Crypto Market Digest: Scaling vs. Demand Divergence (2026-05-29)

Gate launches pre-market trading for QNTX perpetual contracts

According to official announcements, Gate has now launched pre-market trading for QNTX perpetual contracts (USDT-settled), supporting 1x–10x leverage.

[Odaily]

Central banks and private investors are accelerating their gold purchases, pushing gold’s share of reserves to a multi-decade high.

May 29th news, according to Cointelegraph, global central bank gold reserves have risen to 26.6% of their total reserves in 2025, the highest level since 1993.

At the same time, gold allocations by private investors have also reached a nearly 40-year high.

[PANews]

CryptoQuant Founder: Crypto bear market may last until early 2027

Ki Young Ju stated on the X platform that once profit-taking starts to create a chain reaction, Bitcoin investors’ profit and loss levels usually continue to decline for about 18 months. Since this trend has turned in October 2025, the current bear market may last until early 2027.

The trend will only truly reverse when unrealized profits rise again and realized profits begin to decline. This has not happened yet.

[Odaily]

Client Accidentally Burns $500 Million on Claude AI in One Month: Here’s How

An unnamed enterprise client accidentally racked up a $500 million bill on Anthropic’s Claude AI in a single month after failing to set usage limits or spending caps for its employees. We break down what happened, why costs spiraled so fast, and the lessons every company should take away today.

According to a report from Axios, the consultant behind the story explained that unrestricted access across the entire organization triggered explosive token consumption. Enthusiastic adoption quickly spiraled into an uncontrolled and devastating burn rate. Heavy users felt the impact first; engineers running complex agentic workflows, large-context prompts, or parallel coding sessions can easily generate hundreds or even thousands of dollars in costs per person each month. Scaled across thousands of employees without guardrails, the economics turned catastrophic.

One engineer experimenting with autonomous agents running 24/7 may seem small, but multiplied organization-wide, the meter runs nonstop across every team. Agentic AI and extended thinking features dramatically amplify usage compared to simple chat interactions. These advanced capabilities loop through tasks repeatedly, consuming tokens at a much higher rate than traditional prompt-and-response use.

This case is far from isolated. Microsoft reportedly scaled back internal Claude Code licenses after per-engineer costs hit $500 to $2,000 monthly across its engineering teams. Uber reportedly exhausted its entire 2026 AI budget by April. The company’s COO, Andrew MacDonald, noted that costs were becoming harder to justify under current usage patterns and operational priorities across the business.

Amazon even shut down an internal AI usage leaderboard. Employees had been gaming the system with low-value prompts, inflating infrastructure expenses without delivering meaningful productivity gains across departments. Many companies treated AI tools like flat-fee SaaS subscriptions during 2024 and 2025. They underestimated how dramatically usage-based pricing scales with model choice, context length, and autonomous agentic behaviors.

Anthropic does offer enterprise controls, including admin dashboards, per-user limits, and compliance tools. These features must be proactively configured, however, and in this case, it appears they simply were not. The episode is now accelerating a shift from experimentation toward disciplined AI governance. Leading organizations are implementing hard spending caps, role-based access, real-time monitoring dashboards, and policies favoring cheaper models for routine, low-stakes tasks across the business.

The lesson is clear. Claude’s enterprise growth keeps accelerating, with hundreds of customers spending seven figures annually, but companies ignoring controls risk turning productivity tools into serious budget liabilities.

[Axios]

Base Azul goes live as Coinbase L2 targets one-day withdrawals

Base Azul is live on mainnet. The upgrade gives Coinbase’s Ethereum layer 2 a new proof system and Base-native clients. Base announced that Azul is live on mainnet after months of testing. It is the network’s first independent upgrade since Base started moving toward its own stack. Base documents list the mainnet activation for May 28, 2026, at 18:00 UTC. The update changes proofs, clients, and Ethereum upgrade features. The network said Azul makes Base “faster and more secure.” That claim refers to a multiproof system, which combines trusted execution environment proofs and zero-knowledge proofs.

Base Azul is live on Mainnet! Some of the highlights include Multi-proofs, which introduce TEE & ZK proofs, increasing security and laying the groundwork for shorter withdrawal times. It also includes Ethereum Upgrades featuring CLZ opcode and Osaka repricings, as well as performance-focused clients. Under the system, either proof can finalize a proposal on its own. Base says withdrawals can finish in “as little as one day” when both systems agree. The multiproof design reduces reliance on one proof path. If a zero-knowledge proof conflicts with a permissioned TEE proof, the ZK proof can override it. That setup gives Base another step toward Stage 2 decentralization and supports a safer route for faster withdrawals between Base and Ethereum.

Azul also adds Ethereum Osaka execution-layer changes, including the CLZ opcode and repricing updates. Base said most application developers should not need large code changes. The upgrade matters most for infrastructure teams. Node operators running older software must migrate to Base-native clients to stay in sync. Azul moves Base to base-reth-node as its execution client. It also adds base-consensus as its consensus client. Base documents say op-node, op-geth, op-reth, nethermind, and kona no longer support the upgrade. That makes migration required for affected operators. Operators already using OP Reth through the Base node package can update without a full re-sync. Others may need to start again with base-reth-node.

Base says the new stack cut empty blocks by about “99%.” The count fell from nearly 200 per day to about two. The network also reported several bursts of “5,000 transactions per second.” Those figures are internal network claims and should be read as reported results. The Azul launch follows earlier crypto.news coverage on faster withdrawals and stronger proof security. The same reporting thread noted Base’s move toward its own stack. Base still has more upgrades planned. The next releases are expected to focus on performance and user experience. Native account abstraction is also on the roadmap. That change could make wallets and transactions easier for users over time. The main angle for users is simple: Base wants its Coinbase-backed Ethereum layer 2 to become faster and less dependent on one proof system.

[crypto.news]

BlackRock Deposits Over $230.00 Million in Bitcoin and Ethereum to Coinbase

On May 29, BlackRock deposited 2,448 BTC (approximately $180 million) and 28,683 ETH (approximately $57.62 million) into Coinbase, totaling over $230 million.

[PANews]

Aave Labs secures dual UK licenses for regulated crypto payments infrastructure through local subsidiary

Aave Labs’ U.K. subsidiaries have received approval from the Financial Conduct Authority to register as cryptoasset exchange providers, allowing one of the largest decentralized finance operators to do business legally in the United Kingdom.

The two subsidiaries — Push Labs Ltd. and Push Virtual Assets Ltd., together operating as Push — are now registered under U.K. anti-money laundering rules and hold an existing FCA authorization under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 to issue electronic money, giving Aave Labs a dual-permissioned framework to build regulated payments infrastructure in the U.K., the firm announced.

Combined with an existing FCA authorization under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 to issue electronic money, the approvals give Aave Labs the regulatory footing to offer full-stack fiat-to-crypto infrastructure in the U.K. The immediate commercial goal is a zero-fee on- and off-ramp that lets users move money directly from their bank account into Aave without leaving the app.

“Our FCA EMI authorization and cryptoasset registrations provide the regulatory foundation to deliver next-generation, zero-fee onchain consumer financial products in the U.K.,” Aave Labs founder and CEO Stani Kulechov said in a statement.

The U.K. approvals extend a regulatory footprint Aave Labs has been building across Europe. In November 2025, its Irish subsidiary Push Virtual Assets Ireland Ltd. obtained as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider license under MiCA from the Central Bank of Ireland. The regulatory nod unlocked passporting rights across the European Economic Area.

Aave Labs is the primary contributor to Aave, the largest onchain credit market by total value locked, per The Block’s data dashboard. The Aave DAO approved a $25 million funding grant for Aave Labs in April, with the firm also rolling out Aave V4 and its GHO stablecoin as part of a broader push into regulated consumer finance.

Aave’s regulatory moves in the U.K. also comes as the FCA advances its full crypto licensing regime. The regulator opened a consultation on stablecoin issuance, trading platforms, and custody rules in April, with a formal licensing gateway set to open in September 2026 and the broader framework expected to take effect in October 2027.

[The Block]

AI Transit Station review platform Check4U.ai is now online

Check4U.ai, an evaluation platform for AI large-model proxy services, has officially launched. Built on the GatewayBench evaluation framework, the platform assesses AI proxy services across three dimensions—trustworthiness, cost-efficiency, and performance—transforming model authenticity, billing transparency, cache isolation, and actual costs into verifiable metrics. This provides AI proxy service users with public, transparent, and comparable audit and evaluation references.

The platform currently features over ten AI proxy service companies, aiming to advance standardization and transparency in the AI large-model gateway ecosystem.

[Foresight News]

Bitcoin Underperforms Risk Assets as Record 9th Day of ETF Outflows Signal Waning Demand: Crypto Daybook

$Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ is stabilizing near $73,500, about 10% below its monthly high of $81,000. Data suggests the stall reflects a shortage of new buyers rather than a plethora of sellers.

Risk assets broadly advanced after reports that U.S.-Iran negotiations could reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil passageway, lifted sentiment.

“The expectations of a de-escalation in geopolitical tension and the normalization of the Strait of Hormuz are reducing pressure on oil prices,” analysts at Spanish lender Bankinter wrote in a market note.

Against that supportive backdrop, bitcoin’s weakness looks crypto-specific. Long-term holder supply has reached a record 15.8 million BTC, according to CryptoQuant, normally a bullish signal because it reflects coins held rather than traded. The firm argued the record may be hollow, reflecting slowing market turnover rather than conviction.

Short-term holder supply has fallen about 2.2 million BTC since December. That includes roughly 900,000 BTC of Coinbase reserves that crossed the 155-day long-term-holder threshold by sitting still. The record is partly an artifact of inactivity, not fresh buying.

Demand from spot bitcoin ETFs, a key driver of the past two years’ rally, has cooled. Glassnode said inflows and spot demand remain too weak to sustain a move above cost-basis levels near $78,000. Net outflows from the ETFs reached a record nine-day streak on Thursday.

Glassnode’s realized profit/loss ratio sits at 1.56, below levels typical of stronger bull markets. On Polymarket, traders are assigning a strong probability bitcoin closes the month between $72,000 and $76,000. Stay alert!

What’s trending

• Crypto trading firm FalconX confidentially files with SEC for IPO, hires bankers (CoinDesk): FalconX hired Cantor and other bankers to advise on a potential IPO and confidentially filed draft paperwork with the SEC.

• OKX Ventures buys $53 million stake in Korea’s Coinone exchange (CoinDesk): OKX will invest $53 million for just under 20% of Coinone, marking one of the largest recent investments by a global crypto firm into South Korea’s digital-asset sector.

• Strategy’s STRC slips below $99 as Strive captures investor attention (CoinDesk): Strategy’s perpetual preferred security, Stretch (STRC), fell to as low as $97.11 as bitcoin slipped to $73,000.

• Iran reportedly launches missiles as Trump mulls deal to pause war for two months (CNBC): Iran fired missiles at unidentified targets hours after the Pentagon said Tehran launched a missile toward Kuwait and drone strikes in and around the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes followed news that the U.S. and Iran “mostly agreed” to a peace deal that President Donald Trump has yet to sign.

Today’s signal

The ratio of altcoins (excluding the top 10) to bitcoin is currently just above its 50-week exponential moving average, a sign of strength relative to largest cryptocurrency.

If the ratio ends the week above that level, the next resistance is a 20% increase relative to bitcoin, which would indicate sustained momentum across the broader altcoin universe.

Crypto concept stocks rose slightly in pre-market trading in the U.S. stock market, with HOOD up 0.62%.

According to MSX.COM data, crypto concept stocks rose slightly in pre-market trading in the US stock market. CRCL rose by 0.25%, COIN rose by 0.50%, MSTR rose by 0.42%, and HOOD rose by 0.62%.

It is reported that MSX is a leading RWA trading platform, which has launched hundreds of RWA tokens, covering US stocks and ETF token targets such as AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, META, MSFT, NFLX, and NVDA.

[Odaily]

Kalshi Files Federal Lawsuit Over Minnesota State Law Banning Prediction Markets

Prediction market platform Kalshi has filed a lawsuit in federal court against a Minnesota law set to take effect on August 1 that bans the operation, hosting, or promotion of prediction market platforms within the state. Kalshi argues that the law is unconstitutional, asserting that it infringes upon the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) exclusive federal jurisdiction under the Commodity Exchange Act and violates the First Amendment by restricting advertising.

Previously, on May 19, the CFTC filed a motion challenging the same law. Kalshi has previously prevailed in similar enforcement actions in New Jersey and Arizona, securing preliminary injunctions.

Meanwhile, prediction markets have recently been banned in Indonesia, Spain, and India, and the U.S. House of Representatives has launched investigations into Polymarket and Kalshi.

[Foresight News]

Base has activated the Azul upgrade on the mainnet, with a peak throughput of 5000 TPS

On May 29, Coinbase-incubated Ethereum Layer 2 network Base announced that it has activated the Azul upgrade on its mainnet. This marks the network’s first independent upgrade since departing from the Optimism Superchain.

Azul introduces a multi-proof system that combines TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) and ZK (Zero-Knowledge) proofs. Either proof can independently finalize state confirmation; when both align, withdrawal finality can be reduced to approximately one day.

In the event of a conflict, the permissionless ZK proof will override the TEE proof to enhance censorship resistance and decentralization.

[PANews]