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YZi Labs announced the launch of its flagship global incubation program EASY Residency Season 4 (S4), with the application deadline set for June 21. This 10-week founder program adopts a "5 weeks online + 5 weeks offline in Bhutan" model, with the offline phase taking place in the newly established special administrative region of Glimpse Mindfulness City in Bhutan. Selected projects can receive up to $500,000 in investment, including a $150,000 SAFE agreement for 5% equity and a $3.5 million unlimited SAFE agreement, with founders' accommodation, meals, and workspace costs fully covered during their stay in Bhutan.This round of incubation focuses on the fields of Web3, AI, and biotechnology, including global payments, Agentic Economy, next-generation DeFi, AI infrastructure, AI × healthcare biotechnology, and Web3 × healthcare biotechnology. The mentor lineup includes Zhao Changpeng, He Yi, and Balaji, among others.

According to CoinDesk, approximately $6.25 billion in Bitcoin options contracts will expire on May 29, with a strike price of $75,000 gathering the largest put position with a notional value of about $394 million, while the $80,000 strike price has the largest call position of about $532 million. The current maximum pain point is at $75,000, which is about 3% lower than the current Bitcoin price of $77,250. Data shows that this expiration involves a total of 80,535 contracts, with 43,184 call options and 37,351 put options, resulting in a Put/Call Ratio of 0.86, indicating that the market overall still leans towards a moderately bullish outlook.It is worth noting that the Bitcoin call option expiring on May 29, 2026, with a strike price of $82,000 became the most actively traded single option product on Thursday, with about 1,600 contracts traded and a notional value of approximately $126 million, indicating that some traders are betting on a breakout for Bitcoin.

According to BizWatch, FocusAI, the largest shareholder of Busan Digital Asset Exchange, is seeking to acquire Flybit, which is also a cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea. It is reported that the two companies are in the final stages of discussions regarding the details of the transaction, which includes the sale of shares held by Flybit's CEO and largest shareholder Kim Seok-jin.Flybit was registered as a virtual asset service provider in 2021 but exited the KRW-denominated market due to its failure to establish the required real-name account partnerships with banks.

According to Ventureburn, Mouro Capital, the fintech venture capital fund under Santander Bank, announced the completion of its first round of fundraising for its third fund, raising $400 million. The investor is also Santander Bank. This fund will prioritize investments in areas such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, capital markets, and wealth management, aiming to enter the deep intersection of financial services, artificial intelligence, and enterprise software.It is reported that Mouro Capital had previously co-invested in the DeFi platform M^ZERO.

Gate Europe CEO Dr. Giovanni Cunti attended the VI3NNA Congress 2026 and delivered a keynote speech titled "The Role of Exchanges and Stablecoins." The conference was held from May 19 to 20 in Vienna, Austria, bringing together industry representatives from Web3, AI, finance, and regulation to discuss the future development direction of the European digital economy.Giovanni Cunti's speech analyzed the popularization of stablecoin applications, industry development trends, and how blockchain financial infrastructure is gradually reshaping the traditional financial market landscape. It focused on how crypto asset service providers, including Gate Europe, are transitioning from meeting user needs to playing a key role in driving industry structure and future market development. In addition to the keynote speech, Giovanni Cunti also participated in several roundtable discussions, engaging with policymakers, financial institutions, investors, and industry innovators on topics such as digital asset regulation, infrastructure development, and real market implementation.Currently, Gate's Malta company, Gate Europe, has obtained European MiCA and PI licenses under the regulation of the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA). As the industry continues to move towards compliance and institutional development, Gate is actively participating in global key industry dialogues and promoting the long-term development of the digital asset ecosystem.

According to official news, the online presentation "Build the Next Era: How HTX Genesis Empowers Web3 and AI Innovators," hosted by HTX DAO and B.AI, and co-hosted by TinTinLand and OpenCity, will be held on May 21 at 20:00 UTC+8.At that time, HTX DAO ambassador Molly, HTX DAO Core Builder Helium, independent developer Fengda, 0G Asia-Pacific head JT, TinTinLand co-founder Zhiyuan, HTX DAO governance committee member DaDa, and HTX Ventures senior investment analyst Jenny will be invited to attend, focusing on the integration trends of Web3 and AI, and discussing how to utilize ecological resources, financial support, and more to build a growth bridge for the new generation of Web3 and AI builders, seizing innovative opportunities in the new cycle.

Vitalik Buterin posted on social media, listing several native privacy initiatives that Ethereum is currently promoting, including the combination of AA and FOCIL (providing top-notch support and strong packaging guarantees for privacy protocol transactions), the Keyed Nonces scheme, and access layer-related work (covering features such as Kohaku and private reads).

Mastercard has abandoned its investment plan for the cryptocurrency infrastructure company Zerohash, which had previously agreed in March to acquire the UK stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK for $1.8 billion. Mastercard had considered a strategic investment in Chicago-based Zerohash in January of this year. At that time, Zerohash was seeking to raise $250 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion, while the company is currently advancing a new funding round at a higher valuation. Founded in 2017, Zerohash primarily provides APIs and developer tools for cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and tokenized products.Meanwhile, recent transactions involving Kraken's parent company Payward and Bullish indicate that consolidation in the digital asset infrastructure sector is ongoing. In terms of stablecoin payment arrangements, Mastercard has acquired BVNK for $1.8 billion and may pay an additional $300 million in performance-based compensation. BVNK currently serves payment and payroll platforms like Worldpay and Deel for cross-border payments, fund settlement, and financial management.Mastercard plans to integrate BVNK's technology into its Mastercard Move network to support 24/7 stablecoin settlement for payment institutions and merchant acquirers, and to explore adding stablecoin checkout functionality in payment gateways. Analysts believe that this transaction will further intensify the competition between Mastercard and Visa in the networked strategy of payment networks and accelerate the evolution of traditional cross-border clearing systems towards stablecoin settlement models.

According to Reuters, three insiders revealed that a fund management company based in Hong Kong is planning to launch a new hedge fund to capitalize on the growing interest of investors in Asian artificial intelligence stocks, focusing on the markets in Taiwan and Japan. Kuark Capital, led by Kyle Su, has already raised at least $400 million in funding before the official launch of the hedge fund. One of the sources stated that the three insiders requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

According to Axios, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Playground Global has completed fundraising of $475 million for a new fund, which will focus on investing in startups in the fields of artificial intelligence, automation, advanced computing, and deep tech.Playground Global was founded by Android co-founder Andy Rubin and others, and has long focused on AI infrastructure, robotics, and hardware innovation. This new fund indicates that, driven by the surge in generative AI and automation, capital continues to pour into the frontier technology sector.Playground Global is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and previously completed fundraising of $410 million for its third fund in 2022. Its investment portfolio includes companies such as Agility Robotics, PsiQuantum, Skydio, Ultima Genomics, Virta Health, and Unconventional AI.

According to Decrypt, the cryptocurrency technology company Quantography Labs has announced the launch of the early access version of the cryptocurrency wallet Lock.com. This product uses "Isolated Signing" and an Air-Gapped architecture, enabling offline private key management without the need for dedicated hardware wallet devices.The official statement indicates that Lock.com separates the signing environment from the network broadcasting environment: private keys are always stored in a completely offline device, while transactions are created and broadcast on a connected device, thus avoiding private key exposure to the internet. The platform emphasizes that users can directly use existing devices without relying on third-party hardware manufacturers or supply chains. Additionally, Lock.com integrates post-quantum cryptography architecture, including ML-DSA digital signatures and ML-KEM key encapsulation mechanisms, to enhance security in future quantum computing environments.Quantography Labs stated that the current early access phase is mainly used to collect user feedback and prepare for a subsequent full launch.

According to CoinDesk, Nasdaq-listed company SUI Group and London hedge fund Karatage jointly led a $15 million financing round for Nof1, an AI research lab focused on financial markets. The two previously also partnered with TwinPath Ventures to invest in Recursive Superintelligence, a self-evolving AI startup valued at over $4 billion.Both investments are based on the same core judgment: autonomous AI agents will become the core infrastructure of the investment field in the future, and companies that establish training environments today may dominate the future financial landscape.

The crypto data platform Dune Analytics announced a major restructuring on Thursday, cutting 25% of its workforce while shifting its strategic focus to two main areas: AI-driven data tools and the on-chain asset adoption by financial institutions. The company stated that it is well-funded and emphasized that it has built a complete end-to-end technology stack for crypto data infrastructure, covering data collection, quality assurance, storage, cleaning, standardization, and querying. Its core product, Dune MCP, allows teams and agents to build dashboards and workflows without the need for SQL knowledge or managing data infrastructure costs.Dune stated that it currently serves almost all leading crypto companies and is expanding to large financial institution clients to address the trend of traditional assets such as currencies, stocks, bonds, and commodities migrating on-chain. Since its establishment in 2018, Dune has experienced multiple market cycles, and this restructuring reflects a broader trend in the industry towards institutional-grade infrastructure and AI integration tools.

The Gate Research Institute recently released the "April 2026 Cryptocurrency Market Review" report, which pointed out that the cryptocurrency market in April showed an overall upward trend, with total market capitalization significantly rising compared to March. The trading volume of BTC and ETH ETFs remained high and volatile. The report indicates that the activity levels of major public chain ecosystems continue to diverge. Solana's daily trading volume remained in the range of approximately 90 million to 110 million transactions, continuing to lead.In terms of hot sectors, the report noted that Pokemon TCG RWA has become one of the fastest-growing sub-sectors of on-chain RWA and entered a secondary explosion phase in April. Major trading platforms saw monthly trading volumes exceed 220 million USD, with weekly revenue nearing 6 million USD at one point, setting a new historical high. Meanwhile, Aave experienced the most severe liquidity shock in its history in April, with TVL outflows reaching hundreds of billions of dollars within days, and net outflows for the month exceeding 9 billion USD.Regarding financing and security incidents, the Web3 industry completed a total of 51 financing rounds in April, with a total amount of approximately 834 million USD, with funds further concentrating in leading finance and infrastructure sectors. Among them, Payward topped the monthly financing with 200 million USD. On the security front, Web3 security incidents in April resulted in losses of approximately 306 million USD, a month-on-month increase of about 858%, primarily driven by a single cross-chain infrastructure attack incident involving Kelp DAO, which amounted to about 293 million USD. The report believes that against the backdrop of a market recovery, on-chain activity and capital liquidity are improving simultaneously, but the security risks of cross-chain infrastructure and high-leverage protocols still warrant ongoing attention.

The Gate Research Institute recently released the report "April 2026 Cryptocurrency Market Review," indicating that the cryptocurrency market in April showed an overall upward trend, with total market capitalization significantly higher than in March, and BTC and ETH ETF trading volumes maintaining high volatility. The report shows that the activity levels of major public chain ecosystems continue to diverge. Solana's daily trading volume remains in the range of approximately 90 million to 110 million transactions, continuing to lead.In terms of hot sectors, the report points out that Pokemon TCG RWA has become one of the fastest-growing sub-sectors of on-chain RWA and entered a secondary explosion phase in April. Major trading platforms saw monthly trading volumes exceed 220 million USD, with weekly revenue nearing 6 million USD at one point, setting a new historical high. Meanwhile, Aave experienced the most severe liquidity shock in its history in April, with TVL outflows reaching hundreds of billions of dollars within a few days, and net outflows for the entire month exceeding 9 billion USD.Regarding financing and security incidents, the Web3 industry completed a total of 51 financing rounds in April, with a total amount of approximately 834 million USD, with funds further concentrating in leading finance and infrastructure sectors. Among them, Payward ranked first for the month with 200 million USD in financing.On the security front, Web3 security incidents in April resulted in losses of approximately 306 million USD, a month-on-month increase of about 858%, primarily driven by a cross-chain infrastructure attack incident involving Kelp DAO, which amounted to about 293 million USD. The report believes that against the backdrop of market recovery, on-chain activity and capital liquidity have both increased, but the security risks of cross-chain infrastructure and high-leverage protocols still warrant ongoing attention.

The globally leading cryptocurrency trading platform Gate has released the special edition "Behind Gate: Dr. Han" for its thirteenth anniversary, presenting the multi-day itinerary of founder and CEO Dr. Han in Hong Kong in a documentary format. The content covers key moments such as team activities, client meetings, media communications, the Gate 13th anniversary blue carpet ceremony, and speeches at the University of Hong Kong, focusing on his high-intensity work pace and external communication dynamics.The video also presents Dr. Han's thoughts on iWeb3, as well as his ongoing viewpoints in public speeches and media communications, covering directions such as intelligent infrastructure and industry development trends. It is mentioned in the film that the 13th anniversary is seen as a new starting point for development, and based on long-term accumulation, the platform has completed phased preparations in technology, products, and global layout.Overall, this issue continues the series' documentary style, reflecting Gate's current accelerated pace in business advancement and industry communication from multiple aspects, including team collaboration, external communication, and brand activities. As the platform enters its 13th anniversary and its global user base surpasses 53 million, its ongoing progress in compliance and global expansion further releases clear signals for the next stage of growth.

YZi Labs announced the 25 graduation projects of its flagship incubation project EASY Residency for the third season, focusing on areas such as on-chain financial market structure reconstruction, AI agents, tokenization of real-world assets, prediction markets, and privacy compliance. The 25 projects include:Identity and payment infrastructure for AI agents on the BNB chain Bank of AI, litigation workflow legal evidence indexing tool Brief Tech, AI probability output verifiable reasoning platform Cournot, financialized social network and trading platform Dapital, programmable token issuance infrastructure Flap;On-chain marketplace for collectibles and intellectual property assets GEMINT, on-chain options and structured products platform LayerV, CEX-level on-chain liquidity platform LunarBase, multi-market agent capital acquisition platform L7, DeFi unified margin layer Möbius, permissionless margin trading protocol Nemesis;AI agent-driven automated financial decision execution layer Newsliquid, tokenized private market exposure DeFi platform Openstocks, on-chain poker skill game options market PokerFi, prediction market automation and intelligence infrastructure Polysights, physical collectibles RWA liquidity infrastructure Renaiss;Fixed-rate decentralized lending platform TermMax, compliance-oriented digital asset privacy infrastructure 0xBow, AI agent workflow self-custody authorization layer Functor, interest-free stablecoin new bank for the Muslim market Isaac, on-chain prime brokerage platform for the BNB chain MARGIN X;Frictionless stablecoin exchange N-dimensional AMM Orbswap, compliance-oriented cross-chain privacy exchange protocol SilentSwap, crypto market AI agent trading and automation infrastructure Taco AI, on-chain event-driven derivatives platform Vibe.fun.

According to CoinDesk, the three blockchains focused on stablecoins and tokenization, Arc, Canton, and Tempo, have collectively raised over $1 billion, reflecting an increasing demand from institutions for privacy-focused crypto infrastructure. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan stated that as cryptocurrencies further enter mainstream finance, privacy features may become a key application scenario for the industry.Specifically, Circle recently raised $222 million for Arc, with a valuation of $3 billion; Digital Asset is reportedly raising $300 million for Canton, with a valuation of $2 billion; and Tempo, supported by Stripe and Paradigm, previously raised $500 million, with a valuation of $5 billion. Hougan also mentioned that the advancement of stablecoin legislation in the U.S. is providing a clearer regulatory environment for institutional investment in related infrastructure.

The U.S. Court of Appeals is hearing the appeal case of Roman Sterlingov, focusing on the key discussion of whether cryptocurrency services are subject to U.S. law. The case centers on: whether a small number of transactions conducted by law enforcement in Washington is sufficient to establish jurisdiction; and the reliability of evidence identifying the defendant through "IP overlap analysis" by the FBI. The U.S. Department of Justice argues that Bitcoin Fog, as a global money transfer service aimed at U.S. users, should be bound by U.S. law; while the defense questions the law enforcement's "artificial creation of jurisdiction."