ZEC Surges Above $620, 24-hour Gain Extends to 11.9%

May 20, per Bitget market data: Following former President Trump’s announcement that U.S.-Iran negotiations have entered the "final stage," spot gold rallied short-term to top $4,550 per ounce, while WTI and Brent crude oil both posted sharp $3 declines, trading at $101.08 and $100.31 per barrel respectively. The three major U.S. stock indexes continued their upward momentum, each gaining more than 1%. Earlier, sources noted that final refinements to the U.S.-Iran agreement text are underway. Pakistan’s Army Chief of Staff may visit Iran tomorrow to formally announce the finalized deal text. If the top military official does not make the trip to Iran, the final version could be released within a few hours. The next round of U.S.-Iran talks will take place in Islamabad after the Hajj season, scheduled for early June or later. Per PolyBeats monitoring, on prediction market platform Polymarket, the probability of the U.S. and Iran reaching a permanent peace agreement has risen. The chan

May 20th, data from Coinglass reveals the total open interest for ZEC futures contracts has surged past $1.5 billion, with a nearly 24-hour increase of 24.21%—pointing to a sharp spike in trading activity. A sharp uptick in open interest typically signals an impending major price move. HTX market data confirms ZEC has also broken above the $638 threshold, with its 24-hour price gain climbing to 13.5%.

May 20th — Trump: U.S.-Iran negotiations have entered the "final stage," and we’re awaiting the outcome.

May 20 – Fintech firm Mercury has closed a $200 million fresh funding round led by TCV, with participation from top-tier investors including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and Coatue Management. Mercury now serves over 300,000 startups and generates roughly $650 million in annual revenue. The company credits the recent AI startup boom as a core engine of its rapid growth, noting it’s supercharged demand for new business registrations and account openings. Meanwhile, Mercury has secured conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and plans to apply for a federal banking charter. Going forward, it will expand into lending services, integrate with payment networks like Zelle, and cut its dependence on partner banks.

May 20th — Solana perpetual contract protocol Drift announced that Insurance Fund depositors will be able to withdraw their staked shares once the protocol resumes operations. Per the protocol’s official documentation and code design, the Insurance Fund exists to maintain the protocol’s solvency against losses incurred through liquidations or bankruptcy. Following a recent attack, Drift paused operations immediately to prevent further losses prior to executing standard liquidation and bankruptcy procedures. The Insurance Fund was not impacted by the incident. Drift will use its own Insurance Fund assets to support a “healthy restart” for all users. The corresponding contract address will be made public, enabling the community to track fund usage transparently.

On May 20th, according to OnchainLens monitoring, the K3 Capital address withdrew 7930 ETH from Binance, worth $16.88 million.