CMC Market Pulse delivers actionable market insights, giving you all the key narratives and developments you need in under 5 minutes.
Market Overview 📉
*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on May 22, 2026.
Bitcoin (BTC) lost its $80K level this week, falling 3.91%, while Ethereum (ETH) continued to underperform, dropping 5.76% in the same week. Total crypto market cap fell in line, falling 3.73% to $2.58T, down from $2.68T from the previous week.
Weekly liquidations remain largely flat, taking out $3-400M in positions daily, although the weekend saw some increased action with close to $1B liquidated over Saturday and Sunday. Funding rates show no clear trend across majors, with Bitcoin’s down, while others like Ethereum and Solana see their funding rates rising..
📌 Michael Saylor’s Strategy acquires 24,869 BTC for $2.01B, bringing their total holding to 843,738 BTC. - Link
📌 The SEC is positioned to announce a plan to issue an “innovation exemption” for the trading of tokenized stocks on-chain, possibly paving the way for full legitimacy and recognition of on-chain stocks. - Link
📌 Crypto brokerage firm, Blockchain.com, confidentially files for an IPO in the U.S. - Link
Why does it matter?
The week started off poorly, with equity indices falling almost 2%, driven by profit taking on hot stocks, especially in the memory sector. However, the market quickly bounced back, on easing geopolitical tensions, retracing yields, and a strong earnings report from market darling, Nvidia. The S&P 500 ended the week up 0.01%, while the Nasdaq closed 0.57% higher.
Notable altcoin outperformers this week included Nexus (NEX), Lighter (LIT), Near Protocol (NEAR), Audiera (BEAT), and OriginTrail (TRAC).
Narrative of the Week 📰
All eyes on Hyperliquid as the perfect storm of factors bring all eyes, TradFi and crypto, to the fast moving cryptocurrency.
📌 Hyperliquid spot ETFs see record inflows $25.5M in a single day (40m in a week) - Link
📌 Bitwise announces that they will be using 10% of fees from the BHYP ETF product to acquire HYPE for the Bitwise balance sheet. - Link
📌 Hyperliquid flips Solana in fully diluted FDV as it makes a new all-time high. - Link
Why does it matter?
Hyperliquid continues to show itself as a class above other crypto tokens, with the launch of two spot HYPE ETFs,
Major Project Updates 🗓️
📌 EverClear (formerly Connext) announces plans to wind down the company and sunset the product as their runway runs out. - Link
📌 On-chain influencer betting platform, Fantasy Top, shuts down after two years of operation, due to the lack of feasibility in the long term economics of the model. - Link
📌 THORChain was hit by a $10.7M exploit over the weekend. The chain has been paused with swaps, trading and liquidity provision halted as the team continues investigations. - Link
📌 Near Protocol introduces Dynamic Resharding, a protocol upgrade to enable shard addition automatically on demand, to support the growth of NEAR Intents and AI agents. - Link
Why does it matter?
The string of crypto protocols shutting down continues as market strength only concentrates across specific projects, with the overall sentiment in crypto still pessimistic.
DeFi Brief 🏦
*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on May 22, 2026.
📌 Wintermute launches Armitage, their own curated vaults on Morpho, kicking off with two USDC vaults. - Link
📌 Ranger Finance winds down, citing poor financial conditions. Vault users affected by the Drift exploit will still receive their compensation. - Link
📌 WETH Loan-to-Value ratios have been restored on Aave on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Mantle, and Linea. - Link
📌 Hyperlend introduces Aviya, its private, compliance-gated credit product designed for institutions for HYPE collateral fixed-rate financing. - Link
Why does it matter?
As the industry matures, vault curation will increasingly be dominated by professional institutional leaders to optimize for yields and security.
Fundraises 💰
📌 Perp DEX, Variational, raises $50M in a funding round led by Dragonfly, with support form Coinbase Ventures, Bain Capital Crypto, and more. - Link
📌 AI-focused financial layer, Catena, raises $30M in a Series A funding roun led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto, with participation from IDG Capital, General Catalyst, Coinbase Ventures, and more. - Link
📌 Institutional stablecoin infrastructure protocol, Checker, raises $8M in a seed round led by Galaxy, Al Mada Ventures, and Framework, with other investors including Bitso, DFS Labs, and more. - Link
📌 Agentic economy layer, AEON, raises $8M in a funding round led by YZi Labs, with support from IDG Capital, HashKey, Blockchain Capital, SevenX Ventures, and more. - Link
Airdrops 🪂
📌 MegaETH stops their ongoing Terminal program after just three weeks, stating that the program did not reflect the “culture or economic realities” of their participants. - Link
Tweet of the Week 📝
Source: @0xbags
HYPE is a crowded trade, they said…
