Crypto World
CoW Swap Expands to Solana With NEAR Intents Backend Support
CoW Swap, the intent-based DEX, is launching on Solana blockchain with NEAR Intents providing backend infrastructure.
Six months ago, the first spot Dogecoin ETF started trading on a major US exchange. The flows have been tiny, the price has gone almost nowhere, and the whole experiment has played out in near-silence. That silence is the story. For an asset built on noise, behaving like a normal investment product is the most surprising thing Dogecoin has ever done.
Summary
- Spot Dogecoin ETFs have remained active six months after launch, with combined assets under management reaching nearly $14.7 million despite muted inflows and limited price movement.
- Products from REX Osprey, 21Shares, and Grayscale have started giving institutional investors multiple regulated ways to gain Dogecoin exposure through traditional markets.
- Recent ETF flow patterns have pointed to gradual accumulation by professional allocators rather than speculative retail trading that once defined Dogecoin’s market cycles.
A meme coin walked onto Wall Street, and nothing exploded
In November 2025, an asset created in 2013 as a literal joke about a Shiba Inu became eligible for an exchange-traded fund. By January 2026, a second one was trading on the Nasdaq, physically backed one-for-one by Dogecoin (DOGE) held in cold storage. As of mid-May 2026, both products are still live, both are still attracting money, and combined assets under management sit at roughly $14.7 million across the suite.
That is not a typo. Fourteen million dollars. For context, spot Bitcoin ETFs hit their first billion in a matter of weeks. Spot XRP ETFs are sitting on well over a billion. Dogecoin’s ETF complex, after six months, is smaller than a mid-sized private equity fund.
The instinct, looking at those numbers, is to write the whole thing off as a failure. That is the wrong read, and missing why it is wrong means missing what may be the most interesting quiet shift in crypto this year. The spot Dogecoin ETFs were never going to launch with a billion in inflows, because Dogecoin was never an asset that traditional finance was waiting to buy. What is actually happening is stranger and more telling. A meme coin is being slowly, boringly, and professionally accumulated by a small group of allocators who have decided it belongs in a portfolio. The trickle is the point. And it tells you something about what Dogecoin is becoming.
The two products, and why their differences matter
Before going further, it is worth understanding what exists, because the two live Dogecoin ETFs are not the same thing in different wrappers. There are two distinct bets about what Dogecoin is.
The first to launch was REX-Osprey DOJE, which listed on Cboe BZX on September 18, 2025. It is structured under the 1940 Act using a Cayman subsidiary that holds derivatives rather than DOGE itself. Day-one inflows came in around $17 million, a meaningful number that suggested real opening-day appetite. Eight months on, the fund’s AUM sits at roughly $17.8 million, essentially flat, and its net asset value was down more than 55 percent from inception to the end of 2025. The fee is 1.50 percent, expensive by ETF standards.
The second, 21Shares TDOG, launched on Nasdaq on January 22, 2026. It is the cleaner of the two products. Physically backed, one-for-one with Dogecoin held in cold storage, and charging a fee of 0.50 percent, in line with how the major Bitcoin and Ether ETFs are priced. As of early May 2026, TDOG’s AUM is around $4.1 million.
The two products tell two different stories. DOJE is the early-mover trade, a structured, derivatives-based vehicle that arrived first, sold itself to opportunistic buyers, and has been mostly digesting since. TDOG is the institutional-grade product, more expensive to build, cheaper to own, and aimed at a buyer who wants their Dogecoin exposure to look and behave like a normal ETF position. Add Grayscale’s GDOG, which now sits alongside TDOG as a magnet for the bulk of recent inflows, and you have a small but real product shelf. The maturity here is not in the dollar size. It is a fact that allocators now have a choice of how to hold Dogecoin in a regulated form. That choice did not exist eighteen months ago. It exists now.
What the inflow pattern actually shows
The story being told on crypto Twitter is that DOGE ETFs are “quietly cooking,” racking up inflow days, gathering momentum. The actual flow data is messier and, on close reading, more interesting.
What the spot Dogecoin ETFs have shown since launch is not a steady drumbeat of buying. It is long stretches of basically zero net flow, broken by sporadic days of small inflows. In one recent eight-day stretch, the funds saw net inflows on four of them, with monthly inflows in May running at roughly $1.3 million through mid-month and climbing toward $2.15 million as the month wore on. On May 19, with Bitcoin and Ether ETFs collectively bleeding more than $700 million, Dogecoin ETF activity jumped 215 percent and pulled in around $860,000 in net inflows in a single day.
None of those numbers is large. All of them are real.
The pattern behind those numbers is what makes the story worth telling. It is not retail mania. Retail mania looks like January 2021. It does not look like four inflow days out of eight at less than a million dollars each. The pattern looks much more like the early days of an asset that a small group of professional allocators has decided is worth a token allocation in a diversified book. They buy when there is rotation out of the majors. They sit on their hands when the broader market is dull. They are not trying to time DOGE’s next leg up. They are treating it as one of many uncorrelated bets that earn a single-digit-percent slot in a portfolio.
That is, by some distance, the most boring thing Dogecoin has ever been the protagonist of. And boring, here, is the most interesting word in the sentence.
What it means for an asset to “grow up”
For most of its life, Dogecoin was a behavior. Its price moved on tweets, on memes, on collective enthusiasm, on a sense among holders that the joke itself was the asset. The peaks were vertical, and the crashes were vertical. The thesis, to the extent there was one, was vibes.
A maturing asset behaves differently. It still has cycles, but the buyer base diversifies. A wider range of investors hold it for a wider range of reasons. Some are still there for the meme. Some are there for the payments use case, which Dogecoin is now genuinely being explored for in House of Doge’s enterprise pilots. Some are there because they read a research note recommending a small allocation as part of a multi-asset crypto basket, and the regulated ETF gave them the wrapper to act on it.
The behavioral signs of that diversification have started to show up. Whale wallets, addresses holding tens of millions of DOGE or more, have climbed through 2026 to multi-year highs. Steady ETF inflows, even tiny ones, reduce free-floating supply on the margin. DOGE recently broke above its full EMA stack for the first time since October 2025, a piece of technical evidence that the buyer mix has shifted. None of that is a moonshot signal. It is, again, the picture of an asset behaving more like an asset than like a vibe.
Two notes of caution worth keeping in mind. First, this transition is partial. Dogecoin is still highly volatile, still moves on sentiment, and still trades around $0.11 after a brutal first quarter that broke many holders. Calling it “mature” in the sense that Bitcoin is mature would be silly. The shift is from “pure meme” to “meme with an investable layer on top,” not to anything resembling a blue-chip asset. Second, the inflows are small enough that they could reverse in a single bad month and undo the trend. Six months of consistent net positive flow is a beginning. It is not yet a pattern that can survive a serious test.
The bigger thing the ETF approvals signaled
Step back from Dogecoin specifically, and the existence of these products says something more important than any flow number.
The SEC approved a spot ETF for an asset with no foundation managing its development in the traditional sense, no formal roadmap, no consensus use case beyond payments and culture, and a mascot that is a meme of a dog. That approval, under the new generic listing standards the SEC adopted in 2025, was the moment American securities regulation effectively decoupled “is this asset investable through a regulated wrapper?” from “does this asset have a serious institutional pitch?” If Dogecoin can have an ETF, the list of crypto assets that cannot is suddenly very short.
That has knock-on effects worth watching. It clears the path for ETFs covering other large meme or culture-driven tokens. It tells issuers there is real money in the long tail of regulated crypto products, even if no single fund will rival Bitcoin’s. And it forces a quiet rethink of what “investable” has ever really meant. For a long time, the unstated answer was: an asset serious people can defend in a meeting.
Dogecoin in an ETF wrapper is the asset that broke that definition. Once it breaks, it does not put itself back together.
What to actually watch from here
For a Dogecoin holder, or anyone trying to read whether this slow maturation is real or a head fake, the things worth tracking are unglamorous.
Watch whether net inflows stay positive over multiple months, not whether any single month spikes. Six straight months of net positive flow, including a brutal Q1, is more meaningful than any single big day. Watch whether TDOG and GDOG, the cheaper and more institutionally structured products, continue to attract the bulk of new money relative to DOJE. That is the cleanest signal of whether the buyer base is sliding toward more professional allocators. Watch whether House of Doge’s payments and enterprise work produce any visible adoption traction that gives DOGE a use case beyond culture. And watch whether ETF inflows hold up during the next genuine risk-off stretch in crypto, rather than evaporating the moment Bitcoin sells off.
If those things keep happening, slowly, in the same quiet way they have been, then six months from now the story will be hard to deny. A meme coin will have professionalized. It will not have stopped being a meme coin, but it will have grown an investor base that does not depend on the meme. That is not the moonshot most DOGE holders have spent years waiting for. It may be something more durable and more useful than the moonshot ever would have been.
For an asset that started as a joke about a dog, becoming a slightly boring portfolio holding is one of the strangest possible victories. It is, against the odds, that Dogecoin is actually winning.
This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency markets are volatile, and ETF flows, AUM, and prices change quickly; the figures described reflect reporting available as of mid-May 2026. Always do your own research.
Gold price sits at $4,491 below most of its short-term moving averages, with commercial hedgers stacking shorts at the top while speculators add longs.
The breakdown sits inside a five-month falling channel that has held since January, while options positioning and Iran-oil tension acting on the dollar add layers to the bearish setup.
Gold Slips Below Three Short-Term EMAs Inside Falling Channel
Gold (XAU/USD) has been trading inside a descending channel since January, with the asset bouncing off the lower boundary on March 23 before recovering. The channel’s downward slope confirms the broader trend has been weakening even as buyers defended the floor each time.
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The structure has cracked further in recent weeks. Gold has broken below its 20-day, 50-day, and 100-day exponential moving averages (EMAs), trend indicators that weigh recent prices more heavily than older candles. Only the 200-day EMA still holds, at $4,366, marking the structural line in the sand for the broader uptrend.
The fact that gold lost three short-term EMAs without a clean reclaim suggests sellers control the immediate trend. The 200-day reclaim or hold becomes the next decisive factor, but positioning data adds the next layer of context.
Commercial Hedgers Sell the Top While Speculators Add Longs
The latest Commitments of Traders (COT) report from the CFTC, released on May 12, shows a sharp divergence in gold futures positioning. The COT report tracks commercial hedgers, who are physical-market participants like miners, refiners, and jewelers, against non-commercial speculators, who are typically managed money funds and large traders.
Commercial hedgers added 10,818 short contracts in the week ending May 12 (when the right shoulder top formed), a meaningful increase in bearish hedge positioning. Commercial shorts now make up 71.2% of open interest, the dominant force in the market.
Non-commercial speculators, by contrast, added 7,979 long contracts in the same week. Their net long exposure expanded even as commercials hedged aggressively.
Commercials are usually considered the better-informed money in gold futures, the smart money, This is because they have direct exposure to the physical gold supply chain. Their hedging behavior at price tops has historically been a contrarian bearish signal, and this divergence carries even more weight when options positioning shows hedging building on the other side too.
GLD Put Hedges Climb While Call-Heavy Open Interest Holds
The options market on the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) shows hedging accumulation that aligns with the COT divergence. The GLD put-call ratio by open interest sits at 0.58, meaning calls still outnumber puts among open contracts overall.
However, the open interest ratio has climbed from 0.47 lows in early February toward 0.58 as of May 19, suggesting put accumulation has accelerated. The volume ratio has also tightened to 0.97, meaning daily put and call volumes are almost evenly matched.
Implied volatility (IV) sits at 23.22% with an IV percentile of 62%, which measures the share of trading days over the past year that IV has been at or below the current reading. The percentile above 60% indicates options pricing is somewhat elevated.
The pattern across both venues lines up. The call-heavy open interest and bullish speculator longs reflect retail and managed money sentiment, while the rising put hedges and aggressive commercial shorts reflect institutional caution. The two venues tell the same story from different angles.
Iran-Oil Tension Pressures the Dollar and Adds to Gold’s Drift
The macro backdrop has been adding to gold’s swings. Iran-related geopolitical tension has kept oil markets unsteady through May, feeding into the dollar through the petrodollar feedback loop.
Higher oil prices lift inflation expectations, which can pressure the dollar but also support it when safe-haven flows dominate. Gold usually benefits from a weaker dollar and rising inflation but has not gained cleanly because the dollar has not moved decisively in either direction.
The metal is down roughly 6.83% over the past month while remaining up 36% year-on-year.
The recent month’s drift mirrors the indecision in the macro chain, where conflicting forces have prevented a clean directional move. With macro forces stuck in equilibrium, the Gold price chart becomes the final decider.
Gold Price Levels That Decide Whether the Pattern Confirms
The gold price action across April and May has carved a head-and-shoulders pattern inside the descending channel. The left shoulder formed in early April. The head peaked near $4,890 in late April. And the right shoulder topped around $4,775 in mid-May. The neckline slopes downward and sits close to $4,308.
For gold price to show strength, the asset needs to hold above $4,539, the 0.618 Fibonacci level of the recent swing. Below that, the chart shows weakening points at $4,474 (the nearest support), $4,393, and the $4,308 neckline.
A confirmed break of $4,308 projects a 6.35% measured move toward $4,038. The $4,308 level also aligns closely with the 200-day EMA we highlighted earlier.
Bullish invalidation begins at $4,775 and completes at $4,890. A clean move above $4,890 voids the pattern and re-engages the speculator long positioning from the COT report.
The pattern nuance worth flagging is that a head-and-shoulders setup only confirms after a clean neckline break with volume. Until $4,308 cracks decisively, the structure remains a forming pattern rather than a confirmed bearish signal.
The $4,308 neckline separates a controlled hold above $4,539 from a 6.35% slide toward $4,038.
The post Gold Price Risks 6% Drop as Smart Money Quietly Sells the Top appeared first on BeInCrypto.
The European Commission said it is seeking feedback on whether the European Union’s landmark crypto framework, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), remains fit for purpose as digital asset markets evolve.
The consultation, which remains open until Aug. 31, invites responses from both the public and industry stakeholders, including crypto firms, financial institutions, technology providers, academics and consumer groups, the executive branch of the EU announced on Wednesday.
MiCA was voted into law in 2023, establishing the EU’s first harmonized regulatory regime for crypto-assets and related services. The framework covers cryptoassets and stablecoins, as well as issuers and cryptoasset service providers operating within the bloc. The first regulations, related to stablecoins, took effect in June 2024, and the rules became fully applicable the following December.
The Commission said it is now reassessing the framework given the rapid changes in digital asset markets and shifts in the international regulatory landscape since MiCA was first developed.
The consultation includes both a public questionnaire and a more technical targeted consultation focused on legal and operational aspects of the regime.
Crypto World
Airfare Jumps 21% Year-Over-Year as Major U.S. Carriers Announce Robust Summer Travel Demand
Key Highlights
- U.S. airline ticket prices increased 20.7% compared to April 2025, accelerating from March’s 14.9% gain.
- Bank of America credit and debit card transaction data reveals double-digit spending growth for airline purchases in May.
- Most carriers have reduced third-quarter domestic capacity plans, though American Airlines continues expanding at 9.3%.
- United Airlines forecasts 53 million travelers during summer months; American Airlines anticipates serving 75 million passengers through early September.
- Aviation sector equities rallied Wednesday, with Allegiant Travel climbing 6.8% following a 4% decline in crude oil prices.
U.S. airline equities experienced significant gains Wednesday following a substantial decline in crude oil prices of approximately 4%, while major carriers confirmed that robust summer travel demand persists. Bank of America published comprehensive industry analytics demonstrating healthy pricing power and consumer spending patterns entering the peak travel period.
Ticket Prices and Consumer Spending Show Upward Momentum
Airline ticket costs have experienced substantial increases throughout 2026. April data from the Airline Fare Consumer Price Index revealed a 20.7% year-over-year surge, marking an acceleration from March’s 14.9% increase. On a monthly basis, fares climbed 6.3%.
The Air Passenger Services Producer Price Index similarly demonstrated strength, posting an 11.1% annual increase in April, surpassing March’s 8.1% gain. Data compiled by the Airline Reporting Corporation indicated average ticket prices rose 16.2% compared to the prior year period.
Proprietary Bank of America payment card analytics revealed airline-related spending reached double-digit growth rates in May. This expansion was primarily attributable to elevated per-transaction amounts rather than increased transaction volume alone.
During Bank of America’s recent Industrials, Transportation and Airlines conference, carrier executives emphasized that both passenger demand and pricing strength remain favorable. Nevertheless, capacity strategies for the latter portion of 2026 maintain flexibility, with fuel cost trajectories playing a central role in planning decisions.
Crude oil valuations have persisted above the $100 per barrel threshold, maintaining pressure on carrier operating expenses. Brent crude traded near $104 Tuesday before declining Wednesday.
Capacity Reductions Underway — With One Notable Exception
Industry-wide domestic capacity growth projections for the third quarter of 2026 have contracted by 200 basis points since mid-April, currently standing at 1.6% growth. A substantial portion of this adjustment followed Spirit Airlines’ operational cessation, which eliminated 160 basis points of system capacity.
United Airlines revised its capacity expansion forecast downward from 9.4% to 5.2%, representing an additional 80-basis-point reduction. American Airlines maintains a contrarian position, preserving its 9.3% growth target and contributing 190 basis points to aggregate industry capacity expansion.
American Airlines Group Inc., AAL
Summer period capacity is projected to remain essentially unchanged year-over-year, with additional reductions anticipated post-Labor Day. September capacity growth currently stands at 4.1%, significantly above the flat trajectory expected between May and August, with industry observers anticipating further downward adjustments in forthcoming announcements.
United Airlines projects serving over 53 million passengers during the June through August timeframe, representing approximately 3 million additional travelers versus the previous summer. American Airlines outlined plans to transport roughly 75 million customers across approximately 750,000 flights between May 21 and September 8, characterizing this as its “centennial summer.” Delta Air Lines reported that domestic demand remains consistent despite elevated fare levels.
United Airlines highlighted that reservation activity in North American cities hosting World Cup Group Stage matches has increased nearly 20%, though carriers broadly indicated they have not yet observed widespread World Cup-driven travel demand.
Regarding international traffic patterns, outbound U.S. leisure travel continues outperforming inbound volumes. Excluding Middle Eastern markets, outbound travel demonstrates 3.7% year-over-year growth while inbound traffic has declined 3.8%.
The U.S. Global Jets ETF advanced 3.3% during Wednesday morning trading. Allegiant Travel commanded sector performance with a 6.8% gain, followed by Frontier Group at 5.9%, United Airlines at 5.9%, Republic Airways at 5.6%, Alaska Air at 4.9%, and JetBlue at 4.4%.
- Real signs partnership with iExec to develop private RWA blockchain infrastructure.
- Companies explore encrypted asset issuance, lending, and compliant financial operations.
- Confidential computing gains attention as the institutional tokenization market continues expanding.
Real has entered into a memorandum of understanding with iExec to explore privacy-focused infrastructure for tokenized assets.
The collaboration will evaluate how institutional RWA issuance, distribution, and on-chain financial activity can be conducted while preserving confidentiality and supporting compliance and audit requirements.
Real provides infrastructure for the full lifecycle of tokenized assets, including onboarding, verification, risk assessment, settlement, and asset management.
iExec contributes confidential computing capabilities through Trusted Execution Environments such as Intel TDX and its Nox Protocol, which enables encrypted data processing, confidential smart contract execution, selective disclosure, and verifiable computation.
As part of the collaboration, the companies will assess how the Nox Protocol can integrate with Real’s Layer 1 blockchain to support confidential tokenized assets, encrypted transaction flows, and private financial operations.
The collaboration will focus on confidential RWA issuance and distribution, including encrypted balances and private transaction flows, as well as financial activities such as subscriptions, redemptions, dividend payments, lending, and structured credit.
“Institutions need more than tokenization. They need infrastructure that protects sensitive financial data while still allowing compliance, oversight, and auditability,” said Ivo Grigorov, CEO, Real.
“Our Partnership with iExec is an important step toward exploring how confidential computing can support the next generation of real-world asset markets.”
The companies will also explore selective disclosure tools for regulators and auditors, while assessing how confidential assets can remain interoperable with custody solutions, settlement systems, and potential secondary markets.
The agreement establishes a framework for evaluating institutional use cases such as tokenized funds and private credit. Planned next steps include technical discussions, identifying pilot opportunities, and aligning infrastructure architecture.
As real-world asset tokenization expands, institutional participation increasingly requires protection for sensitive data such as investor allocations and transaction information.
Real and iExec said they will examine how confidential computing can enable private financial operations while preserving on-chain verification and controlled regulatory access.
In the last few years, the AI conversation has been dominated by a single question: whose model is better? That framing made sense when capability gaps were wide and performance gains were visible with each new release. Today, that gap is narrowing fast. Models across providers are improving at a similar pace, costs are declining, and access is becoming increasingly uniform.
The next phase of competition will be defined by how reliably AI can act in real environments and conditions. This transition introduces a layer of value that is less visible than raw model performance, but more defensible over time because it compounds with use instead of depreciating through replication. It lives in execution, outcomes, and the feedback loops that connect the two.
When AI systems begin executing tasks, every action produces a trail. Decisions are made, tools are called, constraints are applied, and outcomes are recorded. These form structured records of intent, behavior, and result that reveal not only what happened, but why, and whether it should be repeated. Over time, this accumulation becomes institutional knowledge as a record of consequential decisions and their real-world effects that cannot simply be copied or acquired externally.
This is also where the next durable advantage is forming. Models can be trained, fine-tuned, and swapped out. Execution data tied to real workflows is a different category altogether. Generating it requires access to live systems, consistent usage at scale, and the kind of evaluation infrastructure, audit trails, outcome tracking, and structured feedback loops that turn raw activity into something a system can actually learn from. Without that, feedback remains subjective and improvement plateaus.
Financial markets offer one of the clearest illustrations of this dynamic. Trading decisions are continuous, outcomes are near-immediate, and performance can be assessed across multiple dimensions simultaneously. Profit and loss is only one lens. Execution quality, risk exposure, adherence to strategy, behavior under stress, and consistency across correlated events contribute to a fuller picture of how a system actually performs. Every trade becomes part of a longer trajectory that can be analyzed, refined, and fed into future decisions. A 2026 study on hybrid AI trading systems reported returns exceeding 135% over a 24-month testing period, outperforming benchmark equity indices through adaptive strategy selection and continuous market feedback integrated.
As execution data accumulates, the compounding effect becomes significant in ways that pure model scaling cannot replicate. Systems improve not through abstract reasoning alone, but via repeated exposure to real outcomes under real conditions, developing forms of pattern recognition that emerge only through consequential repetition. The pace of this transition is already visible across crypto markets. Early trading bots largely operated through fixed, rule-based prompts with limited adaptability. Today’s AI systems are increasingly capable of coordinating across strategies, operating through live integrations, and adapting based on market feedback. The progression from conversational assistants toward agents participating directly in execution workflows represents a meaningful shift in how AI interacts with markets. The infrastructure supporting that transition is scaling quickly. As of early 2026, the x402, an emerging payment rails for autonomous agent activity, had processed more than $600 million in transaction volume while supporting nearly 500,000 active AI wallets. These are no longer experimental systems operating in isolated environments. They reflect infrastructure that is beginning to move from demonstration into production-scale usage.” Strategies grow more disciplined, risk controls become more responsive to edge cases that simulations rarely anticipate, and decision-making becomes more grounded in observed behavior across thousands of scenarios rather than static predictions. That feedback loop, once established, becomes a structural advantage that is difficult to displace because it cannot be reconstructed from first principles.
The implication extends well beyond financial markets. Any domain where actions carry observable consequences, whether healthcare decisions, logistics routing, or legal workflows, will generate similar dynamics as AI systems become more deeply embedded in execution. What matters is not access to data alone, but the ability to structure it for learning: pairing raw activity with context, constraints, and systematic outcome evaluation until it becomes genuinely useful.
For platforms operating at the center of these workflows, the opportunity is more structural than incremental. They sit closest to the moment of execution, observing both actions and outcomes as they unfold, which positions them to capture the full cycle of execution and feedback. The challenge is significant: designing systems capable of turning that proximity into coherent, high-quality datasets while maintaining serious standards around permissions, privacy, and user control. Getting that architecture right is the product.
The industry’s attention will continue to flow toward model capability, because that is where announcements are loudest and benchmarks are easiest to read. But the more durable advantage is being built somewhere quieter, in the systems that connect intelligence to execution and in the data that emerges from that connection. The companies that grasp this early will not merely build better AI; they will build systems that improve through execution itself, compounding at a pace competitors will struggle to match.
The post AI’s Next Moat Won’t Be Models. It Will Be Execution Data appeared first on BeInCrypto.
- Coins.ph adds BTC and ETH payments to the Philippines QRPh system.
- Users can spend crypto at 700,000 QRPh-enabled merchants.
- Stablecoins remain key for remittances and daily crypto payments.
Coins.ph has expanded its QRPh crypto payment functionality to support Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions, broadening the use of digital assets within the Philippines’ national QR payment infrastructure.
The Manila-based crypto platform announced on May 19 that users can now pay merchants nationwide using Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) through QRPh, the national QR code standard developed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
The expansion builds on Coins.ph’s earlier rollout of QRPh-compatible stablecoin payments, which introduced support for USDT earlier this year.
Under the system, crypto balances are automatically converted into Philippine pesos during checkout, allowing users to pay merchants directly without manually converting digital assets into local currency beforehand.
Coins.ph estimates that the integration enables crypto payments across approximately 700,000 QRPh-enabled merchants throughout the country.
Crypto payments expand within national QR infrastructure
The latest update broadens the range of cryptocurrencies supported within the Philippines’ existing QR payment ecosystem.
QRPh serves as the national QR code standard designed to enable interoperable digital payments between financial institutions and merchants across the country.
Earlier this year, Coins.ph became the first digital wallet provider in the Philippines to integrate direct crypto payments into the national QR infrastructure through stablecoin support.
The company said the earlier USDT rollout generated substantial transaction volume and demonstrated growing consumer demand for crypto-based payments integrated into everyday financial activity.
With the addition of Bitcoin and Ethereum, Coins.ph is now extending access to two of the world’s largest cryptocurrencies while maintaining the same checkout experience used for stablecoin payments.
The company said the process allows users to scan QRPh codes at merchants while the system automatically converts crypto into Philippine pesos in real time.
Stablecoins remain central to remittance use cases
Coins.ph said stablecoins continue to play a key role within the broader payment infrastructure, particularly given the Philippines’ position as one of the world’s largest remittance markets.
The country receives approximately $38 billion in annual remittance inflows, according to the company.
Stablecoins have increasingly become part of cross-border payment flows, allowing recipients to receive and hold digital dollar-denominated assets before converting or spending them locally.
Coins.ph said the QRPh integration enables users to move between fiat currency and digital assets within a single payment flow, removing additional conversion steps that are often required in crypto transactions.
The addition of Bitcoin and Ethereum broadens supported payment assets while preserving what the company described as a unified payment experience focused on practical daily use.
Coins.ph highlights broader crypto adoption growth
Coins.ph operates as a licensed Virtual Asset Service Provider and Electronic Money Issuer under BSP regulation.
The Philippines remains one of the fastest-growing crypto markets globally. According to estimates cited by the company, the country now has more than 15 million crypto users, representing roughly 13.4% of the population.
Wei Zhou, CEO of Coins.ph, said:
“The addition of new tokens to our QRPH crypto payments feature is a great achievement following the landmark introduction of USDT payments for the Philippine financial landscape. We aren’t just adding new tokens; we are redefining what a digital wallet can do. This is the future of finance in action and we’re making the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies a functional part of the Filipino daily life.”
Coins.ph said its broader platform combines digital assets, payments infrastructure, remittances, foreign exchange services, investments, and treasury products into a unified financial ecosystem designed to support both businesses and consumers.
South Korean funeral firm Bumo Sarang has booked an unrealized $33 million loss on a leveraged crypto bet. The country’s seventh-largest provider channeled around $40 million of customers’ prepaid funds into a 2x leveraged BitMine ETF.
The disclosure appeared in Bumo Sarang’s 2025 audit filed with South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission. The company called the shortfall a temporary market move that it can absorb from its financial buffer.
How the leveraged BitMine ETF Bet Collapsed
Local media reported that Bumo Sarang routed 59.5 billion won, near $40 million, into the T-REX 2X Long BMNR Daily Target ETF.
The U.S.-listed REX Shares product targets a return twice that of BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR). By the end of 2025, the holding’s book value had fallen to 10.2 billion won, around $6.8 million.
BitMine operates as an Ethereum treasury, holding millions of ether as its primary asset. That exposure left the ETF directly tied to the altcoin’s slide this year.
Daily leveraged products also lose value through volatility decay in choppy markets.
A Regulatory Blind Spot in Prepaid Funeral Funds
The episode has exposed how loosely South Korea polices prepaid funeral funds. The sector sits under the Fair Trade Commission as a prepaid installment business, not any financial regulator.
The only binding rule requires firms to hold half of customer prepayments in reserve. The remaining half can be deployed in almost anything, including high-risk securities.
“This should be illegal,” said analyst Bull Theory.
A Korea Economic Daily review of 75 providers found 43% hold fewer assets than prepayments owed.
Six bills now sit in the National Assembly to ban speculative investments and related-party lending in the sector.
Bumo Sarang has not signaled any plan to unwind the position. Customer prepayments now hang on whatever BitMine and ether do next.
The case strengthens calls in Seoul for tighter rules before the next funeral firm chases similar returns.
The post South Korean Funeral Firm Loses $33 Million on BitMine Ethereum ETF appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Meme punch is a play-to-earn crypto game built around one of the easiest crypto concepts to understand. Players are able to choose a meme-inspired knight, fight in a medieval arena, climb the leaderboard, and earn MEPU tokens through battle rewards.
It’s important to note that the project is not built solely as a passive meme coin. Meme Punch gives MEPU a role within the game itself. Players can use it to buy weapons, skins, special powers, and other in-game upgrades.
The game is built on Ethereum, and it supports multiple ways to buy during the presale. Buyers can use ETH, BNB, SOL, USDT, OSDC, or a bank card. This gives both crypto users and newer buyers a very straightforward way to join the presale.
Turning Meme Coins into Arena Gameplay
The broad majority of meme coins depend on culture, timing, and community attention. Meme Punch, on the other hand, is designed not only to keep the same energy but also to add a game loop that gives players something to do beyond simply holding a token.
The game is set in a medieval arena. There, meme characters fight for dominance. Players get to select from five meme-inspired fighters, including popular crypto mascots such as Pepe, Doge, Floki, Brett, and Pudgy Penguins. Each one is dressed as a knight, ready for battle.
This setup gives the game a clear identity by using characters that crypto traders already recognize.
How the Meme Punch Game Works
Meme Punch is built around three simple mechanics. Each part connects directly to how players use $MEPU inside the game.
- Choose Your Knight. Players select Pepe, Doge, Floki, Brett, or Pudgy Penguin before entering the arena.
- Fight in the Arena. Players battle rivals, climb the leaderboard, and compete for $MEPU rewards.
- Spend and Grow. Players use $MEPU to buy weapons, skins, and special powers.
This makes the game easy to follow for both meme coin fans and new crypto gamers. The more active the arena becomes, the more important the $MEPU game economy can become.
MEPU and Its In-Game Utility
As you already know, MEPU is the in-game official token of the entire ecosystem. It is designed for rewards, player upgrades, and in-game purchases. It’s not just a token designed for presale speculation.
Players are able to earn MEPU by winning battles and climbing the leaderboard. They can also spend it on different items, which can change how their knight looks. It can also change its performance.
To summarize, some of the main use cases include:
- Skisn for character customization.
- Staking through the Meme Punch widget.
- Battle rewards for those who win in the arena.
- Weapons for stronger gameplay.
- Special powers for more advantages in-game.
How the Meme Punch Presale Works
The presale is handled through the widget of the official website. It allows anyone to connect a wallet, choose a payment method, enter the amount of tokens they want to purchase, buy them, and view their current MEPU balance.
As mentioned above, the project supports both crypto and card payment options.
However, it’s important to note that crypto payments give wallet users a faster route because they can buy directly with assets they may already hold. On the other hand, card payment gives newer buyers a simpler and more familiar avenue to acquire MEPU tokens.
MEPU Tokenomics
Meme Punch has a total supply of 10 billion $MEPU. The supply is split across presale access, liquidity, marketing, rewards, staking, and project funds.
- Presale receives 40%.
- DEX/CEX liquidity receives 12%.
- Marketing receives 16.5%.
- Game rewards receive 9.5%.
- Staking receives 14.5%.
- Project funds receive 7.5%.
This structure gives the presale the largest share while also setting aside tokens for liquidity and game rewards. That fits the project’s plan because $MEPU needs both market access and in-game reward supply.
Roadmap: What’s Coming Next?
The roadmap starts with the presale and moves on toward development, testing, and launching. The first stage is focused on fundraising, auditing the contracts, marketing, and kicking off the development process.
Later stages include listing the coin on a DEX, testing the game, releasing a beta version, launching the full game, airdropping tokens to the community, and listing on centralized exchanges.
The roadmap helps explain why the project is using this particular funding model. The early sale funds the path toward game development, exchange access, and wider player activity.
Final Take
The game attempts to bring a more active format to the meme coin market. Instead of simply relying on community jokes or on price speculation, it turns meme characters into actual playable fighters with upgrades, rewards, and leaderboard competition.
MEPU is designed to give the arena its economic layer because every player is able to earn it, spend it, stake it, and use it across the ecosystem.
For now, Meme Punch stands out as a meme coin project built around a simple idea with clear gameplay, recognizable characters, and multiple payment options through ETH, BNB, SOL, USDT, USDC, and a card.
The post What Is Meme Punch? The Medieval Meme Battle Game That Pays You to Play appeared first on CryptoPotato.
CNBC just ranked Ripple the 16th most disruptive company on the planet, beating out Revolut, Perplexity, Kalshi, Polymarket, and Canva. But its token, XRP, has been falling from its price high of mid last year.
CNBC’s updated Disruptor 50 list for 2026 names Ripple as the sole crypto or blockchain firm to make the cut, labeled as “new money.” The company climbed from 38th place in 2021 to 16th today, steadily overtaking fintechs and deep-tech firms alike.
Santiment Intelligence followed the announcement with a post citing XRP’s “long-term role in cross-border payments versus replacement by stablecoins or alternative rails” as the core thesis driving social volume.
Total implied valuation across all 50 Disruptor companies hit $2.4 trillion, up from $798 billion last year as capital is chasing disruptive infrastructure plays right now.
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Can XRP Price Hit $5?
At the moment, support sits in the $1.30–$1.35 zone, where recent lows have held on major aggregators. Resistance layers are around $1.40-$1.42, an area that has capped upside since forever. Until XRP closes and holds above $1.50 on volume, the structure reads as consolidation inside a multi-week range.
The XRP spot ETF has been showing a healthy flow despite the big outflows that Bitcoin and Ethereum are experiencing. Community projects XRP to reach $5 by late 2025 with growing institutional flows. That target sits above XRP’s all-time high of $3.84.
Right now, XRP bulls want ETF flows to continue their green streak, and a price break above $1.50 with volume targets the $2.50–$300 range. Consolidation could also continue between $1.35 and $1.45 as the market waits for macro news.
XRP is doing well; it just needs to hold, or a loss of $1.30 support could reopen a retest of sub-$1.00 levels. The Clarity Act remains a wildcard that could accelerate either scenario.
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LiquidChain Targets Early-Mover Upside as XRP Tests Key Levels
XRP’s CNBC ranking validates the cross-chain payments thesis, but at the current spot price and a market cap already in the tens of billions, the asymmetric upside window has narrowed considerably. For traders watching XRP stall at resistance while the institutional narrative builds, the trade-off becomes clear: established recognition versus early-stage entry.
LiquidChain ($LIQUID) is a Layer 3 infrastructure project building what it calls the cross-chain liquidity layer. Liquid is developing a single execution environment that fuses Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana liquidity simultaneously.
Three Thrones for Three Kings. — LiquidChain (@getliquidchain) May 19, 2026
All wrapped in the world's greatest L3. ⟁
https://t.co/vqvBcdSQYC pic.twitter.com/j6dG8ZoHZd
The architecture eliminates the multi-step bridging problem that fragments DeFi capital across ecosystems, or something that XRP’s payment rails still can’t solve at the smart contract layer. With Liquid, developers deploy once and access all three ecosystems.
The presale is live at $0.01461 per $LIQUID, with $780K raised to date, and a bonus of 1400% APY staking for early buyers.
Explore the LiquidChain presale here.
The post XRP Price Barely Moves: CNBC Places Ripple Above Revolut appeared first on Cryptonews.
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