Lit defies the odds with a 24-hour price surge of over 20%, reaching a total gain of 35.6% after Vlad Novakovski and Vitalik's "Fireside Chat."

On May 20th, Vitalik Buterin took to social media to outline several native short-term privacy initiatives Ethereum is currently advancing. These include: the integration of Account Abstraction (AA) and FOCIL, which will deliver first-class support for privacy protocol transactions and robust bundling guarantees; the Keyed Nonces scheme; and access layer-related work covering the Kohaku project and features such as private reads.

On May 20, Sarah Breeden, deputy governor of the Bank of England, told attendees at the 2026 London City Week conference that tokenization technology can lower settlement costs, speed up transaction times, and boost competition in financial markets—so long as trust mechanisms and interoperability are properly in place. Breeden stressed that while private-sector innovations like tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins are advancing quickly, central bank money will always be the bedrock of the monetary system. She laid out a blueprint for a diverse payment ecosystem where, alongside traditional bank deposits, the public can also use tokenized deposits, regulated stablecoins, and possibly a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) for transactions. More competition in tech and business models will cut user costs and enhance functionality. Breeden noted that the Bank of England is collaborating with industry groups, government agencies, and regulators to create a regulatory frame

On May 20, The Wall Street Journal reports that manufacturing startup SendCutSend has closed a $110 million funding round. The round is led by Sequoia Capital, crypto venture capital fund Paradigm, and Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, valuing the company at $1 billion. Paradigm, once a leading crypto-native VC firm managing approximately $12.7 billion in assets, has been refining its strategy since 2023. The firm has removed all mentions of "crypto" and "Web3" from its website, and co-founder Matt Huang has publicly noted, "The advancement of AI is far too compelling to ignore." Against this backdrop, the SendCutSend investment fits squarely with Paradigm’s shift toward focusing on "AI + Robotics + Advanced Manufacturing."

Ark Invest, Cathie Wood’s investment firm, bought approximately $4.4 million worth of Bullish stock across Monday and Tuesday’s trading days through three of its ETFs, per daily trade disclosures and day-end price data. The breakdown: Ark purchased 52,308 shares on Monday and 69,712 shares on Tuesday via three funds: the Innovation ETF (ARKK), Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), and Blockchain and Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF). The buys came amid a downward stretch for Bullish’s stock: over the past five trading sessions, its price dropped 15.4% cumulatively. Tuesday brought a small 1.88% rebound, closing at $36.23—though the stock still sits 16.7% lower month-to-date. Ark frames the position increase as routine portfolio management: the firm actively adjusts its ETF holdings to keep any single stock under 10% of a fund’s total portfolio, rebalancing when asset values shift significantly. On the fundamentals front, Bullish released mixed first-quarter results last week: its n

On May 20th, per Onchainlens monitoring, a trader has established a 20x long position on both BTC and ETH, with the total position value coming in at approximately $36 million.

May 20 – Market sources indicate South Korea’s Ministry of Labor will mediate the dispute between Samsung Electronics and its union, with talks set to resume at 4:00 p.m. local time (3:00 p.m. Beijing time).