A Whale Liquidated $96.74 million Worth of BTC and ETH Short Positions, Profiting $1.87 million

On May 30, former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky filed a motion in a New York state court seeking to overturn his 12-year prison sentence, alleging his defense attorney provided ineffective assistance. In the filing, Mashinsky cited the "fruit of the poisonous tree" legal doctrine to argue that the evidence used to convict him was flawed. He stated he was forced to submit the filing pro se—representing himself in court—after his lawyer stopped communicating with him. The accompanying court documents include additional accusations: Mashinsky claims former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried sought to "destroy Celsius" and manipulated the CEL token market through FTX. He also accused former Celsius Chief Revenue Officer Roni Cohen-Pavon of attempting a "hostile takeover" of the crypto firm. Mashinsky was originally sentenced in 2025 for commodities and securities fraud, ordered to pay $48 million in criminal forfeiture plus a $10 million civil settlement.

May 30: HYPE surged above $65 to a new all-time high. Hyperliquid’s financial arm HypeStrat has surpassed $1 billion in unrealized gains from its HYPE holdings—making it the largest such figure among all Decentralized Autonomous Treasuries (DATs). Conversely, Ethereum-focused treasury firm BitMine (BMNR) has racked up over $8 billion in unrealized losses, the highest of any crypto treasury firm globally.

On May 30, CloverPool data shows that Bitcoin’s mining difficulty adjusted at 18:29 at block height 951,552, climbing 1.72% to 138.96 T. The global network’s average hash rate over the past week is approximately 1.02 ZH/s.

May 30, 2026 – U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins told attendees at the 2026 Reagan National Economic Forum that the SEC is actively working to advance former President Trump’s goal of “Making America the Global Cryptocurrency Hub.” The agency is partnering with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to move forward on Project Crypto, an effort to strengthen the regulatory framework for the decentralized finance (DeFi) market. Atkins explained the SEC has issued guidance to clarify digital asset classification, specifying exactly which digital assets count as securities and which do not. The regulator is also progressing on an Innovation Exemption for tokenized securities, as well as studying how to integrate on-chain trading systems into the existing regulatory structure. He pointed out that the prior U.S. regulatory environment was hostile toward the digital asset industry, leading to major innovation and companies relocating abroad. Now, th

On May 30, Richard Li, founder of Liquid Capital (formerly LD Capital), stated that the cryptocurrency industry has long been characterized by short bull runs and extended bear markets. Having navigated multiple such cycles, the firm has naturally adapted to this pattern, and the current cycle is no different. Still, AI is highly disruptive—so it’s only natural for crypto industry insiders to flock to AI. "Opportunity and trend are the core factors of investment," Li noted.

On May 29, Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, stated in a post that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)’s latest regulatory guidance will accelerate the development of Bitcoin’s capital markets. The guidance will support core elements including 24/7 trading, allowing Bitcoin (BTC) to function as collateral, perpetual contracts, options, and compliant market access for industry participants. Saylor added that these regulatory measures will benefit Bitcoin holders, underpin Strategy’s (ticker: MSTR) Bitcoin-focused strategy, and position STRC to evolve into a Bitcoin-backed digital credit product.