Decentral Block Post

Investment firm VanEck is launching a tokenized real-world asset (RWA) fund that offers exposure to US Treasury bills, developed in partnership with tokenization platform Securitize. The initiative places VanEck among a growing number of traditional finance firms entering the RWA tokenization space.

The fund, called VBILL, will be initially available on Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum and Solana blockchains, VanEck said in a May 13 statement. The fund's minimum subscriptions start at $100,000 for investments running on Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Solana, while the minimum subscription on Ethereum is $1 million.

VanEck joins a burgeoning field of traditional financial firms that have launched RWA tokenized funds, with competitors including BlackRock and Franklin Templeton. In January, Apollo, an investment firm with $751 billion in assets under management, also launched a private credit tokenized fund.

With a market capitalization of $6.9 billion, US Treasurys are among the largest asset classes in tokenized funds, second only to private credit, according to data from RWA.xyz.

VanEck’s partner, Securitize, has tokenized over $3.9 billion in assets. In May 2024, it raised $47 million in a strategic funding round led by BlackRock.

Key points:

Bitcoin fails to capitalize on lower-than-expected US CPI data, seeing a Wall Street sell-off for a second day.

Traders see BTC/USD buying time before its next move, and a trip below $100,000 is on the cards.

Bitcoin is showing “undeniable” momentum against gold and stocks, Binance’s Richard Teng says.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw a repeat sell-off at the May 13 Wall Street open as bears ignored positive US inflation data.

Infinite Node Foundation (NODE), a nonprofit focused on digital art, has acquired the intellectual property of the CryptoPunks non-fungible token (NFT) collection from Yuga Labs, NODE said in a May 13 announcement. 

The acquisition of CryptoPunks, plus its additional $25 million endowment, establishes NODE as “the most well-capitalized nonprofit dedicated solely to digital art in the United States,” the foundation said in an X post. 

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

The nonprofit said it has assembled an advisory board to oversee the CryptoPunks collection. It comprises Matt Hall and John Watkinson — the artists behind the NFT collection — and a representative of Yuga Labs, among others. 

“Our role is to build a networked architecture that allows digital art like CryptoPunks to thrive within both digital and art-historical canons,” NODE said. 

Defense lawyers have asked a judge to sentence the person responsible for helping post a fake message announcing regulatory approval of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds to roughly a year in prison, countering prosecutors’ request for a two-year sentence.

In a May 13 filing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Eric Council Jr.’s legal team asked that he be sentenced to no more than one year and one day in prison following his guilty plea.

Council was part of a group that took control of the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) X account in 2024 through a SIM swap attack, posting a message that suggested the regulator had approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund listings for the first time.

“A sentence of twelve months and one day serves the ends of justice,” said the May 13 filing. “It sufficiently punishes the defendant for his role in this case. It also promotes respect for the law and deters future criminal conduct.”

Eric Council Jr.’s sentencing recommendation, filed on May 13. Source: PACER

Council initially pleaded not guilty to the charges, but changed his plea to guilty in February on one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud. The judge overseeing the case, Amy Berman Jackson, also ordered prosecutors to “identify the felony and point to where that information can be found in the record” by May 13.

Looking for a way to earn passive income on your crypto without riding the rollercoaster of volatile coins? TsUSDe (the staked version) on The Open Network (TON) might be the answer. It’s a dollar-pegged stablecoin that earns yield by design, and you can boost those earnings even more by putting it to work on platforms like STON.fi and DeDust.

Here’s how it works and how to get started in just a few steps.

What is tsUSDe, and why use it?

TsUSDe is a US dollar-backed stablecoin on the TON blockchain. It’s designed to earn a base yield of around 10% APY, paid out in Toncoin (TON). That means just holding it in your wallet earns you rewards — no extra steps needed.

But if you want to go a step further, you can use tsUSDe in liquidity pools or farms on TON-based platforms to unlock even more yield. It’s like putting your dollars to work while still staying in stable territory.

Where to earn yield with tsUSDe

Right now, two of the most active platforms for tsUSDe yield farming on TON are:

Opinion by: Jupiter Zheng, Partner Liquid Fund at HashKey Capital

Whenever Bitcoin falls in value, the narrative is always the same: It’s failing as a hedge against inflation. In the eyes of critics, Bitcoin is not the “digital gold” that so many others claim it to be.

With gold hitting all-time highs, these critics have grown louder. If Bitcoin is an inflation hedge, they ask, why isn’t it also rallying as investors seek safety?

Even in today’s bearish, high-inflation environment, the cardinal truth holds: Bitcoin is an inflation hedge — arguably the most important one for long-term capital preservation the world has seen. 

Strength in scarcity

Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million coins, with full circulation expected by 2140. This built-in scarcity mirrors gold, which has historically served as an inflation hedge. Bitcoin has outperformed gold during multiple periods, such as the COVID-19 era, when global markets were flooded with liquidity.

Institutional demand for Bitcoin is growing, as Coinbase, the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, recorded its highest daily outflows of Bitcoin in 2025 on May 9.

On May 9, Coinbase saw 9,739 Bitcoin (BTC), worth more than $1 billion, withdrawn from the exchange — the highest net outflow recorded in 2025, according to Bitwise head of European research André Dragosch.

“Institutional appetite for bitcoin is accelerating,” Dragosch added in a May 13 X post.

Source: André Dragosch

Related: Nasdaq-listed GDC plans to buy Bitcoin and TRUMP memecoin for $300M

The outflow occurred as Bitcoin traded above $103,600 and just days after the White House announced a 90-day reduction in reciprocal tariffs between the US and China, easing market concerns and lifting broader investor sentiment.

Venture capital firms are critical to infrastructure development in the Bitcoin ecosystem, despite pushback from some in the community, according to builders speaking at the Token2049 conference in Dubai.

Charlie Yechuan Hu, CEO of Bitcoin layer-2 protocol Bitlayer, shared his insights on venture capital (VC) firms in the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem.

Hu told Cointelegraph that he views many VC firms in the space positively, as they offer support to early ventures that need capital to build infrastructure.

“You need developers, you need to open up the whole ecosystem foundation, everything,” Hu said. “You need to pay for the cloud, like AWS or RPCs, all that, servers […] So, we have to have VC on that.“

Hu challenged the usual Bitcoiner ethos that argues against outsider capital.

“It’s difficult to say, okay, let’s do a fair mint, and then have a very successful, healthy treasury, and you have to pay all this stuff,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way.”

The largest political party in South Korea, the Democratic Party, has launched a Digital Asset Committee focused on developing cryptocurrency policies and promoting industry growth.

The committee held its inaugural meeting at the National Assembly Members’ Hall in Seoul on May 13, the local news agency News1 reported.

During its first meeting, the committee highlighted the importance of resolving regulatory uncertainty and addressing burning issues like stablecoin regulation amid the push for US-dollar stablecoins by the US government.

The new committee joins similar organizations in South Korea, including the Virtual Asset Committee launched in late 2024 and another public-private crypto task force introduced in 2022, both initiated by the Financial Services Commission (FSC).

Exchanges like Upbit and Bithumb involved

The leadership of the Digital Asset Committee includes South Korean officials and politicians, such as National Assembly Chairman Min Byeong-deok, who joined the committee as chairman.

Brokerage fintech Robinhood is set to acquire WonderFi, a Canadian crypto firm, for about 250 million Canadian dollars ($179 million) in an all-cash deal to expand its global presence.

The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2025, Robinhood said in a May 13 news release.

WonderFi operates two of Canada’s longest-standing regulated crypto trading platforms, Bitbuy and Coinsquare, managing over 2.1 billion Canadian dollars in assets under custody. These platforms offer crypto trading, staking and custody services.

“WonderFi has built a formidable family of brands serving beginner and advanced crypto users alike, making them an ideal partner to accelerate Robinhood’s mission in Canada,” said Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president and general manager of Robinhood Crypto.

Under the terms of the deal, Robinhood will acquire all outstanding WonderFi shares at 0.36 Canadian dollars per share — a 41% premium over WonderFi’s last closing price on the Toronto Stock Exchange and a 71% premium over its 30-day volume-weighted average price.

Key takeaways:

XRP price has risen 55% since April and is now flashing bullish continuation signals.

Whale flows have flipped positive for the first time since November 2024, historically signaling trend reversals.

A falling wedge breakout projects 40% gains ahead, but $2.80 may act as interim resistance.

XRP (XRP) has bounced by more than 55% since forming a local bottom at around $1.61 in April. It now signals a further price surge owing to bullish technical patterns and onchain data.

Update (May 13, 1:00 pm UTC): This article has been updated to add third-party commentary from Robert Roose.

Web3 and privacy-focused web browser Brave Browser has integrated the Cardano blockchain into its native and standalone wallets.

According to a May 12 announcement, the integration stems from a partnership between Brave Browser and Cardano development firm Input Output. Together, the two firms “will integrate Cardano into the Brave Wallet, enabling Cardano blockchain access and token management.” Brendan Eich, co-founder and CEO of Brave and the Basic Attention Token (BAT), said:

“Integrating Cardano into Brave Wallet not only expands multi-chain access, but also enhances security, governance participation, and the overall user experience.”

Eich said that Brave focuses on maximizing user choice while providing tools to engage with decentralized ecosystems. With this integration, users of the Web3 browser and standalone wallet will gain direct access to Cardano’s blockchain without leaving the interfaces.

Brave had not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment by publication.

Bitcoin defied expectations in April, delivering double-digit gains while posting lower volatility than major traditional assets.

According to analysts at Galaxy Digital, Bitcoin’s (BTC) realized volatility over the past 10 trading sessions dropped to 43.86, lower than the S&P 500’s 47.29 and the Nasdaq 100’s 51.26 — an unusual “positioning for a digital asset traditionally known for its outsized volatility.”

The data point comes against a backdrop of renewed financial turbulence. Since US President Donald Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement on April 2, traditional markets have wobbled.

The Nasdaq Composite is flat, the Bloomberg Dollar Index fell nearly 4%, and even gold (typically a safe haven) briefly hit $3,500 per ounce before pulling back to a 5.75% gain, Galaxy Digital analysts wrote in a May 12 note.

However, they noted that Bitcoin surged 11% over the same period, reinforcing its evolving role as a macro hedge amid geopolitical and fiscal uncertainty.

Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko proposed a new data availability (DA) solution to improve persistent fragmentation and lack of interoperability across blockchain networks.

In a May 12 post on X, Yakovenko proposed a “meta blockchain” to aggregate and order data posted across multiple layer-1 chains, including Ethereum, Celestia and Solana.

“This would actually allow the meta chain to use the cheapest currently available DA offer,” Yakovenko said.

Data availability layers are third-party solutions ensuring that blockchains have the necessary data to validate transactions.

Source: Anatoly Yakovenko

Blockchain interoperability is one of the most pressing issues for Web3 developers, since today’s siloed layer-1 (L1) blockchain networks have no means of communicating or exchanging data, creating a need for crosschain interoperability solutions like DA layers.

Dubai, UAE – May 2025 — TheBlock., the International Chamber of Virtual Assets, has announced a strategic partnership with Cointelegraph, the world’s leading Web3 media platform. The collaboration brings together two major players in the blockchain and virtual asset space, with the shared goal of amplifying the global adoption of tokenisation, advancing regulatory dialogue, and supporting builders entering the MENA region.

The agreement, signed during Token2049 Dubai, highlights Cointelegraph’s growing collaboration with key players in the UAE. This new partnership will foster deeper collaboration and mutual support across TheBlock’s ecosystem.

As part of the collaboration, Cointelegraph will set up a presence at TheBlock’s headquarters in Dubai World Trade Center, offering opportunities for engagement with founders, partners, and clients within the ecosystem. The partnership also includes joint participation in educational panels, roundtables, and summits focused on real-world assets (RWAs), compliance, and capital allocation.

“This partnership is not just about media,” said Farbod Sadeghian, Founder of TheBlock. “It is about building an access layer for the global virtual asset economy. By working with Cointelegraph, we are strengthening how the industry connects, informs, and grows — from regulatory frameworks to investment pipelines.”

Cointelegraph will engage with TheBlock’s ecosystem through media coverage, speaker participation, and collaborative events. The partnership reflects ongoing efforts to support the growth of Dubai’s virtual asset sector, where regulatory developments and real-world applications continue to evolve.

“The partnership reflects Cointelegraph’s ongoing efforts to broaden its network of like-minded collaborators, all working toward the shared goal of strengthening and advancing the ecosystem,” said Yana Prikhodchenko, CEO of Cointelegraph. “We aim to grow the community by leveraging this partnership while also expanding our regional presence in the UAE. This collaboration will help strengthen both efforts.”

Tether, issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, USDt, is rolling out its tokenized gold digital asset in Thailand with a listing on local cryptocurrency exchange Maxbit.

In a May 13 announcement, Tether said its gold-backed token, Tether Gold (XAUt), has been listed on Thai exchange Maxbit.

According to an X announcement by Maxbit, the platform is the first in Thailand to offer a “tokenized gold pair backed by physical gold.”

Launched in January 2020, Tether Gold is a gold-backed digital asset with a market cap of $802 million, with each XAUt representing ownership of one troy ounce of gold.

Thailand greenlighted stablecoins like Tether USDt in March

Tether Gold’s entrance in the Thai cryptocurrency market follows other notable stablecoin-related regulatory developments in the country.

GD Culture Group (GDC), a Nasdaq-listed holding company focused on livestreaming, e-commerce and artificial intelligence-powered digital human technology, plans to raise up to $300 million for a cryptocurrency treasury reserve.

In a May 12 statement, GDC and its subsidiary, AI Catalysis, announced entering into a common stock purchase agreement with a British Virgin Islands limited liability company to sell up to $300 million of its common stock.

The proceeds from the stock sale will be used to fund the firm’s crypto treasury, which will include purchases of Bitcoin (BTC) and the Official Trump (TRUMP) token.

“Under this initiative, and subject to certain limitations, GDC intends to allocate a significant portion of the proceeds from any share sales under the facility to the acquisition, long-term holding, and integration of crypto assets into its core treasury operations,” the company said in the announcement. 

GDC described the strategy as a move to align with the broader “decentralization transformation.”

Key points:

Bitcoin has seen its largest 30-day illiquid supply increase of the current bull market.

Illiquid supply now stands at 14 million BTC, more than ever before.

Whales are still accumulating as the price returns to six figures.

Bitcoin (BTC) investors are turning the BTC supply more illiquid than at any point in its history

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed two key cryptocurrency-related bills that aimed to expand the state’s involvement in digital assets while signing a strict regulatory measure targeting Bitcoin ATMs.

On May 12, Hobbs rejected Senate Bill 1373, which sought to establish a Digital Assets Strategic Reserve Fund. The fund would have allowed Arizona to hold crypto assets obtained through seizures or legislative allocations.

“Current volatility in cryptocurrency markets does not make a prudent fit for general fund dollars,” she stated in her veto letter. “I have already signed legislation this session which allows the state to utilize cryptocurrency without placing general fund dollars at risk,” she added.

That decision followed her veto of Senate Bill 1025 — the more ambitious “Arizona Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act” — on May 3. It would have authorized up to 10% of the state’s treasury and retirement funds to be invested in Bitcoin and other digital assets.

According to data from bitcoinlaws.io, 26 US states have introduced strategic crypto reserve bills, with 18 of them currently active.