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Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signaled support for a bill recently passed by the state House of Representatives that would establish a strategic cryptocurrency reserve.

In a May 22 X post, Abbott posted a Techstory article about Texas state lawmakers’ efforts to create a Bitcoin (BTC) reserve. The story pointed out that the decision for the passage of SB 21, the bill in question, now rests on Abbott’s shoulders, roughly three months after it was introduced. 

Since taking office, Abbott referred to himself as a “crypto law proposal supporter” in 2021 and suggested that he would support policies to establish Texas as a “crypto capital” in 2024. Texas was one of a handful of state-level governments that proposed setting up a strategic crypto reserve after the 2024 federal elections.   

Related: Ukraine strategic Bitcoin reserve bill reportedly in final stages

On May 6, New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte was the first to sign a Bitcoin reserve bill into law. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs later approved a law allowing the state to claim ownership of unclaimed crypto. Some jurisdictions have rebuffed efforts to pass similar legislation, with roughly half of the 50 state governments considering a Bitcoin reserve.

When Venezuela was experiencing hyperinflation, Ledn co-founder Mauricio di Bartolomeo hedged against the collapsing local currency by shorting it in favor of the more stable US dollar. Today, he’s using a similar strategy — this time borrowing against his Bitcoin (BTC) to hedge against the crumbling US dollar.

Di Bartolomeo connected with me during Canada Crypto Week in Toronto, where he talked about the advantages of Bitcoin-backed loans and the rapid growth of collateralized BTC lending. In our interview, he made a compelling case for continuing to stack sats, even as Bitcoin’s price keeps rising.

This week’s Crypto Biz dives into our conversation with the Ledn co-founder and covers the latest business news from the blockchain world.

A lesson from hyperinflation

Before Bitcoin, di Bartolomeo’s most successful investment was shorting the Bolivar with US dollars, referring to his experience in Venezuela during the hyperinflationary 2010s. 

“I was borrowing Bolivars and buying dollars with them, holding the hard dollars and having a borrow [position] on the weaker currency,” he said.

Members of the US House of Representatives called for the Justice Department to investigate Donald Trump’s May 22 dinner for his top memecoin investors, citing concerns about “foreign influence over US policy decisions” and “potential corruption and emoluments clause violations.”

In a May 22 letter to the Justice Department, 35 House members asked the public integrity section acting chief, Edward Sullivan, to launch an inquiry over the memecoin dinner to determine whether it violated the federal bribery statute or the foreign emoluments clause of the US Constitution. 

Under the emoluments clause, a US president is barred from accepting any gift from a foreign state without the approval of Congress. Bloomberg reported that a majority of the attendees at the memecoin dinner were likely foreign nationals based on their connections to crypto exchanges. 

“US law prohibits foreign persons from contributing to US political campaigns,” said the letter. “However, the $TRUMP memecoin, including the promotion of a dinner promising exclusive access to the President, opens the door for foreign governments to buy influence with the President, all without disclosing their identities.”

The call for an investigation and a press conference asking Trump to “release the guest list” for the dinner both occurred hours before the event, which was held at the Trump National Golf Club outside Washington, DC. A group of protesters, joined by Senator Jeff Merkley, gathered outside the venue with signs stating “illegal crypto party” and “democracy is not for sale.”

Key takeaways:

Short-term Bitcoin holders realized $11.6 billion in profit over the past 30 days, suggesting a potential pause or local top in the market.

Technical indicators show cooling momentum as retail investor sentiment falls to a 90-day low and liquidity data points to price volatility.

Bitcoin (BTC) price recently hit a new all-time high of $111,800, but the bullish momentum may slow down as onchain data from Glassnode reveals significant profit-taking by short-term holders (STHs), potentially signaling a market "breather."

Glassnode analysis shows that STHs, often considered traders rather than long-term investors, have realized a staggering $11.6 billion in profits over the last 30 days. This follows a sharp rebound in Bitcoin’s price, pushing past the STH cost-basis of $93,000. The profit-taking peaked at $747 million daily, a rapid increase from the $1.2 billion realized in the last 30-day period, highlighting a shift in new investor sentiment. 

Key points:

Bitcoin slipped below $109,588, but technical charts suggest traders are buying each dip.

Excessive leverage in Bitcoin futures increases the risk of a quick correction.

Select altcoins have turned down from their respective overhead resistance levels, signaling that the bears remain sellers on rallies.

Sellers have pulled Bitcoin (BTC) back below the breakout level of $109,588, but lower levels are likely to attract buyers. Investor interest remains strong, with the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds witnessing inflows of $934 million on May 22 and $608 million on May 21, according to SoSoValue data.

Risk appetite across traditional and cryptocurrency markets saw a sharp rise this week, helping United States cryptocurrency funds recover the capital lost to the correction of February and March, amassing over $7.5 billion worth of weekly inflows.

Bitcoin (BTC) surpassed its old all-time high on May 21, two days after President Donald Trump confirmed ongoing ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in a May 19 X post.

Meanwhile, popular analyst and Global Macro Investor CEO Raoul Pal warned of more fiat currency debasement, urging investors to gain more exposure to cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as these assets “will never be this cheap again.”

Exponential currency debasement: “You don’t own enough crypto, NFTs”

Cryptocurrencies and NFTs can help investors protect their eroding purchasing power during an era of exponential currency debasement, according to analysts and industry leaders.

Investing in digital assets is becoming increasingly important in the “world of the exponential age and currency debasement,” according to Raoul Pal, founder and CEO of Global Macro Investor.

It’s been 30 years since computer scientist Ben Goertzel wrote his first line of AI code, already convinced that artificial intelligence should be decentralized. Today, as the world approaches the dawn of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), who leads this breakthrough could have profound consequences for the future of humanity.

Speaking with Cointelegraph at the Consensus conference in Toronto, Canada, Goertzel said, “We’re likely to be able to launch AGI that can think and generalize beyond its training and programming within the next one to three years.”

His project, SingularityNET, is a decentralized ecosystem building a global marketplace for AI services. Along the way, it has secured partnerships with Mind Network and Filecoin Foundation, invested $53 million in a modular supercomputer dedicated to decentralized AGI, and completed a token merger with Ocean Protocol and Fetch.ai to unify efforts in decentralized AI development.

In 2024, Goertzel founded the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, the world’s largest open-source initiative dedicated to decentralized AGI.

SingularityNET and the ASI Alliance are “probably the only serious AGI R&D team outside of Big Tech, certainly the only one in the crypto space, and I don't mean any slight against others doing cool AI stuff in the crypto space,” Goertzel said. 

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin’s performance in the current bull market and a new cohort of buyers reflect a maturing market and widening adoption.

A 50% rise in hashrate and a 63% jump in Realized Cap highlight investors’ confidence in Bitcoin.

A recent report from Fidelity Digital Assets explored how the current Bitcoin market cycle reflects a shift toward a maturing market where the rate of adoption deepens and expands.

At block height 892,500—marking 25% progress into the current halving epoch—Bitcoin traded between $82,500 and $85,000, representing a 31% increase from its value on April 19, 2024, when the fourth halving reduced block rewards to 3.125 BTC.

Web3 developer platform Alchemy has acquired HeyMint, a California-based non-fungible token (NFT) launchpad, in a move designed to enhance the company’s smart wallet infrastructure. 

The undisclosed funding deal will see HeyMint’s infrastructure embedded within Alchemy as it seeks to simplify user onboarding for Web3 applications, the company disclosed on May 23. HeyMint’s co-founder and chief technology officer, Flor Ronsmans De Vry, joins Alchemy as part of the deal. 

While not a household name in crypto, HeyMint attracted more than 1 million users over its first two years of operations. It was the launchpad behind $38 million in NFT sales and supported the Web3 efforts of major brands, including The Sandbox, Universal Music Group and Ubisoft. 

In 2023, HeyMint facilitated NFT sales for the Partnership for Central America, a private sector coalition that included Mastercard.

The HeyMint acquisition is Alchemy’s second funding deal this month. The company recently acquired Dexter Lab, a real-time data infrastructure provider for Solana, for an undisclosed amount. 

Key points:

Bitcoin joins risk assets in a knee-jerk reaction to the latest instalment of the US trade war, this time focused on the EU.

BTC price action dives up to 4% before recovering with $110,000 now a resistance level.

Traders demand that price holds higher levels going forward to protect bullish momentum.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw flash volatility into the May 23 Wall Street open as news headlines liquidated longs.

Opinion by: Grigore Roșu, founder and chief executive officer of Pi Squared

For some, the audacity of questioning the primacy of blockchain in Web3 is borderline heretical. The idea that decentralization and progress could exist without blockchains seems absurd to those who built careers around Bitcoin, Ethereum, and their descendants. Given blockchain's well-documented scaling limits, however, there is an argument to be made that Web3 doesn't actually need blockchains to thrive. Instead, it requires payment systems and verifiable settlement systems that are super fast. Blockchains are just one way to achieve that, not the only way.

While blockchain solved the double-spending problem, it introduced its own architectural burden: the rigid fixation on total ordering, dictating that every transaction must wait its turn in a global queue, processed through a monolithic consensus mechanism. Initially, this made sense in the context of payments, where security and simplicity were paramount. Still, in the context of Web3, where complex applications require speed, flexibility, and scale, this same mechanism has become a constraint. It imposes a kind of serialized tyranny, throttling throughput and locking developers into a narrow lane of design options. 

The undeniable influence of FastPay

Mobile remittance app FastPay proved that double-spending can be avoided differently without a total order. This inspired systems like Linera, which use independent local orderings while maintaining global verifiability, proving that a different, more scalable future is possible and already underway. FastPay also inspired the likes of POD and Sui's single-owner objects protocol. If FastPay had been invented before Bitcoin, blockchain might never have captured the cultural or technical imagination in the way that it did.

Recent: Beijing to invest in blockchain, integrate into infrastructure

The top 220 holders of US President Donald Trump’s memecoin met yesterday at the president’s golf course in Virginia for an exclusive dinner and purported meet-and-greet.

Attendees spent a grand total of $148 million for an “ultra-exclusive VIP reception with the president,” which crypto industry advocates and critics alike saw as a potential opportunity to discuss crypto policy with the president. 

The crowd contained a number of foreign crypto executives and influencers who otherwise would not have access to the US president, raising questions around corruption and foreign influence. 

Concerns were further augmented when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to release a list of attendees, stating that the event was a private affair outside of Trump’s presidential duties.

However, some attendees spoke to the press or took to social media to talk about the dinner. Here are just a few:

Key takeaways:

Ethereum is forming a bull flag on the daily chart, with a potential breakout to $4,000.

If Ethereum’s network activity and total value locked continue to grow, ETH price may see further gains.

Ether’s price printed a “bull flag” on the daily chart, a technical chart formation associated with strong upward momentum. Could a strengthening technical setup and increasing transaction fees signal the continuation of ETH’s rally toward $4,000?

Ethereum transaction fees rising is bullish

Marketwide recovery, fueled by Bitcoin’s rise to new all-time highs and improving macroeconomic conditions, saw Ether’s (ETH) price rise by nearly 56% to an eight-week high of $2,734 on May 23, from a low of $1,750 on May 6. 

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize more than $24 million in cryptocurrency from Rustam Rafailevich Gallyamov, a Russian national accused of developing the Qakbot malware.

According to a May 22 announcement, the DOJ unsealed charges against the 48-year-old Moscovite with a federal indictment. Gallyamov is allegedly the malware developer behind the Qakbot botnet.

“Today’s announcement of the Justice Department’s latest actions to counter the Qakbot malware scheme sends a clear message to the cybercrime community,” said Matthew Galeotti, head of the DOJ’s criminal division.

Galeotti highlighted that the DOJ is “determined to hold cybercriminals accountable.” He added that the department will “use every legal tool” to “identify you, charge you, forfeit your ill-gotten gains, and disrupt your criminal activity.”

Related: Microsoft takes legal action against infostealer Lumma

The bounty offer to recover stolen funds from Sui-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Cetus closely resembles a successful strategy used by a Solana project three years ago.

It turns out that Cetus shares the same development team as Crema Finance, a Solana-based DeFi project that suffered a $9-million hack in 2022 but recovered most of the funds by negotiating with its hacker. Now, Cetus is relying on the same strategy.

Cetus is asking the hacker to return all but $6 million, or 2,324 Ether (ETH), of the stolen funds in exchange for a promise not to pursue legal action. The protocol lost $223 million to an exploit on May 22.

The size of the bounty has sparked backlash from users, with many calling for a formal compensation plan instead. Several community members argue that even if funds are recovered, most of the damage has already been done — especially to holders of the CETUS token, which plummeted in value following the incident.

Meanwhile, Sui validators are also under fire for their role in freezing the funds. The move is aimed at aiding recovery, yet critics say it exposes centralization risks in the network.

In this week’s episode of Byte-Sized Insight, on Decentralize with Cointelegraph, we break down a pivotal moment for US crypto legislation. 

In a 66–32 procedural vote on May 19, the US Senate advanced the GENIUS Act, a landmark bill aimed at establishing a comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins. Meanwhile, across the Capitol, Representative Tom Emmer reintroduced the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, backed by bipartisan support.

Breaking down GENIUS

The GENIUS Act — short for “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act” — seeks to answer foundational questions around stablecoin issuance and oversight.

“It defines this idea of a payment stablecoin,” explained Rashan Colbert, director of US policy at the Crypto Council for Innovation, in this week’s interview. Colbert emphasized that the bill doesn’t stop at definitions. 

By this, he’s referring to guidelines on who can be permitted issuers like bank subsidiaries, credit unions and approved non-bank entities.

Digital asset lender Ledn is transitioning to fully collateralized Bitcoin lending and discontinuing support for Ethereum, in moves designed to consolidate its BTC-focused business and further safeguard client assets against credit risks.

In adopting a full custody structure for Bitcoin (BTC) loans, Ledn will no longer lend out client assets to generate interest, the company disclosed on May 23. Instead, Bitcoin collateral will remain under full custody by Ledn or one of its designated funding partners. 

“This means assets aren’t rehypothecated, reused, or loaned out to generate yield,” Ledn co-founder and CEO Adam Reeds told Cointelegraph.

Reeds said the move brings the company back to its roots and aligns more closely with Bitcoin’s founding principles.

“Bitcoin was created as a direct response to the risks of fractional reserve banking and unchecked use of client assets to generate interest,” said Reed, adding:

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States are heading for a record-breaking month, helping push Bitcoin to new all-time highs amid rising institutional demand.

The US-listed spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs recorded more than $1.5 billion in combined inflows over a two-day period, with $608 million on May 21 and $934 million on May 22, according to data from Sosovalue.

A repeat performance of the past two days’ inflows would see monthly inflows surge to $6.68 billion, surpassing the monthly record of $6.49 billion from November 2024.

Related: German gov’t missed out on $2.3B profit after selling Bitcoin at $57K

ETF inflows helped Bitcoin rise to a new all-time high of $112,000 on May 22 before retracing to above $110,700 on May 23, up over 19% in the past week, TradingView data shows.

Singapore-based artificial intelligence firm Genius Group has added more Bitcoin to its corporate treasury after being temporarily banned from doing so.

In a May 22 announcement, Genius Group explained that it has resumed accumulating Bitcoin (BTC) following a favorable ruling by the US Court of Appeals. It follows Genius Group being temporarily barred from expanding its Bitcoin treasury after a US court order had banned it from selling shares, raising funds and using investor funds to buy more BTC.

Genius Group announced it increased its Bitcoin Treasury 40% with the purchase of 24.5 BTC, worth around $2.7 million. The company now holds 85.5 BTC acquired for a total of $8.5 million, at an average price of $99,700 per coin.

“We are pleased to be able to begin the task of rebuilding shareholder value from the damage caused by the legal actions of third parties, and delivering on our 2025 plan,” the company’s CEO, Roger Hamilton, said.

Related: Swedish health firm jumps 37% on first Bitcoin buy, China EV seller to buy 1K BTC