The US Treasury's OFAC sanctioned Iran's largest crypto exchange Nobitex and three other platforms—Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex—under the Trump administration's 'Economic Fury' campaign. Officials alleged the exchanges enabled sanctions evasion and processed activity tied to the IRGC, while Treasury said Nobitex handled more than 50% of Iranian digital asset inflows in 2025. The designations also included Nobitex leaders such as chairman and co-founder Amir Hossein Rad, with Treasury citing a $90 million hack in June 2025 that Rad allegedly helped the platform recover from.

Dogecoin (DOGE) fell more than 5% on Wednesday as selling pressure persisted, but Alphractal says price is hovering near a historical accumulation area around $0.10–$0.11 based on its CVDD Channel model. The firm argues prior appearances of a similar setup (late 2014, mid-2020, mid-2023) preceded major rallies, and its Alpha CVDD upper band currently sits near $0.85. Separately, analyst Ali Martinez said the TD Sequential indicator printed a buy signal, as other observers pointed to a possible breakout.

Bitcoin's daily network activity has cooled sharply since May 2021, even as BTC's price has stayed above its prior-cycle levels for much of the current cycle. Active addresses fell from roughly 1.12 million to about 624,000 and new wallets from nearly 489,000 to around 278,000 per day. In May, crypto-market discussion rebounded, with Bitcoin-related chatter up about 24% versus April, despite participation remaining uneven.

South Korean prosecutors have charged five people tied to the Solana meme coin project CatFi, alleging a coordinated rugpull after the token attracted investor funds. Investigators say CatFi was launched in early 2025 via Pump.fun and later saw an about 1,001x price jump within 26 hours as roughly 6,000 investors bought in. Prosecutors said 256 investors reported about 900 million won in losses and suspects allegedly made over 400 million won, with arrests including two suspects on May 11 and three more later on Wednesday.

Ethereum (ETH) dipped below $2,000 this week for the first time since March 29 before stabilizing near $2,002, still almost 60% under August's peak near $5,000. Data show wallets with at least 100,000 ETH now hold 17.41 million ETH, equal to 22.03% of total supply and a nine-week high. Analyst Ali Martinez said a weekly close below $1,850 could open downside levels around $1,560 and $1,070.

Crypto venture investment slowed in Q1 2026, with firms putting about $4 billion into 355 crypto and blockchain deals, down 50% quarter-over-quarter and 16% by deal count. Later-stage rounds took roughly 57% of capital, while median deal sizes rose above $4.5 million even as valuations eased from Q4 2025 highs. The US led activity with over 70% of invested capital and 43.5% of deals, while only eight new crypto-focused venture funds raised nearly $1.1 billion.

US prosecutors say Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo (aka 'AlphaRaccoon') used nonpublic 'Year in Search 2025' data to trade on Polymarket and net about $1.2 million. The complaint alleges he placed at least 23 bets from October to December 2025 and risked roughly $2.75 million before Google published the results on December 4, 2025.

XRP has remained range-bound near $1.30–$1.38 after multiple failed breakouts, as on-chain data suggests traders are under heavy pressure. Santiment says the average XRP trader over the past 30 days is down 47% and notes the 30-day MVRV has fallen to its lowest level since December 2020, a zone it associates with capitulation risk. Separately, CryptoQuant reports Binance XRP perpetuals show rising speculative activity, with volume imbalance near 0.54 and Z-Score close to 0.95 while spot price hovers around $1.34.

Two newly launched US spot ETFs tied to Hyperliquid's HYPE token have posted early inflows that, by one measure, outpaced the debuts of spot Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana ETFs. The products include 21Shares' THYP (listed May 12) and Bitwise's BHYP (listed May 14), which together have drawn more than $95 million in net inflows within weeks; HYPE was trading near $62.31 at the time of writing.