Will Trump fill CFTC seats before CLARITY Act rewrites crypto rules?

House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson and Ranking Member Angie Craig urged President Donald Trump to nominate a full bipartisan slate of Commodity Futures Trading Commission members. House Agriculture leaders want Trump to fill CFTC seats before new crypto rules reach implementation.CFTC staffing pressure rose after Senate Banking Committee advanced CLARITY in a bipartisan 15-9 vote.Industry leaders said clearer rules could support tokenization, stablecoins, consumer protection, and compliant market growth.  Their May 15 letter said the CFTC faces urgent work tied to derivatives markets, new technology, and changing market structures.  The lawmakers said Congress and the White House are working on legislation that would expand the CFTCs mandate over spot digital commodity trades. They said a five-member commission would produce better regulations, more durable rules, and broader input from derivatives market users.  Senate vote adds pressure to the agency  The request came after the Senate Banking Committee advanced the CLARITY Act by a 15-9 vote. The committee said the bill now moves to the Senate floor, where it would set federal rules for digital assets and market oversight.  Separate market updates said the bill still faces a harder path. The measure needs 60 Senate votes, an ethics provision remains unresolved, and the final text would

05-17

Iran Demands Payment from Tech Giants for Strait of Hormuz Internet Cables

Second one: Space Force command center. Explosions over Earth on the screen behind him. His hands on the controls.  Two posts. One hour apart. Both pointing in… https://t.co/a670bx8lbK pic.twitter.com/VKLwsGvVdf  — Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 16, 2026  Ebrahim Azizi, who chairs Irans parliamentary committee on national security, announced over the weekend that Iranian officials have developed a “professional mechanism” to oversee maritime movement through the critical waterway. According to Azizi, details of the framework will be released in the coming period, with collection systems established for vessels utilizing the authorized shipping corridor.  The proposed route would exclusively serve commercial shipping operations and entities maintaining cooperative relations with Tehran. Azizi emphasized that access would be permanently denied to operators associated with what Iranian officials term the “freedom project”—a direct reference to former U.S. President Donald Trumps “Project Freedom” initiative, which sought to maintain open commercial navigation through the strait. Trump suspended that operation in early May.  Maritime Tolls and Cryptocurrency Speculation  Iran has maintained an effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz following the escalation of U.S.-Israeli military actions that commenced in late February. This closure has triggered substantial increases in international oil and natural gas prices, considering approximately twenty percent of global petroleum supplies transit through this

05-17

OpenServ (SERV) Soars 70% on AI Agent Hype: Why The Rally Could Cool Fast

In technical analysis, falling wedges typically resolve higher, and SERVs breakout above the $0.0287 horizontal level confirmed the structure.  Measured-move analysis points to upside of about $0.038, the longest vertical distance inside the pattern. That measurement, projected from the breakout, implies a target near $0.067.  Price has already covered roughly three-quarters of that range. The 14-day RSI has pushed above 80, a zone where momentum tokens often stall or pull back.  Recent Dogecoin wedge breakouts show that target zones frequently mark short-term tops.  Risk now skews toward profit-taking unless volume sustains a daily close above $0.060. A failed retest of the $0.0287 trendline would invalidate the bullish read. Longer-term price projections will hinge on whether the breakout holds above support.  AI Agent Narrative Returns to Center Stage  Behind the technical move sits a fundamental story. OpenServ runs an end-to-end infrastructure layer for autonomous AI agents, covering agent construction, token launches, and operational deployment.  $SERV pumps 69% today following a technical breakout, likely fueled by interest in its autonomous AI agent narrative. pic.twitter.com/jbJAH8ZZqm  — CoinGecko (@coingecko) May 17, 2026  The companys BRAID reasoning framework is used across 10 enterprise and government deployments. That includes UAE government work with partner Neol.  SERV is the platforms utility asset for fees, staking, and launch

05-17

Latam Insights: Coinbase Co-Founder Eyes Venezuela as Grupo Salinas Embraces Stablecoins

Mexican Giant Grupo Salinas Taps Anchorage Digital for Payments  Grupo Salinas, one of the largest business conglomerates in Mexico, with dozens of companies, has partnered with Anchorage Digital, a services company, to integrate in its cross-border payment flows. Coinpro, a platform owned by the group, will integrate Anchorages Solutions for Banks to “compress settlement cycles” in its cross-border operations.  Anchorage claims that its solution offers international institutions the ability to include stablecoin-based operations with embedded compliance for cross-border payments and treasury operations.  Nathan McCauley, co-founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital, stressed that were moving to become core bank infrastructure. “Grupo Salinas shares our conviction that digital dollars will power the next generation of cross-border finance, and were proud to partner in bringing that vision to life,” he declared.  Brazil Slaps Banco Topazio With $3.2M Fine and 2-Year Trading Ban  The Administrative Sanctioning Process Decision Committee (Copas) of the Central Bank of Brazil imposed a two-year ban on Banco Topazios foreign cryptocurrency trading operations due to irregularities in transactions accounting for billions of dollars.  The committee determined that Banco Topazio disregarded compliance measures between October 2020 and September 2021, when it executed cryptocurrency purchases without executing procedures to determine the qualification of the third parties benefiting from

05-17

Harvard dumps Ether ETF as Abu Dhabi doubles down on Bitcoin

Institutional crypto ETF filings for the first quarter showed a split between buyers and sellers. Harvard fully exited BlackRocks Ether ETF while cutting its IBIT position another 43% in Q1.Mubadala added two million IBIT shares, keeping Abu Dhabis Bitcoin ETF exposure above $500 million.Dartmouth kept Bitcoin exposure flat but added Solana staking ETF shares, widening endowment crypto allocations.  Abu Dhabis Mubadala Investment Company raised its BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust position, while Harvard Management Company reduced its Bitcoin ETF stake and removed its BlackRock Ether ETF holding.  The filings came after a volatile quarter for digital assets and ETF flows. They also showed how large investors used regulated funds in different ways. Some funds added exposure through Bitcoin ETFs. Others cut risk, shifted products, or widened allocations beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.  Mubadala keeps building its IBIT position  Mubadalas latest 13F filing listed 14,721,917 IBIT shares worth $565.6 million as of March 31. Crypto.news reported that the position rose 16% from 12.7 million shares at the end of the fourth quarter.  The same report said Mubadala has kept adding to IBIT since late 2024. The position has remained above $500 million for three straight quarters. Abu Dhabi-linked exposure also stayed visible through ADIC, which The Block reported

05-17

Magne.AI And LSP.Finance Join Forces To Foster Web3 Smartphone User Engagement In DeFi 

In a groundbreaking move to expand user engagement in its Web3 mobile application network, Magne.AI, a decentralized smartphone platform, today entered into a strategic partnership with LSP.Finance, a digital asset management platform that transforms DeFi by unlocking liquidity from POS networks. This collaboration enabled Magne.AI to combine with LSP.Finances digital asset liquidity infrastructure, allowing its Web3 mobile device and smartphone users to now access innovative DeFi applications.  Magne.AI is a US-based Web3 firm with specialized ability to develop decentralized smartphones and mobile devices that support secure access to personal data, digital transactions, and DApps (decentralized applications). This platform targets the global market of 5 billion smartphone users, providing them with decentralized phones and mobile devices powered by AI technology, allowing them to take advantage of advanced economic capabilities in the decentralized landscape.  Magne.AI Integrating Decentralized Smartphone Network With LSP.Fis DeFi  The partnership above shows Magne.AIs continued commitment to expanding its footprint in the Web3 space by taping to LSP.Finances digital asset liquidity ecosystem, aiming to offer its Web3 mobile device and smartphone users cutting-edge DeFi utilities. LSP.Finance is a permissionless, cross-chain DeFi platform that enables users to access opportunities, manage liquidity, and maximize staking earnings. Its platform enhances liquidity for assets from POS

05-17

Yann LeCun argues LLMs will drive real-world applications, but not human-level thinking

Tech  Yann LeCun argues LLMs will drive real-world applications, but not human-level thinking  Yann LeCun, Meta‘s chief AI scientist and one of the godfathers of deep learning, is making a nuanced argument that cuts against both AI hype and AI doomerism simultaneously. Large language models are commercially useful, he says. They’ll justify the billions being poured into GPU clusters and data centers. But the bubble isn‘t in the infrastructure spending. It’s in the belief that these models can think like humans.  The case for LLMs as utility, not oracle  LeCuns argument is straightforward once you strip away the academic jargon. LLMs are good at a growing list of practical tasks: coding assistance, enterprise search, document summarization, customer service automation. These applications generate real revenue and solve real problems. That makes the massive infrastructure buildout, the GPU farms and the power plants, a defensible investment.  LeCun draws an aggressive line in the sand about what these models fundamentally cannot do. Hes been arguing for years that next-token prediction, the core mechanism behind every major LLM from GPT-4 to Claude to Llama, is a “dead end” for achieving anything resembling genuine intelligence.  LLMs learn by consuming trillions of tokens of text. A child learns to understand the physical

05-17

App days are numbered: The end state of software will be private, personal, verified, and AI agent-built

Tech  App days are numbered: The end state of software will be private, personal, verified, and AI agent-built  AI agents could end the app era by turning software into verified, user-built systems  AI agents may make running code written by strangers one of those behaviors that later generations struggle to process.  A society can normalize a risk for decades, then later reclassify it as reckless once a safer default becomes available.  Drinking before driving, riding without seatbelts, smoking indoors, and installing arbitrary binaries from the internet all belong to the same family of historical blind spots. The common feature is social permission.  The behavior persists when the alternative is costly, inconvenient, or technically unavailable. Once the safer path becomes cheap and routine, the old path begins to look irrational.  AI agent verification could replace software trust assumptions with attested execution paths, safer defaults, and user-controlled infrastructure.AI agents expose the weakness in the software trust model  Modern software still runs on a bargain that we rarely inspect. A developer, company, foundation, or anonymous maintainer writes code. A distribution channel packages it. A user, enterprise, or operating system runs it.  Security then becomes a layered attempt to manage the consequences of that decision.  Permissions, code signing, app stores, endpoint detection, sandboxing, vendor

05-17

Over $205 Million in Crypto Tokens Set for Unlock Next Week

The crypto landscape is getting ready for a week full of token unlocks. Particularly, a total of $205M will be unlocked across the prominent DeFi projects. As per the data from DefiLlama and CryptoRank, the leading token unlocks of the upcoming week take into account Pyth, LayerZero, and Canton. Hence, these unlocks underscore the growing investor interest and the chances of notable growth ahead.  Upcoming Token Unlocks: Over $205M in Assets Unlocking Next Week  May 18–24, 2026$PYTH → $95.7M on May 20$ZRO → $33.3M on May 20$CC → $23.3M ongoing daily$TRUMP → $14.9M ongoing weekly$MBG → $8.32M on May 22$KAITO → $7.63M on May 20$GWEI → $7.24M on May 21$YZY →… pic.twitter.com/lpU3eZ0kLJ  — Top 7 Crypto | Analytics & Alpha (@top7ico) May 16, 2026  Pyth Dominates Next Weeks Top Token Unlocks with $95.7M Allocation  Pyth is the top among the top crypto unlocks of the upcoming week. In this respect, the project is going to unlock a total of $95.7M on the 20th of May. This amount accounts for a cumulative 2.13B $PYTH, equaling 21.3% share of the total supply. Subsequently, LayerZero has emerged as the 2nd top player in the crypto industry when it comes to the next weeks key token unlocks. Specifically, it

05-17

BlackRock dumped over $650 million of these cryptocurrencies in a week

Finance  BlackRock dumped over $650 million of these cryptocurrencies in a week  BlackRocks cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded more than $650 million in combined outflows over the past five trading days, coinciding with weakening sentiment across the market.  Specifically, BlackRocks iShares Bitcoin (BTC) Trust (IBIT) accounted for most of the withdrawals, posting total outflows of about $461.2 million between May 11 and May 15.  The steepest single-day decline came on May 13, when the fund lost $284.7 million, followed by another $136.2 million in outflows on May 15. Although IBIT briefly rebounded with $144.1 million in inflows on May 14, the overall weekly trend remained negative.  Ethereum (ETH)-focused products also faced heavy selling pressure during the same period. BlackRocks ETHA fund recorded cumulative outflows of $186.7 million, while ETHB saw an additional $6 million withdrawn, bringing combined Ethereum ETF outflows to roughly $192.7 million for the week.  The largest Ethereum ETF decline occurred on May 12, when ETHA alone posted $102 million in outflows, followed by another $50.4 million withdrawn on May 15.  While some Ethereum ETFs, including Fidelity‘s FETH and VanEck’s ETHV, posted modest inflows, they failed to offset the broader sector weakness. BlackRocks combined Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF outflows totaled about $653.9 million over the

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