Weekly Update: 29th of May
What happened between May 22 and May 29?
- Crypto markets corrected further after fresh U.S.-Israel airstrikes on Iran. Bitcoin slipped toward $75,000 and spot bitcoin ETFs posted six straight days of net outflows totalling $1.26 billion. Read more
- CME Group launches round-the-clock trading in its bitcoin and ether futures and options on Friday, May 29. The move ends the well-known “CME gap” that opened every weekend. Read more
- Block is rolling out USDC stablecoin payments to nearly 60 million Cash App users this week. SoFi simultaneously launched its own SoFiUSD stablecoin for 14.7 million members. Read more
- The BIS wrapped up the first test phase of Project Agorá. The tokenisation experiment with eight central banks and over 40 financial institutions will advance to real-value transactions. Read more
Markets correct on geopolitics as ETF outflows mount
Bitcoin slipped toward $75,000 last week, while ether briefly broke below $2,000. Fresh U.S.-Israel airstrikes on Iranian targets pushed risk assets broadly lower, wiping out about $900 million in leveraged longs within 24 hours.
Funds took a hit as well. Spot bitcoin ETFs recorded six consecutive days of net outflows, totalling $1.26 billion for the week ending May 17 and roughly $1.47 billion across all crypto investment products. BlackRock’s IBIT logged its second-largest daily outflow since launch. New Fed chair Kevin Warsh is also proving stricter on rates than expected, pushing rate cuts further out than markets had priced in.
CME launches 24/7 trading in bitcoin and ether futures
CME Group is extending its crypto derivatives to round-the-clock trading on the Globex platform from Friday, May 29. The move covers bitcoin and ether futures and options, plus several larger altcoin contracts, with only a 60-minute weekly maintenance pause on Sunday evening.
This eliminates the well-known “CME gap” — the price difference between Friday’s close and Monday’s open. Up to seven designated market makers will support continuous trading. For institutional participants this removes a structural inefficiency that has existed since CME bitcoin futures launched in 2017.
Cash App and SoFi bring stablecoins to tens of millions of users
Block has begun the phased rollout of USDC stablecoin payments in Cash App, which has a user base of nearly 60 million. By the end of the week 100% of users will have access. USDC is supported on Solana, Ethereum, Polygon and Arbitrum, with daily sending limits of $2,000.
At the same time, SoFi launched SoFiUSD, a dollar-backed stablecoin for its 14.7 million members. That makes SoFi the first U.S. national bank to issue a retail stablecoin directly on public blockchains, in this case Ethereum and Solana. Each token is redeemable 1:1 at SoFi Bank, with regular attestations by an independent accountant.
BIS completes first phase of Project Agorá and moves to live transactions
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has completed the first test phase of Project Agorá. The experiment explores whether tokenised central bank reserves and tokenised commercial bank deposits can make wholesale cross-border payments faster and safer. Eight central banks and over 40 financial institutions are participating.
Results show that atomic settlement across currencies and jurisdictions is technically achievable, with less reconciliation and lower operational risk. The next phase moves to transactions with real value in selected currencies. In the design, central banks retain autonomy over their own currencies within a shared, interoperable platform.
In other digital assets news
- Samsung Securities is acquiring a 2% stake in Dunamu, operator of Upbit, for $204 million. Samsung SDS and Samsung Card are each buying another 1%, with the transaction set to close on June 19.
- The U.S. CFTC is asking a court to vacate the $5 million fine imposed on Gemini in January 2025, stating the case should never have been brought under current enforcement standards.
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