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

Brief Summary

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

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