Your Weekly Deep Dive into The World of Crypto

May 6, 2026 · 7 Min Read

GM, Readers!

Bitcoin tagged $80,393 in early Singapore hours on Monday, the highest print since January 31, then got smacked back to $79,000 amid a now-debunked report about an Iranian missile. Trump told Congress the war is "over." Saylor said, "No buys this week." NYSE filed to allow tokenized stocks to be listed on the same order book as regular stocks. Fear and Greed reads 46, according to the alternative.me, drifting back into fear after touching neutral 50 yesterday.

The vibe shift is real. Five straight weeks of ETF inflows. Powell ran his last FOMC and held rates at 3.50 to 3.75 percent. And today is Strategy’s Q1 earnings call, the one everyone’s watching to see if Saylor finally taps the brakes.

Let's get into it…

For the first time since late March, Strategy did not buy any Bitcoin last week. On Sunday, May 3, Michael Saylor posted, "No buys this week. Back to work next week." Today is the reason: Q1 earnings drop after the close.

Wall Street is bracing for revenue around $120 to 125M, an EPS loss in the -$3 to -$15 range depending on the model, and a $14.46 billion unrealized loss on the BTC stack. Holdings stand at 818,334 BTC at $75,532 average cost, just barely above spot. Q1 was the second-largest quarterly add ever (89,600 BTC, $5.5B), but also Bitcoin’s worst quarter since the Iran war started.

Bitcoin briefly cleared $80,000 on Monday, hitting an intraday high of $80,393 before Iranian state outlet Fars claimed two missiles had hit a US warship in the Strait of Hormuz. Oil spiked 5%, and BTC dumped to $79,000 inside an hour. The US denied the report. BTC settled around $80,200.

The bigger story? Trump’s May 1 letter to Congress declared military hostilities with Iran "have terminated," running out the 60-day War Powers clock. The April 7 ceasefire has held. Iran sent a 14-point peace proposal. Brent crude is back at $107 from four-year highs. Risk-on, mostly…

On April 9, NYSE filed proposed Rule 7.50 (File No. SR-NYSE-2026-17) with the SEC, asking to let tokenized versions of Russell 1000 stocks and major-index ETFs trade alongside their regular shares. Same ticker. Same CUSIP. Same dividends. Same T+1 settlement. The tokenized leg clears on blockchain rails through DTC’s pilot program.

Translation: TradFi is not getting replaced by crypto, it’s quietly absorbing the rails. Nasdaq filed a similar rule earlier this year. The first DTC tokenized trades could clear by the end of Q3 2026.

On April 30, perpetuals platform Wasabi Protocol got drained for $4.55M after attackers compromised the deployer’s admin key. No timelock, no multisig. Same playbook as Drift ($285M, April 1) and KelpDAO ($292M, April 18).

April 2026 closed as the worst month for crypto exploits in over a year, with over $620M+ stolen across 30+ incidents. Lazarus Group accounts for 76% of YTD hack losses with just two attacks. The exit door is bridges and admin keys. The pattern is not changing.

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

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Spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $153.9M for the week ending May 1, as per SoSoValue, the fifth consecutive week of inflows. The action was back-loaded, with $629.7M flowing in on May 1 alone, the strongest single-day print in weeks.

Total Bitcoin ETF AUM crossed $103.78B. Cumulative inflows since January 2024 sit at $58.72B. Ethereum ETFs added $101M to start May after $356M in April. The story is no longer about accumulation at any cost. It’s an accumulation during consolidation.

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BG Wealth pitched itself as "the world's largest hedge fund" with AI signals that double your money in 60 days. Its trading platform, DSJ Exchange (DSJEX), showed dashboards, signal codes, and small withdrawals that actually worked. Try to cash out the big wins, though, and you hit a "$400 verification fee," then taxes, and more fees. The funds vanish through cross-chain bridges, allegedly to operators in China.

Through 2025 and early 2026, regulators in Washington, Alberta, Utah, the UK, Tonga, Samoa, the Philippines, and New Zealand have all published warnings. The operators rotate the domains constantly. BG Wealth filed a partial Form ADV, DSJ filed a Form D, citing "SEC registration." Neither is.

A classic example of “pig butchering/advance-fee scheme” that guarantees “daily returns.”

Ben Pasternak, the 26-year-old Australian wunderkind behind plant-based nuggets brand Simulate, is now defending two parallel New York cases.

The March 23 civil case was filed in the Southern District of New York by Burwick Law. Plaintiffs alleged Pasternak "ran the same play three times, under three different token names" through his Solana launchpad Believe. First $PASTERNAK, then $LAUNCHCOIN, then a forced October 29 migration to $BELIEVE that diluted holders by 33% and burned tokens of anyone who missed the deadline. The platform processed $6 billion in volume and allegedly extracted $54 million in fees while Pasternak publicly claimed "zero ownership." The token now trades 99.8% below its all-time high.

On April 22, NYPD arrested Pasternak on second-degree strangulation and two counts of third-degree assault tied to a March 31 incident at the Baccarat Hotel in New York. He pleaded not guilty. Per Wu Blockchain, he was staying at a $2,000-per-night hotel partly to dodge service of the civil suit. His next court date is on June 11.

A non-bet, basically. Saylor literally said, "back to work next week." But $4M+ of volume has stacked anyway because, well, you never know.

Coin flip on the breakout. BTC just cleared $81K on Tuesday after two prior rejections at $80K. The 200-day moving average sits just above at $82,228, the line bulls actually need to hold.

The "hostilities have terminated" letter is one thing. A signed treaty is another. Traders are pricing more of a frozen conflict than a finalized peace. The Strait of Hormuz remains under US naval escort.

Strategy's Q1 print landed after the close yesterday with the headline nobody saw coming: Saylor walked back the "never sell" doctrine and said Strategy may sell BTC to fund its $1.5B in annual dividend obligations.

MSTR dropped 4% after-hours. Coinbase reports Thursday after the close. The April jobs report drops Friday. Powell exits as Fed Chair on May 15, with the full Kevin Warsh Senate confirmation pencilled in for the week of May 11.

The CLARITY Act markup is also tentatively scheduled for that week. If BTC clears $82,228 on a daily close, the breakout is real. If Iran lights another match, oil and crypto get loud again fast.

Until next Wednesday, watch the earnings, watch the bridges, and remember that "the team is not selling" is a press release, not a chain analysis. 🐳