The popular AI framework Virtuals Protocol will host an in-person meet-up in Hong Kong on Friday, January 17.

On May 7, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley addressed the Consensus 2026 conference, noting key market trends: The market posted a downturn in Q4 of last year, followed by a further decline in Q1 of this year. Despite the slump, U.S. wealth management channel inflows reached an eight-year quarterly high. For wealth channel financial advisors, Q1 was their strongest quarter ever for product inflows—signaling they opted to buy the dip amid market weakness.

**May 7th Market Brief** Market focus is shifting from the Middle East conflict itself to its downstream impact on the U.S. economy and inflation. U.S.-Iran negotiations remain ongoing, with Trump noting dialogue between the two sides over the past 24 hours was “very productive.” Concerns about further geopolitical escalation have eased significantly, pushing oil prices down from recent highs to around $95 per barrel. Yet energy pressures haven’t fully abated. Even as oil prices pull back, U.S. gasoline prices are near $4.50 a gallon—up roughly 40% from the same period last year—signaling prior supply chain and transportation cost pressures continue to feed through to end consumers. This leaves the Federal Reserve in a tricky spot: economic data is showing signs of slowing, but inflation still isn’t expected to cool quickly in the near term. The latest U.S. April “mini nonfarm payrolls” report showed 109,000 jobs added, a touch above market forecasts. While the labor market is

May 7th — Per HyperInsight monitoring, a highly leveraged BTC long whale on Hyperliquid is nearing liquidation. The position, opened yesterday evening with 35x leverage, has a liquidation price of $80,650 — less than $200 from the current market price, with a liquidation trigger distance of roughly 0.25%. If prices drop into this liquidation range, 109.7 BTC (worth ~$8.8 million) is expected to be liquidated on-chain, alongside a concentrated release of sell orders of the same magnitude. The position’s unrealized loss currently stands at 50%. Address: 0xc6cfc26b057f9f70a4cfdd896f075d86315d9d23

On May 7, GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen shared a social media screenshot revealing his personal eBay account was permanently banned from the platform—just two days after he proposed a $56 billion bid to acquire eBay. eBay cited that his account activity posed a risk to its community.

May 7th: Per GMGN monitoring, the meme coin **Freedom of Money** on the BSC (BNB Chain) jumped 25% in one hour. It holds a market cap of $12 million, with a 24-hour gain of 40% and a trading volume of roughly $2.2 million over the same timeframe. Note from BlockBeats: Meme coins are extremely volatile, relying heavily on market sentiment and hype—they have no actual value or use case. Investors should be mindful of the risks.