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Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Apollo launches a massive tokenized fund, Pizza Day celebrated its 15 year anniversary yesterday, crypto VCs are wheeling and dealing, Sui network sees massive DEX hack, major banks want to partner in crypto efforts, Bitcoin Conference 2025 continues to announce amazing speakers, and so much more.

Happy Friday - let’s finish the week strong and even higher

Altcoin season might be approaching 👀 Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• Mixed results for US jobless claims fail to dent risk-asset enthusiasm

  • Initial jobless claims came in below expectations at 227,000, while continuing claims exceeded their target by 13,000

  • Despite concerns over the bond market, Bitcoin and stocks enjoy stability at the start of the Wall Street trading session

• BTC price expectations remain lofty amid low volatility and a curious lack of profit-taking

  • Bitcoin focused on $111,000 around the May 22 Wall Street open as record highs met mixed US unemployment data

Headline Roundup
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• Major U.S. banks Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, are exploring a joint stablecoin to battle the crypto industry head on - read the big development here

• Former SafeMoon CEO found guilty on all accounts and now faces 45 year sentence (CN)

• Kraken plans to introduce tokenized trading of more than 50 U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds, starting with Apple, Tesla and Nvidia (TB)

• Trump's meme coin dinner draws protests calling for end to 'Crypto Corruption' (DC)

• R3 a major UK blockchain developer for financial institutions, partners with Solana Foundation for tokenization efforts (CD)

• Centrifuge expands tokenized asset services to Solana via Anemoy’s $400M tokenized U.S. treasury fund (CD)

• Strategy looks to purchase more bitcoin by selling 10% Series A Perpetual Strife Preferred Stock (STRF) via at-the-market program (TB)

• BlockTrust IRA adds quant trading tools to retirement accounts for crypto (CD)

• UK judge partially dismisses lawsuit against Binance with $11.9B claim by Bitcoin SV investors (CT)

• Crypto game Ember Sword shuts down after failing to raise funding for its 8th year of operation (BW)

• H100 is the first public Swedish company to establish a bitcoin treasury (BM)

• Lightning payments get bitcoin-native SDK through Breez and Spark partnership (BM)

• Bitcoin Liquid Network reaches massive total value locked (TVL) milestone of $3.27B (BM)

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Venture Capital

• Tritemius becomes Spain’s first regulated web3 VC fund with €21M to invest in startups (EU)

• Impossible Cloud Network reaches $470M valuation following strategic investment from NGP Capital (DL)

• GEM Token Fund completes $100M token purchase for Mogul, a daily fantasy platform for Hollywood (BW)

• OpenFX exits stealth with $23M funding round led by Accel for cross-border payments (BW)

• Roxom Network secures $17.9M across two rounds from Draper Associates, Borderless Capital, and more to build a media network backed by bitcoin treasury (NG)

• Arai Systems announces $4M seed round from Sequoia China, Gate Ventures, Animoca Brands and others (AS)

• Italian memecoin developer POPEcoin raises $1.5M for token and bitcoin L2 plans (FS)

• Valereum ($VLRM) confirms strategic $1.35M investment into real estate tokenization company DigiShares (PI)

Launches

• Apollo Global Management launches $785M AUM tokenized credit fund on Solana (DF)

• FIFA plans to launch their own Layer-1 blockchain in partnership with Avalanche (WG)

• Ledger launches exclusive Solana-focused Ledger Flex non-custodial wallet (TB)

Regulation

• Kazakhstan progresses with multiple crypto regulatory guidelines for exchanges and stablecoins (CC)

• Michigan regulators seek to ban CBDC advocacy as state attempts pro-crypto planning (TB)

• European political leader Nigel Farage will speak at Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Nashville (BM)

Cybersecurity

• Cetus, Sui’s biggest DEX and liquidity provider, hacked for $223M via spoof tokens (CD)

• Mitroplus Labs founder robbed in Uganda at gunpoint for $500k of crypto (DT)

• A fake uber driver drugged and stole $123k of bitcoin from a US tourist in the UK (CT)

• LummaC2 seed stealing malware infrastructure taken down by law enforcement (DT)

Extra Reads

• Halliday CEO Griffin Dunaif said that there may be smaller margins on stablecoins, but lots of potential in the services around them - Are stablecoins crypto’s AWS moment?

Chart of the Day

An OG Bitcoiner bought 2 Papa John’s pizzas for 10,000 BTC on May 22, 2010 for ~$41 at the time. Today that would be worth $1.1B

Upcoming Events

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