BlackRock deposits 5,847 BTC into Coinbase, worth approximately $449.52 million

May 19 – U.S. ADP Nonfarm Employment Change for the week ended May 2 was reported at 42,250, up from the prior reading of 33,000. (FXStreet)

May 19 – Per Al Jazeera, U.S. officials have announced that a White House National Security Council meeting, set to take place today, has been postponed due to President Trump’s decision to delay the planned attack on Iran.

May 19 – Tether is accelerating its push into the South Korean crypto market, with its latest trademark moves signaling it’s laying the groundwork for a local presence, industry watchers say. The stablecoin giant recently filed 7 trademark applications in Korea, covering its brand name, official logo, and its gold-backed stablecoin Tether Gold. Notably, this marks a shift from Tether’s prior Korean trademark efforts, which only focused on registering stablecoin product names—this time, it’s expanding to full brand identity assets like its core logo. Industry insiders frame the move as a proactive step aligned with Korea’s upcoming rules under the Act on the Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information (the Virtual Asset Service Provider, or VASP, Act), which will require overseas stablecoin issuers to establish local branches to operate their services domestically. Tether’s action stands out because it’s acting faster than key rival Circle, analysts note. Fo

On May 19th, Hut 8 announced it has struck a deal with West Feliciana Parish in Louisiana, USA, to invest roughly $16 million to expand the parish’s local water supply system in support of its River Bend artificial intelligence (AI) data center campus development. The investment includes building a new water well, roughly 8 miles (about 13 kilometers) of water supply pipelines, and additional system upgrades. Once finished, the full infrastructure will be transferred to the parish at no cost to taxpayers, with the project expected to wrap up in the second half of 2026. Hut 8 said this move is part of its energy infrastructure platform strategy, aimed at integrating power, digital infrastructure, and computing capacity to serve next-generation high-energy computing needs—such as AI data centers.

May 19 — Leading Wall Street firms including Benchmark, TD Cowen, and Mizuho aligned Monday on a key observation: the market is still valuing crypto companies using metrics designed for traditional trading platforms, but these firms are gradually transitioning toward AI infrastructure, capital market tools, and digital financial platforms. All four names in focus — Bitdeer, DeFi Technologies, Strive, and Gemini — retained a "Buy" rating across the three institutions, though some target prices were adjusted due to broader sector valuation compression. Benchmark’s research highlighted Bitdeer’s core advantage: a global power portfolio spanning the U.S., Norway, Bhutan, and other regions with total capacity around 3GW. Analysts emphasized power is emerging as a critical scarce resource amid surging demand for AI data centers. The firm’s Tydal project in Norway, set to deliver ~180MW of AI hash rate hosting capacity, is in advanced negotiations with large potential tenants. Bitdeer’s AI c

On May 19th, Bloomberg reports, U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is criticizing a financial regulatory decision that allows cryptocurrency companies to access the banking system, saying some of these firms “appear unfit.” The Massachusetts Democrat wrote to Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), stating that the regulatory agency has issued national trust bank charters to at least nine crypto companies. Warren contends these firms “operate far beyond the narrow business scope permitted by law,” a move that “clearly violates the National Bank Act.”