on the network activity,” he said. “We still don’t know what apps will actually run on Arc.” For now, he views Arc as “option value” rather than a tangible contributor to Circle’s business.

That caution is shared by Compass Point analyst Ed Engel, who warned investors against assigning too much value to the project before meaningful usage emerges.

“We would prefer to wait for Arc to generate meaningful transaction activity before ascribing value to ARC tokens,” Engel wrote in a research note on Monday. He added that crypto venture firms have a long history of backing blockchain projects at elevated valuations, only for token prices to later decline after launch.

The economics behind Arc remains another open question.

Circle has said fees on the network can be denominated in stablecoins while still accruing value to the ARC token through validator rewards and token burns. Analysts say the structure resembles Ethereum’s model, in which network activity drives demand for the underlying token.

Lau said the $3 billion valuation attached to the presale appears credible given the caliber of the institutional investors involved. “I don’t think that’s crazy,” he said. For now, Arc may matter less for what it generates today than what it signals about Circle’s future ambitions.

‘Significant competition’

The disagreement on what to buy: Token or the share, highlights a central debate now emerging around Circle and the stablecoin industry: whether owning blockchain infrastructure becomes more important as digital dollar issuance itself becomes more competitive.

On one hand, with the launch of Arc, incumbent networks would face increased competition, according to digital asset investment bank FRNT. “Incumbent networks will face significant competition as solutions such as Arc increase in maturity,” the firm wrote in a note.

On the other hand, the industry is dominated by mostly Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, and other stablecoins such as PayPal aren’t gaining market share, according to Clear Street’s Lau. But now, Circle adding Arc creates new competitive tensions, he added.

By launching its own blockchain, Circle is no longer just a customer of crypto infrastructure providers like Ethereum and Solana. Lau said Arc now competes directly with those networks and potentially with Coinbase’s Base blockchain as well.

While there are questions about valuation and the longer-term competitive impact, launching Arc fits a pattern in which crypto developments have increasingly shifted focus to large financial institutions and Wall Street, rather than retail users.

Tempo, incubated by payments giant Stripe and investment firm Paradigm, raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation in October to launch a payments-focused blockchain. Digital Asset, developer of the Canton Network, has attracted backing from Goldman Sachs, DRW, Citadel Securities, BNY and Nasdaq, and is reportedly raising another $300 million at a $2 billion valuation.

Arc’s fundraising is another example that big-money investors bet that large financial firms increasingly want blockchain infrastructure designed around how institutions actually move money — cross-border payments, treasury management, FX and tokenized assets — rather than the open, retail-first systems crypto started with. And Circle is betting on the trend by going all-in on Arc.

OpenAI Launches AI Consulting Company, Following Anthropic

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OpenAI Launches AI Consulting Company, Following Anthropic

In its continued effort to target enterprise customers and become profitable, OpenAI on Monday launched the OpenAI Deployment Co., a new consulting firm to help organizations build and deploy AI systems.

Separately, the generative AI vendor said it will acquire Tomoro, an applied AI consulting and engineering firm.

The move, which follows archrival Anthropic’s formation earlier this month of a company with several Wall Street financial services firms to sell and install AI tools to businesses, reflects the AI startups’ ambition to cut into the lucrative consulting business dominated by big firms like Accenture and Deloitte. The vendors are also mimicking the approach of Palantir, the big data, analytics and AI vendor, which uses what are known as “forward-deployed engineers” at client companies, to circumvent traditional consulting firms.

“We are looking at AI companies now looking themselves in the mirror and then deciding that they just want to be Palantir in a way,” said Lian Jye Su, an analyst at Omdia, a division of Informa TechTarget. “It’s essentially having that integrated end-to-end sort of infrastructure all the way to a deployment-type business model.”

Related:Nvidia in $2.1B Deal With Data Center Provider IREN

DeployCo, as it is known for short, is a majority-owned and controlled subsidiary of OpenAI, unlike the Anthropic setup in which the vendor is a minority partner. The unit launched with more than $4 billion in initial investment, which OpenAI said it will use to scale operations and acquire firms. DeployCo will use embedded engineers specialized in AI deployment into organizations, the vendor said. With the new partnership, OpenAI is also partnering with 19 investment and consulting firms, including TPG, Advent, Bain Capital, and Brookfield.

Meanwhile, OpenAI said that, with its acquisition of Tomoro, 150 engineers from that company will join DeployCo. They will work on-site at enterprises to design, test and deploy production-ready AI systems that deliver the greatest value.

A Deployment Strategy

The new focus on deployment shows that AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI are recognizing that enterprises still struggle to install and effectively use AI technology, said Arun Chandrasekaran, an analyst at Gartner.

“There’s a lot of piloting that’s happening within the enterprise, but a lot of customers are not seeing clear value, and some of that is primarily because they don’t have the internal expertise,” Chandrasekaran said. 

For OpenAI and Anthropic, providing expertise with their own deployment services is an opportunity.

Related:Beijing Lab at $20B as AI Investors Look to China

“They recognize that the real revenue opportunity exists where the rubber meets the road,” said David Nicholson, an analyst at Futurum Group. He added that the opportunity comes not only with developing and selling new but also “the people who will actually help enterprises take these fancy toys and turn them into business value.” 

He said that because OpenAI does not have all the people needed to help translate its models into business value, its partnership with investment and consulting firms like TPG and Bain Capital, as well as its acquisition of Tomoro, will help it in its new venture.

Some Challenges

However, OpenAI could meet obstacles in consulting because the business is vendor-specific, Nicholson said.

“Enterprises are looking at integrating whatever open AI offers with everything else that the enterprise is already doing,” he said. “The people who have the most experience with integrating ten different things from ten different vendors are not one or another of those vendors. It is going to be a third party that specializes in integrating and deploying everything.”

The vendor will also need to address conflicts that arise with partners offering similar services, Chandrasekaran said. 

“OpenAI needs to have clear swim lanes in terms of what they will do, vis-à-vis what the partners will do,” he said.

Related:Anthropic and SpaceX Agree to Major Compute Capacity Deal

Another consideration for OpenAI is pricing and the duration it plans to keep its forward-deployed engineers inside in the customer environment, Chandrasekaran added.

Bitcoin Bulls Attack $82K As Altcoins Consolidate

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Bitcoin Bulls Attack $82K As Altcoins Consolidate

Key points:

  • Bitcoin is struggling to rise above $84,000, but the bulls remain in control as long as the price remains above the 20-day EMA.
  • Several major altcoins have pulled back, indicating that the bears remain sellers on rallies.

Bitcoin (BTC) has pulled back at the start of the week, but the bulls are trying to maintain the price above $81,500. Crypto sentiment platform Santiment said in a recent report that the current ratio of bullish to bearish comments on social media is 1.5:1. That suggests the current up move may not have much legs, as rallies supported by a confident crowd tend to fizzle out faster than those amid growing skepticism.

A negative sign for BTC is that it is facing rejection at the 200-day exponential moving average ($82,039). Since November 2025, every rejection at the 200-day EMA has been followed by sharp drawdowns of between 25% and 36%. If history repeats itself, BTC may see a 30% drawdown toward $56,000.

Crypto market data daily view. Source: TradingView

However, it is not all gloom and doom for the bulls. US spot BTC exchange-traded funds have recorded six consecutive weeks of net inflows, the longest such streak since August 2025. That suggests investors anticipate the recovery to continue.

Could BTC and the major altcoins stage a turnaround? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out. 

S&P 500 Index price prediction

The S&P 500 Index (SPX) continued its uptrend, rising to a new all-time high of 7,423 at the time of writing the article on Monday. That shows the bulls are firmly in command.

SPX daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

A minor risk to the continuation of the uptrend is the overbought level on the relative strength index (RSI). That suggests the markets have run up sharply in the near term and may enter a consolidation or correction. 

The support to watch out for on the downside is the 20-day EMA (7,169). If the price rebounds off the 20-day EMA with force, it signals that the uptrend remains intact.

The first sign of weakness will be a close below the 20-day EMA. That clears the path for a drop to the 7,002 level.

US Dollar Index price prediction

The US Dollar Index (DXY) failing to rise above the 20-day EMA (98.40) suggests that bears continue to exert pressure.

DXY daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Sellers will attempt to strengthen their position by pulling the price below the 97.74 level. If they succeed, the index may slump toward the 96.21 support. That suggests the index may extend its stay inside the 95.55 to 100.54 range for some more time.

Buyers will have to drive the price above the 50-day simple moving average (99) to signal a comeback. The index may then attempt a rally to the stiff overhead resistance at 100.54. Buyers will have to overcome the barrier at 100.54 to signal the start of a new uptrend.

Bitcoin price prediction

Buyers once again failed to propel BTC above $84,000, indicating that bears have not given up and remain active at higher levels.

BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The pullback is expected to find support at the 20-day EMA ($78,852). If that happens, the bulls will again attempt to overcome the $84,000 barrier. If they can pull it off, the BTC/USDT pair may ascend to $92,000 and subsequently to $97,924. Such a move suggests that the BTC price may have bottomed out at $60,000.

On the contrary, if the price continues lower and breaks below the 20-day EMA, it signals profit-booking by short-term buyers. The pair may tumble toward the 50-day SMA ($74,191) and then toward the support line.

Ether price prediction

Ether (ETH) is struggling to rise to the $2,465 overhead resistance, indicating a lack of demand at higher levels.

ETH/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Sellers will attempt to take advantage of the situation and pull the ETH price below the moving averages. If they do that, the ETH/USDT pair may slump to the support line of the ascending channel pattern.

Conversely, if the price moves sharply above the moving averages, it signals demand at lower levels. That increases the likelihood of a break above the $2,465 level. The pair may then reach the resistance line. Buyers will be back in the driver’s seat on a close above the resistance line.

XRP price prediction

XRP (XRP) turned down from the downtrend line on Monday, indicating that bears are attempting to keep the price within the descending channel.

XRP/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

However, the long tail on the candlestick shows buying on dips. If the XRP price turns up from the current level or the moving averages, the prospects of a break above the downtrend line increase. The XRP/USDT pair may then rally to the $1.61 resistance. Sellers are expected to defend the $1.61 level with all their might, as a close above it signals a potential trend change. The pair may then march to $2.

Conversely, a break below the moving averages may pull the pair to the $1.27 support. This is a vital level to watch, as a drop below $1.27 could sink the pair to $1.11.

BNB price prediction

BNB (BNB) has turned down from $666, indicating that the bears are vigorously defending the $687 resistance.

BNB/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

 The 20-day EMA ($635) is the crucial support to watch out for on the downside. If the price turns up from the 20-day EMA, the bulls will again attempt to thrust the BNB/USDT pair above the $687 level. If they succeed, the BNB price may surge to $730 and then to $790.

Sellers are likely to have other plans. They will strive to pull the price below the moving averages, keeping the pair inside the $570 to $687 range for a few more days.

Solana price prediction

Solana (SOL) reached near the $98 overhead resistance on Sunday, where the bears are mounting a solid defense.

SOL/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

If the SOL price moves above the 20-day EMA ($88), it signals positive sentiment. The bulls will then attempt to clear the $98 hurdle again. If they can pull it off, the SOL/USDT pair may soar to $117. There is resistance at $106, but it is likely to be crossed.

This positive view will be invalidated in the near term if the price turns down and breaks below the moving averages. That suggests the pair may continue to oscillate between $76 and $98 for some more time.

Related: XRP metrics line up bull signals for ‘full-scale rally’ to $2

Dogecoin price prediction

Dogecoin (DOGE) bounced off the 20-day EMA ($0.10) on Sunday, but the bulls are struggling to sustain the higher levels.

DOGE/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The bears will attempt to pull the price below the 20-day EMA. If they manage to do that, the DOGE/USDT pair may remain within the $0.09-$0.12 range for a while longer. 

The next trending move is expected to begin on a close above $0.12 or below $0.09. If bulls drive DOGE above the $0.12 resistance, the pair may rally to $0.14, then to $0.16. Alternatively, a close below the $0.09 support opens the door to a drop to $0.08, then $0.06.

Hyperliquid price prediction

Hyperliquid (HYPE) once again turned down from the $43.76 to $45.77 zone, indicating that the bears are aggressively defending the zone.

HYPE/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The 50-day SMA ($40.50) is the critical support to watch out for on the downside. If the HYPE price breaks below the 50-day SMA, the correction may deepen to $38.70 and then to $35.75. Such a move suggests that the HYPE/USDT pair may have topped out in the short term.

Buyers will have to push the price above the overhead zone to signal the resumption of the uptrend. The pair may then skyrocket to $50 and later to $51.43.

Cardano price prediction

Cardano (ADA) has been consolidating between $0.31 and $0.22, indicating a balance between supply and demand.

ADA/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The 20-day EMA ($0.26) is likely to act as support on the way down. If the ADA price rebounds off the 20-day EMA, the possibility of a rally to $0.31 increases. A new uptrend may begin if bulls conquer the $0.31 level.

Instead, if the ADA/USDT pair turns down from the current level or the overhead resistance and breaks below the moving averages, it suggests that the range-bound action may extend for a few more days.

Strategy’s Michael Saylor says selling bitcoin to fund dividends is ‘inconsequential’

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Strategy’s Michael Saylor says selling bitcoin to fund dividends is ‘inconsequential’

When Strategy (MSTR), the largest publicly traded company holding bitcoin, first floated the idea of selling its bitcoin stash to fund its dividend obligations during its recent earnings call, it raised concerns among investors and the crypto community.

However, executive chairman Michael Saylor sat down with CoinDesk senior analyst James Van Straten at Consensus in Miami to explain, in his view, why the announcement was “inconsequential.”

As the firm expands from a bitcoin treasury company into a full-spectrum capital markets operation, in a wide-ranging conversation with CoinDesk, Saylor discussed the company’s potential sale of bitcoin to fund dividends, the mechanics of its preferred stock (called Stretch or STRC), and what critics get wrong about its trading strategy.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. This is the first part of a series of stories from CoinDesk’s interview with Michael Saylor

CoinDesk: Your earnings call revealed that Strategy could sell bitcoin to fund its dividends. That spooked some investors. How significant is it actually?

Michael Saylor: It’s a big nothing burger from an economic point of view. If we were to fund all of our dividends exclusively by selling bitcoin over the next year, we would buy 20 bitcoin for every one we sold. So it’s no different than buying 20 bitcoin and selling no bitcoin. And then from a market point of view, bitcoin has somewhere between $20 and $50 billion of liquidity today. If we were to fund all of our dividends with bitcoin, you would be talking about maybe $3 million; it’s immeasurable. It’s really inconsequential.

CoinDesk: So, how do you actually decide between buying bitcoin, retiring debt, or buying back your own stock?

Saylor: We use two metrics. The first is BTC yield. What’s the benefit to the common equity shareholder? If there’s no yield, it’s equity neutral. If there’s a negative yield, it’s dilutive. If there’s a positive yield, it’s accretive. The second metric is credit: what is the impact on the balance sheet? Does it create more risk?

For example, if we used all of our dollars to buy back stock, it would be equity-positive, it would create yield, but it would be credit-negative. The market price of bitcoin, of all our credit instruments, of all our bonds, is changing every day. Day to day, we adjust our capital markets activity to take advantage of yield opportunities and to meet our liabilities.

We prioritize trades that create more bitcoin per share. If we can create 10x more bitcoin per share doing one trade versus another, we’d prioritize that first.

CoinDesk: Bitcoin is currently around 36%-37% off its all-time high. Is this a good time to sell high-cost-basis Bitcoin and capture that tax credit?

Saylor: We have the option to capture up to $2.2 billion in tax credit. The value of that credit is changing every day, every minute. We also have the option to calculate the mispricing of the convertible bonds: there’s a massive yield in that. We also have the option to capture bitcoin in a trade. We make that decision week by week, day by day.

Everything we do precludes us from doing something else. So we always have to consider if this is equity-positive, but credit-negative? Maybe it’s screaming good for the equity, makes us $500 million, but it’s a little bit bad for the credit. If the credit is super strong, I would do something equity-positive and slightly credit-negative. If the credit is super weak, we wouldn’t.

We’re not going to telegraph exactly when or whether we do it. But the optionality is there, and it’s one of the more interesting trades on the table right now.

CoinDesk: Critics on X (formerly Twitter) say you always buy the weekly high on bitcoin. What’s actually happening?

Saylor: That’s an ignorant criticism. What’s going on is that when we’re buying bitcoin with an equity swap, it’s because the equity rallied and there’s a massive equity premium. When bitcoin surges, the equity surges, the premium expands, and it actually becomes more profitable for us to swap. We’re swapping a share of MSTR for a share of BTC when the premium expands, and that’s when bitcoin rallies.

In a week of 168 hours, there might be three hours during which the market has rallied, and we might raise $250 million of swaps in those three hours. So yes, we’re picking the top of the bitcoin market, but we’re also picking the top of the equity capital market and swapping the two of them — and we’re generating a much larger gain. We’re making money for our shareholders risk-free by doing these swaps.

If we wanted to do those swaps when the price is low, the premium is low. It makes much less money, or we would lose money for the common [shares] by swapping the equity when the bitcoin price is low. That’s why it appears that we might be buying the top, but we’re not buying it with money that’s been sitting around.

CoinDesk: STRC has been your breakout product. Can you explain how it differs from a typical bond?

Saylor: We constructed this instrument so it would be extraordinarily robust. The key is that we created a perpetual preferred that never comes due. When someone decides they want to sell $2 billion of STRC, we’re not redeeming it. There is no liquidation right. There is no put right. It’s not a bank deposit.

If I sell you $2 billion of a stablecoin on Friday, you can redeem it on Monday, and I have to come up with $2 billion of cash. But when we sell you $2 billion of Stretch, it’s a perpetual swap. We’re agreeing to pay you SOFR [Secured Overnight Financing Rate] plus a credit spread forever. You’re agreeing to give us the money forever. We’re planning to hold bitcoin forever.

The liquidity isn’t being provided by us. It’s being provided by the market. There are people at Soros and Millennium and Citadel that actually want to make fast trades in minutes or hours. If I pegged the entire thing at 100 and absorbed all the liquidity myself, they wouldn’t have the opportunity. And I would take on $100 billion of risk, which would be a problem for the equity, and I would deprive them of being able to make a very healthy annualized return nearly risk-free.

CoinDesk: Stretch has been trading at a slight discount to par recently and is taking longer to recover after dividend dates. What’s going on?

Saylor: You have to look at it on a full monthly cycles. We sold $3.2 billion in a couple of weeks on an instrument with a basis of around $5 billion. So we expanded the supply by a huge factor. It doesn’t surprise me that it takes a while for the market to digest that. Some of that was certainly people buying a billion to clip a 90-cent dividend and then selling back.

We’re at almost a 400% growth rate. Given the hypergrowth, it doesn’t surprise me that it’s [STRC] digesting it [the sell pressure]. Over the past few days, it’s [STRC] been trading within a five-cent [of $100 per share] daily range, three cents yesterday. All of that’s comfortable. We think of it the same way we designed an airplane wing: you want the wings to flex. If you try to make the flex go away, they snap. The instrument is designed to bend under stress, but not break.

Disclosure: The author of this story owns shares in Strategy (MSTR).

Read More: Michael Saylor’s latest tax strategy echoes Strategy’s 2022 bitcoin sale

Nvidia in $2.1B Deal With Data Center Provider IREN

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Nvidia in $2.1B Deal With Data Center Provider IREN

Nvidia’s ongoing efforts to build up AI infrastructure are advancing rapidly apace with a new partnership with data center operator IREN.

At the heart of the collaboration is an ambitious plan to deploy up to five gigawatts of infrastructure over time.

However, the agreement extends beyond that, with the chip giant also securing the right to invest up to $2.1 billion in IREN.

Nvidia explained how the companies will work together in a May 7 statement. The AI chip giant will combine its DSX AI architecture with IREN’s expertise in data center logistics to accelerate the rollout of large-scale AI factories.

IREN’s two-gigawatt facility in Sweetwater, Texas, has been identified as the main focus for activity and will serve as the flagship deployment for the DSX platform.

Nvidia’s potential investment, meanwhile, comes in the form of an option spanning five years to purchase up to 30 million shares of IREN stock at $70 per share, up to a maximum of $2.1 billion.

Related:Beijing Lab at $20B as AI Investors Look to China

Meanwhile, in a separate deal that underscored the extent of the new partnership, IREN confirmed that it has agreed to provide access to managed GPU cloud services to Nvidia for a period of five years to cover its internal AI and research workloads.

This agreement includes air-cooled Blackwell platform systems to be deployed within approximately 60 megawatts of IREN’s data centers at its campus in Childress, Texas. The value of this specific contract reportedly is $3.4 billion.

IREN, based in Sydney, Australia, is one of a growing number of neoclouds that have come to prominence as tech giants scramble to secure ever more compute capacity. Nvidia already has deals in place with IREN rivals CoreWeave and Nebius.

IREN was founded in 2018 with an original focus on bitcoin mining but has recently pivoted toward AI infrastructure. In addition to the two Texas sites, it has four other data center locations in Oklahoma and British Columbia, Canada, in its North American portfolio.

 

 

Bitcoin Traders Prepare for New Local Highs as $80,000 Holds

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Bitcoin Traders Prepare for New Local Highs as $80,000 Holds

Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week in fighting form as $80,000 support survives a volatile weekly close.

Key points:

  • Bitcoin preserves the potential for upside continuation as one trader pencils in $85,000 for the coming days.
  • Consolidation is also a popular prediction as BTC/USD surfs CME futures gaps and grabs liquidity.
  • The US-Iran war continues to provide snap market turbulence across crypto and risk assets.
  • Buyer commitment to BTC leads analysis to forecast a longer-term uptrend.
  • Two Bitcoin price metrics are about to deliver their first “golden cross” in nearly three years.

Latest BTC price targets include $85,000

Bitcoin saw classic end-of-week volatility thanks to geopolitical developments as price briefly passed $82,000.

Data from TradingView showed that the move was short-lived, however, with BTC/USD quickly dropping back toward the $80,000 mark.

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

The result was liquidity grabs that neutralized both long and short BTC positions on exchange order books. Data from CoinGlass puts the 24-hour crypto liquidation total at more than $400 million.

Crypto liquidation history (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass

“The Liquidation Heatmap on $BTC is currently looking STACKED with liquidity,” X trading account Cryptic Trades commented in a post just before the volatility hit. 

“Both sides are filled with liquidity on both sides, which is why I believe that market makers are going to flush out both sides before there’s a bigger directional move out of this range.”

Binance BTC/USDT liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlass

Bitcoin is not without its bullish targets, however, as the mid-$80,000 range comes into view.

In an X thread mapping out the week’s potential price moves, trader CrypNuevo argued that BTC/USD holding $80,000 as support was the ideal foundation for continuation higher.

“Price has found acceptance above $81k and the EMAs have caught up,” he wrote, referring to moving averages (MAs) on daily time frames. 

“Therefore, we’re expecting price to potentially push higher to $84k-$85k next week.”

BTC/USDT four-hour chart. Source: CrypNuevo/X

Crypto trader and analyst Michaël van de Poppe continued the bullish sentiment, saying that the “trend remains upward.”

“The 21-MA is below the current price; there’s still a lot of momentum, and there’s no breakdown of the higher-high, higher-low structure at all,” he told X followers on Monday. 

“There’s no reason to believe that we’re stalling soon.”

BTC/USDT one-day chart. Source: Michaël van de Poppe/X

Bitcoin lacks futures “trigger” to break consolidation

Some market participants believe that conditions are not yet right for a decisive BTC price breakout.

Trader and analyst Rekt Capital is one of them, pointing to nearby “gaps” in CME Group’s Bitcoin futures. 

These gaps, which are created when BTC/USD sees weekend volatility, often act as short-term BTC price magnets.

“Bitcoin has reached its CME Gap (red). BTC is holding the bottom of it as support but rejecting from the top of it,” Rekt Capital told X followers while analyzing the weekly futures chart. 

“Price will need to Weekly Close above the top of this area if it wants to rally higher. Until that trigger is in -> consolidation.”

CME Bitcoin futures one-week chart. Source: Rekt Capital/X

Trader Daan Crypto Trades revealed other gaps around the spot price.

“We now have a few gaps left in close proximity: $78K, $80.3K & $84K,” he confirmed, with the highest gap capping recent local highs.

CME Bitcoin futures one-hour chart. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/X

Elsewhere, Cryptic Trades argued that the combination of declining open interest and rising price should deliver similar range-bound trading conditions for now.

“Because of this, I believe the most likely short-term outcome remains further consolidation, with both longs and shorts getting flushed before the market makes a larger directional move out of this range,” it concluded.

CPI leads key inflation week for Fed

The US-Iran war continues to be the main source of flash volatility for crypto and risk assets this week.

Bitcoin’s weekly close was marked by reactionary behavior as markets digested the latest developments in peace negotiations.

After trading terms back and forth — which had given markets reason for optimism last week — US President Donald Trump said that he did not “like” Iran’s latest proposals.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump called the terms “totally unacceptable.”

Source: Truth Social

The result was WTI crude oil quickly heading back above $100, while BTC/USD spiked to near $82,500 before giving back all its gains.

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

“US-Iran peace talks are being priced-out again,” trading resource The Kobeissi Letter wrote in a response on X.

Oil prices will remain in the spotlight as new US Consumer Price Index (CPI) data is released. As Cointelegraph reported, this inflation gauge is particularly sensitive to oil-market volatility.

The April Producer Price Index (PPI) release will follow on Wednesday.

Source: Cointelegraph/X

Commenting, investment manager Peter Tarr highlighted the implications of the data for Kevin Warsh, President Trump’s nominee to chair the Federal Reserve

“Elevated oil prices will show impact reports. Important report for Warsh era Fed and markets,” he wrote on X.

Trump last month said that he “would” be disappointed if Warsh failed to cut interest rates at the Fed’s June meeting. The latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, however, shows that markets see only a 4.2% chance of that outcome.

Fed target-rate probabilities for June 17 FOMC meeting (screenshot). Source: CME Group

While this could be a headwind for crypto, traders believe that the CPI result itself is already “priced in” to BTC price action.

Analysis sees “sustainable uptrend” for Bitcoin

The latest Bitcoin analysis remains hopeful that a “sustained” market rebound is around the corner.

In one of its QuickTake blog posts on Sunday, onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant flagged positive changes in exchange-trader behavior.

“Looking at the $BTC Spot Taker CVD (90-day) chart on CryptoQuant, we are seeing a significant shift in capital flow structure,” contributor Researcher Rei summarized.

Rei referred to cumulative volume delta (CVD) data, which records the difference between buy and sell volume at given price points over time.

“Following a neutral accumulation phase, the indicator has turned Green. This means Buyers are no longer waiting at lower price levels (Limit Orders) but have started “sweeping” the order book directly (Market Buy),” he continued.

The data implies that large-volume investors have flipped from speculation to a hodl-based mentality, while macro conditions support the return of liquidity to crypto.

Rei described Bitcoin as a “top-tier growth asset.”

“Real demand has prevailed,” he concluded. 

“When bulls are willing to pay higher prices to own $BTC, a sustainable uptrend usually follows.”

Bitcoin spot taker CVD (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant

Onchain metrics prepare rare golden cross

More good news comes from two other BTC price metrics about to perform their first “golden cross” since mid-2023.

Related: Bitcoin Bollinger Bands push key breakout as creator acts on positive signal

Bitcoin’s market value to realized value (MVRV) ratio, which compares Bitcoin’s market cap to the price at which the supply last moved, also known as its “realized cap,” is one of them.

Recently, MVRV has rebounded from local lows to record some of its highest readings of 2026.

“This signal reflects a clear improvement in Bitcoin’s market valuation relative to its realized value, suggesting that the market has begun to regain an important portion of its momentum following a period of decline and rebalancing during the first months of the year,” CryptoQuant commented last week.

Bitcoin MVRV ratio. Source: CryptoQuant

Now, MVRV is about to cross the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA) for the first time in nearly three years. Data shows that past golden crosses have preceded snap BTC price upside. 

“This signal is a representative trend reversal signal and is a bullish indicator,” CryptoQuant contributor CW8900 confirmed on Sunday.

BTC/USD chart with MVRV data (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant

Zcash Is Up 1,500% And Its Biggest Backer Says This Is Why

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Zcash Is Up 1,500% And Its Biggest Backer Says This Is Why

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Zcash’s sharp revival did not happen by accident, according to Josh Swihart, who argues that ZEC’s roughly 1,500% rally reflects a multi-year reset across governance, product strategy, narrative positioning and organizational structure. In a detailed update, Swihart framed Zcash’s recent strength as the result of hard decisions made in 2023 and 2024 that are now compounding across the ecosystem.

Three years ago, Swihart said, Zcash had strong cryptography but weak momentum. ZEC was trading around $30, less than 11% of supply was shielded, and community discussion was dominated by governance disputes. Today, he said, ZEC is around $600, roughly 31% of supply is shielded, more than $3 billion in value is held in user-controlled shielded wallets, and shielded transactions reached 86.5% in mid-March.

“Nothing happens by chance,” Swihart wrote. “Here were the unlocks and why growth is accelerating.”

Governance Reset Becomes Central To The Zcash Story

Swihart’s first explanation centers on governance. For Zcash’s first eight years, 20% of every block reward went to the same core institutions, later including Zcash Community Grants. In his view, that created an incumbency problem: organizations had guaranteed funding while also holding significant influence over protocol direction.

That changed in 2024, when Electric Coin Co. announced it would not accept direct funding. Swihart said the decision forced the legacy model to break. Network Upgrade 6 then cut direct funding and redirected 8% to Zcash Community Grants, while sending 12% into a protocol-controlled lockbox intended for ZEC holders to retroactively distribute grants to contributors delivering measurable value. Both streams expire at the end of the third halving in late 2028 unless renewed by overwhelming community consensus.

The trademark issue also mattered. Swihart said ECC’s August 2024 notice to terminate the trademark agreement, followed by the Zcash Foundation’s decision not to use the trademark for governance, ended a structure in which ECC and ZF held effective veto power over the protocol.

“The stranglehold on Zcash governance was broken, and coin holders and other groups across the ecosystem were able to be heard,” he wrote. “No single body, including the ZF’s ZCAP, has a monopoly on determining community sentiment. Zcash was finally set free.”

Zodl And Shielded Usage Put Product Back In Focus

The second shift was product. Swihart said ECC reoriented in January 2024 toward user adoption after years in which technical work produced strong privacy infrastructure but limited user growth. By 2023, he said, the community was contracting, X sentiment was heavily negative or neutral, and a ZURE survey showed ZEC holders had an NPS score of -60.

Zashi, later rebranded as Zodl, became the clearest expression of that shift. The wallet launched in March 2024 with shielded-by-default usage, hardware wallet support and token swaps. Swihart said shielded supply rose from about 11% to about 30% by the end of 2025, a more than 400% increase in absolute ZEC terms, while the wallet processed more than $600 million in ZEC swaps since October.

He emphasized that this activity was not simply exchange inventory or passive treasury accumulation. “These are real people choosing privacy and holding their own keys,” Swihart wrote.

Swihart also argued that Zcash had a narrative problem. The “privacy coin” label, he said, placed ZEC into a category associated with delistings, regulatory scrutiny and institutional hesitation, while obscuring the actual proposition: opt-in shielded payments, Bitcoin-style monetary policy and verifiable private transactions.

He said the new framing around “unstoppable private money” has made ZEC more legible to allocators and infrastructure providers. Swihart cited Robinhood’s listing, Multicoin disclosing a position, Grayscale’s ETF filing and Foundry launching a Zcash mining pool as examples of wider access and institutional engagement.

ZODL Raises $25 Million As Scaling And Quantum Work Advance

The organizational reset came in January 2026, when Swihart said the ECC team left to form Zcash Open Development Lab, or ZODL, after a dispute with Bootstrap’s board. He argued that Zcash needed startup-style capital and speed to build consumer products at scale.

ZODL has since closed a $25 million round backed by Paradigm, a16z crypto, Winklevoss Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Cypherpunk Technologies, Chapter One, Balaji Srinivasan and others. Swihart described the round as a strong signal for the team’s mission to scale Zcash adoption.

Near-term priorities now include UX, scalability and post-quantum readiness. Swihart said Zodl is working on better performance, more swap options, on- and offboarding, in-app coin-holder polling and requested user features. On scalability, Zcash is targeting 25-second block times, down from 75 seconds, while Tachyon aims to restructure the protocol around stateless wallets carrying recursive zero-knowledge proofs.

“Net, Zcash will be faster, easier to use, more feature-rich, more scalable, and post-quantum secure,” Swihart concluded.

At press time, ZEC traded at $570.36.

Zcash price chart
ZEC faces the 1.618 Fib extension, 1-week chart | Source: ZECUSDT on TradingView.com

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

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