Future repurchases will follow a preset schedule and be routed through on-chain markets.
The MegaETH Foundation completed its first MEGA buyback on May 7, deploying all net rewards accrued from the network’s USDm stablecoin issuer through the end of April.
The circulating supply of USDm, the MegaETH-native stablecoin built in partnership with Ethena, currently stands at $480 million, the foundation said. The sharp climb from roughly $63 million in USDm in circulation at the time of MEGA’s token generation event on April 30 reflects a wave of post-TGE capital inflows into Layer 2’s DeFi ecosystem.
The foundation said future MEGA buybacks would be programmatic, with no discretionary calls on timing or sizing. However, the size of the initial buyback and the average price paid were not disclosed, sparking some backlash from the community.
Repurchases will also shift to onchain markets once operational infrastructure is in place, with the foundation signalling its intent to route flows through MegaETH’s own DeFi protocols rather than centralized venues.
The buyback mechanism is central to the economic design that MegaETH unveiled ahead of its TGE, which ties MEGA’s value capture to USDm adoption rather than transaction fees. Yield generated by USDm reserve assets flows to the foundation, which uses the proceeds to acquire MEGA on the open market.
The foundation also noted that buyback amounts will fluctuate because USDm supply tracks user demand, and the reward share is sensitive to prevailing returns on the underlying reserve assets.
MegaETH’s mainnet went live on Feb. 9 with Aave deployed from day one, and the network has seen a steep rise in deposits since the MEGA launch, led by USDm-related strategies on Aave’s MegaETH market.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
This is a contributor content by Tal Elyashiv, Founder of SPiCE VC.
When the White House said digital assets would ‘take off like a rocket ship’ once the CLARITY Act passes, markets reacted the way markets do: Bitcoin rallied, commentary flooded in, and the word ‘historic’ appeared in approximately every third headline. I’ve been investing in blockchain infrastructure since 2017. My read is more measured.
Legislation matters. But the question serious investors should be asking isn’t whether the CLARITY Act passes, it’s whether the underlying market structure is ready to absorb what clarity is supposed to enable.
The CLARITY Act, if enacted as currently drafted, would establish jurisdictional boundaries between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for digital assets, provide clearer criteria for when a token is a commodity versus a security, and create a defined path for digital asset exchanges to register and operate. Those are meaningful changes. They resolve years of enforcement-by-ambiguity that has kept institutional capital on the sidelines and pushed legitimate projects offshore.
But legislation is not infrastructure. And infrastructure is what moves markets.
Consider what happened after the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund approvals in January 2024. The SEC’s decision was described as a watershed moment. BlackRock, Fidelity and Invesco launched ETF products within days. By March, the iShares Bitcoin Trust had crossed $10 billion in assets under management faster than any ETF in history. Price followed institutional flows, not the reverse. The regulatory event mattered, but what converted that event into sustained price appreciation was the distribution infrastructure, the custody rails and the compliance frameworks that institutional buyers required before they could allocate.
The CLARITY Act creates a similar setup. If it passes, tokenized securities, compliant digital asset exchanges and on-chain settlement infrastructure become significantly more viable at institutional scale. The real-world asset tokenization market was estimated at roughly $185 billion as of mid-2024 according to data aggregated by rwa.xyz, a figure that includes tokenized Treasuries, private credit and real estate. McKinsey projected that number could reach $2 trillion by 2030 under favorable regulatory conditions. Clarity is a prerequisite for that trajectory, not a guarantee of it.
What’s still missing, and what the CLARITY Act does not address, is the market structure layer. Tokenized assets need liquid secondary markets, standardized settlement protocols and interoperable custody infrastructure before institutional allocators can treat them like a functioning asset class. Right now, many tokenized securities trade in thin, fragmented markets with settlement rails that don’t connect to the prime brokerage and fund administration systems that large investors depend on. Regulatory clarity tells you what you’re allowed to build. It doesn’t build it.
This is the dynamic I’d call buy the rumor, sell the news, not because the legislation is empty, but because the gap between what the law enables and what the market can operationalize is larger than current enthusiasm accounts for. We saw a version of this in 2022 when the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation began moving toward finalization. Sentiment around compliant digital asset issuance in Europe improved significantly. But the actual volume of regulated tokenized security issuance in EU markets remained modest through 2023, because the exchanges, custodians and legal frameworks required to transact those instruments were still being built.
None of this means the CLARITY Act is priced in and the trade is over. It means the trade is more nuanced than a single legislative catalyst.
The firms that will benefit most from regulatory clarity aren’t necessarily the ones with the highest trading volume today. They are the ones building the settlement rails, the compliance infrastructure, the custody architecture and the secondary market liquidity mechanisms that make a regulated digital asset market function at scale. Those are the structural enablers. They are less visible than token prices, and they are harder to model in a retail portfolio, but they are where durable value accretes in technological revolutions.
Stablecoin infrastructure is one example. On-chain settlement infrastructure is another. Institutional-grade custody that integrates with existing fund accounting systems is a third. These aren’t exciting in the way that a White House endorsement is exciting. They are, however, what converts a legal framework into a functioning market.
The CLARITY Act, if it passes, will matter. The question worth sitting with is what the market will look like 18 months after it passes, and whether the infrastructure required to make clarity actionable is in place by then. Based on where the buildout stands today, that work is well underway but not finished.
Clear rules are necessary. They are not sufficient. The investors who understand that distinction will be better positioned than the ones who bought the rocket ship.
The article “The CLARITY Act Won’t Make or Break Digital Assets Infrastructure Will” was first published on AlexaBlockchain. Read the complete article here: https://alexablockchain.com/clarity-act-wont-make-or-break-digital-assets-infrastructure-will/
Read Also: MoneyGram, Pairpoint and eToro Back Midnight’s Privacy Blockchain Before Mainnet
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Bitcoin needs to hold above $78,000 to avoid a trend reversal and return to $80,000 as resistance.
Altcoin buyers have left the scene, keeping in step with Bitcoin’s slight correction.
Bitcoin (BTC) pulled back near $79,000 on Friday, but buying at lower levels pushed the price toward $80,000. The next big question on traders’ minds is whether BTC will resume its uptrend or higher levels will again attract aggressive selling from bears.
CryptoQuant analyst IT Tech said in a Thursday QuickTake note that BTC needs to rally and maintain above $88,880 for a bottom to be confirmed. Until then, the $85,000 to $88,000 range is likely to see selling by buyers who want to “get out flat.”
However, Bollinger Bands creator John Bollinger has a different view. In an X post on Thursday, Bollinger said that their trend model had turned positive for BTC a day earlier and they had taken a position accordingly.
Crypto market data daily view. Source: TradingView
Among all the positives, a minor negative for the bulls is that BTC exchange-traded funds recorded $277.5 million in outflows on Thursday. That was the first net outflow in May, according to SoSoValue data. That suggests select investors have turned cautious and are booking profits near overhead resistance levels.
Could BTC and the major altcoins bounce off their support levels? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.
Bitcoin price prediction
BTC pulled back from $82,850 on Wednesday, signaling that the bears are fiercely defending the $84,000 overhead resistance.
The 20-day exponential moving average ($77,929) is the critical support to watch out for on the downside. If the BTC price rebounds off the 20-day EMA with strength, it signals that the bulls are buying on every minor dip. That improves the prospects of a break above the $84,000 level. If that happens, the BTC/USDT pair may skyrocket to $92,000, then to $97,924.
Sellers are likely to have other plans. They will strive to defend the $84,000 level and yank the price below $74,937. If they manage to do that, the pair may tumble to the 50-day simple moving average ($73,448) and then to the support line.
Ether price prediction
Ether (ETH) closed below the 20-day EMA ($2,304) on Wednesday, indicating that the bulls are booking profits.
The next stop on the downside is the 50-day SMA ($2,225), followed by the support line. A solid rebound off the support line suggests the ETH/USDT pair may remain within the channel for a few more days.
The first sign of strength will be a break and close above $2,465. The pair may then rise to the resistance line, where the bears are expected to step in. However, if the bulls prevail, the ETH price may soar to $3,050.
BNB price prediction
BNB (BNB) has pulled back toward the moving averages, suggesting bears are selling on minor rallies.
If the BNB price bounces off the moving averages with force, it increases the likelihood of a rally to the $687 level. Sellers will attempt to keep the price within the $ 570 to $ 687 range by defending the overhead resistance.
On the other hand, a break and close above the $687 signals that the bulls are back in the driver’s seat. The BNB/USDT pair may rise to $730 and then to $790. Sellers are expected to pose a strong challenge at the $790 level.
XRP price prediction
XRP (XRP) continues to trade near the moving averages, indicating a state of equilibrium between the buyers and sellers.
The flattish moving averages and the RSI just below the midpoint do not give either bulls or bears a clear advantage. If the price turns down and breaks below the $1.27 level, the XRP/USDT pair may remain inside the descending channel pattern for a few more days.
On the upside, the bulls are expected to encounter stiff resistance at the downtrend line and then at the $1.61 level. Buyers will have to overcome the $1.61 barrier to signal a potential trend change. The XRP price may then rally to $2.
Solana price prediction
Solana (SOL) is facing selling pressure at the $90.73 level, but a positive for the bulls is that they have not ceded much ground to the bears.
The bulls will again attempt to push the SOL price above $90.73. If they succeed, the SOL/USDT pair may surge to $98. Sellers are expected to vigorously defend the $98 level, as a close above it may catapult the pair to $117.
Contrary to this assumption, if the price turns down and breaks below the moving averages, it suggests that the pair may remain inside the tight range for a while longer. A break below the $82.65 level opens the doors for a fall to $76.
Dogecoin price prediction
Dogecoin (DOGE) declined sharply from the $0.12 resistance level on Wednesday, indicating profit-taking by short-term traders.
The 20-day EMA ($0.10) is the critical support level to watch in the near term. If the DOGE price turns up sharply from the 20-day EMA, the bulls will again attempt to pierce the $0.12 resistance. If they manage to do that, the DOGE/USDT pair may rally to $0.14, then to $0.16.
Conversely, a break and close below the 20-day EMA suggest that the pair may remain within the $0.09 to $0.12 range for a few more days.
Hyperliquid price prediction
Hyperliquid (HYPE) turned down from the $43.76 to $45.77 zone on Wednesday, indicating aggressive selling by the bears.
The HYPE price pulled back to the 20-day EMA ($41.69), an important level to watch. If the price turns up sharply from the 20-day EMA, the bulls will again endeavor to clear the overhead hurdle. If they manage to do that, the HYPE/USDT pair may surge to $50.
This bullish view will be invalidated in the near term if the price continues lower and breaks below the 50-day SMA ($40.29). The pair may then descend to $34.45.
Related: Four signs that show Ethereum’s rally is exhausted at $2.4K
Cardano price prediction
Cardano (ADA) continues to oscillate within the broad range of $0.22 to $0.31, indicating a balance between supply and demand.
The 20-day EMA ($0.25) has begun to turn up gradually, and the RSI is in positive territory, indicating a slight edge for the bulls. If the price turns up above the moving averages, the bulls will attempt to drive the ADA/USDT pair to $0.30 and, later, to the stiff overhead resistance at $0.31.
Contrarily, a break below the moving averages suggests that the bulls are losing their grip. The bears will then strive to pull the ADA price to the $0.22 support.
Zcash price prediction
Zcash (ZEC) broke above the $560 resistance on Wednesday, but the bears stalled the rally at $607.
The shallow pullback is a positive sign, as it indicates the bulls are not rushing to close their positions. That improves the prospects of the continuation of the uptrend. If the ZEC/USDT pair breaks above $607, the next target is likely $750.
On the downside, support lies at the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level at $496, then at the 50% retracement level at $462. Sellers will be back in the driver’s seat on a close below the 61.8% retracement level of $428.
Bitcoin Cash price prediction
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) turned down sharply from $486 on Wednesday, suggesting bears are aggressively defending the level.
The flattish 20-day EMA ($450) and the RSI near the midpoint suggest that the BCH/USDT pair may remain inside the $419 to $486 range for some more time.
The next trending move is expected to begin on a close above $486 or below $419. If buyers secure a close above $486, the BCH price may start an up move to $520. Alternatively, a close below the $419 support signals the resumption of the next leg of the downtrend toward $375.
Earlier this year, Nvidia declared it was partnering with the “global robotics ecosystem” to bring physical AI to factory floors.
Defined as software that gives machines greater awareness of and interaction capabilities with their surroundings, physical AI has long been tapped as the next wave of innovation in the industry, with anticipated applications across manufacturing, healthcare and construction.
AI hardware-software giant Nvidia is looking to forge ahead in this burgeoning industry, with current partners (such as ABB, Agibot, Agility and Figure) using Nvidia tech to power everything from robot brains to industrial humanoids.
AI Business spoke with Docca about how the company is driving physical AI uptake across industries, and what is still needed before the tech can see full-scale rollout.
Regarding physical AI deployment, what is still needed to shift the needle from innovation and experimentation to real-world usability?
Related:Scout AI Raises $100M to Build ‘AI Brain’ for Autonomous Warfare
Akhil Docca: What is needed now is the assurance that physical AI can work reliably in the environments where it will actually operate. That means better real-world and synthetic data, physically accurate simulation, validated digital twins, safety testing and edge runtime infrastructure that can stress-test systems before they are put near people, equipment or production workflows.
The goal is to move from a demo that works once to a repeatable loop that seamlessly transitions from simulation to reality. That is why physically accurate simulation and synthetic data are so important. With technologies like Nvidia Omniverse libraries and the Nvidia Isaac open robotics development platform, teams are integrating these libraries, models and frameworks for building digital twins, generating training data and validating systems before deployment.
Where does the partner ecosystem sit within these efforts? What gap is it looking to address?
Docca: Every deployment looks different. A factory, warehouse, hospital or vehicle fleet will have its own sensors, workflows, safety requirements and physical constraints, so the gap is between general robotics capability and systems that can actually work in a specific site.
That is where the ecosystem becomes essential. Robot makers, sensor and actuator providers, industrial software companies, cloud providers, systems integrators and domain experts help adapt Nvidia’s open models, frameworks, and compute to different embodiments and operating environments. This is what lets physical AI scale beyond isolated pilots to general-purpose robots that are ready for production environments.
Related:Humanoid Bots to Start Airport Pilot in Japan
What are the biggest challenges in implementing physical AI?
Docca: Testing every edge case in the real world is too slow, expensive and dangerous, making simulation and synthetic data essential for training, testing, validating and deployment at scale. Physical AI systems require large volumes of real and synthetic data to handle unstructured environments and real-world ambiguity. Models must generalize across different settings, and systems must meet strict safety requirements when operating around people and other systems.
Developers can simulate these environments using physically accurate digital twins and synthetic data to test rare or dangerous scenarios before deployment, then connect that training and validation loop to accelerated edge systems in the field.
How are the demands of the robotics industry changing? And how are these changes informing Nvidia’s own pipeline?
Docca: The industry is moving from fixed automation toward adaptable autonomy: robots and fleets that can perceive, reason, act and adapt to new tasks without expensive reprogramming. Customers are asking for systems that are software-defined, easier to program, safer to validate and flexible enough to work across many physical environments.
Related:Accenture Showcases Humanoid Robot Warehouse Pilot
That shift puts models such as Nvidia Isaac GR00T N, an open, reasoning vision-language-action model, at the center of robotics development. Rather than building a narrow model for every task, developers need powerful generalist models that understand language, perception and action, and can then be post-trained for a specific robot, site or workflow.
A recurring problem is closing the sim-to-real gap. How can organizations overcome this obstacle?
Docca: The biggest challenge is fidelity: accurate simulationof physics, sensors, lighting, materials, contact, motion and human behavior close enough to the real world that learned behavior transfers. Coverage is just as important. Simulation has to expose models to edge cases, not only idealized conditions.
Closing the gap also requires continuous calibration between real and synthetic data. Synthetic data can fill gaps and accelerate training, but it has to be grounded in real-world physics and validated against real performance. The most durable approach is a loop where simulation, deployment data and evaluation keep correcting each other.
Editor’s note: This interview was edited for clarity and conciseness
Institutional investors have increasingly gained exposure to bitcoin BTC$80,254.94 and other major tokens through ETFs and centralized exchanges.
However, they have largely stayed away from decentralized exchanges (DEXes) offering perpetual (perp) futures tied to crypto and tradfi assets, panelists said at Consensus Miami, citing security risks and a mismatch between DeFi’s permissionless design and institutional identity and compliance requirements.
The session titled “Perp DEX Explosion: Bullish Volumes & Bear Market Resilience” featured Wizard of SoHo, a veteran trader and family office manager; Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CIO of MN Fund & MN Capital; and Michael Anderson of Canary Labs. Jason Atkins, chief commercial officer at liquidity provider Auros, moderated the discussion.
The discussion focused on perpetual-focused decentralized exchanges and what it would take for them to attract institutional capital and scale up.
Wizard of SoHo said that institutions are unlikely to move onto perp DEXs easily due to recurring security/exploit risks highlighted by the recent multi-million-dollar hack of Drift, and that the next major competitive battleground for all perp DEXs will be whether any of them can safely onboard institutional capital.
“How do you convince the big institutional players to go on the perp devs? I think that’s going to be the biggest challenge, especially given the exploit on Drift. And, you know, we’ve had a lot of exploits lately,” he said.
Canary Labs’ Anderson struck a cautious tone on decentralized finance, saying he is reluctant to use it despite having explored parts of the ecosystem.
“I’m scared to use DeFi right now,” he said. “It does feel like a bit of a minefield, and you’re just waiting for the next headline each day.”
Anderson added that while activity has picked up in some areas, particularly from Asia amid tighter KYC enforcement on centralized exchanges, the overall environment still feels risky.
“Right now, it feels slightly dangerous on the product side,” he said.
Anderson argued that the risk perception makes it difficult to see large institutional players adopting decentralized exchanges at scale, especially compared with centralized platforms.
“I think it’s gonna be very difficult for some of the larger firms to use it on the institutional level, versus some of the centralized exchanges,” he said.
Anderson also pointed to product innovation gaps as another constraint, noting that centralized exchanges are increasingly integrating trading tools, such as bots, into futures markets. In contrast, decentralized exchanges have yet to match that pace of development.
KYC, or know-your-customer verification, is another key point of divergence. DeFi is built around open, permissionless participation, where users can interact without formal identity checks or traditional onboarding requirements.
Institutions, by contrast, operate under strict regulatory obligations and must meet full KYC and compliance standards, which makes that permissionless model difficult to adopt at scale.
“Crypto wants to be more non-KYC,” he said, “but to bring on institutional [players] you need to have some form of KYC at the larger size.”
The discussion also broadened into adjacent themes shaping market structure, including the rise of AI-driven trading tools and Hyperliquid’s dominance.
Michaël van de Poppe said AI agents are effectively an evolution of algorithmic trading, rather than a fundamentally new concept.
“To be honest, I think that AI agents are just the next level algorithmic trading anyways, so it’s just a little different execution,” he said. Responding to a moderator’s point about reduced human control in automated systems, he acknowledged the shift in oversight but argued the direction is inevitable.
“Yeah, there are some risks, but I think that at the end of the day, we are not going to be trading ourselves anymore. Nothing will be manual,” he said. “AI agents will be doing it for us, and they are probably better.”
van de Poppe added that the technology is still early and highly dependent on how it is deployed.
“If you start using those AI protocols or LLMs and you’re not putting in the right context or framework, it’s going to build a bad trader for you,” he said. “So if you are not a good trader, then it’s not going to build anything for you.”
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Debates surrounding the XRP holdings of former Ripple Chief Technology Officer (CTO), David Schwartz, continue to emerge across the crypto market. New updates from an XRP researcher show just how many tokens Schwartz held and how much this would have been worth each year from 2012 to 2026 if he had never sold off his holdings.
How Much Ripple’s Ex-CTO’s XRP Holding Could Have Been Worth
A prominent crypto blockchain researcher, known as BankXRP, has released a new report on the value of the XRP stash once held by Schwartz. The findings detail how the value of the holdings could have grown over time before the former Ripple CTO sold his bags.
The report reveals that Schwartz once held 26 million XRP tokens, which saw massive swings as the price changed each year. In 2012, XRP’s value sat at $0.005, making his holdings worth $130,000 before the cryptocurrency hit $2.30 in 2017 during the bull market. At that time, the former Ripple executive’s stash could have been valued at approximately $59.8 million.
Following this, BankXRP said that Schwartz’s portfolio value would have plummeted when the XRP price fell to $0.19 in 2019, and would have risen again as the cryptocurrency’s value climbed back toward $1.00 in recent cycles. By 2024, after the massive rally, XRP’s average price sat at $2.08. This means the estimated value of Schwartz’s holdings would have been over $54 million.
For 2025 and 2026, the latest figures show that XRP traded at average prices of $1.84 and $1.40, respectively. These market rates would have kept the value of the former CTO’s total holdings between $36.4 million and $47.8 million during the last two years.
Notably, BankXRP said that Schwartz chose to sell a large portion of his tokens when the price was roughly $0.10 per token. This sell-off was not done in a single transaction. The former Ripple CTO had liquidated a large portion of his holdings in several waves between 2012 and 2020 as part of his de-risking strategy.
That specific sale earned him about $2.6 million at the time, but the market continued to fluctuate wildly afterward. On May 6, 2026, Schwartz noted on X that he “once had 26 million XRP” but now holds considerably less.
Schwartz Speaks On His Investment Strategy
Schwartz shared new details regarding his personal digital asset holdings and overall financial strategy on X this week. The former Ripple CTO revealed that he has moved a significant portion of his wealth away from direct crypto exposure, including XRP.
Schwartz explained that he prefers to limit his financial risk even though many of his past investments have been highly successful. He also clarified that he does not have much of his original XRP stash left because he dislikes risk and prefers a more conservative investment approach.
While he views cryptocurrency as a rare opportunity to build wealth, Schwartz said he is comfortable missing out on potential massive gains. This is because he chose to prioritize stability over the highest possible returns in a volatile market.
The former Ripple CTO also mentioned that he could have been a billionaire if he had been willing to take more risks with his portfolio. He believes that his current level of success matches the level of risk he has been prepared to accept over the years. Currently, his main tie to the blockchain industry comes from ownership of the Ripple stock. He said that the position gives him sufficient exposure to the crypto space while allowing his other finances to remain secure.
XRP trading at $1.39 on the 1D chart | Source: XRPUSDT on Tradingview.com
Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from Tradingview.com
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Bitcoin BTC$80,198.13 slipped back below $80,000 on Wednesday after a brief breakout attempt, as onchain data suggested the rally was already running into profit-taking pressure.
CryptoQuant said bitcoin’s 37% rebound from April lows still looks more like a bear-market rally than a confirmed trend reversal, with realized profits hitting their highest level since December and short-term holders increasingly exiting at a gain.
Bitcoin’s rally has pushed traders back into profit, with holders cashing out at the fastest pace since December, as recent buyers increasingly sell into strength, they wrote.
But the rebound still looks more like a relief rally than a true bull-market breakout, since profits remain well below levels seen in past sustained uptrends while unrealized gains are already high enough to tempt more selling, according to CryptoQuant. Traders are also sitting on an 18% unrealized profit margin, the highest since June 2025, a level where profit-taking has historically accelerated.
Singapore-based market maker Enflux offered a different read, focusing less on holder behavior and more on the macro catalyst that drove bitcoin’s initial move higher.
Enflux said bitcoin’s push through the $80,000 level was part of a broader risk-on reaction after President Donald Trump paused a U.S. naval operation tied to tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, a move that sent oil prices lower and lifted equities.
But while Enflux said the rally “makes sense mechanically,” it warned markets may be overestimating the durability of the catalyst, noting that previous Trump diplomatic pauses since March either reversed within days or were misread by traders.
Glassnode, however, offered a more constructive view, arguing bitcoin’s recent move reflects an early structural recovery rather than just a short-lived macro bounce.
The analytics firm said bitcoin had reclaimed two closely watched on-chain levels in a note this week: the True Market Mean at $78,200 and the short-term holder cost basis near $79,100, levels that often serve as dividing lines between weaker and stronger market regimes.
Glassnode identified roughly $85,200 as the next major resistance zone, while pointing to improving U.S. spot ETF inflows and persistent negative perpetual funding, a sign some traders remain positioned for downside even as prices recover.
Still, Glassnode stopped short of declaring a clean breakout.
Long-term holders are beginning to realize profits, while elevated realized losses across the broader market suggest bitcoin still needs stronger spot demand to sustain a more durable move higher.
Prediction markets reflected similar caution. On Polymarket, traders assigned relatively low odds to bitcoin extending cleanly toward $85,000 or beyond this week, suggesting the market remains hesitant to treat the recent rebound as a confirmed breakout.
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — At the EasyA Hackathon tucked inside Consensus Miami 2026, the energy felt less like a traditional crypto developer event and more like a live audition for the next generation of the intersection of blockchain and AI-native startups.
Nearly 1,000 developers competed at the venue, some from established crypto ecosystems like Base and Solana, and others arriving from companies like Microsoft and Google, all racing to build products around one theme that kept surfacing in conversation after conversation: AI agents.
The focus on AI agents had already emerged earlier this year at the EasyA x Consensus Hong Kong hackathon, where organizers described 2026 as the “Year of the Application Layer” as developers increasingly shifted from infrastructure tools toward AI-powered consumer applications and autonomous agents.
For brothers Dom and Philip Kwok, co-founders of EasyA, that evolution is exactly the point. What began as a small hackathon series in Austin, Texas, during Consensus 2023 has quickly transformed into one of crypto’s most closely watched builder gatherings, attracting young passionate developers with increasingly teams with serious technical pedigrees.
Their ambition for the event is bluntly simple. “We want billion-dollar companies coming out of EasyA,” Dom Kwok said during an interview with CoinDesk at the hackathon floor. “We’ve already had, out of our other hackathons, a $10 billion company.”
That success story has become part of EasyA lore. One Harvard team that pitched at a previous EasyA event went on to found “Cognition AI,” which the Kwoks say is now valued at roughly $10 billion. Another former participant, Axal, is building stablecoin yield products backed by bitcoin.
Other alumni have reportedly gone through Y Combinator, raised from top venture firms and processed hundreds of millions in transactions. The message to developers walking through the Miami event was clear: this is no longer just a couple-days coding competition, it’s increasingly being framed as a launchpad for venture-scale companies.
This year, however, the center of gravity has unmistakably shifted toward agentic AI. Coinbase sponsored challenges around x402, an emerging framework developers are experimenting with for AI-agent payments and interactions, while Solana and Solana Mobile pushed teams toward mobile-first applications and consumer experiences.
“Lots of developers [are] really excited about AI agentic workloads,” Dom said, pointing to the recent wave of massive venture funding flowing into AI-agent infrastructure startups.
Some of the projects already circulating around the venue reflected how far builders are stretching the category. One team called Praxis was working on blockchain-connected drones controllable through smartphones, what the brothers described as “the next Palantir on the blockchain.” Another startup was building what they called “hyper-intelligent AI,” software designed to turn text prompts into physical 3D objects. “You could put in a prompt and say, ‘Build me a microscope,’ and it will actually build it for you,” Phil said. “It’s like the next phase of taking ChatGPT from something informational into something embodied.”
The winners:
The judges rewarded projects that pushed AI agents beyond chatbots and into real-world coordination, automation and commerce, whether through hardware, payments infrastructure or consumer-facing apps. Across the different sponsor tracks, the winning teams reflected the broader shift underway at this year’s hackathon: developers were no longer just building crypto tools, they were building products meant for everyday use. Prizes differed per track, and are still pending on how they will be divied up in each category.
Kickstart Track ($50,000):
First place: FlyPraxis
Taking the top spot in the Kickstart track was FlyPraxis, a real-time drone intelligence platform designed for military operators. The team pitched the project as “Palantir, but in real time,” using AI-powered coordination and live battlefield intelligence to manage autonomous drone systems.
Second place: HIIE
HIIE placed second with a platform that turns text prompts into fully buildable hardware products. Using AI agents to manage everything from physics calculations and component sourcing to 3D CAD generation and assembly documentation, the startup aimed to compress months of hardware prototyping into a single workflow.
Third place: Clan World
Clan World rounded out the top three in the Kickstart track, joining a broader wave of teams experimenting with AI-native coordination and community-driven applications.
Solana Mobile Track ($30,000 + $75,000 worth of Solana phones)
First place: Parabola
In the Solana Mobile track, first place went to Parabola, a decentralized prediction and estimation market built on Solana. The platform allows users to speculate on real-world events through a distribution-based AMM model designed for mobile-native trading experiences.
Second place: Snakr
Snakr took second place with an AI-powered food intelligence app that lets shoppers scan products to identify potential health risks, FDA recalls and ingredient concerns. Users can also contribute missing product information and earn Solana-based rewards in return.
Third place: Rhythym
Third place winner Rhythym focused on productivity and accessibility, building a mobile routine-support app aimed at helping users with executive dysfunction complete daily tasks. The app integrates with Solana’s Seeker phone, Nova 2 Lite and x402 infrastructure to create AI-assisted workflows.
Coinbase / AWS Track ($45,000)
First place: Dairy Price API x402
The Coinbase and AWS track centered heavily on AI-agent payments and autonomous commerce. The winning project, Dairy Price API x402, built a pay-per-call commodity pricing and forecasting service that allows AI agents to access dairy market data without traditional API keys. Payments are settled directly in USDC through x402 on Base.
Second place: AgentPay
AgentPay placed second with a payment coordination system that gives users one-tap approval over AI-agent transactions while using AWS-powered risk validation to ensure agents spend funds responsibly.
Third place: Giggy
Giggy took third place for building a marketplace where users can hire AI agents to perform research tasks. Payments are locked in crypto escrow on Base, while the agents themselves can pay for premium APIs through x402-powered transactions.
Runner up: Chainlens
Chainlens focused on trust and verification for autonomous systems, building an x402-compatible layer that connects AI agents to verified APIs and only releases payment once responses are authenticated.
Read more: AI-powered agents dominate the EasyA x Consensus Hong Kong hackathon
As of Friday, MSTR was trading inside what appeared to be an ascending triangle, a technical pattern formed when the price prints higher lows beneath a flat resistance zone.
Those higher lows are a sign that buyers are getting more confident. Each time MSTR pulls back, it stops falling sooner than before, showing that buyers are stepping in earlier without waiting for a deeper drop.
MSTR weekly chart. Source: TradingView
Ascending triangles typically resolve when the price breaks above the upper trend line and rises by as much as the structure’s maximum height.
Applying this technical rule to MSTR’s chart brings its upside target to around $350 in 2026. The upside target, up about 80% from the current price level, aligns with the 0.236 Fibonacci retracement line.
Analyst Kevin Fx said that MSTR may rally to the $250–$300 range, citing an inverse-head-and-shoulders (IH&S) pattern.
MSTR weekly chart. Source: TradingView/Kevin Fx
Conversely, a pullback from the ascending triangle’s upper trendline may push MSTR into a multi-week downtrend toward its lower trend line at around $150. A breakdown below $150 risks invalidating the bullish setups altogether.
Canaccord raises its MSTR price target to $224
Earlier this week, Canaccord, a Canada-based investment banking giant, also raised its MSTR price target to $224 from $185, reiterating its Buy rating.
The investment bank pointed to MSTR’s 80% rebound since February, saying the company had weathered another storm as Bitcoin recovered above $80,000 from near $60,000 lows over the same period.
Source: X
Canaccord also highlighted Strategy’s preferred-share financing model, such as STRC, as an important part of that resilience. The product allows the company to raise fresh capital for Bitcoin purchases without relying as heavily on new common-stock issuance.
Issuing more common MSTR shares can dilute existing shareholders. On the other hand, preferred stock gives Strategy another way to fund its Bitcoin accumulation strategy with less pressure on its core equity.
Related: Samson Mow defends Strategy selling portions of its Bitcoin treasury
Meanwhile, Strategy has increased its Bitcoin exposure for each shareholder. Despite posting a $12.54 billion Q1 loss, it bought 89,599 BTC in the first three months of 2026, bringing its total holdings to 818,334 BTC at an average cost of $75,537.
Source: X
Its BTC-per-share metric also rose 18% year-over-year, showing the company is adding value to each MSTR share in addition to growing its BTC balance sheet.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren called on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer questions about the company’s stablecoin integration in 2026, signaling concerns about guardrails.
In a Wednesday letter to Zuckerberg, Warren said Meta’s lack of transparency regarding its stablecoin was “deeply troubling,” given the company’s previous plans to roll out Libra, a global stablecoin proposed in 2019 that was later rebranded to Diem.
The senator said Meta’s plans were necessary for Congress to understand, given the US government’s efforts to pass a digital asset market structure bill with implications for stablecoin issuers.
“It is critical that Meta be transparent with Congress and the public regarding its stablecoin-related plans,” said Warren. “Beyond the failure of its previous attempt to issue its own global private currency, the company has struggled to safely offer its existing products and services […] Any new products, especially related to payments and financial services, should be treated with skepticism.”
Source: US Senate Banking Committee
The senator asked the Meta CEO to provide details by May 20 on its “small and focused trial” for a stablecoin integration to the platform, including any planned launch date, third-party stablecoins that may be a part of the program and privacy guardrails it may have in place. Meta already rolled out stablecoin payouts in USDC (USDC) for select creators in the Philippines and Colombia in April.
Related: Mark Zuckerberg is building an AI agent to help run Meta
Warren sits on the Senate Banking Committee as ranking member, where she helps oversee financial agencies like the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The body is currently considering legislation to establish a comprehensive framework for digital assets in the US called the CLARITY Act, which has been stalled in the chamber for months.
Stablecoin yield compromise to advance market structure bill?
Last week, lawmakers in the Senate announced a deal between crypto and banking industry representatives that could allow the CLARITY Act to advance to a markup in the banking committee, and potentially a floor vote in the full chamber.
Although the compromise on stablecoin yield represented progress in advancing the legislation, some crypto advocates urged caution as lawmakers continue to debate other issues in the bill, including ethics and potential conflicts of interest.
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