May 26: Strategy Pays Down Debt, and Stablecoin Risks Resurface

Brief SummaryBitcoin is trading near $77K this morning, but the market still looks defensive after a 7% two-week decline.Ethereum remains weaker than Bitcoin, trading around $2,100 and down more than 10% over the past two weeks.Crypto investment products saw $1.47 billion in outflows last week, including $1.32 billion from Bitcoin funds and $223 million from ether funds.The 11 U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs alone lost $1.26 billion last week, following roughly $1 billion in outflows the week before.Bitcoin is pinned between key on-chain levels near $77K and Deribit options positioning around the $75K put and $80K call strikes.Strategy repurchased $1.5 billion in convertible debt for $1.38 billion, using cash instead of buying more Bitcoin.Strategy still holds 843,738 BTC at an average price around $75,700 per coin.Hyperliquid launched HIP-4 outcome contracts for macro events like inflation and Fed decisions, taking direct aim at prediction markets.Spain opened disciplinary proceedings against Polymarket and Kalshi and ordered ISPs to block both platforms.Nasdaq’s QBTC Bitcoin index options have conditional SEC approval, but still need CFTC clearance.StablR froze USDR and EURR after an attacker minted $13.5 million in unbacked tokens through a 1-of-3 multisig weakness.Kelp DAO says rsETH has been fully restored after the April Lazarus-linked exploit.XRP Ledger is rolling out a maintenance upgrade to delete expired NFT offers and patch accounting bugs.Stablecoin market value has reached about $322 billion, now larger than the FX reserves of 95 countries.Tether plans to launch GELT, a Georgian lari stablecoin, with government support in Georgia. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.