Author: jalilawsmith

Make CryptoSlate preferred on XRP price is testing a breakout zone near $1.50 as institutional inflows, rising derivatives activity, and easing whale-related selling improve the token’s setup, but the trade still depends on whether Bitcoin can hold above $80,000 through a critical macro week.CoinShares data released May 11 showed XRP investment products attracted $39.6 million in weekly inflows, while Bitcoin absorbed $706.1 million of the $858 million total that entered digital-asset funds.Bitcoin absorbed $706.1 million of the total $858 million, roughly 82% of all weekly fund flows, broke above $80,000, and lifted total crypto-product AUM to $160 billion.XRP has real…

eBay has officially rejected GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s $56 billion offer to buy the company.The eBay Board of Directors said it had rejected GameStop’s unsolicited proposal following a “thorough review with the support of its financial and legal advisors.”Cohen had said that if eBay’s Board rejected his offer, he would take it directly to shareholders, insisting: “There is nobody who is more qualified, based on my experience, to run the eBay business.”In a response letter to Cohen, published in full below, eBay chairman Paul Pressler said the offer “is neither credible nor attractive.”Dear Mr. Cohen,The Board, with the support of…

This is an excerpt from CoinDesk newsletter ‘Daybook.’ Sign up here, if you haven’t already.Bitcoin’s BTC$80,621.04 rally stalled in the $80,000–$82,000 range, where it has largely traded since last Wednesday. While fund flows continue to point toward an eventual breakout, macro risks, particularly inflation, suggest caution. The U.S. is scheduled to report its consumer price index (CPI) for April at 8:30 a.m. ET. According to FactSet, the median estimate is 3.7%, up from 3.3% in March. If that proves correct, it would mark the largest increase in the CPI since January 2024 and be well above the trailing 12-month average…

Bakkt swung to a first-quarter loss as crypto services revenue fell 77%, underscoring the digital asset platform’s push to reposition itself around stablecoin payments and AI-enabled financial infrastructure.On Monday, the company reported a net loss attributable to Bakkt of $11.7 million, or 41 cents per basic and diluted share, for the quarter ended March 31. That compares with net income attributable to Bakkt of $7.7 million, or $1.13 per diluted share, a year earlier.Crypto services revenue fell to $243.6 million from $1.07 billion in the prior year’s period, Bakkt said. The company attributed the decline primarily to lower crypto trading…

When you watch a movie or a show that fits so comfortably in your wheelhouse, all you want to do is find something that scratches the same itch. Over the years, I’ve experienced serious bouts of Sicario fever. A film about the American government putting together a task force to stop a Mexican drug cartel is an easy sell for crime-thriller enthusiasts, but Sicario is buoyed by impressive A-listers (Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin), a smart script from a pre-Yellowstone Taylor Sheridan, and taut direction from Denis Villeneuve. Its immensely bleak subject matter is matched only by the…

Galaxy Digital (GLXY) and Sharplink (SBET) are teaming up to put part of the latter’s staked ETH treasury into decentralized finance (DeFi) strategies.The Galaxy Sharplink Onchain Yield Fund would receive $100 million from Sharplink’s staked ETH treasury and $25 million from Galaxy, the companies said.Galaxy is set to manage the investment, which is expected to commence in the coming weeks under a non-binding memorandum of understanding.The strategy will see capital deployed across DeFi liquidity protocols and other onchain yield strategies. The structure is designed to keep Sharplink’s core ETH exposure intact while adding an active yield strategy to its balance…

Alternative investment vehicles such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), led by BlackRock’s IBIT, hold sway over bitcoin’s price. That is well known by now.But another ETF from the betting world has been moving in lockstep with bitcoin’s BTC$80,984.66 cycles since 2020, with an interesting pattern that, to the naked eye, appears to show leading signals for BTC trend changes.That ETF is the NYSE-listed Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF (BETZ). The fund debuted in June 2020 and has since attracted only $98 million in net inflows. As of Tuesday, it had roughly $50 million in assets under management, which is paltry…

Hollywood writer Jeremy Slater is back in the news with Mortal Kombat 2, which is in theaters now. He wrote the 2021 movie as well and is nearly done with a second draft for Mortal Kombat 3. But what else is he keen to do in the future? There is one franchise above all others that he wants to get to work on some day: Star Wars.He told The Hollywood Reporter that he has already taken meetings with Lucasfilm, and he admitted he “nerded out to an embarrassing degree.” He hasn’t landed anything yet, though, and he said he wouldn’t…

In brief Circle launched Agent Stack, a suite of tools letting AI agents autonomously hold funds, make payments, and hire other services using USDC stablecoins. Key products include agent wallets, a marketplace, and a nanopayments protocol capable of transfers as small as $0.000001. Circle is positioning AI agents themselves, not just human developers, as the primary customers for its financial infrastructure. Circle Internet Group made a series of sizable announcements Monday, including reporting its quarterly earnings and announcing a $222 million token sale that values its Arc network at $3 billion. On top of that, the firm also said that…

Make CryptoSlate preferred on A fund manager, treasury desk, custodian, or regulated fintech function with vault accounts, policy-based approvals, granular access controls, audit trails, API access, and operational continuity when employees rotate.That structure is reshaping how capital is allocated within DeFi, and it explains why Cardano’s latest infrastructure push via Iagon’s Cardano Vault, built with Fireblocks, is a bet on the operating model that serious capital actually requires.Announced on May 8, the vault builds an enterprise control layer for Cardano-native operations comprising native assets, staking, reward withdrawals, and governance, inside a framework with vault accounts, controlled signing, approval workflows, and…