Grayscale Investments revised its Hyperliquid ETF filing and added staking yield features for HYPE exposure. The filing updates aim to enhance returns while keeping the trust structure compliant with U.S. regulations. The ETF will list on Nasdaq under HYPG after registration approval becomes effective.

Grayscale integrated staking consideration into the fund to capture HYPE network rewards. This structure mirrors Ethereum ETF models that distribute staking yield through regulated products. The proposal states compliance checks must confirm grantor trust status before activation.

Hyperliquid operates as a decentralized perpetual trading blockchain, gaining rapid market traction. HYPE token supports ecosystem activity and serves as the primary network asset. Grayscale appointed Anchorage Digital as custodian and Bank of New York Mellon as administrator.

Ethereum ETF Staking Models Expand Across Issuers

Ethereum staking ETF structures expand as issuers integrate yield generation into regulated funds. Grayscale and peers use ETH staking to create additional income streams for fund holdings. These products aim to reflect blockchain rewards while maintaining traditional exchange-traded fund rules.

Ethereum staking integration follows regulatory discussions around yield classification in crypto assets. Asset managers design staking systems to distribute rewards proportionally to ETF unit holders. Custodial frameworks ensure staking operations remain separated from trading and liquidity functions.

Ethereum ETF staking models influence broader crypto fund innovation across multiple networks. Yield distribution mechanisms vary depending on validator participation and network performance metrics. Regulatory compliance remains central as issuers align staking rewards with financial rules.

Solana ETFs Integrate Staking Rewards Into Fund Design

Solana staking ETFs gain attention as issuers explore high-throughput network rewards. Funds tracking SOL aim to capture staking yield from validator participation across the network. Solana network design supports rapid transaction processing and consistent reward distribution models.

ETF issuers evaluate staking risks and operational requirements before launching SOL-based products. Custody providers manage validator delegation to ensure secure staking participation for funds. Market structures adapt as Solana staking becomes integrated into regulated financial vehicles.

Reward calculations depend on validator uptime and network consensus performance metrics. Institutions explore SOL exposure through ETF frameworks to simplify digital asset access. Regulatory alignment shapes how Solana staking income flows into fund structures.

Custody Framework and Regulatory Structure Shape ETF Growth

Grayscale trust design relies on regulated custodians to manage digital asset security. Anchorage Digital provides custody services that support institutional-grade blockchain asset handling. Bank of New York Mellon handles administrative and transfer agent responsibilities for the ETF.

The structure aims to maintain compliance with grantor trust tax classification requirements. Regulatory approval depends on alignment between staking rewards and securities law frameworks. Issuers expand crypto ETF offerings as staking features become integrated across assets.

Fund administrators monitor reward flows to ensure accurate distribution to share units. Crypto ETF evolution reflects the growing integration of blockchain yield mechanisms into finance. Grayscale adjusts filings to match evolving regulatory standards for digital asset products.

Ethereum whale Garrett Jin moved 577,896 ETH worth $1.35 billion to Binance over four days, per Lookonchain.

An Ethereum whale identified as Garrett Jin deposited all 577,896 ETH worth roughly $1.35 billion into Binance over four consecutive days, raising concerns about potential selling pressure. Lookonchain flagged the transfers on May 10 and 11.

Jin originally converted Bitcoin to Ethereum eight months ago when ETH was trading at approximately $4,591. With ETH now holding near $2,300, Lookonchain noted he is sitting on roughly $1.3 billion in unrealized losses. His position represents one of the largest single-wallet inflows to a centralised exchange in Ethereum’s recent trading history.

Why this move is triggering concern

A transfer to an exchange does not guarantee an immediate sale. Whales sometimes move funds for collateral posting, liquidity management, or OTC desk activity. The scale and the fact that Jin moved his entire position, however, has concentrated market attention.

CryptoQuant data shows total Ethereum exchange reserves climbed from 14.36 million ETH on May 5 to 14.95 million ETH in the days that followed, a sustained increase that signals broader accumulation on exchanges. Binance now holds approximately 3.62 million ETH, equivalent to 24.6% of all ETH held on centralised exchanges.

The broader supply picture has also been compounded by institutional activity. BlackRock and Fidelity deposited more than 35,000 ETH into Coinbase Prime in the same week, adding further short-term supply. US spot Ethereum ETFs saw $103.6 million in net outflows on May 7, ending a four-day positive flow streak.

What analysts are watching

Market analyst Ted Pillows said ETH must reclaim the $2,400 level to sustain recovery momentum, warning that failure to do so could push the asset back toward $2,100. He also noted a pattern of hourly Binance inflow surges throughout May that are adding supply pressure beyond Garrett Jin’s single position.

Ethereum whale activity has been a recurring market signal throughout 2026, with concentrated exchange inflows consistently drawing scrutiny from on-chain analysts monitoring whether large holders are positioning for exits or simply rotating collateral. ETH held near $2,300 as of May 12 despite the elevated exchange supply, suggesting the market has not yet absorbed the move as a confirmed sell signal.

SKYAI jumps 44% to top the day’s top‑100 gainers as ONDO sinks 10%, highlighting a rotation from RWA and yield infra into AI‑adjacent tokens riding the agentic AI narrative.

According to CoinMarketCap data, SKYAI is Tuesday’s standout performer among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, jumping 44.45% to a current price of $0.5792 as AI-themed tokens continue to attract disproportionate speculative interest in a market where the agentic AI narrative is building momentum. BUILDon followed with a 15.32% gain to $0.6454, and Humanity added 13.06% to reach $0.2646, rounding out a top three that is heavily skewed toward newer, narrative-driven tokens rather than established large-caps.

SKYAI’s 44% surge leads an AI-driven top-100 sweep

Injective posted a more measured 7.06% gain to $4.66, while JUST rounded out the top five with a 2.95% rise to $0.08974. The breadth of the gainers list — spanning AI infrastructure, DeFi tooling and cross-chain protocols — is consistent with the early-altseason rotation pattern that analysts have been flagging this week, as capital moves down the risk curve from Bitcoin and Ethereum into mid and small-cap tokens with higher beta and more compressed float. A previous crypto.news story on SUI’s 31% single-session surge noted how open interest across derivatives venues jumped from $450 million to over $620 million in a single day as short squeezes and supply shocks amplified directional moves, a dynamic that appears to be repeating in Tuesday’s AI-token winners.

SKYAI’s move in particular reflects the broader agentic AI rally that has drawn institutional attention this week. As covered in a recent crypto.news story on Gemini, Bitget and Neyro’s push into AI-driven trading, the global agentic AI market is projected to grow from $7.29 billion in 2025 to $139.19 billion by 2034 at a 40.5% CAGR, and tokens with credible exposure to that thesis are attracting flows that look less like speculation and more like early infrastructure positioning.

ONDO’s 10% drop as RWA tokens face profit-taking

The losses side of Tuesday’s ledger tells an equally revealing story. ONDO is down 10.28% to $0.3908, making it the top loser among the top 100 despite — or perhaps because of — a string of positive fundamental announcements this week. Ondo Finance bridged 35 tokenized assets including SPY, QQQ, NVDA, TSLA and BABA to Hyperliquid’s HyperEVM via a LayerZero bridge, as detailed in a crypto.news story, and participated in Ripple’s tokenized Treasury settlement test with JPMorgan and Mastercard. The sell-off on a day of positive news is a textbook “buy the rumor, sell the news” dynamic, with traders who accumulated ONDO ahead of the Hyperliquid and XRP Ledger announcements now rotating proceeds into higher-momentum plays like SKYAI.

Aerodrome Finance shed 10.16% to $0.4725, Ethena lost 7.57% to $0.1204, Sei fell 7.03% to $0.0695 and Virtuals Protocol dropped 6.99% to $0.8131, painting a picture of broad profit-taking across Base ecosystem tokens, yield infrastructure and AI-agent platforms that had run hard in recent weeks. The Virtuals Protocol decline is particularly notable given that AI-agent tokens are simultaneously among Tuesday’s biggest winners and losers, suggesting the market is differentiating sharply between projects it views as having durable infrastructure narratives and those it treats as pure momentum plays. For ONDO specifically, the 10% pullback after a week of landmark partnership announcements — Franklin Templeton’s Kraken integration, Ripple’s Treasury settlement test, and the broader RWA tokenization push covered across multiple recent crypto.news stories — may ultimately read as a healthy consolidation in a token whose fundamental case is arguably stronger today than it was when it was trading 25% higher.

Key Insights

• The Cardano cryptocurrency made another rebound from the key $0.25 support level, with analysts focusing on the possibility of reaching $0.53.
• The previous recoveries of the Cardano coin from the current support area resulted in gains of 88 percent and 243 percent.
• The Van Rossem hard fork is progressing successfully on the Preview testnet.

Bullish Momentum Returns for Cardano After Breaking Out of the Support Level

The Cardano price returned to a bullish trend after buyers defended the important support level of $0.25, which continues to draw a lot of attention in the crypto market. As per Ali Martinez, a cryptocurrency market expert, Cardano has previously been able to generate major uptrends after breaking out of the support region at different points in time.

According to him, Cardano rallied by more than 88% in January 2023 following a breakout above the mentioned support level. The cryptocurrency also witnessed a similar strong rally in September 2023 after defending itself against heavy sell-off pressure from the $0.25 level.

Cardano Recovery Gathers Pace Amid ADA’s Move Towards $0.53

The Cardano cryptocurrency ADA saw more buying interest due to its continued performance, particularly after seeing a resurgence in the entire crypto market sector. Based on cryptocurrency analyst Ali Martinez, the ADA price might go up towards the $0.53 mark if it manages to sustain its momentum at the $0.36 resistance zone.

Analysts have observed that prior recoveries from support levels led to massive gains in the prices of the cryptocurrencies. ADA managed a 5.02% gain during the last 24 hours, with a weekly increase of nearly 11%. The rise in the value of crypto is due to increased investor confidence amid high appetite for risky asset classes.

The Bitcoin price went higher amid other altcoins with a surge in the general market sentiment after seeing better-than-expected economic data in the United States. Encouraging April employment numbers indicated a stable economic outlook in the country amid inflationary pressures.

Key Support Levels Continue to Be Important

While the positive outlook was provided by analysts, they added that ADA is still vulnerable to a downside correction if the market loses its momentum. Ali stressed that the $0.25 region continues to be an important level of support for Cardano. Any breakdown below this level will make ADA more vulnerable to bearish pressure, thus preventing a potential breakout above key resistance zones.

Investors will continue to keep their eye on the overall state of the cryptocurrency markets, since the future direction of Cardano might be dependent on how Bitcoin performs. In the event of continued bullish momentum, ADA will have a chance to try and reclaim higher resistance zones during the upcoming trading days.

Van Rossem Hard Fork Upgrade Progresses on Preview Testnet

Another noteworthy development related to Cardano was the progression of the network with regards to the Van Rossem hard fork upgrade on the Preview testnet.

According to Samuel Leathers, the Daedalus wallet transitioned smoothly through the upgrade phase with no problems reported during the process. The developers are now ready to push an upgraded version of the wallet to the Cardano mainnet next week.

TLDR:

• Exodus launched Exodus Pay, a platform letting users spend crypto directly from wallets across the U.S. and Europe.
  
• The firm acquired Monavate and Baanx to build out its full-stack crypto payments infrastructure in Q1 2026.
  
• Exodus cut Bitcoin holdings from 1,704 BTC to 628 BTC, using proceeds to become fully debt-free this quarter.
  
• XO Cash, Exodus’s new dollar-backed stablecoin, is positioned as the first stablecoin designed for AI agents.

Exodus (EXOD), the publicly traded Bitcoin wallet firm, is broadening its scope beyond wallets into a full crypto payments company.

The firm announced this shift alongside its Q1 earnings report, backed by two strategic acquisitions and a new stablecoin launch.

Its balance sheet also changed sharply, with Bitcoin holdings cut significantly to fund debt repayment and acquisition costs. Shares closed Tuesday at $6.97, down 9.6% on the day.

Exodus Pay and XO Cash Drive the Payments Expansion

Exodus is now positioning itself as a full-stack payments business through its Exodus Pay platform. The platform lets users spend crypto directly from their wallets without surrendering private keys. It is currently live across the United States and Europe.

The company closed two acquisitions to support this move — financial services firms Monavate and Baanx. These deals gave Exodus the infrastructure needed to support crypto spending at scale. CEO JP Richardson described the expansion as a natural extension of the firm’s founding vision.

“Exodus has always been about simplicity and control; that vision hasn’t changed since 2015,” Richardson told Decrypt. “We are expanding what we’re offering, we are not pivoting.”

He added that enabling customers to send and spend digital dollars without handing over their keys is what the firm has been building toward from day one.

Alongside Exodus Pay, the firm launched XO Cash, a dollar-backed stablecoin. Exodus claims it is the first stablecoin built specifically for AI agents, adding another layer to its growing payments ecosystem.

Bitcoin Holdings Drop as Exodus Clears Its Debt

Exodus ended Q1 2026 with $48 million in digital assets, down sharply from $156 million at the close of 2025. Cash and cash equivalents rose to nearly $73 million, compared to under $5 million at year-end. The shift reflects a deliberate treasury reallocation.

Bitcoin holdings fell from 1,704 BTC to 628 BTC during the quarter. The firm also shed 37 ETH, worth roughly $87,000.

These moves helped Exodus pay down a Bitcoin-backed loan from Galaxy and cover acquisition-related costs, leaving the company debt-free.

Richardson addressed the treasury changes directly: “Most of the treasury adjustments you saw in Q1 reflect paying down a Bitcoin-backed loan to Galaxy and other acquisition-related costs. We’re debt-free as a result.” He also reaffirmed that the firm’s long-term conviction in Bitcoin has not changed.

Meanwhile, Exodus added to its Solana position, growing holdings from 12,473 SOL to 17,541 SOL. At Tuesday’s price of around $93.91 per SOL, that stake is worth approximately $1.65 million.

Richardson also noted that Exodus will track transaction volume and the quarterly split between payments and trading revenues going forward. “Spending is a different behavior and a different business,” he said, pointing to the shift away from wallet-only revenue.

WAIB Summit Monaco returns after a successful 2025 edition, with dates set for June 9–10, 2026 at One Monte-Carlo in Casino Square. The event continues to position Monaco as a premier crossroads for Web3, artificial intelligence, and digital assets, drawing a global mix of founders, family offices, institutional investors, regulators, and brand leaders.

Organizers say the two-day gathering will once again attract 2,000+ attendees from around the world, underscoring the summit’s role as a high-signal venue for collaboration, policy dialogue, and capital formation at the intersection of finance and technology. The Monaco setting—coupled with the momentum around the Formula 1 weekend—is designed to elevate conversations about the future of the internet and decentralized finance to the highest level.

Key takeaways

• WAIB Monaco 2025 showcased 150+ speakers from Microsoft, Coinbase, OKX, B2C2, AS Monaco, and other leading brands and institutions.
• The event featured 50 top global KOLs with a combined following exceeding 6 million.
• More than 2,000 international attendees participated, reinforcing Monaco’s appeal as a premium gathering spot for Web3, AI, and digital assets.
• Social reach surpassed 1.3 million impressions, reflecting strong industry engagement and visibility.

A refined edition at One Monte-Carlo

The 2026 edition will take place at One Monte-Carlo, a venue perched at the heart of Monaco’s Casino Square. The choice of location continues to marry luxury with a purposeful program, aiming to accelerate collaboration among technology pioneers, capital providers, and policymakers. By aligning with the Formula 1 weekend’s global spotlight, WAIB Summit Monaco seeks to extend Monaco’s international visibility into the realm of Web3 finance and AI innovation.

In 2025, the summit established a template for a high-impact, invitation-forward program—combining curated sessions with private experiences and strategic networking. The organizers anticipate an expanded suite of experiences in 2026, designed to deepen collaboration across sectors and markets while maintaining the event’s hallmark emphasis on privacy, depth, and tangible opportunities for capital formation.

Power players and strategic partners

The 2026 program emphasizes a broad coalition of policy makers, financial institutions, asset managers, and Web3 infrastructure firms. Participants include senior representatives from European institutions, major banks, and leading asset managers, reflecting a continued push to bridge traditional finance with decentralised technologies and AI.

Policy and government voices featured or anticipated for the event include Peter Kerstens, adviser to the European Commission (DG FISMA); Ondrej Kovarik, former member of the European Parliament; and Dr. Clara Guerra, director representing the government of Liechtenstein. Their involvement signals a keen interest in regulatory and supervisory perspectives as the ecosystem scales.

From the financial sector, Franklin Templeton’s Rafael Mastroberardino; Julien Clausse of BNP Paribas; Ramzi Amairi of Natixis; Elie Naba of ABN AMRO; and Julien Busnel of CoinShares AM are listed among the profiles shaping investment views and product development for digital assets and related technologies.

Investors and family offices are also represented, with figures such as Lucius Czerlau, principal of the Czerlau Family Office, and Paul Infante Moñozca of the Moñozca Family Office noted among participants. In the Web3 infrastructure space, Ada Vaughan (Head of DeFi, Stellar Development Foundation); Kean Gilbert (Head of Institutional Relations, Lido); and Dayana Aleksandrova (Social & New Media Lead, WalletConnect) are expected to contribute to the dialogue on protocol design, liquidity, and user experience.

Global exchanges and trading platforms—Georg Harer (Bybit EU), Sabina Liu (KuCoin EU), Nenter Chow (BitMart), Dorian Vincileoni (Kraken, Head of Regional Growth), and Ajinkya M Tulpule (HashKey Europe)—are also slated to participate, highlighting continued institutional interest from the exchange community in Monaco’s high-profile format.

Experiences, awards, and opportunities for investment

Beyond the conference floor, WAIB Summit Monaco curates a series of exclusive experiences that blend finance, policy, and technology with elite networking. A VIP family offices dinner at the Yacht Club de Monaco—hosted in the iconic venue—gathers 20+ single and multi-family offices, private wealth leaders, institutional providers, and government representatives. The format prioritizes quality interactions over broad, mass-market networking, creating a setting where capital allocators and policymakers can explore collaboration opportunities away from crowded expo spaces.

In addition to the formal program, WAIB Summit Monaco presents awards recognizing excellence and breakthrough innovation in Web3, AI, and digital assets. The event also hosts a VC and startup pitching track, giving select Web3 and AI ventures a platform to present to leading investors such as Draper University, CV VC Labs, funders.vc, Gini Capital, and MonacoTech.

The summit also embraces creativity through a dedicated AI film festival, positioning artificial intelligence as a new driver of cinematic expression. An accompanying AI Film Fest 24H Hackathon—powered on-site by Alibaba Cloud—invites participants to craft a 1–3 minute AI-generated short film within 24 hours, with a jury awarding Gold, Silver, and Bronze distinctions. Jury members include Anthony Bourached, Vincent Lowy, Nicholas Shoolingin-Jordan, and Andrew McNamara, reflecting cross-disciplinary expertise in machine learning, cinema, and creative AI.

More information about the AI-focused program is available through the festival’s official site: aifilmfest-monaco.com. The closing notes of the WAIB experience are punctuated by a Moon party, a celebratory gathering on the Riviera coastline that aims to fuse ambition with the region’s magic after two days of intensive discussions and deal-making.

Ticketing for WAIB Summit Monaco 2026 is live, with early-bird rates available for a limited window. Details and registrations are at waibsummit.com, and access to select events and experiences can be secured through Moongate’s ticketing portal at app.moongate.id/e/waibsummitmonaco2026.

WAIB Summit (Web3 and AI Summit) describes itself as a global platform connecting thought leaders, investors, family offices, and innovators who are shaping the future of decentralized technology and artificial intelligence. The 2026 Monaco edition continues that mission by embedding high-level discussions within Monaco’s refined ecosystem during a moment of rising attention to cross-border collaboration and regulatory alignment.

Media inquiries can be directed to the WAIB Summit team at joseph@waibsummit.com.

What readers should watch next is how European policymakers and financial institutions translate these conversations into concrete pilots and partnerships, and whether the 2026 edition can translate headline attendance into measurable capital deployment and scalable products in Web3 and AI.

Denis Beau urged immediate private-sector mobilisation to build euro stablecoins, breaking publicly with ECB president Christine Lagarde’s slower approach.

Denis Beau, deputy governor of the Banque de France, called on May 12 for a “mobilization of all relevant European players, public and private,” to develop euro-based tokenised money to counter the dominance of dollar-pegged stablecoins. His position puts him at odds with ECB president Christine Lagarde, who favours waiting for a state-issued digital euro scheduled for around 2029.

“To ensure a sound development of tokenised finance in Europe, its payment and settlement asset pillar should be in euro,” Beau told analysts this week. Dollar-pegged tokens from Tether and Circle currently account for 98% of the total stablecoin market, a concentration Beau described as a direct threat to European monetary sovereignty.

What Beau is asking for and why it differs from Lagarde

While Lagarde has consistently warned that privately issued stablecoins risk amplifying financial vulnerabilities, Beau argued that private-sector solutions are necessary for Europe’s economic development right now, without waiting for a retail CBDC. He specifically cited the risk of “digital dollarisation” at the settlement infrastructure level if euro-denominated alternatives fail to reach sufficient liquidity.

Beau’s stance aligns with Qivalis, a consortium of 12 major European banks, including BBVA, ING, UniCredit, and BNP Paribas, that are planning to launch a euro-pegged stablecoin in the second half of 2026. He also pointed to the Eurosystem’s Pontes project, which will deploy wholesale central bank money in tokenised form before the end of 2026.

“A first deliverable will become available by the end of this year, with the opening of our wholesale central bank money service in tokenized form,” Beau said, framing it as a foundation rather than a complete solution.

The internal ECB divide and what it means for Europe

The split between Beau and Lagarde reflects a broader strategic disagreement within European institutions. Lagarde has argued that dollar and euro-pegged stablecoins alike pose financial stability risks, while Beau and French Finance Minister Roland Lescure have both pushed for more aggressive private-sector development of euro stablecoins as a near-term countermeasure.

The German central bank has also signalled openness to euro-denominated stablecoins as a means of improving cross-border payment efficiency. The gap between the ECB’s retail CBDC timeline and the immediate commercial pressure from dollar stablecoins is giving central bankers across Europe more reason to support private alternatives rather than waiting for a state-led solution.

An Aave vote opening May 15 would transfer 30,765 ETH to Aave LLC as part of the Kelp exploit recovery.

Aave and other affected parties launched a binding Arbitrum Improvement Proposal on May 12, opening a governance vote on May 15 that would move 30,765 ETH worth approximately $71 million from Arbitrum’s Security Council wallet to an Aave LLC-controlled address. The vote is the final procedural step needed to unblock the Kelp DAO recovery effort.

A Manhattan federal judge modified a prior freeze on May 9, permitting the transfer to proceed through onchain governance. Judge Margaret Garnett’s order also shields voters and other participants from personal liability under the existing restraining notice.

However, the terrorism creditors’ legal claim on the funds survives the transfer, meaning Aave LLC cannot freely deploy the ETH if the court ultimately sides with the plaintiffs.

What the $71 million is and how it was frozen

The 30,765 ETH was intercepted by Arbitrum’s Security Council on April 21 after being linked to the April 18 exploit of Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered bridge.

Attackers used unbacked rsETH tokens as collateral on Aave v3 to borrow an estimated $230 million in wrapped ETH, generating over $190 million in bad debt and disrupting lending markets across DeFi.

The case became legally complex when Gerstein Harrow LLP, representing families holding $877 million in unpaid terrorism judgments against North Korea, argued the ETH constitutes DPRK property because blockchain analytics firms attributed the Kelp exploit to the Lazarus Group. No court has established that as a legal finding.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov pushed back directly. “These funds belong to the affected users they were stolen from, full stop,” he said. Aave had filed an emergency motion in New York on May 4 seeking to vacate the restraining notice entirely, arguing that a thief does not acquire lawful title to stolen property simply by moving it on-chain.

Recovery progress and what comes next

The broader DeFi United recovery initiative has now raised more than $314 million in ETH commitments from protocols including Mantle, EtherFi, Lido DAO, Ethena, LayerZero, and Compound. The $71 million transfer is one of the last remaining pieces needed to close the backing gap for rsETH.

Voting on the binding AIP opened May 15 and is expected to require roughly eight days before the ETH can move from Arbitrum to Ethereum through the standard L2-to-L1 withdrawal delay. The court dispute with terrorism creditors remains unresolved. If the court sides with the plaintiffs, Aave could ultimately be compelled to surrender the recovered ETH even after the transfer completes.