Crypto adoption in the United States is continuing to accelerate, with digital assets increasingly moving beyond speculation and becoming part of everyday financial life, according to the National Cryptocurrency Association’s newly released 2026 State of Crypto Holders Report.

The study, conducted with The Harris Poll among 10,000 U.S. cryptocurrency holders, found that more than 67 million Americans now own crypto, representing roughly one in four U.S. adults. That figure marks an increase of 12 million holders compared to 2025.

Beyond the growing number of holders, the report points to a broader transformation in how Americans are actually using crypto. While investing remains a major driver, usage is rapidly expanding into payments, peer-to-peer transfers, gaming, donations, and business activity.

Speaking with Crypto Breaking, Ali Tager, VP of External Affairs at the National Cryptocurrency Association (NCA), said the industry is entering what she describes as an “everyday utility” phase.

Crypto Usage Is Expanding Beyond Investing

One of the report’s standout findings is that 54% of crypto holders say digital assets have increased their financial independence.

According to Tager, this shift reflects a much deeper evolution in the relationship people have with money and financial systems.

“Crypto usage patterns are diversifying beyond investing and entering a phase of everyday utility,” Tager said.

The report found:

• 40% of holders now use crypto for shopping and payments
• 41% use it to send money to family and friends
• 19% have made charitable donations using crypto

Tager explained that many users are increasingly attracted to crypto because it offers:

• 24/7 access to assets
• faster transactions
• greater financial control
• alternative ways to participate in the economy

“Just like with any other innovation, from AI to smartphones to the internet, these tools become mainstream when we stop focusing on the technology itself and start using it because it solves our everyday problems more efficiently,” she added.

The “Everyday Utility” Era Has Arrived

According to the NCA, crypto’s evolution is no longer theoretical.

Tager shared several examples from the report showing how Americans across different states and professions are using blockchain technology in practical ways:

• ranchers in Wyoming using blockchain to verify humane livestock treatment claims
• artists in California earning royalties directly through blockchain marketplaces
• investors accessing tokenized real estate opportunities
• families using crypto to help manage everyday expenses and medical bills

“Crypto is benefitting people from all walks of life in all kinds of ways,” Tager said.

The report also revealed:

• 54% of holders use crypto in relation to groceries
• 41% connect crypto with travel-related spending
• 39% use it to help cover fuel costs

“When a technology stops feeling novel and starts feeling useful, you don’t notice it crossing over, it just does,” Tager added.

At the same time, she acknowledged that challenges remain, including volatility, trust concerns, and friction around onboarding new users.

Female Participation in Crypto Continues Rising

The report also highlighted a major demographic shift among newer crypto adopters.

Female participation has increased significantly compared to previous years. Among people who entered crypto between 2025 and 2026, women represented 42% of new holders, compared to 34% among earlier adopters.

According to Tager, increasing accessibility and integration with familiar financial systems are helping reduce barriers to entry.

“As crypto becomes integrated into trusted platforms and financial services, it feels more familiar and less complex,” she explained.

The report found that trust tends to rise when crypto becomes connected to mainstream financial brands and platforms such as PayPal, Visa, and traditional banks.

The study also challenges several stereotypes around crypto ownership:

• 90% of holders earn less than $500,000 annually
• 23% earn less than $75,000 per year
• adoption is spreading across construction, manufacturing, retail, technology, and finance sectors
• ownership is growing across Gen Z, Gen X, Boomers, and older generations

Education Remains One of the Industry’s Biggest Challenges

Despite rising adoption, education remains one of crypto’s largest barriers.

According to the report, many Americans still avoid crypto because they simply do not understand how it works or how to use it safely.

Tager said this is one of the core reasons the NCA was created.

“The number one barrier to entry for non-crypto holders in America is that they don’t understand it,” she said.

The organization currently offers:

• free crypto education courses
• interactive beginner lessons
• wallet simulators
• educational podcasts focused on simplifying crypto concepts

Even among existing users, demand for education remains high. Roughly one-third of current crypto holders said they still want more learning resources and practical guidance.

“Accessible resources focused on real-world use cases is what moves the needle,” Tager added.

Regulation, Stablecoins and Payments Could Drive the Next Wave of Adoption

Looking ahead over the next several years, the report suggests mainstream adoption will likely be driven by a combination of:

• payments
• stablecoins
• clearer regulation
• institutional integration
• broader merchant adoption

According to the study:

• 84% of holders expect crypto payments to become common within five years
• 42% believe traditional finance integration would increase trust
• 39% say clearer regulation would strengthen confidence in crypto

Tager believes all of these factors are likely to work together rather than independently.

“Consumers are increasingly looking for practical, everyday ways to use their crypto,” she said.

The report also found that many large retailers in the United States are already accepting crypto payments at checkout.

At the same time, Tager warned that public perception remains heavily influenced by misinformation and sensationalized narratives online.

“When the loudest voices reduce crypto to a caricature, it becomes harder for people to separate fact from fiction,” she said.

“Some may jump in too quickly without understanding it. Others may dismiss the tool entirely without realizing the benefits.”

The National Cryptocurrency Association said it plans to continue expanding educational initiatives and partnerships designed to help Americans better understand how crypto works and how it can be used responsibly in everyday life.

Bitcoin faced a pullback below the $80,000 mark as macro pressures—chiefly elevated oil prices and a heavy-handed liquidity backdrop from the Federal Reserve—added to the fragility of recent upside moves. In the midst of this environment, a Hyperliquid whale opened a roughly $70 million short position across cryptocurrencies and synthetic tokens tied to major technology stocks, stamping a clear bearish tilt on several risk-on assets even as some on-chain traders previously profited from long bets.

Data points and attributions for the move point to a long-running, algorithmically flavored trading approach within the Hyperliquid ecosystem. The new short, traced to the address 0x8def…992dae, is widely reported to be associated with Loracle, an early contributor to Hyperliquid. The development matters not only for price action but for how traders are framing risk in a market still grappling with macro headwinds and a shifting liquidity backdrop.

Key takeaways

• A Hyperliquid whale opened a ~$70 million bearish position across crypto assets and synthetic tokens tied to major tech equities, signaling a technical pivot amid ongoing macro noise.
• The same trader has a track record of profitable bets, including prior long positions in Bitcoin, Zcash, and Toncoin that yielded about $9.2 million over two weeks, underscoring the contrast between short-term tactical bets and longer-running convictions.
• Over the past week, the whale has accumulated a $49 million short on HYPE and expanded into a $12.5 million Bitcoin short plus $8 million in SNDK- and Nasdaq-100-linked synthetic tokens, while maintaining a $1.7 million long in a gold-backed stablecoin—reflecting a nuanced, risk-on/risk-off mix.
• Analysts emphasize the trades appear algorithmic with typical holding periods under a week, suggesting the moves are driven by short-term technical setups rather than a fundamental macro thesis against risk-on assets.

Unpacking the wager and its context

In a market where every macro signal can ripple through crypto prices, the new short position signals more than a single trader’s inclination—it points to a broader debate about timing and resilience. The trader’s blitz of bearish bets across HYPE and Bitcoin, paired with exposure to synthetic tokens tracking major tech names, hints at a liquidity-driven, hedged stance rather than a simple conviction that equities will crash. While Bitcoin has had its own narrative in recent sessions, the position underscores how correlated assets—and their derivatives—can be shuffled in response to short-term price dynamics.

Specifically, the wallet’s activity over the past week included a sizable $49 million short on HYPE, expanding into a $12.5 million short in Bitcoin and an $8 million allocation in synthetic tokens linked to Sandisk and the Nasdaq-100 Index. Yet the same account showed a $1.7 million long in a gold-backed stablecoin, suggesting a measured approach that blends downside bets with hedges against volatility in the broader crypto complex. On the profit side, the trader has historically booked gains from bullish bets as well—the Bitcoin, Zcash, and Toncoin long closed recently yielded a reported $9.2 million over two weeks, and a separate oil-linked synthetic token trade produced about $3 million in profit after a nine-day hold.

What does this mix tell investors? First, the activity illustrates a propensity for rapid, short-cycle moves rather than a long-term directional bet. Analysis from app.trade.xyz depicts an algorithmic trading style with repeated patterning: positions are opened with the expectation of quick reversals or fades, then closed as momentum signals shift. In other words, the liquidity environment—and its microstructures—may be driving capital allocations that look technical more than fundamental.

Macro backdrop: oil, inflation, and the Fed’s balance sheet

The price environment is not helping to calm market nerves. Brent crude has traded above the $100 per barrel threshold as geopolitical frictions—especially in the Middle East—keep supply concerns elevated. Such dynamics feed into inflation expectations, complicating the Federal Reserve’s policy calculus at a moment when liquidity conditions remain a focal point for market participants. In this context, traders are watching for how the Fed will respond to growing inflation pressures and to the broader demand for safe, scarce assets as fixed-income competition intensifies.

Monetary policy signals have grown more complex. The Fed has been actively expanding its balance sheet, purchasing bonds and mortgage-backed securities to ease liquidity strains in the financial system. While this approach can provide near-term relief to counterparties and market infrastructure, it also fuels inflationary pressures and reduces the central bank’s room to maneuver for rate cuts. The persistence of such a balance sheet expansion tends to recalibrate risk appetites across asset classes, potentially altering the relative appeal of fixed income versus scarce, non-yield-bearing stores of value like Bitcoin over the medium term.

From a market structure perspective, a weaker demand for U.S. Treasuries—amid rising inflation expectations and ongoing fiscal pressures—can paradoxically bolster Bitcoin’s macro narrative as a non-sovereign store of value with a fixed supply. If Treasuries become less dominant in global portfolios, capital could rotate into assets perceived as hedges against monetary dilution. That dynamic, however, operates on a longer horizon and depends on how quickly inflation resilience, growth, and policy normalization interact in the coming months.

What this means for traders and builders

For traders, the latest hyper-liquidity move underscores the importance of monitoring the on-chain footprints of large, algorithmically driven players. Even as a single wallet’s bets may not define a trend, they can amplify near-term volatility, particularly when the trades touch instruments tied to equities through synthetic tokens. In that sense, the episode highlights the continuing relevance of cross-asset liquidity, derivatives, and the sensitivity of crypto markets to macro news flow and liquidity shifts.

For developers and investors, the episode reinforces several practical takeaways. First, the interplay between oil prices, inflation expectations, and central-bank balance sheets remains a critical driver of risk appetite. Second, market participants should be mindful of algorithmic strategies that operate on very short timeframes, which can cause abrupt reversals even when longer-term fundamentals seem supportive. Finally, while Bitcoin may benefit from a narrative shift toward scarcity in the face of weaker Treasuries demand, the path to a durable uptrend requires stability in macro conditions and credible progress on inflation and growth trajectories.

Beyond the immediate moves, observers will want to watch two key questions: Will the Fed’s liquidity stance remain accommodative long enough to sustain a broad risk rally, or will inflation pressures force a policy shift that caps risk assets? And will Bitcoin’s role as a macro diversification tool gain traction if Treasuries complexity continues to erode investor confidence? The answers will shape whether the current on-chain activity is a one-off hedging maneuver or a harbinger of a broader regime shift for crypto markets.

In the near term, market watchers should monitor the next set of price actions around Bitcoin and related assets, especially in relation to macro data releases and evolving liquidity conditions. While the Hyperliquid whale’s latest bets are notable, they are one piece of a larger mosaic—one that will unfold as traders balance technical setups against the evolving inflation and policy backdrop.

Yellow Network chairman Alexis Sirkia says the CLARITY Act is the structural reset U.S. crypto has waited for.

The CLARITY Act is moving faster than at any point in its legislative history. The Senate Banking Committee released a new 309-page draft on May 12, with a markup scheduled for May 14, as the White House pushes for Trump to sign the legislation before July 4. For Alexis Sirkia, chairman and co-founder of Yellow Network, the timing is overdue.

“A lot of crypto companies have spent years trying to figure out which regulator they answer to and whether the rules might suddenly change after they launch,” Sirkia said. “That uncertainty affects everything from fundraising to banking relationships to hiring.”

Why builders left and what changes if the bill passes

At Yellow, which builds decentralized clearing infrastructure for digital assets, Sirkia deals daily with the friction that regulatory ambiguity creates across liquidity, settlement, and compliance. His view is that most serious builders are not looking for a free pass from oversight. They are looking for predictability.

“Infrastructure companies cannot scale globally if the rules change every few months or if nobody knows how existing laws apply to decentralized systems,” Sirkia said.

He points to the CLARITY Act’s provisions around disclosure standards, AML requirements, and oversight structures as the foundations that allow companies to make long-term decisions around capital and hiring.

If the bill passes, Sirkia expects founders and engineering talent to remain in the U.S. rather than default to easier regulatory environments. “Right now, a lot of companies choose places like Dubai or Singapore because the regulatory path is simply easier to understand,” he said. “If uncertainty continues, the U.S. risks missing out on a major infrastructure shift happening across finance and digital assets.”

The CLARITY Act passed the House 294 to 134 in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee in January 2026, but has repeatedly stalled in the Banking Committee over stablecoin yield provisions and unresolved ethics language around government officials’ crypto holdings.

The bar for success and the global race

Senator Bernie Moreno has set a hard end-of-May deadline, warning that missing the window could shelve the legislation for years. Prediction markets currently put the odds of the Act becoming law in 2026 at around 55%.

Sirkia’s definition of success is direct. He wants founders launching products in the U.S. without fear of retroactive enforcement, and banks treating crypto infrastructure as a legitimate counterparty rather than a compliance liability.

“I’d also like to see a healthier relationship between regulators and industry participants overall,” he said. “Crypto will move faster when there’s dialogue and clearer communication.”

On the global picture, Sirkia sees the CLARITY Act as a signal as much as a rulebook. “I see the CLARITY Act as an important signal the U.S. wants to play a serious role in the future of digital finance,” he said. “That matters for everything from stablecoins to tokenized assets to next-generation trading infrastructure.”

Yellow Network, which tapped the XRPL EVM Sidechain to power real-world asset trading, is among the firms watching the May 14 markup closely. If the CLARITY Act advances, Sirkia says expanding compliant decentralized clearing and trading infrastructure inside the U.S. market becomes the immediate priority.

TLDR

• Consensys has delayed its planned U.S. initial public offering until at least the fall.
• The company had aimed to file a confidential draft S-1 with the SEC in late February.
• Weak crypto market conditions led the firm to pause its IPO timeline.
• Consensys engaged JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to lead the potential offering.
• Bitcoin ETF outflows and falling token prices contributed to market pressure.

Consensys has postponed its planned U.S. initial public offering until at least fall due to weak market conditions. Sources familiar with the matter confirmed the delay and cited recent volatility in crypto markets. The Ethereum software firm had prepared to begin formal filing steps earlier this year.

Consensys Halts IPO Filing Plans

Consensys had targeted a confidential draft S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission by late February. However, worsening market trends led the company to pause those plans. Two people with direct knowledge confirmed the revised timeline.

The company engaged bankers from JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs last year to manage the offering process. It aimed to move forward while regulatory clarity improved for digital asset companies. Yet market performance shifted sharply at the start of 2026.

Crypto markets declined in February as traders reduced exposure to risk assets. Bitcoin ETFs recorded heavy outflows, and prices across tokens fell. As a result, leveraged liquidations spread across digital assets.

Macroeconomic concerns and tariff discussions also weighed on sentiment. Expectations for interest rate cuts slowed during the same period. Those factors combined to pressure equity and crypto valuations.

A Consensys spokeswoman declined to comment on specific IPO timing. She stated, “As a matter of policy, we don’t comment on market speculation.” The company has not announced a new filing date.

Market Conditions Pressure Crypto Listings

Several crypto firms outlined public listing plans earlier this year after clearer U.S. regulatory guidance. However, weaker market performance forced many companies to reassess their schedules. Large firms such as Kraken and Ledger paused their IPO plans.

BitGo, operating under ticker BTGO, completed the only crypto-native IPO in 2026. The company raised about $213 million in January. It priced shares at $18, which exceeded the marketed range.

Shares rose more than 20% during the company’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange. However, the rally faded in subsequent weeks. The stock now trades about 36% below its IPO price.

The price decline reflected ongoing volatility in digital asset equities. Crypto-linked stocks have tracked broader movements in token prices. Therefore, companies have adjusted capital raising strategies.

Consensys previously secured $450 million in a Series D funding round in early 2022. That round valued the firm at $7 billion. The company has not disclosed updated valuation figures since then.

Joe Lubin leads Consensys and oversees products including the MetaMask wallet. The firm continues to operate its Ethereum development services. For now, it has shifted its IPO consideration to the fall timeframe.

TLDR

• Jupiter has partnered with Bitwise to launch an isolated USDe lending market on Solana.
• Bitwise will curate the dedicated USDe pool within Jupiter Lend for institutional participants.
• The USDe market will operate separately from Jupiter Lend’s main liquidity layer.
• The structure aims to manage risk and support institutional capital participation.
• Fluid protocol will provide collateral and lending infrastructure for the isolated pool.

Jupiter has partnered with Bitwise to launch an isolated USDe lending market on Solana. The firms announced the initiative on Wednesday and confirmed institutional access. The structure separates USDe liquidity and integrates Fluid for lending infrastructure support.

Bitwise and Jupiter Launch Isolated USDe Market on Solana

Jupiter confirmed that Bitwise will curate a dedicated USDe market on Jupiter Lend. The platform will isolate this market from its main liquidity layer to manage risk. The firms said the structure aims to support institutional capital with controlled exposure.

Bitwise will oversee market parameters while Jupiter provides the lending framework. The setup marks the first time an institutional asset manager curates a market on Jupiter Lend. The companies stated that this approach strengthens risk management and capital efficiency.

The isolated pool will function independently from other lending markets on the platform. As a result, liquidity risks from other assets will not affect the USDe market. The partners said this design aligns with institutional compliance standards.

Jonathan Man, Head of DeFi Strategies at Bitwise, addressed the launch. He said, “Jupiter and Fluid have built unique infrastructure for efficient lending markets.” He added that the design provides deep liquidity and risk-mitigating features.

USDe Gains Dedicated Lending Support Through Fluid Integration

The initiative integrates Fluid protocol to supply collateral and lending infrastructure. Fluid will support collateral management and borrowing operations within the isolated pool. The firms confirmed that this integration enhances operational efficiency.

The new market allows users to earn yield on USDe within Jupiter Lend. USDe functions as a synthetic asset that maintains a stable value target. Ethena Labs issues the token and oversees its underlying structure.

Guy Young, CEO of Ethena Labs, commented on the development. He said, “USDe is an institutional-grade savings product, built for scale.” He added that the combined infrastructure creates an efficient USDe market ready for DeFi adoption.

USDe launched in early 2024 and expanded rapidly across crypto markets. By mid-2025, it ranked as the third-largest stablecoin by market capitalization. The asset attracted institutional participation during its early growth phase.

However, USDe later declined in market rankings after volatility pressures. A crypto market crash on Oct. 10 exposed decoupling risks linked to the asset. Market data showed fluctuations in USDe’s price stability during that period.

Jupiter and Bitwise did not disclose specific yield rates for the market. They confirmed that the structure will operate under defined collateral parameters. The companies stated that the market is now live on Solana.

This week’s U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing to consider edits to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act has dozens of amendments to weigh, though it’s likely that almost all of them won’t survive the process of Thursday’s event.

Lawmakers have pushed forward a range of proposed changes for the market structure bill as it approaches the hearing known as a “markup,” from amendments that would establish government-ethics rules to others setting safe harbors for developers to one that would cut out a must-have protection for the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, plus a number of other smaller, technical adjustments.

The list is particularly dominated by a few lawmakers’ names, including Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed. Their items are expected to be a rhetorical wish list as other members of the committee — mostly Republicans — seek to advance the bill without significant overhauls.

Each amendment will be discussed during the hearing and will eventually receive a vote, unless they’re withdrawn. A simple majority will be needed to adopt or reject an amendment. Eventually, the Banking Committee will vote to advance the bill itself.

Here are some highlights, according to a list of the proposals circulated ahead of the hearing:

• Senator Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, wants to adopt some of the requests from bank lobbyists to further restrict stablecoin yields, according to one of his 18 amendments.
• He would also entirely scrap the section known as the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, which shields software developers that don’t control people’s money from being regulated as money transmitters.
• On the same topic, Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto, a Nevada Democrat, wants to “protect software developers by creating a safe harbor from criminal liability for not registering as a money transmitter at the state or federal level.”
• Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is pushing eight amendments, including one that would institute a major Democratic request: banning the president and other senior government officials from “owning, promoting or affiliating with” digital assets businesses.
• Senator Warren would more specifically “prohibit political corruption in banking applications and presidential bank ownership,” seeming to directly target the effort from World Liberty Financial — a company tied to President Donald Trump and his family — to obtain a U.S. banking charter.
• Warren, who is also seeking to cut out whole swaths of the current bill regarding the oversight of digital commodities, went farther afield with some amendments, trying to cap credit card interest rates and calling for bank supervisory records involving “Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators.” (The bill itself does include some non-crypto provisions, including legislation targeted at housing championed by Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican.)
• Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who has been at the center of illicit-finance negotiations involving DeFi, is proposing “a control test to determine when persons operating non-decentralized finance trading protocols are subject to” Bank Secrecy Act anti-money laundering obligations.
• On the Republican side of the committee, Senator Bill Hagerty from Tennessee is seeking a ban of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) issued by the U.S. Federal Reserve. CBDC bans have already been pushed in various other bills by lawmakers, most recently in the House of Representatives’ bill to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Thursday’s session to consider advancing the Clarity Act is likely already well planned for what the Republican majority will allow into the legislation. The last time the Clarity Act was on final approach to a markup in this same committee, it made it to this stage in which some 75 amendments were offered, though that hearing was postponed shortly after.

Previous wrinkles in the negotiation have since been ironed out over four months of talks, clearing a path for committee approval this week. Once that happens, this bill can be merged with the parallel effort that already cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee.

However, some significant changes are still expected after this week, including the effort to resolve the Democrats’ demand for a conflict-of-interest provision on cutting ties between government officials and the crypto sector, most notably seen with the president and his family. A meeting earlier this week on that ethics provision reportedly remained contentious, and Democrats including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand have said the Clarity Act will not get approved in the Senate without it.

Clarity’s advocates need to secure a number of Democratic supporters for the bill if it’s going to clear the 60-vote hurdle that’s standard in the Senate. Then the bill needs to get another approval from the U.S. House, which had already passed a similar bill last year.

In a Wednesday posting on social media site X, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called the bill “strong” and said it “will benefit the American people by making the US financial system faster, cheaper and more accessible.”

“Mark it up,” he said.

Read More: Clarity Act, in the flesh, unveiled by U.S. Senate Banking Committee before hearing