South Korea’s KOSPI index opened up 133.95 points, a gain of 1.71%.
On May 12, the South Korean KOSPI index opened up 133.95 points, an increase of 1.71%, to 7956.19 points.
The Nikkei 225 index opened up 172.77 points, an increase of 0.28%, to 62590.65 points.
[TechFlow]
Polymarket’s IPO time is suspected to have been disclosed, possibly on December 31st of this year.
TradingView appears to have disclosed the IPO date for the prediction market platform Polymarket; according to a countdown displayed on its website, Polymarket’s IPO may occur on December 31 of this year.
[Odaily]
FTX/Alameda unstaked 199,263 SOL tokens, worth $19.40 million.
On May 12, according to Onchain Lens monitoring, FTX/Alameda unstaked 199,263 SOL, worth $19.40 million.
[PANews]
Trump: Seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st state of the United States
U.S. President Trump stated that he is seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st state of the United States.
Regarding Iran, Trump also said that no one currently wants to be Iran’s president, Iranian negotiators keep changing their positions, and they truly lack integrity entirely. Iran is a beautiful country, but the people currently managing it are incompetent.
A source close to the Iranian negotiation team stated that Iran has set a clear deadline for unfreezing its frozen funds in its proposal. The U.S. proposal states that it will unfreeze Iran’s frozen funds, but Iran emphasized that these funds must be unfrozen within a specific timeframe. An advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader remarked that Trump wants to exploit the current “calm” situation—a notion that is overly naive.
[Jinshi]
Boundary Labs raises $2.00 million in funding, led by Galaxy Ventures
Boundary Labs, a startup focused on stablecoin infrastructure, announced the completion of a $2 million Pre-Seed funding round led by Galaxy Ventures, with participation from First Block Capital, BlackWood, and others. The company plans to launch its institutional-grade stablecoin USBD—and its staked version sUSBD—on the Ethereum mainnet in summer 2026.
According to the announcement, USBD will support daily on-chain disclosure of reserve status, net asset value (NAV), and protocol operational data. It will employ over-collateralization and Delta Neutral (market-neutral) hedging strategies to mitigate market volatility and directional risk. Boundary emphasizes that its protocol will not use recursive leverage and requires all revenue sources to maintain a Delta Neutral structure.
[The Block]
Boundary Completes $2.00M Pre-Seed Round Led by Galaxy, Will Launch Institutional Stablecoin USBD
PANews May 12th, stablecoin startup Boundary Labs has completed a $2.00M Pre-Seed funding round led by Galaxy Ventures, with participation from First Block Capital and BlackWood, among others.
The company plans to launch USBD, an institution-oriented “verifiable” stablecoin, on the Ethereum mainnet in early summer 2026. Boundary co-founder and CEO Matthew Mezger stated that USBD’s design revolves around “on-chain continuous verifiability” of reserves, net asset value, and protocol performance, providing daily system status reports, including over-collateralization levels and real-time NAV calculations, aiming to shift stablecoins from a trust-based model to a trustless tool.
[The Block]
Trump administration asks court to pause ruling on 10% global tariff
On May 12, according to CCTV News, the Trump administration requested a U.S. court on May 11 to suspend enforcement of an earlier adverse ruling regarding its proposed 10% global tariff, thereby allowing the federal government to proceed with its appeal.
It is reported that the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled against the new tariff measures on May 8 but did not fully halt tariff collection. The Trump administration formally filed its appeal on May 8. If the court grants the request to suspend enforcement of the ruling, three importers who previously sued the government over its tariff policy will once again face the 10% global tariff.
This 10% global tariff was implemented in February this year. At that time, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected most of the Trump administration’s tariff measures introduced in 2025, the administration shifted to advancing a new global tariff policy under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
[PANews]
Sources: Kraken’s parent company, Payward, is conducting a new round of financing at a valuation of $20.00 billion.
PANews, May 12: According to informed sources, Payward, Kraken’s parent company, is raising a new round of funding at a $2 billion valuation. Kraken declined to comment on the matter.
The company has recently accelerated its acquisition efforts, including acquiring stablecoin payment firm Reap for $600 million, digital asset derivatives platform Bitnomial for $550 million, and retail futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion in 2025.
Payward secretly filed a draft S-1 registration statement with the SEC last November in preparation for its IPO. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi stated last week that the company is “80% ready” for listing.
[CoinDesk]
Warsh passes key procedural vote, countdown begins for Federal Reserve chairman handover
May 12th news, according to Jinshi reports, Kevin Warsh, Trump’s nominee for the next Federal Reserve Chairman, cleared a key procedural hurdle in the Senate on Monday, local time. Powell’s term as chairman will end this Friday. The Senate is expected to vote as early as Tuesday to confirm Warsh as a member of the Federal Reserve Board for a 14-year term, following what is known as a “cloture vote” on Monday. Subsequently, lawmakers will also initiate the confirmation process for his concurrent four-year term as Federal Reserve Chairman, with a related vote possibly taking place as early as Wednesday. The Republican-controlled Senate is expected to approve Warsh as the next leader of the Federal Reserve. The next Federal Reserve meeting (which may also be Warsh’s first meeting as chairman) is scheduled for June 16-17, local time. [PANews]
U.S. stock market crypto-related stocks rally, Circle surges over 12%
According to Gate market data, Circle’s stock price opened lower and moved higher today, with a gain of over 12%, leading the rise of cryptocurrency concept stocks.
Among them: MSTR rose 0.98%; COIN rose 4.37%, SBET rose 2.16%; BMNR rose 1.98%, HOOD rose 1.97%, and Hut 8 rose 6.88%.
[ChainCatcher]
Ethereum Foundation Appoints Three New Leaders to Head its Protocol Team
On May 12, it was reported that the Ethereum Foundation is restructuring its Protocol team. Core developers Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko plan to step down, and Alex Stokes will take a leave of absence.
Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik will serve as new co-leads. Fredrik will lead protocol security research, including the newly launched “Trillion-Dollar Security” initiative; Wedderburn will lead the zkEVM team; and Corcoran will focus on areas such as post-quantum security.
[The Block]
U.S. officials: Trump convenes senior officials to assess renewed military action against Iran
Three U.S. officials said that after negotiations with Iran stalled on Sunday, Trump met with his national security team on Monday to discuss the next steps in the Iran war, which could include resuming military operations. U.S. officials said Trump wants to reach a deal to end the war, but Iran has rejected many of his demands and refused to make meaningful concessions on its nuclear program, putting the military option back on the agenda.
Trump has repeatedly threatened publicly in recent days to bomb Iranian infrastructure facilities if diplomacy fails. Officials said one option is to strike 25% of the targets that the U.S. military has identified but not yet hit.
U.S. officials said Vice President Vance, U.S. Special Envoy Wittkov, Secretary of State Rubio, Secretary of Defense Heggeseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Kane, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and other senior officials are expected to attend the meeting on Iran.
[Golden Ten]
Trader Eugene: SOL May Be the First to Break Through Three-Month Consolidation Range, Target Looking at $120.00
On May 11, trader “Dove” Eugene posted on his personal channel stating that SOL is currently exhibiting relatively strong performance among major crypto assets, demonstrating more stability compared to ETH and HYPE, and is viewed as the leading mainstream token most likely to break out of its three-month consolidation range first.
Analysis indicates that if SOL successfully breaks above the key resistance level of $96, the next target zone could be around $120, representing a potential upside of approximately 25%.
Meanwhile, he also believes that market risk appetite remains likely to hold as long as BTC does not fall below $80,000, allowing capital to position early for breakout moves.
[PANews]
CleanSpark reported a net loss of $378.00 million in the second quarter, including a $224.00 million loss on its Bitcoin holdings.
May 12th news, Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark announced its second-quarter financial report, with a net loss of $378.300 million, an increase of 173% compared to $138.800 million in the same period last year, including a $224.100 million loss on Bitcoin holdings. The company held $925.200 million worth of Bitcoin at the end of the quarter. Bitcoin mining revenue was $136.400 million, a year-on-year decrease of 25%.
CleanSpark is accelerating its transformation towards AI and high-performance computing infrastructure. CEO Matt Schultz stated that the company’s goals include commercializing assets suitable for AI/HPC, expanding its portfolio, and continuing to mine efficiently to drive the transformation.
After the financial report was released, CleanSpark’s stock price fell by 5% in after-hours trading.
[PANews]
In the past 24 hours, the entire network contract liquidation was $393.00 million, with both long and short positions being liquidated.
On May 11, according to CoinAnk data, the total liquidation volume across the cryptocurrency market’s perpetual contracts over the past 24 hours amounted to $393 million, including $171 million in long-position liquidations and $221 million in short-position liquidations.
BTC’s total liquidation volume was $112 million, while ETH’s total liquidation volume was $87.45 million.
[PANews]
Ethereum Foundation releases update on the Glamsterdam upgrade: testnet is live, and the Hegotá scaling roadmap is progressing in parallel.
The Ethereum Foundation disclosed the results of a recent interoperability meeting held by core developers in Svalbard, Norway, and updated key technical progress for the next phase of the "Glamsterdam" upgrade. During the meeting, the multi-client team collaborated on network scaling and execution layer optimization, making progress in several areas. Developers confirmed that a consensus has been reached on the "trusted path" after Glamsterdam, based on the combined results of ePBS, BAL optimization, and the EIP-8037 repricing mechanism. On the execution layer, ePBS (External Proposer Separation Architecture) is running stably in the multi-client Glamsterdam-devnet, and the external block builder process has completed end-to-end testing, covering almost all client implementations. Meanwhile, EIP-8037 has been finalized, establishing the fixed cost_per_state_byte model, and the complete repricing parameter output has been completed in bal-devnet-6. Progress has also been made in the "Hegotá" extension. The FOCIL-related prototype is now operational, the scope of Account Abstraction (AA) requirements has been defined, and the next phase will be the multi-client development network verification phase. Current development remains focused on the final implementation of Glamsterdam, while also advancing the Hegotá extension design and subsequent Strawmap roadmap evolution. The development network is live, and features such as FOCIL are expected to be further refined in the next phase of testing. At the organizational level, this interop meeting also marks the official start of the Protocol Cluster leadership restructuring. New leaders include Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik. Will Corcoran is responsible for zkVM proofs and post-quantum consensus coordination, Kev Wedderburn leads zkEVM development, and Fredrik is responsible for protocol security and the Trillion Dollar Security project. Former Protocol Cluster leadership team members Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko will gradually step down from their management roles, and Alex Stokes is on leave. The foundation stated that during their tenure, Protocol has completed modular development, driven the Fusaka upgrade to live (December 2025), introduced PeerDAS, and improved mainnet gas capacity. [Odaily Planet Daily]
Data: Ondo Global Markets’ total value locked exceeds $1.00 billion
Ondo Finance announced that the total value locked (TVL) of its Ondo Global Markets has exceeded $1 billion, making it the first tokenized stock and ETF trading platform to reach this scale.
It is reported that the platform has been online for less than 8 months, and the TVL has doubled since January 2026 and has accumulated approximately $18.00 billion in transaction volume. According to RWA.xyz data, it currently occupies more than 70% of the market share in the field of tokenized stock issuance.
[Odaily]
The Ethereum Foundation has appointed three co-leads for the Protocol Cluster, and the Protocol team has been restructured accordingly.
On May 12, The Block reported that the Ethereum Foundation is restructuring its Protocol team. Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik have been appointed as the new co-leads of the Protocol cluster. This adjustment comes as Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko plan to leave the organization, and Alex Stokes begins a leave of absence.
The Protocol team is the core unit of the Ethereum Foundation responsible for the design, research, development, and coordination of the Ethereum base layer, covering areas such as security, cryptography, zkEVM, and peer-to-peer networking.
Currently, the team is advancing Ethereum’s next major scaling upgrade, Glamsterdam, which proposes raising the gas limit to 200 million and introducing ePBS. Furthermore, the team will focus its future R&D efforts on the Hegotá upgrade and the FOCIL prototype to enhance Ethereum’s censorship resistance.
[TechFlow]
Today’s Market Pulse
The day’s dominant theme is the convergence of institutional adoption signals with protocol-level innovation and geopolitical uncertainty, creating a complex market environment where smart money is positioning for both infrastructure growth and potential volatility.
Key Themes
Institutional Adoption & Corporate M&A
Payward (Kraken) raising at $20B valuation while accelerating acquisitions, Ondo Global Markets exceeding $1B TVL, and Boundary Labs securing $2M for institutional stablecoin USBD all point to deepening traditional financial involvement in crypto infrastructure. This signals a strategic shift toward regulated, institutional-grade products rather than purely speculative assets.
Geopolitical Tensions & Market Impact
Trump’s Venezuela statehood consideration, global tariff appeal, and potential military action against Iran introduce significant geopolitical uncertainty. While this typically drives capital toward alternative stores of value, it also introduces market volatility that could trigger short-term liquidations across crypto markets.
Ethereum Protocol Evolution & Leadership Transition
The Ethereum Foundation restructuring its Protocol team with new co-leads advancing the Glamsterdam upgrade (testnet now live) represents a critical inflection point for Ethereum’s scalability. The leadership change coincides with progress on the Hegotá scaling roadmap and FOCIL prototype, suggesting a strategic focus on censorship resistance and quantum security.
Market Structure & Trading Dynamics
SOL showing potential to break through its three-month consolidation with a target of $120, combined with $393 million in total liquidations across both long and short positions, indicates elevated volatility and potential for directional moves. This suggests the market may be on the cusp of breaking out of its recent range-bound trading.
RichSilo Verdict
Smart money should monitor the interplay between institutional inflows (evidenced by Kraken’s fundraising and Ondo’s TVL growth) and geopolitical risks, with particular attention to how the Ethereum Foundation’s restructuring and upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade might impact market dynamics. Key catalysts include the potential SOL breakout, Warsh’s Fed confirmation, and any escalation in Iran tensions, while risks center on regulatory clarity for stablecoins and global tariff implications. The convergence of these factors could trigger a significant repositioning of capital across the crypto ecosystem in the coming weeks.
