It's quiet now. So quiet that can almost hear other people's dreams! (weekly crypto updates)

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What happened in crypto in the past week? Seems like everyone is trying to figure out BTC next move for now, while ETH is setting itself for failure, with some debatable upgrade. Everything else is just white noise for now. I found a way to expose myself to BTC via BlackRock, using Freetrade. Feel free to check them. What else? Read below:

• Bitcoin: Some compare BTC now with early 2022, as it has shed 28% since January, and spot trading volumes fell 59% week-over-week, and we were told to expect to trade between$60K and $75K for a prolonged period. Metaplanet posted a $619M loss for 2025, yet their revenue surged 738% to 58M and operating profit jumped 1695%. They are the fourth-largest public corporate Bitcoin holder globally with 35102 BTC. Michael Saylor acquired another 2486 BTC for $168M, reaching a total of 717.131 BTC. Some interesting numbers, while most governments stumbled into BTCX through seizures, UAE has been deliberately mining it since 2022 and is holding everything. Royal family-linked wallets are generating 4.2 BTC every single day. We also have bitcoin exchange deposits hiting their highest whale concentration since 2015, with the biggest holders driving 64% of all inflows. Bitdeer sold 943 BTC and got zero treasury balance, MARA still holds 53.000 BTC, Riot 18.000.

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• Ethereum: Harvard slashed its Bitcoin ETF holdings by 21% while simultaneously opening an $87M position in ETH. Ethereum is down 60% from its ATH, and most investors have gone quiet, but Bitmine just added another 45.759 ETH last week. But the big thins is that Starkware just integratesd EY's Nightfall privacy protocol into Starknet, letting institutions run private payments and DEFI on public ETH rails without exposing their moves. Some bad news too, as ETH's next upgrade will force validators to include every valid transaction, of the chain forks away from them. No exceptions.

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• Altcoins and stablecoins: XRP just overtook Solana in tokenized real world asset value, with Soli launching yield vaults for RLUSD holders, backed by private credit and tokenized Treasuries, and their first pools filled in under 72 hours. I heard of a next generation online betting platform called Bluff, I need to check it to see what is all this noise about it. Fun fact: Binance controls now 65% of all stablecoin reserves across centralized exchanges. WLFI surged 22% 24 hours ahead a private crypto forum at Mar-a-Lago, with big names like Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq and Franklin Templeton in the room, but this is just a short squezze, not real demand. Two spot SUI ETFs launched in the same day, one on Nasdaq, another one on NYSE Arca, both with staking rewards baked in. Wintermute launched a 24/7 tokenized Gold trading (PAXG and XAUt), via their OTC desk. CME, the world's largest derivatives marketplace, is going 24/7 for BTC and ETH futures starting May 29.

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• NFTs and blockchain games: Animoca landed a major licence in Dubai. I have also enjoyed playing Golem Overlord lately on Hive, and it is quite enjoyable, I would say, with some significant updates lately. On Splinterlands, we have had the Land NFT new update and improved tokenomics, and the new cards from the Conclave mini collection are up and running.

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• Good news: Nexo is back in America offering yield programs and crypto-backed credit lines, powered by Bakkt. Hyperliquid launched a D.C.-based lobbying non-profit, backed by $29M in Hype tokens. PumpDotFun is paying now traders, shifting from token creators, as they experienced a decline in platform revenue, with a 75% drop in fees from January 2025 to January 2026. Tether invested in Dreamcash, a Hyperliquid frontend.

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• Bad news: Crypto funds hit their fourth straight week of outflows, bleeding $173M, with the total outflows over the past month reaching $3.8B, as US investors dumped $403M worth of it last week alone. Five straight weeks of outflows in fact, as another week started, and trading volumes are at their lowest since July 2025. Poland's president vetoed a MiCA bill for the second time in two months, calling it practically identical to the one he already rejected. July 2026 EU deadline is getting close, yet the Polish crypto companies still have no path to get licensed at home.

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• Joke of the week: Steak 'n Shake started accepting Bitcoin nine months ago, and same-store sales have risen dramatically since. They are even paying hourly employees part of their wages in BTC. Its reserve is now up to 161 BTC, worth a bit over $10M. It is looking good, as Voltage launched a revolving credit line that lets companies send instant Lightning payments and repay in plain US dollars, with no crypto balance sheet needed. As a good sign, the US mortgage lender Rate launched a program that lets borrowers count their crypto holdings toward home loan qualification without selling a single coin.

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All the best,

George

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Why not...

...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- a Hearthstone-like card game) (Golem Overlord - a Play2Earn game on Hive) (Upland - a real-life virtual land) (Holozing - a Pokemon-like game)and ( Chain of Legends - with a hint of Heroes of Might and Magic).

...get crypto while writing on the Publish0x blog. I am also writing for crypto on Hive.

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