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According to the official announcement from Huobi HTX, the platform has officially launched the "Crypto Pizza Festival" series of activities, covering multiple gameplay options such as task challenges, holiday red envelopes, and lucky draws, with a total prize pool exceeding 200,000 USDT, including physical grand prizes like the iPhone 17 Pro Max, 10 grams of gold, and pizza vouchers.The task challenge competition runs from May 14 to May 25. After signing up, users can complete any one of the five tasks: earning coins, spot trading, contract trading, learning to earn coins, or holding $HTX to light up "Fire Treasures" and receive tiered rewards such as USDT earning interest vouchers, contract experience gold, and spot trading fee cashback vouchers. Collecting all Fire Treasures allows participation in a lucky draw to share a prize pool of 100,000 USDT, thousands of pizza vouchers, and USDT 10% earning interest vouchers.From May 18 to June 19, the pizza carnival red envelope activity will also be launched, with a total prize pool of 100,000 USDT. On the birthday of Fire Treasures (May 18) and Bitcoin Pizza Day (May 22), users can visit the event post to receive no-threshold red envelopes. Completing daily interactions or referral tasks can unlock subsequent red envelope qualifications, and checking in for 7 consecutive days can unlock large red envelopes.The lucky draw activity will start on May 18. During the event, accumulating a spot trading volume of ≥100 USDT or a single contract trading volume of ≥2,000 USDT will grant a chance to enter the draw. The prize pool includes an iPhone 17 Pro Max in Starry Orange (1TB), Keron 4 GT, 10 grams of gold, BTT/NFT/WIN/SUN tokens, and contract experience gold, among others.

According to the Financial Times, several large technology companies, including Alphabet and Amazon, are accelerating their entry into the global bond market, raising funds through large-scale overseas bond issuance to support the expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure and computing power.The report states that this round of financing activities has reached a new high in recent years, reflecting the increasing demand for long-term capital expenditures among tech giants in the AI race, particularly focused on data centers, computing clusters, and cloud infrastructure construction.Analysts believe that against the backdrop of high interest rates, companies are choosing to optimize their financing structure globally, diversifying funding costs and term risks through multi-currency debt markets, further strengthening their capacity for investment in AI infrastructure.

According to The Block, Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom stated that the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are advancing 24/7 trading, and the U.S. Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation is promoting tokenized collateral, along with Bullish's acquisition of Equiniti, indicating that the public equity on-chain process may be faster than the market expects.Meanwhile, several Ethereum reserve companies have significantly retreated from their summer 2025 highs, with a noticeable contraction in the market value to net asset value ratio. Chalom mentioned that some companies are under pressure due to prematurely issuing preferred stock or convertible bonds; Sharplink focuses more on equity financing and staking yields while trying to keep the balance sheet simple.He also stated that over the past year and a half, Bitcoin and Ethereum have behaved more like risk assets, but as stablecoins, tokenized assets, DeFi, and AI applications expand on Ethereum, Ethereum may further differentiate from Bitcoin in the long term.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York stated in a court filing on Tuesday that Roni Cohen-Pavon, the former Chief Revenue Officer of the defunct crypto lending platform Celsius, has agreed to a forfeiture judgment of $1.07 million, representing the proceeds traceable to his criminal conduct. Cohen-Pavon pleaded guilty in September 2023 to charges of fraud and conspiracy to manipulate the price related to Celsius's CEL token, and is scheduled to be sentenced this Thursday. Cohen-Pavon's lawyer previously requested a sentence of time served, citing his cooperation agreement with the government and his potential role in the guilty plea of former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky.Mashinsky was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2025 for commodity and securities fraud and agreed to forfeit over $48 million. In a letter to the judge, Cohen-Pavon stated, "I plead guilty because I am guilty. I participated in the manipulation of the CEL token. I should have stopped it but did not, I could have left but did not. I take full responsibility for this."Additionally, on Thursday, Judge Lewis Kaplan of the same court ordered that $10 million in assets associated with former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried be used to fulfill his forfeiture agreement. Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for defrauding FTX users and investors and is subject to over $11 billion in forfeiture. His appeal to overturn the conviction and sentence is still pending.

PANews' in-depth analysis article points out that, in the context of accelerating global cryptocurrency regulation, compliance capability is becoming a key watershed in the competition among CEXs. Trading platforms represented by Gate are strengthening their competitiveness in the mainstream financial system by continuously expanding their global licensing network.Specifically, Gate is promoting its compliance layout through its various operational entities: Gate US achieves compliant operations in 46 jurisdictions by holding 35 state-level MTL licenses in the United States; leveraging the Cyprus CySEC license, MiCA license, and Payment Institution (PI) license, it is deeply developing business in multiple regions in Europe; Gate Japan is entering the highly regulated Japanese market with the FSA license; it is tapping into the rapidly growing Middle Eastern market with the Dubai VARA license; at the same time, it has completed its layout in the Australian market through AUSTRAC registration.The article notes that compared to some platforms that focus on advancing in a single region, Gate prefers to promote its global compliance layout by establishing entities in multiple locations and directly applying for licenses. Although this path takes longer and incurs higher costs, it helps enhance long-term compliance credibility and diversify risks associated with a single jurisdiction. As global regulation enters the enforcement phase in 2026, the industry's model of "expanding first, complying later" is gradually retreating, and compliance is transforming from a cost item into a core asset, becoming a key threshold for platforms to participate in mainstream market competition.

The regulated securitization trading platform tZERO announced the integration of its tokenized issuance platform into the Aptos network, enabling issuers to directly issue real-world asset (RWA) tokens on this high-performance public chain, further broadening the on-chain path for institutional-grade assets.Aptos is positioned as the underlying network for institutional-grade tokenization infrastructure and is continuously attracting traditional finance and compliant tokenization platforms. Currently, tokenized funds from institutions such as BlackRock and Franklin Templeton are already operating on-chain.With the integration of tZERO, the compliant asset issuance and trading infrastructure on Aptos has been further improved, covering the full chain capabilities from issuance, circulation to settlement.

The Sun Wukong Ecology announced that it will hold an in-depth roundtable discussion on May 12 at 20:00 on the X platform, with the theme "B.AI User Scale and Ecological Expansion Acceleration, Will AI Transfer Stations Become Core Infrastructure in the Agent Era?"It is reported that this event will focus on the critical stage of the AI industry’s transformation towards "application efficiency and entry competition." Guests will discuss the competitive landscape of entry points against the backdrop of tool fragmentation, analyze the logic of the explosion of AI Agents combined with Crypto and stablecoin settlement systems, and engage in in-depth exchanges on how B.AI builds the next generation of AI infrastructure networks through multi-model scheduling, Agent payments, on-chain identity, and automated collaboration.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes stated in his latest blog post that the Bitcoin bull market truly began with the outbreak of war between the U.S. and Iran on February 28. AI capital expenditures, war spending, and countries' investments in physical infrastructure to ensure supply chain security will drive the reckless expansion of fiat credit, and Bitcoin will continue to benefit.Hayes pointed out that Bitcoin has rebounded from a low of $60,000 earlier this year, reiterating that breaking through the previous high of $126,000 is "inevitable." Hayes believes that the scale of this round of AI capital expenditures is unprecedented, with central banks like the Federal Reserve printing more money. The declining trust in dollar assets will shift towards investments in physical infrastructure and commodity reserves, further driving fiat expansion.He expects that once Bitcoin breaks through $90,000, the momentum will accelerate, and he will raise the risk exposure of Maelstrom's portfolio to the maximum. Besides Hyperliquid and Zcash, Hayes' next most favored altcoin is NEAR, which he will explain in subsequent articles regarding how its privacy narrative and Intent architecture create positive cash flow for the protocol. He concluded by stating that while it is currently a bull market, there will eventually be a time to sell, but that time is not now.

According to informed sources, Payward, the parent company of the cryptocurrency platform Kraken, is conducting a new round of capital financing at a valuation of $20 billion, to which Kraken declined to comment.The company has recently significantly increased its merger and acquisition spending—acquiring the stablecoin-focused payment company Reap for $600 million and the digital asset derivatives platform Bitnomial for $550 million, both transactions conducted at a $20 billion valuation.Its largest transaction was the $1.5 billion acquisition of the U.S. retail futures platform and CFTC-registered futures commission merchant NinjaTrader in 2025, which provided Kraken with a significant foothold in the U.S. derivatives market.Regarding IPO progress, Payward secretly submitted an S-1 registration statement draft to the U.S. SEC on November 19, 2025. Although reports in March 2026 indicated that the company paused its IPO plans due to unfavorable market conditions, sources stated that the company still intends to go public, but may wait for market improvements.At last week's Consensus conference in Miami, Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi stated that the trading platform is "80% ready" for an IPO.Additionally, Deutsche Börse (DB1) purchased approximately 1.5% of Payward's shares for $200 million through a secondary share sale in April 2026, valuing Payward at $13.3 billion (lower than the previous financing round's valuation of about $20 billion).In November 2025, Kraken completed an $800 million financing in two tranches to push traditional financial products onto the blockchain, with investors including Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital, and Tribe Capital. Subsequently, Citadel Securities also made a strategic investment of $200 million at a $20 billion valuation.

OpenAI announced the launch of a new business unit, "OpenAI Deployment Company," focused on helping enterprises deeply integrate AI systems into their core business processes, and has agreed to acquire the AI consulting and engineering firm Tomoro. This acquisition will bring approximately 150 Forward Deployed Engineers and deployment specialists to the deployment company.OpenAI stated that this department will directly assign engineers to work within enterprises, collaborating with management and frontline teams to restructure workflows, build AI production systems, and promote the practical implementation of AI in complex business scenarios. The initial funding scale of the deployment company exceeds $4 billion, with OpenAI as the majority shareholder, TPG leading the investment, and institutions such as Advent, Bain Capital, and Brookfield participating, along with major capital and consulting firms like Goldman Sachs, SoftBank, McKinsey, and Capgemini.OpenAI mentioned that currently, over 1 million enterprises are using its products, and the next phase of enterprise AI competition will shift from "using AI" to "restructuring organizations and business systems around AI."

According to Fortune, AI startup Ciridae announced the completion of a $20,000,000 seed round financing, led by Accel, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst.The company was co-founded by former a16z partner Jack Soslow and former Apple machine learning head Jack Weissenberger, focusing on providing AI transformation services for medium-sized enterprises in the real economy, such as home services, construction, and industrial distribution.

French listed company Capital B (ALCPB) announced the completion of a €15.2 million financing, with investors including global institutional investors and strategic investors Adam Back and TOBAM, to accelerate its Bitcoin treasury company strategy.

The stablecoin payment infrastructure platform WasabiCard recently announced its official membership in the Circle Alliance Program, becoming a member of its global stablecoin ecosystem cooperation network.It is reported that WasabiCard mainly targets global business scenarios, building integrated products around global card issuance, payment, and fund distribution to help enterprises manage global funds. Currently, its products have been applied in business scenarios such as AI, SaaS, advertising spending, cross-border e-commerce, and global settlement.The official stated that in the future, WasabiCard will deepen collaboration with Circle and global ecosystem partners, aiming to promote the large-scale implementation of compliant stablecoins like USDC in real business scenarios.

According to on-chain data monitored by Catcher Predict, significant capital movements are predicted to occur in the market Polymarket. A large whale invested $158,628.58 in "FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid CF," specifically targeting "FC Barcelona." Based on the current transaction price, the latest corresponding winning probability for this target is 59%.

Data submitted by the Bank of Korea to the National Assembly shows that the scale of cryptocurrency assets held by South Korean investors has decreased from 121.8 trillion won (approximately 8.33 billion USD) at the end of 2025 to 60.6 trillion won (approximately 4.14 billion USD) at the end of 2026, shrinking by more than 50% in one year. During the same period, the average daily trading volume of South Korea's five major exchanges—Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit, Coinone, and Gopax—also fell from 11.6 billion USD in December 2024 to 3 billion USD in February this year.The scale of deposits in exchanges in won has decreased from 10.7 trillion won to 7.8 trillion won, reflecting that some funds are flowing into the South Korean stock market. However, the holdings of stablecoins remain relatively strong. Data shows that South Korea's stablecoin holdings peaked at 597 million USD in December 2024 and fell to 41 million USD in February this year, with a decline significantly smaller than that of the overall cryptocurrency market. In addition, South Korean regulators plan to implement stricter anti-money laundering rules in August, automatically marking transactions involving overseas exchanges or private wallets exceeding 10 million won as suspicious transactions. The Digital Asset Exchange Association (DAXA) of South Korea has warned that this measure may lead users to turn to overseas platforms like Binance. The South Korean Ministry of Finance also recently confirmed for the first time that a 22% tax rate on cryptocurrency gains will officially take effect on January 1, 2027.

According to Globenewswire, NASDAQ-listed company IREN announced its latest financial report and disclosed that it has signed an AI cloud contract with NVIDIA worth $3.4 billion. IREN will deploy air-cooled Blackwell GPU infrastructure for NVIDIA, with a contract duration of 5 years.The financial report also showed that IREN is accelerating its transition from Bitcoin mining to AI cloud business, with the construction of data centers related to the $9.7 billion contract with Microsoft progressing. As of April 30, IREN held $2.6 billion in cash, and its revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026 was $144.8 million, down from $184.7 million in the previous quarter, with a net loss of $247.8 million impacted by non-cash impairment related to the elimination of mining machines.

Bitcoin mining company TeraWulf announced its Q1 financial report, showing that its high-performance computing (HPC) business has for the first time surpassed Bitcoin mining revenue, marking a critical stage in the company's transformation towards AI and cloud computing infrastructure.The company's total revenue for Q1 was $34 million, roughly flat compared to the same period last year. Among this, HPC leasing revenue reached $21 million, surpassing the less than $13 million from digital asset mining for the first time, becoming the main source of income. The financial report also indicated that the company's net loss widened to $427.6 million, mainly due to the impact of non-cash warrant revaluation. However, CFO Patrick Fleury emphasized that the company is transitioning from "volatile mining revenue" to "stable long-term computing power contract revenue." Currently, TeraWulf has 60 MW of HPC capacity generating revenue at its Lake Mariner data center in New York and plans to continue expanding within the year. At the same time, the company is transforming part of its mining infrastructure into AI/HPC computing resources to support massive computing power demands. This trend is spreading throughout the industry, with Bitcoin mining companies like Riot Platforms also expanding their revenue structure through data centers and AI contracts, gradually transforming into "computing power infrastructure companies."

Gnosis DAO is conducting a Snapshot vote proposing to allow GNO holders to proportionally acquire shares of the DAO treasury through a voluntary redemption mechanism. According to analyst Ignas, the treasury holds approximately $223 million in assets (including ETH, stablecoins, and ecosystem tokens), with about 1.3 million GNO eligible for redemption, each corresponding to about $170 in treasury value, while the current trading price of GNO is around $132, representing a discount of about 27%.The vote reversed twice within 24 hours: after Gnosis co-founder Stefan George cast a dissenting vote, the situation briefly turned, but then a whale wallet holding 67,000 GNO cast a supporting vote, putting the supporters back in the lead. Currently, about 116,000 GNO are in favor (about 65%), 59,600 against, and 1,600 abstentions, surpassing the quorum threshold of 75,000 votes, with voting continuing until May 12.Supporters believe that Gnosis Ltd. has become a funding black hole structurally misaligned with the interests of holders, while opponents warn that redemption will weaken projects with actual users such as Gnosis Pay, Circles, and Gnosis Chain, and may trigger a chain reaction for other DAOs trading below net asset value.

Tushar Jain, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, disclosed on social media that he has significantly increased his holdings in the privacy coin Zcash since the beginning of this year. Multicoin Capital pointed out that Zcash has returned to the "cypherpunk" ideals on which cryptocurrency was founded. The proposed wealth confiscation bill in California is a warning signal.As the trend of confiscating private wealth through political means continues to grow, individuals and institutions will increasingly seek private assets that can protect their interests. Additionally, while Bitcoin has censorship resistance and cannot be frozen or blocked from use, this does not prevent governments from confiscating known held assets through wealth taxes. Therefore, assets that truly possess privacy, censorship resistance, and seizure resistance have a clear product-market fit, and the related demand is accelerating. In their view, ZEC is the most direct vehicle to express this investment theme in the public market.