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There’s a groundswell forecasting a bitcoin (BTC) price above $90,000. That might be a problem.

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There’s a groundswell forecasting a bitcoin (BTC) price above $90,000. That might be a problem.

The retail crowd has spoken: Bitcoin’s BTC$77,411.90 price is headed above $90,000 in the days ahead in a move that would flip the year-to-date return from negative to positive. What’s in doubt is whether the market plays ball.

Analytics firm Santiment scanned thousands of crypto social media posts across X, Reddit, Telegram and other platforms and found that over the past week, calls have skewed heavily toward BTC price trading above $90,000. Mentions of the $50,000–$59,000 range are being dismissed as expressions of fear, uncertainty, doubt or their acronym, FUD.

Clearly, the crowd is expecting the slow recovery from the February low of around $60,000 to extend well into May. And why not? Flows into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are back, and bitcoin has held up through weeks of Iran-related conflict, oil price surges and a string of DeFi hacks that once again highlighted the risks embedded in blockchain infrastructure.

What do you call a market that doesn’t fall on a stack of bad news? Bullish, right? That’s what the crowd seems to be pricing in.

Santiment says this bullishness as precisely the reason to be cautious.

“Price predictions of a coin are a great way to see what the OPPOSITE likely path for prices will look like,” the firm said on X, implying that overly bullish social sentiment can act as a contrarian indicator for a potential bearish performance.

As American poet Charles Bukowski put it, although he wasn’t talking about markets: “Wherever the crowd goes, run in the other direction. They’re always wrong.”

Contrarian traders in traditional markets use similar sentiment gauges, including the AAII Investor Sentiment Survey, which tracks retail investor bullishness versus bearishness. There’s also the CNN Fear & Greed Index, which aggregates market momentum and positioning signals into a single sentiment barometer.

Interestingly, BTC’s recovery rally has already stalled this week, with prices pulling back to $77,000 from highs above $79,000 on Monday. Whether this is just a pause, or the start of a broader reversal, remains to be seen.

Crypto exchange KuCoin EU hires anti-money laundering talent to appease Austrian regulator, FMA

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Crypto exchange KuCoin EU hires anti-money laundering talent to appease Austrian regulator, FMA

The European arm of global cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin has hired anti-money laundering (AML) and compliance expertise in a bid to appease its regulator, which recently demanded the exchange halt business in Europe due to a staffing shortfall.

KuCoin EU, which holds a Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) license from Austria’s FMA, appointed Carmen Kleinhans as anti-money laundering officer (AMLO), alongside the expansion of its broader AML function, the company said in a press release on Wednesday.

The exchange also hired Austrian compliance veterans Stephan Klinger and Bernd Träxler as deputy anti-money laundering officers.

KuCoin EU Managing Director Sabina Liu said the exchange had “communicated fully” with the FMA when the action happened in February.

“We always maintain a very transparent, open dialog with them, and the other way around as well. They have been very honest, transparent and very supportive of us,” Liu said in an interview. “Since February, we have been looking to strengthen the whole compliance team, making many appointments. So it is quite a large team now.”

KuCoin has had a rough rise of late, having been barred from the U.S. after a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) order and being slapped by Dubai’s VARA regulator for operating without the appropriate license.

Liu was unable to provide a timeline for when the Austrian regulator would allow KUCoin EU to resume operations in Europe. “I think everything needs to be in discussion with the FMA,” she said.

Top-performing credit cards do not always have the highest cardholder satisfaction

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Top-performing credit cards do not always have the highest cardholder satisfaction

New CX Performance Monitor Report from TFG Payments Intelligence shows that strong cardholder experience alone does not consistently translate into top-of-wallet performance

TFG Payments Intelligence today released a new CX Performance Monitor Report: The State of U.S. Credit Card Performance, highlighting a critical shift in the market. While cardholder experience (CX) remains essential, strong CX scores do not always translate into top-of-wallet performance.

“In today’s hyper-competitive market, standing still is falling behind. With the right performance lens and competitive context, erosion in spend can be spotted long before it shows up in quarterly results.”Share

Across the U.S. market, cards with similar CX levels often deliver markedly different wallet performance outcomes. High CX scores do not consistently translate into stronger usage or momentum, and mid-ranked cards can outperform higher-ranked peers. The implication is significant. Portfolios can appear healthy on CX measures while steadily losing share of wallet over time.

To address this gap, TFG developed the Wallet Performance Index (WPI), a complete measure of wallet performance and growth designed to answer the question that matters most to issuers: “Is our card gaining or losing wallet position; and in what direction is spend headed?”

The findings show that attaining key performance indicator (KPI) targets requires more than strong CX. Once CX is established, portfolio outcomes separate based on other critical factors, including the competitiveness of the value proposition, the effectiveness of marketing and ongoing activation, and the underlying spend capacity of the cardholders the product attracts.

These barriers are not uniform across portfolios. Every card has unique strengths and weaknesses, and performance is often constrained by different factors relative to competitors. TFG Payments Intelligence analytics identify the primary barriers for each portfolio, enabling more targeted and effective strategies to improve KPI outcomes.

The value of this approach is visible in the contrast between two market leaders. Amex Platinum leads on cardholder experience, but Chase Sapphire Reserve captures a larger share of wallet and stronger spend momentum. However, deeper performance signals suggest that recent value proposition changes across both products may not impact them equally, a distinction that satisfaction scores alone would not reveal.

Across 100+ bank and co-brand portfolios benchmarked in the report, the following cards lead their respective categories:

Top Premium Cards:

  • Chase Sapphire Reserve
  • Amex Platinum
  • Capital One Venture X

Top Mid-Tier Cards:

  • Chase Sapphire Preferred
  • Bank of America Premium Rewards
  • Amex Blue Cash Preferred

Top No Fee Cards:

  • Citi Double Cash
  • Wells Fargo Active Cash
  • PNC Cash Rewards

Top Airline Cards:

  • AAdvantage Platinum & Executive
  • Atmos Rewards Ascent
  • United Club Infinite

Top Hotel Cards:

  • Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant
  • Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful
  • Hilton Honors Surpass

Top Retail Cards:

  • Costco Anywhere
  • Kroger Rewards
  • Sam’s Club Plus

“In today’s hyper-competitive market, standing still is falling behind. With the right performance lens and competitive context; erosion in spend, engagement, and wallet share can be spotted and corrected long before it shows up in quarterly results and becomes a larger problem,” said Demitry Estrin, CEO at TFG Payments Intelligence.

Bitcoin 2027 Conference Returning To Nashville, Tennessee

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Bitcoin 2027 Conference Returning To Nashville, Tennessee

The world’s premier Bitcoin conference is heading back to Music City. BTC Inc confirmed that Bitcoin 2027 will take place July 15-17, in Nashville, Tennessee, marking the event’s return to the city after two consecutive years in Las Vegas. The announcement came on the second day of Bitcoin 2026, which was held at The Venetian Convention and Expo Center in Las Vegas.

Bitcoin 2024 — the last time the conference was held in Nashville — became one of the most storied gatherings in the event’s history, drawing an estimated 35,000 attendees, 444 speakers across six stages, and generating over 1.4 million livestream views over three days. 

“Vegas we love you, we miss you,” David Bailey said at the Bitcoin 2026 conference. “We are excited to go home to Nashville.”

That edition was headlined by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, who used the Nashville stage to pledge a U.S. strategic Bitcoin reserve and declare his intention to make America “the crypto capital of the world”.

Now the Bitcoin conference returns to a city that has become synonymous with the movement’s mainstream moment. Nashville International Airport (BNA) offers direct flights from most major U.S. cities, making it a logistically favorable destination for the tens of thousands of attendees, investors, developers, and policymakers expected to attend. 

Tickets for Bitcoin 2027 are already on sale at the Bitcoin 2026 conference.

Bitcoin 2027 in Nashville

The return to Nashville also aligns with BTC Inc.’s expanding media presence in the city. Bitcoin Magazine, a BTC Inc. subsidiary and a Nakamoto Inc. company (NASDAQ: NAKA), this week announced the launch of BM TV, a daily live broadcast network debuting Summer 2026 from Nashville. The company reported more than 1 billion total impressions in 2025.

Specific speakers and full programming for Bitcoin 2027 have yet to be announced, with additional information expected to roll out in the months ahead.

Crypto Lobby Backs Removal of ‘Reputation Risk’ Debanking

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Crypto Lobby Backs Removal of ‘Reputation Risk’ Debanking

US crypto lobby group Blockchain Association has thrown its support behind the US Federal Reserve’s proposal to codify the removal of “reputation risk” from its supervision of banks, which has been used in the past to debank crypto companies.

In a letter sent Monday in response to the Fed’s request for comment, Ashok Pinto, the group’s executive vice president of legal and government relations, said reputation risk, which was removed as a component of examination programs in June 2025, should be made a formal rule.

“The Blockchain Association strongly encourages the Board to move expeditiously to finalize and codify the removal of reputation risk from its supervisory framework,” Pinto wrote.

“Regulation is meant to uphold the integrity of our financial system, not to pick winners and losers based on the political winds of the day. Regulated entities are entitled to objective, consistent standards. Reputation risk provides neither,” he added.

Source: Blockchain Association

Reputation risk has been used in the past to justify debanking crypto companies and cutting off their access to banking rails, as part of what has been dubbed “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.” 

Reputation risk is only as neutral as the administration wielding it

The Trump administration has walked back many of the policies that led to crypto debanking, but Pinto argued that a concrete set of rules removing reputation risk from supervisory programs is needed because another, less crypto-friendly US government could come to power in the future. 

US think tank Cato Institute found in January that most debanking cases in the US resulted from government pressure rather than individual banks’ policies.

“Reputation risk is only as neutral as the administration wielding it. The same mechanism used against the digital asset industry under the Biden Administration could be turned against any other lawful business sector under any future administration,” Pinto wrote.

“Codifying its removal is a durable, administration-neutral protection for any American business operating lawfully within our financial system.”

Final rule should be aligned with other regulators

At the same time, Pinto said the Fed board should align its final rule with parallel rulemakings finalized by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Related: Crypto lobby Blockchain Association pitches tax plan to Congress

The OCC and FDIC issued a final rule on April 7 to codify the removal of reputation risk from their supervisory programs.

“A standard harmonized across federal departments and agencies would provide regulated entities with the clarity and predictability they are owed,” Pinto wrote.

“Ensuring that supervision is grounded in objective, consistent, and measurable standards is essential to preserving the safety and soundness of the financial system and maintaining confidence in the impartiality of the regulatory process.”

Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets? 

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Bitcoin Rally From February Lows Driven by Regular Strategy Buys

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Bitcoin Rally From February Lows Driven by Regular Strategy Buys

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy and its perpetual preferred stock, STRC, have been the “single biggest factor” in the recent rally of Bitcoin, which has jumped 20% from its February low, according to Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan.

Over the past eight weeks, Strategy has added $7.2 billion in Bitcoin, Hougan said in a report published Tuesday. 

“Yes, there have been multiple drivers of the recent rally, including strong buying from ETFs, $3.8 billion since March 1, and renewed purchases by long-term holders. But Strategy has been the single biggest factor,” he said. 

Bitcoin has traded between $75,849 and $79,321 over the past seven days, according to CoinGecko. It was trading at about $76,486 as of Wednesday, up 21% from its Feb. 6 low of $62,822.

Strategy is the largest publicly listed corporate Bitcoin holder. It bought 3,273 Bitcoin for $255 million between April 20 and April 26, bringing total holdings to 818,334 BTC. 

Source: Lookonchain

Bitcoin buys are set to continue, analyst says

Strategy typically makes weekly Bitcoin purchases. Its latest buying spree pushed its total holdings past those of global asset manager BlackRock, which holds about 812,300 coins on behalf of its clients.

Hougan speculates that Strategy’s purchases will “continue for some time to come,” driven by the issuance of STRC, the company’s perpetual preferred stock, which pays a fixed dividend to investors for as long as the company operates. 

“Strategy issues STRC because it wants to buy more Bitcoin. Most of the capital raised by issuing STRC is used to purchase BTC on the open market,” he said.

Related: 80% of Strategy’s ‘Stretch’ buyers are mom-and-pop investors

“With junk bonds yielding less than 7% and investors fleeing private credit, STRC’s 11.5% yield — backed by a more than $40 billion bitcoin cushion — looks particularly attractive. I suspect Strategy will raise billions more through STRC,” Hougan added.

Saylor has previously claimed that the company can sustain dividend payments indefinitely if Bitcoin continues to grow. 

Hougan said that at current prices, Strategy could “hypothetically pay existing dividends for 42 years.” However, if Bitcoin rises by 20% a year, it could “pay the dividends forever.”

Strategy could surpass Satoshi soon

If Strategy continues at its current pace, its holdings may surpass those of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto within the next two years, according to Alex Thorn, head of research at crypto-focused financial services firm Galaxy Digital.

Source: Alex Thorn

Wallets believed to be owned by Nakamoto hold 1.1 million Bitcoin, representing about 5.5% of the total supply. Strategy would need to buy another 277,666 coins to match Nakamoto.

However, Strategy’s Bitcoin purchases have varied significantly. The smallest buy in 2026 was 855 Bitcoin in February, while the largest so far this year was on April 20 with 34,164 coins.

Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?  

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Bitcoin rises to $77,000 ahead of Fed decision as Trump preps for lengthy Hormuz block

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Bitcoin rises to $77,000 ahead of Fed decision as Trump preps for lengthy Hormuz block

Bitcoin is doing nothing while everything around it moves.

The largest crypto just under $77,000 on Wednesday in Asian hours, up just 0.1% over 24 hours and down 0.8% on the week, holding a tight band even as Brent crude pushed above $111 a barrel on a Wall Street Journal report that President Donald Trump told aides to prepare for an extended U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has said the country is in a “State of Collapse,” Trump claimed on Truth Social Tuesday, while Tehran has signaled it may accept an interim deal to reopen the strait if Washington lifts its blockade of Iranian ports.

Ether dropped 2.6% on the week to $2,310. XRP fell 3.8% to $1.39. Solana lost 3.2% to $84.57. BNB shed 2.3% to $625. The exception was dogecoin, up 5.5% on the week to $0.1016, the only top-10 token outside stablecoins to print green over seven days.

Bitcoin’s market dominance is slowly climbing again as a result, which is what tends to happen when macro stress arrives and capital rotates into the largest asset.

Zaheer Ebtikar, founder of Split Research, said in a note that bitcoin’s relative calm was indicative of a change in market strucute.

“The supply overhang has finally dried up, and the sellers who were spooked by macro shifts or quantum fears have already exited, leaving the market much thinner on the sell-side than it was just a few months ago,” he said to CoinDesk over email.

“Bitcoin is far less sensitive to regulatory noise or central bank policy than people think. Its sensitivity is purely a function of wider volatility, and since we’re currently in a quieter trading range, there’s no immediate rush for the exits,” Ebtikar added.

The technical levels are sharper. Analysts at Bitget flagged $75,000 as the line where the upward range that has held since late March breaks, with a clean loss potentially opening room for further downside.

A reversal back toward $80,000 from current levels keeps the rally structure intact and sets up a retest of the resistance that has rejected bitcoin every attempt since February.

The Fed announces its rate decision later on Wednesday, the ECB follows Thursday, and the U.S. equity market sold off Tuesday on growing skepticism about the payoff from artificial intelligence capital expenditure, with Nasdaq 100 futures clawing back 0.4% in Asian hours.

Brent crude whipsawed between gains and losses but stayed elevated near $111 on the blockade reporting, putting renewed pressure on inflation expectations heading into the central bank decisions.

Traders may watch whether bitcoin’s apparent supply exhaustion holds against the next macro shock. If Ebtikar’s read is correct, the seller base that capitulated through March and April is gone, and bitcoin trades on volatility rather than headlines until something forces a fresh leg of selling. If the read is wrong, $75,000 gets tested quickly and the range break Bitget flagged plays out as drawn.

Zest ADGM Entity Appoints Zeid Barghouti as Senior Executive Officer – Finsight.news

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Zest ADGM Entity Appoints Zeid Barghouti as Senior Executive Officer – Finsight.news

Barghouti, Head of Business Development and Partnerships at Zest Equity, will also lead the firm’s ADGM-based entity as Zest scales its regulated products and continues to scale its transaction infrastructure across private markets.

Zest Equity, a digital transactional infrastructure company powering private-market transactions, today announced the appointment of Zeid Barghouti as Senior Executive Officer of its FSRA-regulated entity, ZE Transaction Solutions Limited (“Zest ADGM”).

Barghouti, Senior Executive Officer of the ADGM-based entity since its inception, leads business development and partnerships at Zest Equity, driving commercial growth across the firm’s SPV platform and overseeing the regulated entity through which the firm’s escrow and arranging services are delivered from the ADGM.

As Head of Business Development and Partnerships, Barghouti leads commercial growth across Zest Equity as a group, with responsibility for strategic partnerships, client relationships, and market expansion across MENA. In his new role as Senior Executive Officer, he oversees Zest ADGM and will support the continued development of its escrow and transaction facilitation solutions for private markets.

Barghouti brings an established record in regulated financial services across the Gulf region. Prior to Zest Equity, he served as Senior Executive Officer at Capital Investments DIFC Ltd, and held senior treasury and financial institutions roles within Capital Bank Group. He holds an MBA from the University of Manchester and a BSc in Business Management from the University of Surrey.

The appointment reflects Zest Equity’s commitment to building institutional-grade leadership as the company scales its digital transactional infrastructure across private markets. Since its founding, Zest Equity as a group has digitized more than USD 230 million in transactions across over 200 deals, and has received authorisation from the FSRA for Zest ADGM to offer both its Zest Arrange and Zest Escrow products.

“Zeid has been instrumental to the commercial development of Zest Equity, and the regulatory remit he now assumes is the natural next step as we scale the digital infrastructure underpinning private-market transactions,” said Zuhair Shamma, Co-founder and CEO of Zest Equity. “His combination of regulatory experience and commercial acumen is exactly what this stage of the business demands. His leadership will be central as we scale the institutional infrastructure private markets require.”

“Zest Equity occupies a distinctive position in the regional private markets landscape and Zest is a genuine foundation for institutional growth in the region’s private markets,” said Barghouti. “I look forward to contributing further to its development and to the firm’s broader commercial expansion across the region’s private-market ecosystem.”

Zest ADGM is regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of the Abu Dhabi Global Market, and delivers the firm’s payment services and arranging deals in investment services to clients across MENA and beyond.

CFTC Sues Wisconsin Over Prediction Market Jurisdiction

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CFTC Sues Wisconsin Over Prediction Market Jurisdiction

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday sued the state of Wisconsin in the agency’s latest effort to assert jurisdiction over prediction markets after the state sued multiple platforms.

The CFTC said in a statement that it filed the lawsuit against Wisconsin “in response to the state’s lawsuits against Kalshi, Polymarket, Crypto.com, Robinhood, and Coinbase, five CFTC-regulated prediction markets.”

“States cannot circumvent the clear directive of Congress,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said. “Our message to Wisconsin is the same as to New York, Arizona, and others: if you interfere with the operation of federal law in regulating financial markets, we will sue you.”

It is the agency’s fifth lawsuit against a US state that seeks to halt action against prediction markets. The CFTC sued New York on Friday and filed lawsuits against Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois earlier this month after the states sued prediction market platforms.

Michael Selig speaking on stage at Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas on Monday. Source: YouTube

Wisconsin sued the five companies on Thursday, and like many US state authorities, argued that prediction markets offering sports-related event contracts are illegal betting that requires state gaming licenses.

It is an assertion the platforms and the CFTC have rebuffed in the past, arguing the contracts are regulated only under federal law.

The CFTC argued in its latest complaint, filed alongside the Justice Department’s Civil Division in a Wisconsin federal court, that it has “exclusive jurisdiction” over the event contracts on prediction markets, regulated as designated contract markets under federal law.

Related: With no bipartisan leadership, CFTC won’t ‘slow down‘ on rulemaking

“Wisconsin’s attempt to criminalize and shut down federally regulated markets intrudes on the exclusive federal scheme Congress designed to oversee national swaps markets,” the CFTC wrote in its complaint.

The agency asked the court to rule that state gambling laws do not apply to CFTC-regulated designated contract markets and issue a permanent injunction prohibiting Wisconsin from taking action against prediction markets.

The CFTC’s complaint also named Wisconsin Governor Anthony Evers, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and the Wisconsin Gaming Division and its administrator, John Dillett.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice, the state’s Division of Gaming and Governor Evers’ office were contacted for comment.

Magazine: How to fix suspected insider trading on Polymarket and Kalshi

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

RedStone Launches Settlement Layer to Address RWA Liquidity Gap in DeFi Lending

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RedStone Launches Settlement Layer to Address RWA Liquidity Gap in DeFi Lending

RedStone, a decentralized oracle provider, has launched a new settlement layer for decentralized finance, aiming to make tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) usable as collateral in lending protocols.

The system, called RedStone Settle, is designed to address a long-standing structural issue in DeFi. While lending platforms such as Aave rely on near-instant liquidations to manage risk, RWAs, including tokenized funds and bonds, typically have redemption periods ranging from 60 to 180 days. This mismatch has largely prevented RWAs from being used as collateral.

According to RedStone, the new layer introduces an onchain auction mechanism that is triggered during liquidation events. Liquidity providers can step in to purchase positions immediately, supplying protocols with liquidity while assuming the delayed redemption risk tied to the underlying assets.

The Baar, Switzerland-based company said the approach could help unlock more than $30 billion in tokenized RWAs currently sitting idle in DeFi, while allowing users to borrow against yield-generating positions more efficiently.

That figure broadly aligns with estimates of the current RWA market. Excluding stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets are valued at over $30 billion, led by products such as US Treasury exposure and private credit, according to RWA.xyz.

Tokenized RWA market. Source: RWA.xyz

Related: Flow Capital plans to tokenize $150M private credit fund via DigiFT: Report

Tokenization alone doesn’t solve liquidity constraints

RedStone’s product launch comes amid growing debate over whether tokenization meaningfully improves liquidity.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, industry participants at this month’s Paris Blockchain Week said putting assets onchain does not automatically make them tradable or usable in financial markets.

Tokenized real-world assets continue to face structural limitations, particularly in liquidity and settlement speed.

“I think there’s still this idea that tokenizing something illiquid will somehow magically make it a liquid asset, which is just not true,” said Oya Celiktemur of Ondo Finance during a panel hosted by Cointelegraph.

Paris Blockchain Week panel on RWA liquidity. Source: Cointelegraph

At the same time, DeFi lending has expanded alongside growing institutional interest and the gradual adoption of RWAs as collateral. According to Binance Research, the sector grew 72% year-over-year through September, driven in part by institutional use of stablecoins and tokenized assets.

Related: Stablecoin transfer volume drops 19% even as supply keeps rising: RWA.xyz

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
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