Crypto Vesting

The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), which oversees the state’s retirement funds, unloaded its shares in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) during the first quarter, filings show.

The Wisconsin Investment Board reported no spot Bitcoin ETF positions in its 13F filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15, liquidating all 6,060,351 IBIT shares it reported holding from the previous quarter. 

The more than 6 million IBIT shares are worth around $355.6 million at current prices.

SWIB was one of the first state investment funds to provide Bitcoin exposure to US retirees when it bought $164 million worth of Bitcoin ETFs in Q1 2024 — the same quarter the Bitcoin products launched.

Source: Julian Fahrer

The mass sell-off comes only a quarter after SWIB reported additional purchases of IBIT shares in

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Global foreign exchange and payments platforms are lobbying hard against stablecoins, which stand to significantly disrupt their business models, investor Kevin O’Leary said during a keynote address at Consensus 2025.

Legacy forex and payments platforms often extract large fees for servicing cross-border cash transfers and stand to lose out on revenue if regulated stablecoins become accepted as a cheaper, faster alternative, O’Leary said at the Toronto conference. 

“Currency trading is a multi-trillion dollar market — and it’s old and ugly and inefficient,” O’Leary said, adding that “[ t]he biggest threat to that monopoly or oligopoly is a regulated stablecoin.” 

“Once that’s approved, the multi-trillion dollar FX market becomes efficient, transparent, and inexpensive,” he said. 

Kevin O’Leary speaking at Consensus. Source: CointelegraphStablecoin legislation

US lawmakers are working on legislation that stands to accelerate global stablecoin adoption, O’Leary added. 

US Senators are aiming to pass the so-called Genius Act — a framework for regulating stablecoins — <a

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Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal addressed some of the concerns raised by US lawmakers and industry leaders around President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures, and how they may affect related legislation.

Speaking at the Consensus conference in Toronto on May 15, Grewal said there had been “hiccups” in Congress since the Senate Banking Committee voted to advance the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, in March. Though Grewal said there were disputes over “substantial issues that need to be addressed” in the bill, he hinted that Trump’s involvement in the industry was a “complicating factor.” 

“The discussion around the president’s support for a certain memecoin or two and other efforts does add a certain level of challenge to the effort to get Democrats and Republicans aligned on the right way to regulate the [spot market], but I have confidence that the Senate

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There is an ongoing race across the world for Bitcoin accumulation, according to Eric Trump, the second-eldest son of US President Donald Trump. Speaking at a crypto conference in Toronto on May 15, Trump said that from families to government funds, “everybody in the world is trying to hoard Bitcoin right now.”

The remarks came during a panel at Consensus 2025. Sharing the stage with Asher Genoot, the CEO of Bitcoin (BTC) mining company Hut 8, Trump said Bitcoin adoption has been incredible.

“I’m traveling. I’m on a plane. Everybody in the world is trying to hoard Bitcoin right now. Everybody. I hear it from sovereign wealth funds. I hear it from the wealthiest families. I hear from the biggest companies.”Asher Genoot and Eric Trump at Consensus 2025. Source: Cointelegraph

Trump described what he sees as “two races in Bitcoin”: the accumulation race — currently led

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Asset tokenization is set to accelerate the movement of capital across traditional markets, according to Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov. Speaking with Cointelegraph at Consensus 2025 in Toronto, Nazarov said the shift will boost capital velocity in asset classes such as treasuries, equities, private credit, commercial debt, and real estate.

“I think that there are two sides to this equation. One is the asset, and the other one is the payment. So, you need more high-quality assets onchain, but you also need more frictionless payments that existing institutions can use easily,” Nazarov said on May 14.

The remarks came on the same day Chainlink announced a partnership with Kinexys, a blockchain network for institutional-grade tokenized assets by JP Morgan, and digital asset firm Ondo Finance. Together, the companies will develop payment rails for institutions trading tokenized real-world assets onchain.

The partnership tested the exchange of Ondo’s US Government Treasuries Fund (OUSG), a tokenized

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Bitdeer Technologies Group reported a 41% year-over-year drop in revenue to $70.1 million for the first quarter of 2025, the Bitcoin miner said on May 15. 

The Singaporean company clocked an operating loss of $3.2 million for the quarter, down from a $34.1 million profit during the same period last year, its earnings release said. 

However, Bitdeer reported a Q1 net income of more than $400 million, largely driven by gains on convertible notes and warrants issued to stablecoin issuer Tether in 2024.

Bitdeer’s revenue declines come as miners increasingly expand beyond Bitcoin (BTC) mining and pivot toward supplying high-performance computing (HPC) for artificial intelligence applications. 

“As we scale self-mining and execute on our ASIC [mining hardware] roadmap, we are also advancing plans for U.S.-based HPC and AI infrastructure,” Matt Kong, Bitdeer’s chief business officer, said in a statement.

But Bitcoin miners are still

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More than two-and-a-half years after filing for bankruptcy, cryptocurrency exchange FTX is moving forward with repaying users who have not had access to their funds.

In a May 15 notice, the FTX Recovery Trust announced that it would begin disbursing funds to the second group of parties eligible under the exchange’s reorganization plan. Starting on May 30, FTX will send more than $5 billion to creditors “within 1 to 3 business days” through crypto firms BitGo and Kraken. 

In accordance with the reorganization plan, FTX said five groups of “convenience classes” would receive between 54% and 120% distribution of assets. The repayment schedule for the next class of creditors will be “announced in due course,” and the debtors were expected to pay up to $16 billion if all claims were filed.

Breakdown of the second round of FTX repayments. Source: Sunil Kavuri

FTX

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Stablecoin regulation is “the next catalyst” for the crypto industry and could lead to unprecedented “appetite from institutional investors,” according to Ash Pampati, head of ecosystem at the Aptos Foundation.

In an interview with Cointelegraph at Consensus 2025 in Toronto, Pampati said that “the whole world outside of the United States […] has already jumped onto this [stablecoins],” adding that “the US is […] at the doorstep.”

“I really think about new use cases that can emerge because of the borderless nature of stablecoins, because of the efficiency of the dollar onchain,” he said. “If you’re trying to send money to your friend in Nigeria, why do you have to go through a bunch of hoops?”

Stablecoins are often used to transfer money across borders, as they are easier and cheaper to transfer than traditional finance methods such as wire transfers. They are also used to hedge

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Key Takeaways:

Solana formed a megaphone chart pattern with a potential $210 price target.

Solana’s ecosystem growth highlights renewed investor interest with a $4 billion realized cap increase and 731 million transactions.

Solana (SOL) price tested its key resistance at $180 earlier this week, but the altcoin failed to establish a position above the level. Over the past few days, SOL has consolidated above the $170 mark, but prices have dropped 5.65% since May 14.

Including the recent minor dip, Solana has formed a megaphone pattern on the 4-hour chart, a classic technical setup indicating increasing volatility.

Solana 4-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The chart illustrates that the megaphone’s upper resistance trendline sits near $185, aligning with immediate resistance at $180. A confirmed breakout above this level could propel SOL toward the pattern’s first target at $210, calculated by measuring the widest part of the pattern and projecting it upward

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