Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Goldman Sachs ups its Bitcoin position in a big way, Coinbase continues to buy more Bitcoin but doesn’t call it a 'strategy', Blackrock bought an insane amount of BTC & ETH to kick off Q2, two kids are facing life sentence for crypto robbery with another on the run, Ethereum continues to climb towards $3k, and so much more.

Happy Monday – starting the week off on a high note 📈 Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

  • Ethereum futures saw a +42% surge in open interest (OI), climbing from $21.3 billion to $30.4B between May 8 and May 11, 2025

    • Nearing its all-time high of $32B, this spike reflects heightened market activity and growing trader engagement

    • Veteran trader Peter Brandt suggests a potential Ethereum rally to $3,800–$4,800 if ETH breaks above a rising wedge pattern (CT)

  • Bitcoin broke above $102,000 after de-escalating trade tensions between the US and China

    • A confirmed bull flag breakout on the weekly chart projects a $150,000

Headline Roundup
The major headlines driving crypto markets

  • Vice President J.D. Vance confirmed to speak at Bitcoin Conference in Nashville this year (TB)

  • Goldman Sachs ups IBIT bitcoin ETF position by 28% following 20-day inflow streak (TB)

  • Two teenagers to be tried as adults on 22 felony charges for taking $4M+ of crypto and NFTs from man at gunpoint, one more may have flee’d the country – read the wild report here

  • Recent study determined 99%+ of token launches on Pump.fun are pump-and-dumps or rug pulls (DF)

  • Blackrock acquired over $4.4B of bitcoin in May as price jumps above $100k (DF)

  • Professional fighter Conor McGregor publicly pushed for an Irish national bitcoin reserve (CS)

  • Metplanet looks at $21M bond offering to buy more bitcoin as largest non-American holder (CD)

  • Coinbase adopts $153M crypto purchase strategy for balance sheet funds over a bitcoin reserve (DF)

  • BlackRock brings in the big guns to sweet talk SEC crypto task force about ETFs (TB)

  • Energy infrastructure and bitcoin mining firm Hut8 posts $134M loss in Q1 (TB)

  • Matador Technologies ($MATA) announces C$3 Million private fund to invest in bitcoin, gold, and more (BM)

  • Robinhood gives Europeans access to 24/7 trading for tokenized U.S. assets (DF)

  • Unichain emerges as dominant chain for Uniswap v4 as Ethereum market share tumbles over 20% (TB)

  • Bitcoin SV attempts to revive legal dispute against Binance token delisting (DT)

Venture Capital

  • Publicly traded pharma company Wellgistics secures $50M equity line of credit for XRP payment adoption and treasury plan (TB)

  • Blockchain social content platform T-Rex closes $17M pre-seed financing from Portal Ventures, Framework Ventures, and others (AI)

  • Fleek raises $7M in oversubscribed public token sale on CoinList (CL)

Launches

  • Coinbase to launch 24/7 BTC and ETH futures trading after massive Derbit acquisition (TB)

  • Airdrop claims are now available for Doodles NFT project Solana token $DOOD (BL)

  • RedotPay disrupts Korean market with crypto card launch (CT)

Regulation

  • Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the blocked stablecoin bill is a huge ‘missed opportunity’ for the U.S. – see all of his statements here

  • Taiwanese lawmaker calls for allocating a small percent of national reserves to Bitcoin (CT)

  • Gemini to offer crypto derivatives trading across Europe with MiFID license in Malta (CD)

Cybersecurity

  • A U.S. citizen that funded ISIS with hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto finally sentenced to 30 years (TB)

  • German law enforcement seized $38M of crypto amid shutdown of laundering firm eXch (CS)

  • Lido DAO officially secures network after attacker drains 1.5 ETH from a protocol reporting oracle (TB)

  • A discord moderator for hardware wallet firm Ledger has account restored after losing access due to hack (TB)

Extra Reads

Chart of the Day

Binance continues to hold nearly 40% of market share in CEX trading volume

Upcoming Events

 🚨 Introducing the biggest US onchain builder event of the year: Permissionless IV

Tue, Jun 24, 2025 – Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 9:00 AM-5:00 PM

Builders are taking over Brooklyn.

Permissionless IV is where the next internet gets shipped. From onchain AI agents to payments, infra, social, and DeFi, the brightest minds are meeting IRL to build what’s next.

Hear from the founders of Uniswap, Infinex, LayerZero, and more. 3 days. 1 mission: ship real things.

Use code CRYPTOSUM10 for 10% off your ticket

Meme Dump

Pls send us crypto memes to be featured in the newsletter 🤝

🐦 Follow Us: Visit our X account for constant updates on all things web3, DeFi, and crypto.

💵 Litquidity Ventures: Accredited investors & qualified purchasers within the Litquidity community can gain access to alternative investments such as venture, late-stage growth, and private equity through Litquidity Ventures. Interested? Fill out this form.

☎️ Book a call with Lit: Want to pick Litquidity’s brain on business advice, insights, or just chat to say what’s up? Buy his time here.

📧 Launch your own newsletter: Have great content ideas and looking to launch your own publication? We highly recommend Beehiiv to get started.