Point of View: The Federal Reserve Has Over-Eased, with a 65% Chance of Stagflation in the United States

May 24th: Security researchers are warning that AI is accelerating quantum computing’s development—and could pose an early threat to the modern encryption systems powering networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden stated, “The future security landscape will be completely different. The combination of quantum computing and AI will make all the security approaches we’ve used in the past unreliable.” The report notes AI has been used to optimize key technical bottlenecks such as quantum error correction, which could cut down on the actual time to bring functional quantum computers to life. NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin also pointed out AI is speeding up scientific progress, adding, “We might even build the next generation of quantum computers with AI’s help.” Researchers are also worried about a growing “collect first, decrypt later” strategy: some governments or institutions are preemptively hoarding encrypted data now, waiting for future mature quantum

May 24: The probability of Polymarket’s prediction that Bitcoin will hit $100,000 this year has fallen to 37%, down from 49% on May 10. Separately, the current odds that BTC will rise to $90,000 this year stand at 59%, while the chance it will drop to $50,000 is 41%.

On May 24, data from Onchain Lens shows a whale took a 25x leveraged long position in 2,700 ounces of gold valued at $12.6 million. The whale also holds a 20x leveraged short position in crude oil, with over $324,000 in current unrealized gains.

May 24 — Keyrock’s latest report underscores that crypto rails are rapidly emerging as the default payment layer for AI agents. Over the past year, AI agents have completed more than 176 million blockchain transactions, with a total settlement value exceeding $73 million. As AI agents autonomously procure data, cloud computing power, API services, and AI inference resources, traditional credit card payment systems have failed to adapt to high-frequency, micro-payment scenarios. Data shows roughly 76% of AI agent payments are below 30 cents, and some on-chain stablecoin transfers cost only a fraction of a cent. Major players including Coinbase, Stripe, Google, and Visa have all started building infrastructure for machine-to-machine payments. Among them, Coinbase’s x402 protocol allows AI agents to directly use USDC for on-chain analytics and cloud service fees. Currently, 98.6% of AI agent payments are settled via USDC. The report notes this trend further strengthens Circle’s promine

### Market Holiday & Early Trading Session Advisory **Effective May 25 Observations:** In observance of Memorial Day, the U.S. stock market will remain fully closed on Monday, May 25. For CME Group futures contracts trading on May 26 Beijing Time: - Precious metals and WTI crude oil futures will close early at 02:30 Beijing Time - U.S. stock index and Treasury futures will wrap up trading early at 01:00 Beijing Time In Asia-Pacific, Vesak Day holidays will impact markets on May 25: - The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is closed, with Southbound and Northbound trading links suspended - The South Korean stock market is also closed In Europe, the U.K. Spring Bank Holiday will lead to the closure of the U.K. stock market on May 25. ICE Brent crude oil futures will close early at 01:30 Beijing Time on May 26. Investors are urged to plan accordingly. Source: FXStreet

On May 24, HTX Markets data shows RAIL—the token of privacy protocol Railgun—briefly spiked above $4.7 before pulling back. It is now trading at $4.01, boasting a more than 73% gain in value over the past 24 hours.