Daily Summary, May 18

## 📍 Main Events of May 18 (Expanded Summary)

Below is the complete picture of the day, including all significant events.

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### 📉 Bitcoin lost $80,000 and is trying to hold $77,000

Bitcoin started the new week falling to lows below $77,000, declining for the fourth consecutive session. For the week of May 11-17, Bitcoin lost 5.78%, dropping to $77,457. Ethereum fell even deeper — down 10.13% to $2,131. Total crypto market capitalization decreased by 5.2% to $2.56 trillion. The largest cryptocurrency momentarily dipped to $76,566 — its lowest level since May 1. Altcoins are losing ground across the board.

*Analysis:* The market has entered a prolonged correction phase. Alexander Baryshnikov, fund manager at Mining Management Company Rekord Capital, suggested that Bitcoin could test the $70,000 level by the end of May. The technical picture confirms bear dominance: the MACD indicator has formed a classic bearish crossover, and the price decline is accompanied by rising trading volumes — a sign of large capital exiting. Key support is now at $75,754. If buyers fail to hold this level, the medium-term uptrend will be broken.

*Trend:* With 75% of surveyed institutions considering Bitcoin undervalued and short-term holders in loss (MVRV below 1), the market remains highly sensitive to macro shocks. Meanwhile, long-term holders remain calm: nearly 60% of the Bitcoin supply has not moved in over a year, and exchange balances are at six-year lows.

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### ⚡️ Geopolitics and macroeconomics crushed risk appetite

The main blow to the market came from escalation around Iran. US President Donald Trump warned that “time is running out” for Tehran, triggering a sharp rise in oil prices above $110 per barrel amid drone incidents in the UAE and the breakdown of diplomatic negotiations. The oil shock triggered a massive sell-off in government bonds: the yield on benchmark 10-year US Treasury notes reached its highest since early 2025, and the 30-year yield rose to 5.13% — the highest level since 2007.

The futures market began pricing in a growing probability of a Fed rate hike this year. Polymarket estimates the probability of no rate cut in June at 98%, and in July at 94%. New Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh reaffirmed his commitment to restrictive policy, adding further pressure on risk assets.

*Analysis:* Rising bond yields increase the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like Bitcoin. Investors are cutting exposure to speculative instruments amid fears that rising energy prices will fuel global inflation and keep interest rates high for longer than expected.

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### 🏦 Institutional money flees: ETFs lost $1 billion

Crypto investment products saw outflows of $1.07 billion for the week, ending a six-week streak of inflows. This is the third-largest weekly outflow of 2026.

Outflow details:
– Bitcoin funds lost $982 million. Net inflows since the beginning of the year have shrunk to $3.9 billion.
– Ethereum funds saw outflows of $249 million — the largest since January 30.
– Blockchain company equity ETFs lost $133 million, confirming the correction is spreading across the entire sector.

The record single-day outflow on May 18 was $649 million — the third largest of 2026. BlackRock’s IBIT led outflows with $448 million, followed by Ark’s ARKB ($110 million) and Fidelity’s FBTC ($63.4 million).

European investors remained positive: Switzerland attracted $22.8 million, Germany $22 million, the Netherlands $7.5 million. CoinShares analysts attribute the outflows primarily to renewed geopolitical risk-off amid the events around Iran.

*Analysis:* Interestingly, despite the overall outflow, 11 assets still showed positive flows, which analysts interpreted as a sign of more selective investor approaches.

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### 🪙 Strategy and El Salvador keep buying against the trend

Amid ETF sell-offs, two well-known “bulls” are increasing their positions.
Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) bought an additional 24,869 BTC for $2 billion at an average price of $80,985 per coin. The company now holds 843,738 BTC. This is one of the largest single purchases in the history of corporate Bitcoin accumulation. Given the recent exhaustion of the preferred stock (STRC) limit, the company apparently used other financing mechanisms.

El Salvador continues its daily “1 BTC per day” strategy. The country now holds 7,652 BTC worth about $604 million. President Bukele is not commenting on the current decline, but apparently, purchases will not stop.

*Analysis:* The behavior of Strategy and El Salvador is a classic example of “averaging down” by investors with a multi-year horizon. It is not a sign that the bottom has been reached, but it is an important psychological signal: large players who have seen more than one cycle are not afraid to buy on the dip.

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### 💎 XRP and Solana buck the trend

Despite the overall capital outflow, a number of altcoins showed surprising resilience. XRP attracted $67.6 million for the week, Solana — $55.1 million. Both assets accelerated inflows compared to previous weeks. Toncoin added $7.7 million, Sui — $4.7 million, Ondo — $4.1 million, Chainlink — $3.9 million, Dogecoin — $3.2 million.

*Analysis:* Sustained demand for XRP and Solana amid the flight from Bitcoin and Ethereum may indicate a reallocation of capital within the crypto market. Investors who retain risk appetite are choosing assets with a clearer regulatory history (XRP) and a strong ecosystem (Solana). At the same time, the overall decline in altcoin market share to 39.2% indicates a narrowing of risk appetite.

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### 🕵️ Tether freezes $344 million linked to Iran

The issuer of the largest stablecoin, USDT, has frozen $344 million allegedly linked to the Central Bank of Iran. This is one of the largest stablecoin asset freezes in history.

Arkham Intelligence publicly identified the wallets, linking them to the Iranian central bank and possible sanctions evasion. The wallets contained over $344 million in USDT along with smaller amounts of HTX and TRX. The action comes as global regulators increase pressure on sanctioned countries using cryptocurrencies to move funds across borders.

A week earlier, Tether had frozen $213 million in USDT across 48 crypto wallets linked to British multimillionaire Gurhan Kiziloz, the founder of the gambling platform Megaposta.

*Analysis:* This case highlights the growing focus on compliance in the crypto space and demonstrates a fundamental difference between Bitcoin and stablecoins: while Bitcoin operates outside centralized control, USDT and similar assets can be instantly frozen by their issuer. In 2026, the total amount of funds frozen by Tether is already approaching record levels — $515 million over 30 days was reported earlier. Amid escalating geopolitics around Iran, stablecoin issuers are increasingly becoming instruments of secondary sanctions.

*Trend:* Stablecoins are turning into digital weapons of geopolitical pressure, and their issuers into agents of global compliance. This sharply contrasts with the original idea of cryptocurrencies as uncontrollable money, but it increases institutional trust.

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### 🇮🇷 Iran launches “insurance” for passage through the Strait of Hormuz paid with Bitcoin

The Hormuz Safe platform allows ships to pay for insurance in Bitcoin to transit the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s key oil routes, through which about 20% of global oil passes.

*Analysis:* This is a direct use of Bitcoin in a geopolitical game. Iran, under sanctions, cannot use traditional banking channels for insurance and transit payments. Bitcoin becomes the settlement layer for operations that would otherwise be impossible. On the one hand, this demonstrates the real utility of cryptocurrency. On the other hand, it reinforces the narrative of Bitcoin as a sanctions-evasion tool, which could provoke retaliation from the US and EU.

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### 🚨 Hacker attacks: Verus-Ethereum bridge hacked for $11.6 million
According to analytics firm PeckShield, at least eight major attacks on crypto bridges were recorded in May 2026. One of the latest is the hack of the Verus-Ethereum bridge, with $11.6 million stolen.

Significant recent incidents:
– The $300 million LayerZero KelpDAO hack — one of the largest DeFi attacks of 2026.
– The Drift attack for over $200 million in April.
– The Verus bridge lost $11.5 million in May (data refined).

April 2026 became the most hacked month in cryptocurrency history — 30 incidents, nearly one attack per day. Total losses in 2026 exceeded $750 million by mid-April.

*Analysis:* Bridges between blockchains create attractive targets for attacks because attackers only need to compromise the verification mechanism to gain access to pooled liquidity. The systemic vulnerability of infrastructure protocols remains one of the industry’s biggest unsolved problems. Notably, after the $300 million KelpDAO hack, LayerZero publicly acknowledged its mistake (architecture with a single verifying node), but the overall trend remains unchanged: money in bridges continues to attract hackers.

*Trend:* 2026 could become a record year for stolen funds. Without a fundamental redesign of bridge security architecture (multisig, decentralized oracles, formal verification), the problem will only worsen.

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### 🏫 Harvard’s investment fund continues to exit crypto

The Harvard University endowment fund, one of the largest university endowments in the world ($50+ billion), reduced its stake in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) by another 43% and completely exited the Ethereum ETF.

*Analysis:* Harvard was one of the first institutions to enter crypto ETFs. Now it is exiting, and quickly. This could be either a tactical decision (profit-taking, rebalancing before a market regime change) or a signal of reduced risk appetite among “smart money” in the academic sphere. Given that Harvard’s fund is traditionally conservative, its exit from the ETH ETF is particularly telling — institutions are losing interest in Ethereum as an investment asset.

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### 🗽 Trump administration turns out to be the most crypto-friendly in US history

More than 20% of senior officials and candidates in Donald Trump’s administration have declared cryptocurrency or investments in blockchain companies. This is a record high in US history.

*Analysis:* Even if Trump himself has been publicly skeptical about Bitcoin, his inner circle is clearly betting on digital assets. This is important for two reasons. First, it reduces the risk of harsh prohibitive laws — people with personal stakes in market growth will lobby for moderate regulation. Second, it sends a powerful signal to other politicians: owning crypto is no longer a reputational risk but is becoming the norm.

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### 🚓 “Lola Ferrari” extradited from Thailand to the US over Forsage crypto pyramid case

A 42-year-old Ukrainian woman, known under the pseudonym “Lola Ferrari,” was extradited from Thailand to the United States. She is accused of creating and operating the Forsage crypto pyramid, which raised over $300 million from investors worldwide.

*Analysis:* This case shows that geography no longer protects crypto fraud organizers. The US is actively using international extradition treaties to reach suspects, even if they hide in countries with soft regulation (Thailand). This should reassure investors: regulators are becoming increasingly effective at prosecuting obvious fraudsters. But for organizers of “gray” schemes, it is a worrying signal.

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### 🤖 Vitalik Buterin: powerful AI models will start finding code vulnerabilities en masse

Ethereum co-founder warned that powerful AI models will soon begin mass-finding vulnerabilities in code. This could hit cryptocurrencies hard, especially systems with zero-knowledge proofs (ZK), STARKs, and post-quantum infrastructure.
*Analysis:* Buterin is raising an issue many prefer to remain silent about. If AI can automatically find vulnerabilities in smart contracts and cryptographic protocols, the security of many blockchains (including Ethereum) will be at risk. On the other hand, the same AI can be used for auditing and defense. This is an arms race with the highest stakes. For investors, this is an additional argument to diversify across different blockchains and not keep all funds in a single protocol.

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### 🐳 DeepSeek bug leaks personal data

The Chinese chatbot DeepSeek, considered one of the most secure, leaked fragments of conversations with other users. In some cases, the leak contained personal data.

*Analysis:* The DeepSeek incident is a warning sign for anyone using AI agents to handle confidential information (including in crypto: passwords, seed phrases, wallet addresses). If even large, well-funded AI systems “leak,” then relying on them to store secrets is premature. For crypto investors, this means: never enter your private keys or seed phrases into chatbots, even if they seem trustworthy.

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### 🇷🇺 Rosfinmonitoring wants to tighten control over crypto exchangers almost like banks

The Russian financial intelligence agency proposed introducing strict control, rules, and liability for crypto exchangers — similar to banks. Requirements may include licensing, mandatory KYC, AML procedures, and transaction reporting.

*Analysis:* If the proposal is adopted, “gray” crypto exchangers in Russia will either close or go deeper underground. For legal businesses, this will, on the one hand, increase costs, but on the other, create civilized rules of the game. For individual investors used to fast and anonymous P2P exchangers, this means either higher fees or the need to undergo verification. The global trend is unambiguous: crypto exchangers will be regulated more strictly everywhere, and Russia is no exception.

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### 🚬 Years of darknet anonymity ended with one idea

The darknet proposed a new scheme: buy gold bars with cryptocurrency and have them delivered to your home. The idea was that the courier does not know the contents of the package, and the seller receives crypto. However, law enforcement quickly “uncovered” the scheme — physical delivery leaves traces.

*Analysis:* This news is a reminder that complete anonymity in crypto is a myth. As soon as you convert cryptocurrency into a physical asset (gold, cash, goods) and come into contact with the real world (delivery, courier), clues appear. For ordinary users, this is not a problem, but for those hoping to use crypto for illegal operations, it is another signal that a “perfect means of hiding traces” does not exist.

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## 📊 Summary of May 18 (expanded)

May 18, 2026 will go down in crypto market history as a day when several factors — geopolitics, macroeconomics, institutional outflows — all crashed down on the industry. Bitcoin lost nearly 6% for the week, ETFs lost over $1 billion, and the escalation around Iran pushed the market back to early May lows. Meanwhile, Tether demonstrated its role as a digital sanctions tool by freezing $344 million in Iranian assets, and bridge hackers continued to collect record “tribute” from DeFi protocols.

However, there were also positive (or at least neutral) signals: Strategy and El Salvador continue to buy the dip, the Trump administration turned out to be the most pro-crypto in history, and Iran began using Bitcoin to insure oil routes. At the same time, Vitalik Buterin warned of a new threat — AI vulnerabilities for cryptography — and Harvard is exiting ETFs, confirming cooling institutional interest.

Global trend of the day:
*”The market is experiencing a perfect storm: geopolitics knocks out risk-on, the Fed keeps rates high, ETFs see record outflows, Tether becomes a digital sanctions tool, and hackers continue to gut bridges. Yet 75% of institutions consider Bitcoin undervalued, long-term holders are not moving, Strategy buys $2 billion, and Iran launches Bitcoin insurance for tankers. Investor, remember: macroeconomics and geopolitics now matter more than any technical levels. Watch oil, yields, Trump’s statements, and Fed decisions — everything depends on them now. And never enter your seed phrases into chatbots.”*

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🔮 Key events to watch this week:
– Release of the FOMC minutes on Wednesday.
– Nvidia earnings on Wednesday — a sentiment indicator for the AI sector.
– PPI inflation data on Thursday.
– Progress on the CLARITY Act in the US Senate.
– Further escalation around Iran and the oil market reaction.