Decentral Block Post

BlackRock, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin holders, is reportedly participating in a bond raise by crypto-friendly messenger Telegram.

Telegram is expected to raise at least $1.5 billion in a bond issue on May 28, with support from existing backers like BlackRock and Abu Dhabi’s investment firm Mubadala, The Wall Street Journal reported.

As part of the sale, Telegram is offering investors five-year bonds at a 9% yield, the report said, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Telegram plans to use the proceeds to buy back remaining debt from bonds issued in 2021, which are due to mature in March 2026.

Discounts for potential Telegram IPO

Apart from existing Telegram bondholders like BlackRock and Mubadala, the sale is also expected to bring new investors, including the US hedge fund firm Citadel.

Ripple, the blockchain company behind XRP, argued that fungible cryptocurrencies are not securities when transferred in secondary transactions in a recent letter sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In its May 27 letter, Ripple cited US attorney and crypto law thought leader Lewis Cohen to support its claim. In his widely cited 2022 paper, “The Ineluctable Modality of Securities Law: Why Fungible Crypto Assets Are Not Securities,” he wrote:

“[T]here is no current basis in the law relating to ‘investment contracts’ to classify most fungible crypto assets as ‘securities’ when transferred in secondary transactions.”

In his paper, Cohen explained that in secondary transactions, an investment contract transaction is generally not present. He further claimed that fungible cryptocurrencies “neither create nor represent the necessary cognizable legal relationship between” a legal entity and the holder that is the “hallmark of a security.”

Related: Banking groups ask SEC to drop cybersecurity incident disclosure rule

Key points:

Bitcoin whales are adding to their BTC positions while price ranges below all-time highs.

If a new market correction comes, one potential bounce level lies in the mid-$90,000 zone.

Hyperliquid trader James Wynn hints at large-volume traders shaping low-timeframe price performance.

Bitcoin (BTC) may see support only at $94,000 if a fresh BTC price correction ensues, new analysis says.

Sui-based decentralized exchange Cetus may be one step closer to recovering funds lost in a recent exploit, pending the outcome of a community governance vote scheduled to end June 3.

Cetus was exploited for over $220 million worth of digital assets on May 22. Shortly after the incident, Cetus managed to freeze $162 million of the funds.

In a May 27 post on X, Sui said Cetus had requested a community vote to approve the recovery of the frozen funds.

“If the community vote is approved, the funds will be recovered from the attacker and held in a multisig trust account until they can be returned to accounts that had positions in Cetus,” the post said.

The vote is part of a broader recovery plan that includes using Cetus’s treasury and securing an emergency loan from the Sui Foundation.

Japanese investment company Metaplanet is raising $50 million through a private placement of zero-interest bonds as part of its strategy to increase its Bitcoin exposure. 

In a May 28 announcement, the company said it was raising $50 million through bonds. The bonds are issued in $1.25 million denominations and carry no interest. Investors will not receive regular payments, with any potential profit expected to come from the bonds’ redemption value.

Evo Fund, a Cayman Islands-based investment firm, will be the sole bondholder. The investment company has been Metaplanet’s primary backer for its Bitcoin acquisition strategy, subscribing to multiple rounds of Metaplanet’s zero-interest bonds, providing capital for its Bitcoin (BTC) buys.

The bonds are unsecured and not guaranteed, with neither a bond administrator nor collateral. This reflects the high degree of trust between the two companies. It also shows confidence in BTC’s long-term outlook as Metaplanet continues to increase its holdings. 

Metaplanet expects minimal impact on 2025 results

Metaplanet said it expects the issuance to have minimal impact on its 2025 financial results, though it will disclose further developments if needed.

A crypto trader has pushed back against claims that altcoin season is already over, arguing that it hasn’t even started yet, as many tokens are still near their local price bottoms.

“I don’t understand why people start claiming that a bear market is around the corner,” MN Trading Capital founder Michaël van de Poppe said in a May 28 X post.

Calls for altcoin season mount

“They are literally on the bottom,” van de Poppe added before stating that the “final easy 12-24 months are coming.” While many altcoins have posted gains over the past 30 days, they remain below their levels from the market uptrend until US President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.

Solana (SOL) posted 17.84% gains over the past 30 days, trading at $175.17, but is still down 32% since Jan. 19, according to CoinMarketCap. Meanwhile, XRP (XRP) posted gains of 1.98%, trading at $2.31, but is still down 29.35% since Jan. 19.

Van de Poppe’s claim comes after Bitcoin (BTC) traders have recently been calling for a pullback after it reached its $111,970 all-time high and seven green weekly candles. 

White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks says the US could buy more Bitcoin if the government can fund the purchase in a “budget-neutral” way without a tax or adding to the growing national debt.

Sacks told Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss during a May 27 fireside chat at the Bitcoin 2025 conference that while he “can’t promise anything,” a pathway does exist for the government to buy more Bitcoin (BTC).

However, it would require convincing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick or Treasury Secretary Scott Besson to OK the buy and fund it “without a new tax or adding to the debt,” Sacks said, adding that “maybe by finding the money from some other program that’s not using it — then we could potentially acquire more Bitcoin.”

“The question is, can we get either the Treasury Department or the Commerce Department to get excited about that because if they do and they can figure out how to fund it, they actually do have presidential authorization,” Sacks said.

US can buy Bitcoin if it doesn’t sting budget 

The March 6 executive order authorizing the creation of a crypto reserve states it will hold any Bitcoin forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture.

Australia’s markets regulator has filed civil proceedings against Liang “Allan” Guo, the former director of Blockchain Global. 

Guo will face the court on “allegations relating to multiple breaches of his directors’ duties,” the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said in a May 28 press release.

ASIC alleged Guo made multiple breaches of directors’ duties relating to his dealings with ACX Exchange customer funds, and claimed he made false and misleading statements about those dealings and failed to maintain proper books and records. 

The now-liquidated Blockchain Global operated the ACX Exchange from mid-2016 until December 2019, when it collapsed as customers could no longer withdraw their assets. 

During liquidator’s examinations in 2022, the courts were told that ACX exchange took the cash invested by its customers to buy crypto and mingled the funds into one pooled fund, the Sydney Morning Herald reported at the time. 

A crypto trader has pushed back against claims that altcoin season is already over, arguing that it hasn’t even started yet, as many tokens are still near their local price bottoms.

“I don’t understand why people start claiming that a bear market is around the corner,” MN Trading Capital founder Michaël van de Poppe said in a May 28 X post.

Calls for altcoin season mount

“They are literally on the bottom,” van de Poppe added before stating that the “final easy 12-24 months are coming.” While many altcoins have posted gains over the past 30 days, they remain below their levels from the market uptrend until US President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.

Solana (SOL) posted 17.84% gains over the past 30 days, trading at $175.17, but is still down 32% since Jan. 19, according to CoinMarketCap. Meanwhile, XRP (XRP) posted gains of 1.98%, trading at $2.31, but is still down 29.35% since Jan. 19.

Van de Poppe’s claim comes after Bitcoin (BTC) traders have recently been calling for a pullback after it reached its $111,970 all-time high and seven green weekly candles. 

The International Monetary Fund said it has reached an agreement with El Salvador to pay the country $120 million following an initial review of its $1.4 billion loan agreement struck last year.

The IMF said on May 27 that as part of the deal, El Salvador will need to fulfill its prior obligations around limiting further government involvement in Bitcoin (BTC), and it will have to cease its involvement in the Chivo wallet by the end of July.

“On Bitcoin, efforts will continue to ensure that the total amount of Bitcoin held across all government-owned wallets remains unchanged,” the global lender said.

The planned payout, subject to IMF executive board approval, is part of a larger $1.4 billion, 40-month loan deal struck in December, which saw El Salvador agree to confine its Bitcoin ambitions.

On March 3, the IMF reiterated its stance that El Salvador should stop accumulating Bitcoin and not pursue other Bitcoin-related activities.

Outgoing US Commodity Futures Trading Commission commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero says the exodus of the agency’s top brass is “not a great situation” for crypto regulations.

The CFTC could be headed by just one commissioner once the other four depart later this year, which Goldsmith Romero said in a May 27 interview at the Brookings Institution will make creating regulations harder because it leaves a less diverse pool of opinions. 

“I think it’s not a great situation if you have one person who’s determining what the rules should be; you lose the benefit of this back-and-forth, this push-and-pull as to what’s the right thing to do,” she said.

“I’ve always wanted to hear from my fellow commissioners about what makes sense to them, and there are many things that they’ve convinced me of and many things that I’ve convinced them of, so I think it does a disservice to regulation.”

Goldsmith Romero’s last day will be May 31, leaving Commissioner Kristin Johnson as the CFTC’s sole Democrat, who has also announced plans to depart the agency before 2026. 

US President Donald Trump’s pick to chair the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has disclosed millions of dollars worth of assets, along with his various ties to crypto-related organizations.

In paperwork released by the US Office of Government Ethics on May 25, Brian Quintenz disclosed his key positions in crypto and market firms that would directly relate to the CFTC’s regulatory priorities and disclosed assets worth at least $3.4 million, according to a May 27 Bloomberg report. 

Quintenz was a CFTC commissioner from 2017 to 2021 and is currently the global head of crypto policy at Andreessen Horowitz, a position he said he will step down from if the Senate confirms him as CFTC chair. 

He holds an interest in three AH Capital Management investment funds, CNK Fund III, CNK Seed 1 Fund, and CNK IV Fund, plus capital commitments to related general partners. 

He is also a board member of the prediction markets platform Kalshi and owns stock and unvested stock options in the firm, along with stock and vested stock options in the finance and lending brokerage Next Level Derivatives.

US Representative Bryan Steil wants lawmakers to stop adding “non-germane items” into two key crypto bills, claiming that doing so is slowing the implementation of a regulatory framework for the industry.

“Individuals, when they see legislation that’s going to move forward, want to attach non-germane items to any bill that’s going to move through and be signed into law,” Steil, a Republican from Wisconsin who chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on crypto, told Cointelegraph at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas on May 27.

“We have to restrain ourselves from that instinct and attempt by our colleagues — both sides of the aisle,” he added.

Congress’s biggest crypto backers hope to pass the stablecoin-regulating Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act, or GENIUS Act, and a crypto market structure bill before a month-long August recess.

Democratic lawmakers had pulled support for the GENIUS Act on May 8, citing concerns about US President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures potentially conflicting with his presidential duties

Jack Dorsey’s financial services firm Block, Inc. will launch Bitcoin payments on Square, its payments processing arm, with a rollout to begin later this year before a full launch in 2026.

The company announced the plan at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas on May 27, where Block demonstrated the feature at the BTC Inc. merchandise store.

Merchants will be able to accept Bitcoin (BTC) payments through existing Square hardware using the Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s faster, lower-cost layer-2 scaling network. 

“Merchants can choose to hold the Bitcoin, or auto-convert it to fiat in real-time,” Dorsey said on X. 

The company said it expects to start rolling out in the second half of 2025, reaching all eligible Square sellers by 2026, subject to regulatory approvals. 

Bitcoin’s recent all-time high of $111,970 has sparked optimism among crypto market participants, but whether that carries through into the third quarter of this year remains uncertain, analysts say.

“The coming weeks will likely determine whether Bitcoinʼs latest breakout was a local high or the prelude to a more aggressive leg higher in Q3,” Bitfinex analysts said in a May 28 markets note.

Consolidation or mild retracement may “be healthy”

Bitcoin (BTC) reached new all-time highs of $111,970 on May 22; however, Bitfinex analysts say a continued price increase alone won’t necessarily confirm the uptrend heading into the next quarter. 

“A period of consolidation or mild retracement would not only be healthy but also provide a more sustainable foundation for the next leg higher,” the analysts said.

It isn’t unusual for Bitcoin to consolidate for an extended time after reaching all-time highs. After Bitcoin reached a high of $73,679 in March 2024, it swung within about a $20,000 range until Donald Trump was elected US president that November.

Real-world assets linking up with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is one of a few key catalysts that could reignite the waning NFT lending sector, which is suffering from a collapse in volumes and user activity, says blockchain analytics platform DappRadar.

Volumes in the NFT lending market, which allows NFT holders to take out a loan against their token, have dropped 97% from a peak of around $1 billion in January 2024 to $50 million in May, DappRadar analyst Sara Gherghelas said in a May 27 report.

Gherghelas said for NFT lending to “move beyond survival mode,” it needs “new catalysts” to reignite the sector, such as real-world asset NFTs, like tokenized real estate or yield-bearing assets that could unlock more stable, trusted collateral sources.

“So far, 2025 has not delivered a compelling reason for NFT lending to bounce back,” she said. “While the infrastructure is still here and the platforms remain active, activity has slowed across the board.” 

“For now, the sector seems to be in a holding pattern, waiting either for market recovery or a new use case to reignite interest.”

Nasdaq has filed for crypto asset manager 21Shares to list a spot Sui exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US, initiating the Securities and Exchange Commission’s review process.

The stock market’s May 23 19b-4 filing, which asks the SEC to list the 21Shares SUI ETF, follows 21Shares’ April 30 submission of its S-1 registration statement to the SEC, which asked the regulator to approve trading of the proposed fund.

Both regulatory filings are needed for the Sui (SUI) tracking fund to go live, with the 19b-4 filing kicking off the SEC’s review process. The agency must decide whether to accept, reject or delay the application within 45 days and it can delay its decision multiple times, for a maximum review period of 240 days.

The SEC must decide on 21Shares’ application by Jan. 18, 2026, at the latest.

21Shares proposed BitGo and Coinbase Custody as the custodians to hold SUI on behalf of the trust; however, the filing did not include details on a management fee or ticker.

Key takeaways:

SharpLink Gaming establishes the first ETH treasury, backed by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin. SharpLink will invest $425 million to acquire 120,000 ETH.

Ethereum futures open interest hits an all-time high of $36.1 billion, with ETH price climbing 4.5% on the daily chart.

Nasdaq-listed SharpLink Gaming (SBET) announced a $425 million private investment in public equity (PIPE), acquiring approximately 69.1 million shares at $6.15 each to establish the first Nasdaq-listed Ethereum treasury company.

Spearheaded by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, this move mirrors Strategy’s (MSTR) successful Bitcoin treasury strategy, which has yielded over $8.2 billion in gains in 2025, by leveraging stock and bond sales to acquire Bitcoin (BTC).

A third individual, suspected of being connected to the recent kidnapping, torture and attempted extortion of an Italian tourist in New York City, surrendered to law enforcement on May 27.

33-year-old William Duplessie was taken into custody by the New York Police Department (NYPD) and will be charged with “kidnapping and false imprisonment of an associate,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

The incident comes amid a string of kidnappings and ransom attempts targeting crypto investors and their loved ones, prompting additional security measures from investors and industry executives.

According to reporting from The New York Times, Duplessie and crypto investor John Woeltz, who was previously arrested by police in connection with the case, both had connections to an NYC-based crypto hedge fund.

Duplessie negotiated his surrender with the NYPD over the course of several days leading up to his arrest.

Building a permanent US strategic Bitcoin reserve would likely require targeted legislation rather than executive action, according to VanEck’s head of digital assets, Matthew Sigel. Speaking at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas, Sigel said the most viable path forward may involve inserting Bitcoin mining incentives into the congressional budget reconciliation process.

According to Sigel, the most effective path to growing a US strategic Bitcoin reserve would be through targeted amendments to congressional budget legislation. These could include tax credits for mining companies that use methane gas and other incentives aimed at encouraging miners to share a portion of their mined BTC with the federal government.

He argued that such an approach would allow the reserve to grow organically over time. Sigel also highlighted the limitations of executive actions in achieving this goal:

US President Donald Trump established the US Bitcoin Strategic Reserve through a March 7 executive order. According to the order, the US government can only acquire Bitcoin through budget-neutral strategies or asset forfeiture, prompting a range of different ideas on how to add to the government’s stockpile of nearly 200,000 BTC.

Related: Bitcoin’s new highs may have been driven by Japan bond market crisis