Huobi HTX has launched AERGO perpetual contracts and kicked off a contract trading party.

May 23 — Cross-chain infrastructure provider Squid announced Wednesday it has closed a $6 million funding round led by North Island Ventures. Additional institutional participants in the round include Ripple, Dialectic, Borderless Capital, Scenius Capital, and other firms. Angel investors joining the financing are projects Axelar, Ledger, Polymer Labs, Enso, and Peanut. Since launching, Squid has processed more than $6 billion in total transaction volume, completed over 4 million individual transactions, and served over 1 million users worldwide. Currently, the platform connects to more than 100 blockchains, over 20,000 tokens, and more than 130 decentralized exchanges (DEXs). The Squid team plans to continue expanding into new chains, scaling its user base, adding new features, and launching additional products. Notably, the team hinted that a mobile-related product is coming soon.

May 23 — Per OnchainLens monitoring, a wallet linked to Arthur Hayes deposited 115,453 HYPE (~$6.33M) and 1.76M AERO (~$785k) into Bybit. Arthur currently holds 247,334 HYPE, valued at approximately $13.6 million.

May 23 – Per OnchainLens monitoring, two newly created wallets withdrew 60,000 ETH from BitGo and Kraken, totaling roughly $126 million, and are potentially linked to Bitmine.

On May 23, OnchainLens monitoring data shows that whale trader Evaded (who operates under the Twitter handle @ICanPlug) has closed out his long positions in HYPE, ZEC, and ETH, locking in a total profit of $4.56 million. The trader has since opened a new 15x leveraged short position using 990 BTC, which is valued at roughly $74.5 million. As of now, this position is sitting on an unrealized gain of over $1 million.

May 23 update: U.S. stocks wrapped up Friday’s trading session, per Bitget market data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.58% in its preliminary close, the S&P 500 climbed 0.37%, and the Nasdaq Composite notched a 0.19% gain. Qualcomm (QCOM.O) led the AI chip sector, surging 11.6%, while AMD (AMD.O) added nearly 4%. Cryptocurrency-related stocks saw broad declines: MicroStrategy (MSTR) fell 3.01%, Coinbase Global (COIN) dropped 4.43%, Circle Internet Financial (CRCL) slipped 1.53%, DraftKings (SBET) declined 3.86%, and Bitfarms (BMNR) retreated 3.72%.

May 23. Sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday that despite ongoing diplomatic efforts, the Trump administration was reportedly drafting plans for a new round of military strikes against Iran on the same day. As of the afternoon, a final call on whether to launch the strikes had not been made. President Trump took to Twitter, announcing he would be unable to attend his son Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding this weekend due to "special circumstances related to government affairs." He had initially planned to spend the Memorial Day weekend at his private golf club in New Jersey, but reversed course to return to the White House instead. Multiple sources revealed that in anticipation of potential military action, several U.S. military and intelligence personnel have canceled their Memorial Day weekend plans. Defense and intelligence officials have started updating emergency recall rosters for U.S. overseas military bases. Meanwhile, some U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East are b