Ethereum's L1 fees have fallen to record lows, and network revenue declined from $366.63 million in Q3 2025 to $260 million in Q1 2026 after the Glamsterdam upgrade cut fees by 78%. Even so, monthly transactions have climbed to a new all-time high near 80 million, suggesting usage remains strong despite weaker fee-driven revenue. ETH is also down about 6.2% in May, raising debate over whether the market is undervaluing its on-chain activity.

Galaxy Digital has obtained a New York BitLicense and a Money Transmission License, enabling it to broaden regulated digital-asset trading and custody services in New York. The authorization applies to its institutional subsidiary GalaxyOne Prime NY and is intended to deepen access to New York-based institutional clients. Galaxy said it oversees nearly $9 billion in client assets across its digital-asset operations.

On 24 May 2026 at 11:21, Fannie Mae accepted its first crypto-backed mortgage product, enabled via Better Home & Finance and Coinbase after an FHFA directive to incorporate digital assets into risk reviews. The structure pairs a standard Fannie Mae mortgage with a separate Bitcoin-collateralized loan that funds the down payment, keeping BTC in Coinbase Prime custody and avoiding a taxable sale. In the example provided, buying a $500,000 home uses $250,000 in Bitcoin to secure a $100,000 (20%) down payment loan under a 2.5:1 collateral ratio.

Bank of America disclosed in its Q1 13F filing that it has about $53 million in cryptocurrency ETF exposure, with BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as the largest position. The filing shows its IBIT stake rose to about $37 million, roughly 70% of the bank's crypto-related holdings, while it also kept allocations to other spot Bitcoin products.

On May 24, 2026, Zerohash Europe said it became the first firm operating under the EU's MiCA regime to also obtain a full Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license, enabling wider regulated stablecoin and brokerage services across Europe. The EMI authorization from De Nederlandsche Bank allows the company to pair crypto-asset services with electronic-money capabilities throughout the European Economic Area, ahead of MiCA's full rollout in July.

Ethereum's Clear Signing went live on May 12, 2026, with Ledger, Trezor and MetaMask switching signature prompts from hex strings to human-readable transaction details. The change targets signature-phishing losses that reached $6.27 million from 4,741 victims in Q1 2026, while keeping blind signing possible but more avoidable. The standard improves clarity for approvals such as "unlimited" token spend, though it does not remove risks tied to compromised apps or incomplete dApp metadata.

Uniswap (UNI) was priced at $3.44 at press time, down 7.50% in 24 hours, while trading volume jumped over 61% to $239.90 million. The token is testing an ascending trendline support held since April 12, 2026, and a break could open the way toward $3.00, though a rebound would challenge that view. Derivatives metrics turned more negative and spot flows showed $302K moved to exchanges over 24 hours, even as the top 100 wallets increased holdings by 3.41%.

U.S.-based spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $1.2 billion in net outflows over five trading days, marking one of the worst weeks on record. The biggest single-day withdrawal was $647 million on May 18, 2026, followed by additional redemptions through May 23. Despite the flow pressure, Bitcoin fell less than 2% over the past week, while total net assets across these ETFs stood at $98.87 billion.