News linked to this event type.
According to Fortune, Catena Labs—founded by Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle—has raised $30 million in its Series A funding round, led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto, with participation from Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, and QED. Catena Labs focuses on developing tools that enable AI agents to conduct financial transactions securely. The company has applied to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in New York for a national trust bank charter, seeking regulatory authorization to process payments and hold customer funds. Previously, in 2025, Catena Labs secured an initial $18 million financing round led by a16z crypto.
Odaily reports, Soluna Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed company primarily focused on crypto computing and artificial intelligence, announced it has acquired all remaining equity interests in the Dorothy 1B project for approximately $8.8 million, achieving 100% control of the project. Following the equity consolidation, the company will leverage its proprietary computing campus to enhance infrastructure deployment, accelerate the upgrade of its business structure, and expand into the fields of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. (Businesswire)
Odaily Odaily reports: According to an official announcement, Gate has launched Zest Protocol (ZEST) perpetual contract live trading (USDT-settled), supporting 1-20x leverage.Gate has also added ZEST unified account borrowing, isolated margin trading pairs, and simultaneously launched ZEST savings, flexible lending, and fixed-term lending features. ZEST flash swap, trading bots, copy trading, and recurring buy functions are now available.
According to The Block, Sarah Breeden, Deputy Governor for Financial Stability at the Bank of England, stated that the UK’s future financial system will advance tokenization, with the retail payments system incorporating tokenized deposits, regulated stablecoins, and potentially a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). The Bank of England plans to publish a draft regulatory framework for systemic stablecoins next month and finalize it by the end of 2026—imposing temporary caps on stablecoin issuance volumes if necessary. Breeden also noted that the Bank of England will continue supporting banks in developing tokenized deposits and advancing initiatives such as the Digital Securities Sandbox and Digital Gilt.
According to the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Christopher Hui, stated that gold can serve as a potential bridge between traditional finance and new finance. He emphasized that Hong Kong needs to provide more development opportunities for the digital asset market to support its sustainable growth. He also noted that, given the “convergence” trend between traditional and innovative finance, Hong Kong has opted not to establish a separate digital asset regulatory authority. Hui pointed out that both gold ETFs and blockchain-based tokenized gold products are already available in the market. Earlier, HSBC and Hang Seng Investment launched Hong Kong’s first tokenized, non-listed Hang Seng Gold ETF product on HashKey Exchange in April.
Bitget has announced a new market governance framework to further strengthen the ongoing oversight of listed assets, project teams, and market makers. The framework will focus on enhancing post-listing market monitoring mechanisms, tightening project team responsibility requirements, and accelerating the platform’s response and remediation processes when identifying abnormal trading behavior or suspicious wallet activity, aiming to improve market fairness and user protection.
According to an official announcement, Binance Alpha has listed Nexus (NEX). The listing and trading will commence on May 20, 2026, at 22:00 UTC. Users holding at least 210 Binance Alpha Points are eligible to claim the token airdrop. Users can claim 20,000,250 NEX tokens via the Alpha campaign page on a first-come, first-served basis. If the campaign has not ended, the point threshold will automatically decrease by 5 points every five minutes.
According to The Block, privacy computing company Zama has acquired TokenOps, an enterprise-grade token lifecycle management platform, with plans to integrate fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) into institutional-grade token vesting, airdrops, and equity structure management. Zama stated that TokenOps has processed over $2 billion in distributions. Following the acquisition, issuers will be able to execute end-to-end token distribution, release schedules, and recipient identity verification—all on-chain and encrypted—based on the ERC-7984 Confidential Token standard. This solution is already live in production at KAIO, whose partner institutions include BlackRock, Hamilton Lane, and Brevan Howard. TokenOps will continue operating under its independent brand post-acquisition.
According to CoinDesk, Timothy Massad, former Chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated that although former President Trump has publicly pledged opposition to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and government-backed dollar-pegged stablecoins, the U.S. may ultimately launch a government-backed on-chain digital dollar initiative, driven by the global advancement of tokenized finance. Massad noted that the White House is conducting closed-door research into the relevant infrastructure, and the U.S. has already joined the Bank for International Settlements’ (BIS) Project Agora. Meanwhile, Mark Gould, Head of Payments at the Federal Reserve, said that a digital dollar currently falls outside the Federal Reserve’s mandate—but if a government-backed digital dollar were to be launched, the Federal Reserve would assume responsibility for it.
According to the official announcement, HTX has launched perpetual contracts for NFLX/USDT, LLY/USDT, COST/USDT, and XLE/USDT on May 20, with a maximum leverage of 10x. Additionally, HTX is hosting a trading party for NFLX, LLY, COST, and XLE perpetual contracts from 15:00 on May 20 to 15:00 on May 27 (UTC+8), with a total prize pool of up to $20,000.
Bitget PoolX is about to launch the project UP. By locking ETH, users can unlock 1,250,000 UP, with a personal staking cap of 1,500 ETH. The staking channel will be open from 19:00 on May 20 to 19:00 on May 27 (UTC+8).Additionally, users with a positive net deposit during the event period will receive a 5% ETH yield enhancement voucher after the event ends; users participating in PoolX for the first time who meet the net deposit conditions will receive a 15% ETH yield enhancement voucher. The net deposit calculation period is from 17:00 on May 20 to 17:00 on May 26 (UTC+8). For more details, please refer to the official Bitget platform.
According to CoinDesk, German stablecoin startup AllUnity plans to launch SEKAU—a Swedish krona-pegged stablecoin—in June, following final regulatory and operational approvals, and will issue it under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework. Meanwhile, AllUnity has also launched Agentic Payments, enabling businesses to receive transactions initiated autonomously by AI software agents and settle funds directly into local bank accounts. The system adopts Coinbase’s x402 payment standard and targets online digital services, content, and data sales. AllUnity is backed by DWS, Flow Traders, and Galaxy Digital, and is regulated by Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).
JUST has specially launched the GasFree Pizza Festival, with a prize pool of up to $300 USDT. From now until May 24, we warmly invite users worldwide to join this delicious “Zero-Gas” exploration journey. Participation is simple: follow @DeFi_JUST, like and retweet this post, share your GasFree address or wallet screenshot in the comments, include the hashtag #JUSTGASFREE, tag three friends, and write: “Come create your GasFree address and claim your free Bitcoin pizza rewards!”—and you’ll secure your spot to win. This event features an upgraded prize pool mechanism: the base reward starts at $100 USDT, and if participation exceeds 300 users, the prize pool instantly jumps to $300 USDT—dramatically boosting your chances! Join this vibrant celebration where “Zero-Gas” freedom meets mouthwatering rewards—and make your Pizza Day smoother and more exhilarating with GasFree!
Dynamic, a wallet infrastructure company, has integrated Aleo, enabling developers to build payment applications that support private transactions and enterprise-grade security. Itai, co-founder of Dynamic, stated that real-world payment scenarios have a rigid demand for privacy: users typically do not publicly disclose their salary information and should not be required by default to broadcast stablecoin transactions across a public network. Moreover, enterprises do not wish to place payroll records on a public ledger, and B2B teams do not want transaction volumes exposed to competitors.
This round of the campaign features a tiered bonus system and instant rewards, supporting flexible subscriptions and on-demand redemptions.
According to Hyperinsight monitoring, a whale address on Hyperliquid—previously drawing attention for aggressively going long on HYPE ahead of Robinhood’s listing of the token—has seen its unrealized profit on HYPE long positions increase from $11.8179 million to $13.8535 million, with its return rising from 90.64% to 103.03%. The address currently holds a position size of approximately $67.2274 million, with an average entry price of $38.68; HYPE’s current price stands at $48.71, and its liquidation price is $38.93.
According to the Financial Times, Amsterdam-based company Qivalis has secured support from 37 European banks—including BNP Paribas, ING, and UniCredit—for its yet-to-launch euro-pegged stablecoin, making it the single euro stablecoin project with the largest number of European backers to date. Newly added supporters include ABN AMRO, Intesa Sanpaolo, and Rabobank. Qivalis has applied for a license from the Dutch Central Bank (De Nederlandsche Bank), aiming for approval in the second half of this year, and plans to complete operational readiness upon license issuance.
U posted on X platform, stating that since March, U has been offering high-yield returns on Binance Earn. The new 8% APR campaign will start at 8:00 (UTC+8) on May 19 and will last until 7:59 (UTC+8) on June 3. The campaign includes tiered bonuses and instant rewards, supporting flexible subscriptions and redemptions at any time.
Vitalik Buterin tweeted that Ethereum is currently advancing its native privacy capabilities through several short-term protocol improvements, specifically: - AA + FOCIL (providing first-class support and strong inclusion guarantees for privacy protocol transactions); - Keyed nonces (EIP-8250, addressing the concurrent nonce issue for shared senders); and - Access-layer improvements (e.g., Kohaku, private reads).
Odaily Odaily, Bitget will list Nexus (NEX) spot trading. The deposit channel is now open, and the trading channel will open today at 23:00 (UTC+8).