Mark Cuban said he sold most of his Bitcoin after concluding it did not behave like a crisis hedge during a period of weaker fiat confidence and rising geopolitical risk. He described BTC as "not the hedge I expected it to be," as Bitcoin traded around $77,663 in mid-May 2026, about 38% under its early-October 2025 peak of $126,000. Cuban also said he is shifting more capital toward Ethereum than Bitcoin.

CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju said in an X post that indicators tied to a Bitcoin bull run have not fully turned on yet, with the Bull Score Index still sitting in the neutral range. The index aggregates 10 on-chain metrics and turns bullish only when the reading moves above 60. Bitcoin was trading around $77,300 at the time of writing, down more than 4% over the past week.

IMAX shares rose roughly 14% Friday amid market speculation that the company may be exploring a sale, with the stock trading near $39 and a market value of about $2.1 billion. Analysts said interest could come from a wide set of buyers, while one source said discussions have been limited to preliminary talks via intermediaries and that IMAX has not made official pitches.

On 22 May 2026, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and OKX said they launched perpetual oil futures tied to ICE Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmarks. The products have no expiry date and are set to be offered to OKX's 120 million retail users in jurisdictions where the exchange holds the required licenses. The rollout follows ICE's March 2026 strategic equity investment in OKX at a $25 billion valuation.

Kevin Warsh is set to be sworn in at the White House on May 22, 2026, after the Senate confirmed him 54-45 on May 13 to replace Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chair. The article says markets are watching for Warsh's first comments on rates and the balance sheet, viewing them as a potential catalyst for weekend crypto trading.

Zcash has rolled out Network Upgrade 7 (NU7) on testnet, reducing block production time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds and aiming to boost throughput. The update also adds a miner-support mechanism that redirects part of transaction fees into a fund and changes fee rules to make spam-style oversized transactions far more expensive. ZEC was trading around $633.35 at the time of writing, down 4.68% over the past 24 hours.

U.S. Treasury yields climbed sharply this week, with the 10-year reaching levels not seen in over a year and the 30-year hitting its highest since 2007. The move has revived debate about whether Treasuries should be treated as “risk-free,” while some strategists say investors may want to focus on intermediate maturities and selective corporate bond segments.

In May 2026, AI and DePIN tokens outperformed the wider crypto market, with Sahara AI up +42.5% over seven days and Akash Network rising +24.85%. Over the same period, Bitcoin traded between $78,000 and $83,000, while Bitcoin dominance held at 60% and the CMC Altcoin Season Index stood at 39/100. The moves highlight stronger relative interest in projects positioned around working infrastructure and AI-related demand.