Organized by ChainCatcher
Important information:
- Stablecoin infrastructure company Checker completes an $8 million funding round, with participation from Galaxy Ventures and others.
- Deloitte acquires crypto infrastructure company Blocknative
- Mastercard has withdrawn its investment in Zerohash and is shifting focus to BVNK to build stablecoin payment infrastructure.
- a16z may have become the largest external holder of HYPE, with cumulative positions exceeding $356 million.
- Tether acquires SoftBank’s entire stake in Twenty One Capital (XXI)
- Decentralized derivatives trading platform Variational completes a $50 million Series A round led by Dragonfly Capital
- Strategy CEO: Of the top 15 institutional shareholders before Q1, 13 increased their holdings in MSTR, resulting in a combined 27% increase in total position.
What important events occurred in the past 24 hours?
ChainCatcher reports that Strategy CEO Phong Le said that in the first quarter of 2026, 13 of Strategy’s top 15 institutional shareholders increased their holdings of $MSTR, with combined holdings growing by 27%.
ChainCatcher report, according to Fortune, the decentralized derivatives trading platform Variational has announced the completion of a $50 million Series A funding round led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto and Coinbase Ventures.
Headquartered in the Cayman Islands, the company is dedicated to building on-chain derivatives protocols for institutions and traditional financial traders, aggregating liquidity from both traditional finance and crypto markets to create on-chain markets for real-world assets such as oil and commodities that can be traded instantly. Its core product, the Omni platform, employs a zero-fee model combined with a liquidity pool mechanism to enhance market depth and execution efficiency.
Variational represents that its goal is not to directly compete with centralized exchanges, but to connect multi-source liquidity—including traditional financial market makers and major crypto trading platforms—through a “brokerage” model to address the “liquidity cold start” problem in on-chain markets.
ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, plans to launch a hash power futures market.
ChainCatcher report, according to Bloomberg, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has announced plans to launch futures contracts tied to "computing power" to track changes in the cost of computing power such as GPUs that support the AI industry; the product is still subject to regulatory approval.
It is reported that ICE will collaborate with financial infrastructure company Ornn to develop a derivatives pricing system based on its GPU cost index, which will be used to support hash power futures contracts.
Tether acquires SoftBank’s entire stake in Twenty One Capital (XXI)
ChainCatcher report: According to the official announcement, Tether International has acquired SoftBank’s entire stake in Twenty One Capital (XXI), becoming the larger controlling shareholder. Following the completion of the transaction, the XXI board members appointed by SoftBank have exited the board in accordance with the shareholder agreement.
Tether stated that this move reflects its long-term strategic commitment and confidence in XXI’s vision of building a publicly listed company from the ground up with Bitcoin at its core. The announcement noted that SoftBank’s early involvement provided XXI with critical institutional backing and governance expertise, helping the company establish its initial foundation, and Tether will build on this to propel XXI into its next phase of development.
Fintech company Mercury completes a $200 million funding round led by TCV.
ChainCatcher news, according to CNBC, fintech company Mercury has announced the completion of a new $200 million funding round, led by TCV, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Coatue Management, and others.
Mercury primarily provides banking services to startups, with over 300,000 customers and approximately $650 million in annualized revenue. The company states that the recent surge in AI startups has significantly increased demand for new company registrations and account openings, serving as a key driver of its growth.
Meanwhile, Mercury also announced that it has received conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to apply for a federal bank charter, aiming to expand its lending capabilities and access to payment networks such as Zelle, while reducing reliance on partner banks. The company’s founders stated that their long-term goal remains an independent IPO rather than an acquisition.
Goldman Sachs will serve as the lead underwriter for SpaceX's IPO
ChainCatcher report, according to The Information, Goldman Sachs will serve as the lead underwriter for SpaceX’s IPO, overseeing the entire listing process, including pricing, roadshows, and stock allocation.
ChainCatcher news, According to Jin10 Data, sources reveal that SpaceX is expected to move forward with its acquisition of the AI coding startup Cursor 30 days after its own IPO begins.
ChainCatcher report, according to SlowMist’s Yu Xian, multiple user wallets on Bankr have been compromised. @bankrbot responded that this incident was a social engineering attack targeting the trust layer between automated agents, specifically involving interactions between Grok and Bankrbot, resulting in unauthorized transaction signatures.
ChainCatcher report: Mastercard has abandoned its investment plan for cryptocurrency infrastructure company Zerohash, following the company’s earlier agreement in March to acquire UK stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK for $1.8 billion. In January this year, Mastercard had considered a strategic investment in Chicago-based Zerohash. At the time, Zerohash was seeking $250 million in funding at a $1.5 billion valuation, and the company is now advancing a new funding round with a higher valuation. Founded in 2017, Zerohash primarily provides APIs and developer tools for cryptocurrency, stablecoins, and tokenized assets.
Meanwhile, recent transactions involving Kraken’s parent company Payward and Bullish indicate that consolidation in the digital asset infrastructure sector continues. In the stablecoin payments space, Mastercard has acquired BVNK for $1.8 billion, with an additional $300 million in performance-based consideration possible. BVNK currently serves payment and payroll platforms such as Worldpay and Deel for cross-border payments, fund settlement, and financial management.
Mastercard plans to integrate BVNK’s technology into its Mastercard Move network to enable 7×24 stablecoin settlement for payment institutions and merchant acquirers, and to explore adding stablecoin checkout functionality to payment gateways. Analysts believe this transaction will further intensify competition between Mastercard and Visa in their payment network strategies and accelerate the transition of traditional cross-border clearing systems toward stablecoin settlement models.
ChainCatcher report: GitHub officially stated that it is investigating an unauthorized access incident targeting its internal codebase. GitHub noted that there is currently no evidence that data stored by customers, enterprises, organizations, or code repositories outside the GitHub platform has been affected, but the company is continuously monitoring its infrastructure for any further anomalous activity.
GitHub states that if it is later confirmed that user data or services have been affected, customers will be notified through existing incident response and communication channels.
ChainCatcher report, according to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa), a16z (@a16zcrypto) may have become the sixth-largest holder of HYPE, and potentially the largest external institutional holder amid the top five holders all being part of Hype’s own ecosystem.
Data shows that a16z began large-scale accumulation in August 2025, building a total position of 9.18 million HYPE tokens (approximately $356 million) at an average price of $38.77; after accounting for transfers to exchanges and market makers, 8.844 million HYPE tokens remain, distributed across dozens of addresses.
In just the past 11 hours, a16z has accumulated an additional 206,000 HYPE tokens (approximately $9.95 million); since April 16, it has accumulated a total of 2.35 million HYPE tokens (approximately $102 million); since 2026, it has accumulated a total of 4.92 million HYPE tokens (approximately $183 million). At current prices, its unrealized profit on this single asset has reached $79.29 million.
ChainCatcher reports that centralized exchanges Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini have urged U.S. senators to remove specific provisions from the Digital Asset Market Structure Act. The provision restricts platforms from listing tokens susceptible to market manipulation. The exchanges submitted amendment proposals requesting the deletion of this restriction, arguing that this regulatory standard, derived from traditional commodities futures, hinders the listing of low-liquidity small-cap tokens on compliant exchanges and stifles industry innovation.
Deloitte acquires crypto infrastructure company Blocknative
ChainCatcher report: On Tuesday, Deloitte announced that it has acquired blockchain infrastructure company Blocknative through an acquisition focused on talent. According to the announcement, the Blocknative team will now “focus on driving Web3 innovation within Deloitte’s client ecosystem.” Blocknative’s official website has already posted the notice, stating that the company is “gradually winding down operations.” Its Blocknative API and Gas Network services will also be phased out, with expected discontinuation by June 19.
Blocknative, founded in 2018, is a blockchain infrastructure company focused on real-time mempool monitoring, gas fee prediction, and transaction management. The company provides APIs and tools to optimize on-chain transactions; its Gas Network is a decentralized oracle network that delivers real-time gas fee data. This comes amid a broader wave of integration across the crypto ecosystem, accompanied by traditional firms like Deloitte increasing their crypto exposure—Deloitte now offers accounting, auditing, and other enterprise services to crypto companies.
ChainCatcher reports that stablecoin infrastructure startup Checker has announced the completion of its pre-seed and seed funding rounds, raising $8 million. Investors include Galaxy Ventures, Al Mada Ventures, Framework Ventures, Bitso, Airtm, DFS Lab, Onigiri Capital, SNZ Capital, and Velocity.
The project's core business is helping financial institutions launch and scale stablecoins and related products through a single API. Checker has processed over $3 billion in transaction volume over the past 12 months and plans to use the new funding to expand its financial institution network to Brazil, Kenya, Hong Kong, and the United States, while also preparing to launch AI agents for customer onboarding, compliance assessments, and treasury operations.
Meme Popular Ranking
According to market data from the meme token tracking and analytics platform GMGN, as of May 21 at 09:00,
The top five most popular ETH tokens in the past 24 hours are: HEX, SHIB, LINK, PEPE, mUSD
Over the past 24 hours, the top five trending Solana tokens were: TROLL, HANTA, Buttcoin, testicle, MAGA
The top five most popular tokens on Base over the past 24 hours are: B3, SKYA, TOSHI, toby, KEYCAT
What are the best articles to read from the past 24 hours?
Duan Yongping makes his first investment in a crypto company: Why Circle?
Renowned investor Duan Yongping, known as the "Warren Buffett of China," through his family wealth management firm H&H International Investment LLC, recently filed a Q1 13F holding report with the U.S. SEC as of March 31, 2026.
According to the report, Duan Yongping’s total portfolio market value has grown significantly from $17.49 billion last quarter to $20.004 billion. In addition to maintaining heavy positions in Apple (AAPL), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), and NVIDIA (NVDA), a new addition has drawn attention from both the cryptocurrency industry and value investors: the stablecoin giant Circle (NYSE: CRCL).
Recently, the Ethereum Foundation faced another personnel shakeup, as core researchers Carl Beek and Julian Ma officially announced their departures.
Since this year, at least seven core members or senior contributors have left in succession, from co-executive directors to protocol researchers, from upgrade coordinators to cryptography experts, raising clear concerns within the community about the foundation’s stability and execution capability.
Meanwhile, institutional holding data has been陆续 released. Goldman Sachs reduced BlackRock’s ETHA position by approximately 70%, the Harvard University endowment fully liquidated its nearly $87 million position in Ethereum ETFs, and South Korea’s seventh-largest pension fund incurred a loss of approximately $32.73 million from its leveraged Ethereum ETF investment.
In addition, the Ethereum Foundation recently withdrew 21,271 ETH from Lido and has sold ETH on-chain multiple times to rebalance its treasury.
The internal core team is leaving, large external funds are withdrawing, and the foundation itself is also reducing its holdings. Ethereum is being voted against simultaneously by different types of participants.
Recovering cryptocurrency assets is a lucrative business that operates under the radar.
Today in Hangzhou, I had a long conversation with a friend who specializes in recovering crypto assets.
Over the past year and a half, they have handled numerous cases, with each project typically starting at $1 million or more, and some even higher. Before our conversation, my understanding of this type of service was quite basic—I assumed “crypto asset recovery” mainly involved dramatic scenarios like theft, fraud, hacking, or on-chain tracking. After speaking with them, I realized that the most common cases are actually more everyday, specific, and devastating for the individuals involved.
The tokenization market will reach a trillion-dollar scale, but four major barriers remain.
We are at the dawn of a new financial era. Tokenization is no longer a niche experiment but is rapidly evolving into a major field, with institutions competing to lead one of the largest emerging asset classes, and capital allocators seeking more significant returns.
The question today is no longer whether trillions of dollars will move on-chain, but who will lead this transition. This article explores the conditions required to achieve this shift, as well as the opportunities for operators and entrepreneurs building platforms to custody and trade trillions of dollars in assets.
Tokenized finance has reached a substantial scale. The circulating supply of stablecoins alone exceeds $300 billion, and the total market value of other tokenized financial assets—including money market funds, private credit, equities, commodities, and more—exceeds $30 billion. Many of the world’s largest asset managers, including BlackRock, Fidelity, and Franklin Templeton, have collectively tokenized tens of billions of dollars in real-world assets.