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Update (May 1, 11:35 pm UTC): This article has been updated to add Strategy’s revenue, net loss and analyst estimates.

Michael Saylor's Bitcoin-buying firm Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, has reported earning a year-to-date yield of 13.7% on its Bitcoin holdings as it missed Wall Street's first-quarter estimates.

The company said in its May 1 earnings statement that its year-to-date Bitcoin (BTC) yield equates to a gain of more than 61,000 BTC, worth approximately $5.8 billion. Bitcoin yield and gain are unofficial accounting metrics Strategy uses to benchmark the success of its BTC buys. 

Strategy’s chief financial officer, Andrew Kang, said it would increase its Bitcoin yield target for this year to 25% and its Bitcoin gain target to $15 billion.

It comes as Strategy missed top and bottom line analyst estimates. The firm reported revenues of $111.1 million, down 3.6% from the year-ago quarter and missing analyst estimates by around 5%.

A Texas member of the US House of Representatives has proposed that government officials consider installing cryptocurrency ATMs in federal buildings across the country.

In a May 1 letter to Stephen Ehikian, the acting administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) — the entity responsible for managing the US government’s properties — Rep. Lance Gooden claimed that introducing crypto ATMs to federal buildings would serve as an “educational resource” and reflect advances in financial technology. He requested that the GSA begin exploring the necessary guidelines and regulations needed to install such ATMs in government-controlled properties across the US, citing alignment with President Donald Trump’s goals.

According to financial disclosure reports filed with the US House of Representatives, Gooden had held no investments in cryptocurrency or ATM companies since taking office in 2019. He had not yet filed any financial disclosures with the government for 2025 investments.

The GSA website stated it may provide space to ATMs from federal credit unions, but it was unclear whether the acting administrator had the authority to expand the regulations to include digital asset ATMs tied to private companies like Bitcoin Depot or CoinFlip. Cointelegraph reached out to Gooden’s office for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

Related: Eric Trump: USD1 will be used for $2B MGX investment in Binance

Retail investors are running out of time to accumulate Bitcoin as institutional adoption accelerates, according to Sergej Kunz, co-founder of exchange aggregator 1inch.

Bitcoin (BTC) is evolving into an alternative reserve currency, propelling institutional demand and potentially pricing out retail investors, Kunz said during Cointelegraph's LONGITUDE event in Dubai. 

"Every retail user should be thinking about getting at least one Bitcoin — very soon they won’t be able to afford it,” Kunz said. 

If the United States starts buying Bitcoin for a strategic reserve, even smaller countries may soon struggle to acquire the cryptocurrency, he added. "I’m pretty sure we’ll soon see countries battling over who owns more Bitcoin. The US will start.”

Bitcoin demand has accelerated since US President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on US imports in April, setting off a global trade war.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin could reach $150,000 by August or September of this year if BTC breaks above the parabolic slope pattern.

Bitcoin (BTC) price jumped to new quarterly highs at $96,700 on May 1, a day after the US GDP contracted -0.3% for the first time since Q2 2022. Amid heightened economic concerns, the probability of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut rose to 62.8% for the June 18 Federal Reserve meeting.

Over the past 24 hours, short position liquidations exceeded $137 million, with Alphractal founder Joao Wedson observing that BTC's price momentum continues to favor bullish trends.

Peter Brandt predicts a $150K Bitcoin top by Q3

In a recent post on X, veteran trader Peter Brandt forecasted a Bitcoin price rally, potentially reaching $125,000 to $150,000 by August or September 2025. The trader predicted a parabolic arc pattern in Bitcoin’s price chart—a technical formation often signaling rapid rises followed by sharp corrections, as seen in the 2017 Bitcoin surge.

Cryptocurrency can accelerate artificial intelligence adoption by helping AI startups onboard users, according to Polygon's co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.

“You can use crypto incentives and disincentives to onboard users to onboard the ecosystem players,” Nailwal said during a panel discussion at the LONGITUDE by Cointelegraph event.

He added that projects with effective onchain incentive structures might even “build a better AI because you have this incentive engine that brings in developers,” Nailwal said on May 1.

Cointelegraph’s LONGITUDE is an event series that brings together leaders and innovators from the blockchain and Web3 space for exclusive discussions.

Joining the panel, Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of the Near Protocol, expanded on crypto's long-term synergy with AI, forecasting that crypto-native AI agents could replace traditional web application front-ends as the primary user interfaces for Web3.

Paolo Ardoino, CEO of stablecoin issuer Tether, addressed criticism over the company's decision not to seek registration under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, arguing that the regulations were risky for stablecoins.

Speaking to Cointelegraph at the Token2049 conference in Dubai, Ardoino reiterated that Tether had no plans to apply for its US dollar-pegged stablecoin USDt — the largest by market capitalization — to be compliant under MiCA in European countries, potentially forcing exchanges to delist the stablecoin. He added that though crypto firms had to follow regulations, there was a “fear of compliance” among companies in the EU.

“[...] MiCA license is very dangerous when it comes to stablecoins, and I believe that is even more dangerous for the small, medium banking system in Europe,” said the Tether CEO, adding that banks in the region could “go belly up” in the next few years thanks to MiCA's requirements, such as keeping 60% of stablecoins reserves in insured cash deposits in European banks. Ardoino added:

Related: Paolo Ardoino: Competitors and politicians intend to ‘kill Tether’

After years of planning and research, EU officials began to implement requirements under MiCA in December 2024. Tether, which is regulated and headquartered in El Salvador, is required to comply with MiCA regulatory requirements if offering products or services in EU member states.

Crypto exchange Coinbase has announced it will suspend trading of the Movement Network token (MOVE), the native cryptocurrency of the Movement layer-2 blockchain protocol, developed by Movement Labs, effective May 15.

The decision was shared in a May 1 X post, with Coinbase citing the token’s failure to meet its listing standards. The price of the MOVE token also declined by approximately 14.5% in the last 24 hours. Coinbase specified the details of the suspension in an announcement:

The suspension of the token follows a recently announced third-party review orchestrated by the Movement Network Foundation into an agreement allegedly signed by Movement Labs and a market-making firm, which is said to be behind the downfall of the MOVE token price in December 2024.

A Movement Network Foundation spokesperson recently confirmed to Cointelegraph that the third-party investigation, which commenced on April 21, is ongoing. The investigation is being conducted by Groom Lake, an independent cybersecurity and intelligence firm, and has cast a cloud over the MOVE token's price.

Related: Binance to purge 14 tokens following ‘vote to delist’ process

A group of developers within the Ethereum ecosystem, operating independently of the Ethereum Foundation, have announced Ethereum R1 — a layer-2 (L2) scaling solution for the Ethereum network that does not include a native token.

According to the announcement, the project relies entirely on donations, does not have venture funding, and does not have any pre-mined token allocations or a governance token. The project's team wrote in a May 1 X post:

"Most L2s today are acting more like new L1s than an Ethereum scaling solution — private allocations, opaque governance, and centralized control," the developers continued.

The announcement points to increasing concerns within the Ethereum community regarding the current direction of many layer-2 scaling solutions, which some view as potentially misaligned with the interests of the base layer

Related: Ethereum community members propose new fee structure for the app layer

Love it or leave it, New York State has been a force in crypto regulation.

Ten years ago, the state created the United States’ first comprehensive regulatory framework for firms dealing in cryptocurrencies, including key consumer protection, anti-money laundering compliance and cybersecurity guidelines.

In September 2015, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) issued its first BitLicense to Circle Internet Financial, enabling the company to conduct digital currency business activity in the state. Ripple Markets received the second BitLicense in 2016. Circle and Ripple went on to become giant players in the global cryptocurrency and stablecoin industry.

Today, the NYDFS regulates one of the largest pools of crypto firms in the world, and it is often cited as the gold standard for crypto regulation in the US.

It’s against that background that Ken Coghill, NYDFS’s deputy superintendent for virtual currencies, appeared at Cornell Tech’s blockchain conference on April 25 to discuss “A New Era of U.S. Innovation in Crypto.” 

Bitcoin (BTC) gained 3% on May 1 as a new month saw shorts struggle to keep price pinned.BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Bitcoin pressures shorts after 3% daily gains

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD reaching $96,955 on Bitstamp, its highest since Feb. 22.

Increasingly close to six figures, Bitcoin rose with US stocks at the Wall Street open as Microsoft gained 10% to become the world’s highest-valued public company.

Reacting, popular trader Daan Crypto Trades suggested that stocks may be on the cusp of a return to sustained bullish trajectory.

“Stocks trade at a key area here,” he wrote in ongoing X analysis.

Opinion by: Vikash Singh, Principal Investor at Stillmark

The Bybit hack resulted in the largest loss of funds to cyber hackers by a cryptocurrency exchange in history. It served as a wake-up call for those complacent about the state of security threats in the digital assets space. Everyone must learn the lesson from this heist — enterprise-grade custody solutions require tech to be accompanied by transparency.

Unlike many previous incidents, this loss of funds was not due to a faulty smart contract, lost/mismanaged keys or deliberate mismanagement or rehypothecation of user funds, but rather a sophisticated social engineering attack that exploited vulnerabilities in operational security. 

This hack differs from earlier eras because it happened to a major global exchange that takes security and compliance seriously. It’s a reminder that, in crypto, there’s no such thing as “good enough” security.

The anatomy of a heist 

A technical overview of the Bybit attack is key for understanding how companies can proactively strengthen their security against such attacks. Initially, a developer machine belonging to Safe, an asset management platform offering multisig Ethereum wallets used by Bybit, was compromised. This initial breach granted the attackers unauthorized access to Safe’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment, including its S3 storage bucket. 

Bitcoin’s expanding institutional adoption may provide the “structural” inflows necessary to surpass gold’s market capitalization and push its price beyond $1 million by 2029, according to Bitwise’s head of European research, André Dragosch.

“Our in-house prediction is $1 million by 2029. So that Bitcoin will match gold's market cap and total addressable market by 2029,” he told Cointelegraph during the Chain Reaction daily X spaces show on April 30.

Corporations are coming for your bitcoin (feat. André Dragosch, Head of Research at Bitwise) #CHAINREACTION https://t.co/5F3cRWBHzq

Gold is currently the world’s largest asset, valued at over $21.7 trillion. In comparison, Bitcoin’s market capitalization sits at $1.9 trillion, making it the seventh-largest asset globally, according to CompaniesMarketCap data.

Related: Bitcoin treasury firms driving $200T hyperbitcoinization — Adam Back

The demand for yield-generating strategies around Bitcoin (BTC) is surging, especially from firms seeking liquidity without liquidating their BTC, according to Ryan Chow, co-founder and CEO of Solv Protocol.

During a fireside chat at the Token2049 conference in Dubai on May 1, Chow said institutional interest in Bitcoin yield products has grown exponentially over the past few years.

Initially, generating Bitcoin yield was nearly impossible. However, recent innovations like staking via proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols and delta-neutral trading strategies have made this possible.

Layer-1 and layer-2 advancements, such as Babylon, have made these strategies more viable. Babylon allows BTC holders to earn yield on their assets, which are used to provide security and liquidity for PoS networks.

“Bitcoin as the largest asset class here, you can stake your Bitcoin to secure the network […] that makes us feel like if it is the answer to really bring utility and also use case,” he said.

Ethereum developers are working to improve blockchain interoperability with two new token standards: ERC-7930 and ERC-7828.

“There’s no standard way for wallets, apps, or protocols to interpret or display this information,” decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem development organization Wonderland wrote in a May 1 X post. Wallets, decentralized applications (DApps), block explorers and smart contracts follow different rules.

“The result? A messy, inconsistent experience that breaks cross-chain UX,“ Wonderland stated.

Wonderland is a group of developers, researchers and data scientists focused on improving the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem. The organization partnered with multiple DeFi protocols, including Optimism, Aztec, Connext and Yearn.

In the post, the organization shared what was discussed at a recent Ethereum Foundation interoperability working group call. Teddy from Wonderland explained that the current goal is to finalize both token standards within the next two weeks. He added:

Major European cryptocurrency investment firm 21Shares has filed for a spot Sui exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States, marking another step in its expansion to the US market.

21Shares on April 30 submitted the Form S-1 registration for a spot Sui (SUI) ETF to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Called the 21Shares Sui ETF, the proposed ETF will issue common shares of beneficial interest by seeking to track the performance of SUI held by 21Shares’ US subsidiary.

The US filing comes a year after 21Shares started trading the 21Shares Sui Staking exchange-traded product in Europe in July 2024, with its first listings on Euronext Paris and Euronext Amsterdam.

No ticker or planned exchange yet

The 128-page filing does not specify on which US exchange the new SUI ETF is expected to debut trading. The ETF also doesn’t have a ticker symbol yet.

Amid the intensifying global race to tokenize real-world assets, the market is still too nascent for institutional adoption, according to Chris Yin, the co-founder and CEO of Galaxy-backed RWA platform Plume.

Institutional capital is yet to enter the RWA market, and it will take some time for institutions to see its value, Yin told Cointelegraph on the sidelines of Token2049 in Dubai.

“These things move incredibly slowly, you have to show value, you have to show adoption first,” Yin said, comparing RWA’s currently developing stages with the early days of Bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins.

“Only now, 10 years later, are they beginning to think about using the stablecoin. The same thing is going to happen in tokenized assets or tokenization,” Yin said.

Tokenized RWAs are far smaller than $21 billion

Yin questioned the accuracy of existing market estimates, which suggest the RWA sector is worth more than $21 billion.

Banking giant Morgan Stanley reportedly plans to list cryptocurrencies on its E*Trade investment brokerage and trading platform.

According to a May 1 Bloomberg report, the firm intends to list crypto assets on E*Trade in 2026. The plan is still in early development, and the bank is said to be exploring partnerships with established crypto firms to power the service. Internal discussions about cryptocurrency support reportedly began in late 2024.

This would not be Morgan Stanley’s first exposure to digital assets. The bank’s wealthiest clients have had access to crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and futures for some time, with the firm’s advisers allowed to pitch Bitcoin ETFs since August 2024.

Related: Morgan Stanley to explore crypto offerings for clients — CEO

Regulatory tailwinds push crypto forward

The news follows previous reports that Morgan Stanley was considering adding cryptocurrency trading to its E*Trade online brokerage platform in early January. The reports at the time cited the expectations of a friendlier crypto regulatory environment.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin holds $95,000 as Fed rate cut odds rise to 60% for June 18 and the US economy slumps.

Breaking $95,000 could push BTC’s price toward $100,000, while dropping below $93,000 may bring the $84,000 back into the picture.

Key Bitcoin levels to watch remain around the long-term holders’ cost basis.

Bitcoin (BTC) is once again attempting to break above $95,000 on May 1 as markets price in the possibility of the US Federal Reserve cutting rates sooner than expected.

MultiBank Group, the world’s largest financial derivatives institution based in Dubai, has signed a landmark $3 billion real-world asset (RWA) tokenization agreement with United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based real estate giant MAG and blockchain infrastructure provider Mavryk.

The deal represents the largest RWA tokenization initiative globally to date and highlights the upcoming launch of MultiBank’s native utility token, MBG, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph.

The partnership will bring MAG’s ultra-luxury real estate projects — including The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Dubai, Creekside and the Keturah Reserve — onto the blockchain via MultiBank.io’s regulated RWA marketplace.

Once tokenized, these assets will be available to global investors and will generate daily yield for holders directly on the platform.

“$3B worth of MAG’s real estate will be tokenized as individual RWA tokens on MultiBank’s platform, each represented on the Mavryk blockchain, as the underlying layer-1 infrastructure,” Talal Moafaq Al Gaddah, senior executive vice chairman of MAG, told Cointelegraph.