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Strategy founder Michael Saylor says Bitcoin hasn’t reached $150,000 yet because holders without a long-term outlook have been selling off while a new cohort of investors are beginning to enter the market.

“I think we’re going through a rotation right now,” Saylor said on the Coin Stories podcast with Natalie Brunell on May 9.

The lack of “10-year investor mindset” led to Bitcoin sell-off

Saylor said “lots of non-economically interested parties are rotating out of the asset.” However, at the same time, “a new cohort of investors are entering.”

“A lot of Bitcoin, for whatever reason, was left in the hands of the governments and the hands of lawyers, and in the hands of bankruptcy trustees,” he added.

Strategy’s Michael Saylor spoke to Natalie Brunell on the Coin Stories podcast. Source: Natalie Brunell

Saylor said that many of these trustees do not have a “10-year investors mindset,” and as Bitcoin’s (BTC) price began to rally, they took advantage and “thought this is a good exit point to get liquidity.”

Key takeaways:

ETH price rallied by 22% on May 8, but demand for spot ETH ETFs and derivatives remains muted. 

President Trump’s reversal on certain altcoins aligns with ETH’s renewed outlook. 

Ether (ETH) posted an impressive 29% gain between May 8 and May 9, likely marking the end of a 10-week bear market that bottomed out at $1,385 on April 9. This sharp move triggered the liquidation of over $400 million in short (sell) ETH futures positions, suggesting that whales and market makers were caught off guard.

Despite the surge, traders have maintained a neutral stance in ETH derivatives. Whether this apparent lack of conviction reflects a genuine trend reversal or merely precedes another test of the $2,000 level remains to be seen.

The newly launched DOOD token from Ethereum-based NFT project Doodles has seen a steep drop in market capitalization following its May 9 airdrop on the Solana network.

According to data from DEX Screener, DOOD’s market cap fell from over $100 million shortly after launch to around $60 million at the time of writing.

Overall, the much-anticipated airdrop was “[d]efinitely underwhelming,” a crypto commentator said in a May 9 X post. 

DOOD token performance on May 9. Source: DexScreener

Related: Doodles NFT sales surge 97% ahead of DOOD token airdrop

Falling NFT values

Joining the trend, NFTs in Doodle’s flagship collection sharply dropped in value on May 9.

Key Takeaways:

Solana's 15% surge and potential close above the 50-week EMA signal strong bullish momentum, which previously led to a 515% rally in 2024.

The $120 million in liquidity bridged to Solana reflects growing network confidence.

Solana (SOL) price gained 18% this week, signaling rising bullish momentum. The altcoin is approaching a pivotal point, with a potential close above the 50-week exponential moving average (EMA), a level that has historically catalyzed significant rallies.

In March, SOL dipped below the 50-week EMA and briefly dropped under $100 on April 7. Since then, Solana has staged a strong recovery, reclaiming key EMA levels (100W and 200W), with the 50-week EMA (blue line) now in focus.

Wall Street giant BlackRock met with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Crypto Task Force to discuss staking within crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) and tokenization of securities. The discussion could advance institutional interest in the crypto industry.

According to a May 9 memo published by the task force, BlackRock sought to “[d]iscuss perspectives on treatment of staking, including considerations for facilitating ETPs with staking capabilities.” The company has previously said that Ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds, while successful, are less perfect without staking.

Other crypto ETF issuers share that view. On Feb. 15, the New York Stock Exchange proposed a rule change to introduce staking services for Grayscale’s spot Ether ETFs. In April, the SEC delayed a decision on whether to approve or disapprove the rule change. BlackRock and Grayscale are behind the largest Ether ETFs by market capitalization, according to Sosovalue.

Ethereum ETFs as of May 8. Source: Sosovalue

Many blockchains rely on proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms that allow users to lock their native coins for yield. A potential SEC approval of staking for Ether ETFs could lead to future requests among altcoins, including Solana (SOL) ETFs.

Tokenization on the agenda

BlackRock also discussed “tokenization of securities under federal securities regulatory framework.” Securities are traditional financial instruments where the investor expects monetary gain, such as bonds and stocks. Tokenizing securities has many benefits, including faster settlement times, lower costs than with traditional finance infrastructure, and 24-hour markets.

US Vice President JD Vance will speak at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, roughly a year after then-presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke at the same event.

According to a May 9 notice from the event’s organizers, Vance will address conference attendees in person on May 28, making him the first sitting US vice president to speak at a digital asset conference.

Trump provided a pre-recorded video of himself from the White House to the organizers of the Digital Asset Summit in March — his first appearance at a crypto event since taking office in January — and spoke in person at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville while campaigning.

Though Vance is a Bitcoin (BTC) holder — he holds $250,000 to $500,001 worth of the cryptocurrency, according to a financial disclosure filed in August 2024 — it’s unclear whether the vice president intends to make a substantive policy statement at the event. Cointelegraph reached out to Vance’s office for comment but had not received a response at time of publication.

Related: Resurfaced clip shows Trump’s VP pick slamming Gensler’s approach to crypto

Key points:

Bitcoin holding $100,000 as a level of support would confirm the current trend change.

Ether leads among altcoins, and DeFi tokens could follow.

Bitcoin (BTC) broke above the psychologically critical $100,000 level on May 8, and the bulls are trying to hold on to the level on May 9. In an X post, CoinGlass said that Bitcoin’s rally resulted in $837.80 million in short liquidations in a 24-hour period, the largest since 2021.

Bitcoin’s rally also lifted several major altcoins, which soared above their respective overhead resistance levels. The altcoin rally was led by Ether (ETH), which surged roughly 22% on May 8, triggering a $328 million liquidation of Ether short positions.

Mining firm TeraWulf reported a net loss of approximately $61.4 million in its earnings for the first quarter of 2025, further deteriorating from the same period last year.

Revenue fell to $34.4 million from $42.4 million in the same period of 2024, according to the company's earnings report, published May 9. Cost of revenue rose sharply to $24.5 million, up from $14.4 million a year earlier.

As a result, TeraWulf's cost of revenue accounted for 71.4% of total income from operations in Q1 2025, more than double the 34% recorded in the prior-year quarter. In Q1 2024, the company posted a net loss of $9.6 million.

TeraWulf’s profit and loss statement for Q1 2025. Source: TeraWulf

TeraWulf attributed the decreased revenue to Bitcoin's (BTC) post-halving economics that reduced the block subsidy from 6.25 BTC per block mined to 3.125 BTC per block mined, rising network difficulty, and severe weather in the upstate New York area that is home to a TeraWulf mining facility.

The company is not alone in posting losses for the quarter, as the already competitive mining industry faces reduced block rewards and the macroeconomic uncertainty of geopolitical trade tensions that have created turmoil for financial markets and businesses alike.

Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade doesn’t pose a threat to decentralization, according to Mallesh Pai, senior research director at blockchain software firm Consensys, describing the update as a cleanup of the behind-the-scenes “busy work” currently handled by validators.

During a May 9 Cointelegraph X Space, Pai said a validator’s chances of proposing a block or earning rewards remain tied to how much ETH they hold, adding that larger validators don’t gain any new advantages under the upgrade:

“Rewards continue to be proportional to the amount of ETH you have. […] it's not the case that if you're a big validator, you somehow have any more advantages than you did before.”

Pectra is Ethereum’s most extensive network upgrade since the Merge took place in September 2022. Pectra allows validators to stake as much as 2,048 ETH, up from the previous limit of 32 ETH. The new standard has raised community concerns about the risks of centralization on the network.

According to Pai, the Pectra upgrade has taken “a bunch of busy work that the network was doing behind the scenes and removed it.”

Pai noted that while there are about a million technical validators on Ethereum, many aren’t truly distinct — large validators often operate numerous virtual keys from a single physical machine. With the Pectra upgrade, those keys can now be consolidated — something he says they are already seeing.

A group of Democratic senators has reportedly sent a letter to leadership at the US Department of Justice and the Treasury Department expressing concerns about US President Donald Trump’s ties to cryptocurrency exchange Binance and potential conflicts of interest in regulating the industry.

According to a May 9 Bloomberg report, Democratic senators asked Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to report on the steps Binance had taken as part of its November 2023 plea agreement with US authorities, amid reports that Trump and his family had deepened connections with the exchange.

That settlement saw Binance pay more than $4 billion as part of a deal with the Justice Department, Treasury, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and had then-CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao step down.

However, since Trump won the presidency in 2024, many lawmakers have accused the president of corruption from profiting off crypto while being in a position to influence laws and regulations over the industry.

Trump has launched his own memecoin — which earns the project millions of dollars in transaction fees — and offered the top tokenholders the opportunity to attend an exclusive dinner in Washington, DC. His family-backed crypto venture World Liberty Financial also recently announced that an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm, MGX, would settle a $2 billion investment in Binance using the platform’s USD1 stablecoin.

A group of Democratic senators has reportedly sent a letter to leadership at the US Department of Justice and the Treasury Department expressing concerns about US President Donald Trump’s ties to cryptocurrency exchange Binance and potential conflicts of interest in regulating the industry.

According to a May 9 Bloomberg report, Democratic senators asked Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to report on the steps Binance had taken as part of its November 2023 plea agreement with US authorities, amid reports that Trump and his family had deepened connections with the exchange.

That settlement saw Binance pay more than $4 billion as part of a deal with the Justice Department, Treasury, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and had then-CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao step down.

However, since Trump won the presidency in 2024, many lawmakers have accused the president of corruption from profiting off crypto while being in a position to influence laws and regulations over the industry.

Trump has launched his own memecoin — which earns the project millions of dollars in transaction fees — and offered the top tokenholders the opportunity to attend an exclusive dinner in Washington, DC.

Law enforcement detained the wrong person for a 2022 scam that pilfered more than $1 million worth of Bored Ape non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cybersecurity researcher ZachXBT said. 

In a May 9 X post, ZachXBT said he identified the wallet behind the scam and linked it to an X account that has since been deleted. 

But in 2023, law enforcement detained Sam Curry, a former Yuga Labs security researcher, at an airport as a suspect in the incident, ZachXBT said. Yuga Labs is the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. 

“It’s unfortunate to see how a security researcher was detained when stronger leads on a threat actor potentially responsible exist,” ZachXBT said.

The attacker stole 14 Bored Ape NFTs in 2022. Source: ZachXBT

Related: Crypto sleuth ZachXBT says he unmasked 50x Hyperliquid whale

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin’s price closely tracks global liquidity growth, with liquidity explaining up to 90% of its price movements, according to Raoul Pal.

In the long term, global liquidity continues to expand, driven by the increasing debt levels in many countries.

On a shorter timeframe, global liquidity follows a cyclical pattern, with Michael Howell projecting the current cycle to peak by mid-2026.

Bitcoin (BTC) price is notoriously sensitive to global liquidity. Some analysts go as far as calling their correlation near-perfect, with a lag of about three months. This relationship is fueling the current bullish narrative as BTC price soars back above $100,000, but how long can this trend last?

The cryptocurrency market continued to surge this past week as the overall digital asset market capitalization exceeded $3.27 trillion, an 8.6% increase over the previous week.

Bitcoin (BTC) reached a high of $103,600 on May 8 after reclaiming $100,000 for the first time since January. Its market dominance also surged above 60%, reflecting more bullish BTC sentiment. This marked the third time BTC has broken through six figures since it reached the milestone on Dec. 5, 2024, and again on Jan. 20, ahead of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration. 

The BTC rise coincided with Trump announcing a trade deal with the United Kingdom, which may include removing a 10% blanket tariff on all imports.

In the wider crypto space, Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade implemented much-needed improvements for the crypto ecosystem. The upgrade was followed by a 26% price surge for Ether (ETH), rising from $1,800 on May 7 to over $2,300 on May 9.

Total crypto market cap, 1-year chart. Source: CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin DeFi sees surge in mining participation despite drop in TVL

Messari's “State of Rootstock” report for 2025 showed that merged mining participation surged to an all-time high of 81% in Q1 2025, up from 56.4% in the previous quarter. The surge was attributed to onboarding major mining pools SpiderPool and Foundry. 

Galaxy Digital has been approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to redomicile in the United States, setting the stage for the crypto investment company’s listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Galaxy anticipates listing on the Nasdaq, a tech-focused US stock exchange, by the middle of May, pending approval from the Toronto Stock Exchange, on which the company is already listed, and shareholder approval at a special shareholders meeting on May 9.

Shareholders at the meeting must approve redomiciling Galaxy Digital in the US state of Delaware, known for its business-friendly regulations, before the process can move forward, according to an announcement from the company.

Galaxy Digital SEC form S-4. Source: SEC

Galaxy obtained SEC approval for a Nasdaq listing in April this year, and once the company obtains the other necessary approvals, it will trade on the Nasdaq under the GLXY ticker symbol.

The company is the latest crypto firm to announce an imminent stock market listing, as institutional interest in digital assets grows and crypto matures as an asset class that increasingly interacts with traditional financial markets.

Key Takeaways:

Bitcoin is driven by its ability to perform well in risk-on and risk-off environments, according to Bitcoin Suisse.

Bitcoin’s Sharpe ratio of 1.72, second only to gold, underscores its maturity as an asset, offering superior risk-adjusted returns.

A buyer-dominant market signals strong institutional and retail interest that could drive a supply squeeze and break new highs in May.

Bitcoin (BTC) price breached the $100,000 mark for the first time since January, fueling speculation of a new all-time high above $110,000 in May. According to Bitcoin Suisse, a crypto custody service provider, BTC’s bullish momentum stems from its ability to thrive in risk-on and risk-off environments since the US presidential elections. 

Opinion by: Naman Kabra, co-founder and CEO of NodeOps Network

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have become the default hardware for many AI workloads, especially when training large models. That thinking is everywhere. While it makes sense in some contexts, it's also created a blind spot that's holding us back.

GPUs have earned their reputation. They're incredible at crunching massive numbers in parallel, which makes them perfect for training large language models or running high-speed AI inference. That's why companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta spend a lot of money building GPU clusters.

While GPUs may be preferred for running AI, we cannot forget about Central Processing Units (CPUs), which are still very capable. Forgetting this could be costing us time, money, and opportunity.

CPUs aren't outdated. More people need to realize they can be used for AI tasks. They're sitting idle in millions of machines worldwide, capable of running a wide range of AI tasks efficiently and affordably, if only we'd give them a chance.

Key points:

Bitcoin continues to attack a key resistance zone below all-time highs.

“Parabolic” BTC price talk begins to resurface as bulls hold six figures after the Wall Street open.

Signs of profit-taking are increasing amid the highest prices since January.

Bitcoin (BTC) is attracting “parabolic” price targets as bulls continue to hold six figures on May 9.

Bitcoin crossed the $100,000 mark again on May 8 as institutional investors continue stacking sats.

Farside Investors’ data shows that spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded cumulative net inflows of $142.3 million on May 7, in a sign of “sustained institutional interest,” according to the founder of Obchakevich Research, Alex Obchakevich.

“These inflows indicate the activity of institutional investors, including hedge funds and asset managers, who continue to accumulate BTC through regulated instruments,“ he said.

The ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) led with $54 million in inflows, followed by Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) at $39 million and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) at $37 million. Data from Arkham Intelligence shows BlackRock acquired more than 86 Bitcoin worth $8.4 million in a single transaction on May 7.

24-hour Bitcoin price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap

Related: Bitcoin price reclaims $100K for first time since January

Ripple’s $25 million donation to a crypto education fund has reignited conversations about how blockchain projects are building influence through academia—but in the latest episode of Byte-Sized Insight, Animoca Brands’ co-founder Yat Siu says that money alone isn’t enough. 

Instead, real-world use cases like student loans backed by DeFi may be crypto’s most convincing value proposition to date.

DeFi student loans

On April 30th, Pencil Finance, a project supported by Animoca Brands and its education arm Open Campus, announced a $10 million student loan financing initiative aimed at providing cheaper, blockchain-backed loans. Siu believes this type of infrastructure investment goes further than symbolic funding.

“What our industry needs a lot more is these kinds of positive-sum use cases that everyone else understands,” Siu said in the interview. “If students can receive better, cheaper and more effective opportunities and interest rates through crypto student loans, what happens? They’re going to be more pro-crypto.”

Related: The Giving Block starts disaster fund for California wildfire victims

The Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit that supports development across the Ethereum blockchain, distributed $32.6 million in grants in the first quarter of 2025. 

In an allocation update, the organization reported spending on various initiatives through its Ecosystem Support Program (ESP). 

Categories included community and educational grants, zero-knowledge and cryptography. Other allocations included execution layers, developer experience and tools, layer-2 networks and overall ecosystem growth and support. 

Ethereum Foundation focuses on education and community

Of the 101 grants awarded, 32 went to community and education-focused initiatives. Recipients included educational content creators, conference organizers, bootcamps and hackathons such as ETHPrague and ETHiopia.

Sixteen projects focused on improving the developer experience and tooling. Beneficiaries included projects focusing on creating software-development kits (SDKs), building analytics platforms and validator tooling. 

Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, has received regulatory approval to expand crypto derivatives trading across Europe.

Gemini secured a Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) license from the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), allowing the exchange to offer crypto derivatives in the European Union, it announced on May 9.

“Once we commence business activities, we will be able to offer regulated derivatives throughout the EU and EEA [European Economic Area] under MiFID II,” said Gemini’s head of Europe, Mark Jennings.

According to the exec, the MiFID II license is a big milestone in Gemini’s European expansion, putting it one step closer to offering derivatives to both retail and institutional users.

Advanced traders will get perpetual futures

Gemini’s upcoming derivatives offering in the EU and EEA will include perpetual futures and other derivatives, which will be available to advanced users of Gemini, Jennings noted.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott blamed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act’s failure on partisan politics during a Senate speech on May 8.

Scott said the vote, which failed to reach cloture in the Senate, was expected to mark a step toward greater affordability and innovation. Instead, he said, political divisions took precedence.

“Instead, we witnessed a disappointing display of political gamesmanship that puts partisan politics above policy, and obstruction above innovation, “Scott said.

The bill had previously undergone multiple amendments to address concerns raised by Democrats, including stricter requirements for stablecoin issuers and further provisions for Anti-Money Laundering.

Related: Trump tricked into pushing XRP for crypto reserve: Report

Taiwanese lawmaker Ko Ju-Chun has called on the government to consider adding Bitcoin to its national reserves, suggesting it could serve as a hedge against global economic uncertainty.

Ko, a legislator at-large in Taiwan’s legislative body, the Legislative Yuan, took to X on Friday to report that he had advocated Bitcoin (BTC) investment by the Taiwanese government at the National Conference on May 9.

In his remarks, Ko cited Bitcoin’s potential to become a hedge amid global economic risks and urged Taiwan to recognize the cryptocurrency alongside gold and foreign exchange reserves to boost its financial resilience.

Source: Ko Ju-Chun

Ko’s announcement came shortly after the legislator held talks with Samson Mow, who advocates for Bitcoin adoption by states like El Salvador at his BTC tech firm Jan3.

Taiwan is an export-oriented economy

Ko highlighted that Taiwan is an export-driven economy that has experienced significant fluctuations in its national currency, the New Taiwan dollar, amid global inflation and intensifying geopolitical risks.

Key points:

Bitcoin (BTC) is at its highest levels since January, and traders are eyeing key levels to watch for what’s next.

After hitting $104,000, BTC/USD is retracing to establish support, but the fate of $100,000 is among the concerns for market participants.

Current price action represents an important battleground, as measured from the $75,000 lows this year.

” Headline driven” BTC price gains draw scrutiny

Just $6,000 from new all-time highs, per data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, BTC price action has stunned the market by jumping 10% in days.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin was up 4.3% on May 9, after breaking $100,000  for the first time since February.

BTC price gains trigger $800 million in short liquidations, the largest since 2021.

A bull flag on the weekly chart suggests a $182,200 target, with analysts predicting Bitcoin’s price can go as high as $1 million in 2025.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price is up 4.3% on May 9 as a fresh liquidity cascade sent BTC price soaring above $100,000 for the first time in over 90 days.

German law enforcement seized 34 million euros ($38 million) in cryptocurrency from eXch, a cryptocurrency platform allegedly used to launder funds stolen after Bybit’s record-breaking $1.4 billion hack.

The seizure, announced on May 9 by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and Frankfurt’s main prosecutor’s office, involved multiple crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH). The move marks the third-largest crypto confiscation in the BKA’s history.

The authorities also seized eXch’s German server infrastructure with over eight terabytes of data and shut down the platform, the announcement added.

eXch exchanged crypto without AML

In the statement, the BKA described eXch as a “swapping” service that allowed users to exchange various crypto assets without implementing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures.

The platform had operated since 2014 and reportedly facilitated about $1.9 billion in crypto transfers, some of which were believed to be of “criminal origin,” including assets laundered during the Bybit hack.

Solana does not yet have “convincing signs” that it could overtake Ethereum as the blockchain of choice for institutions, as its revenue is seen as unstable due to its memecoin concentration, according to crypto bank group Sygnum.

In a May 8 blog post, Sygnum said that the current sentiment around Ethereum “remains poor,” with the market focused on Solana’s “transaction volumes and its recent dominance in fee generation.”

However, Sygnum said “the medium-term outlook will primarily be shaped by traditional financial institutions’ platform choices to bring their product offerings,” not by sentiment.

“We do not yet see convincing signs that Solana would be the preferred choice as Ethereum’s security, stability and longevity are highly prized,” it added.

Sygnum argued that institutions could choose Ethereum over Solana as the market has viewed the latter’s revenue generation as “less stable” due to being “highly concentrated in the memecoin sector.”