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The U.S. Senate is trying to advance the cryptocurrency market structure bill, the "Clarity Act," in July, but the time window for the bill's passage is narrowing due to a backlog of priority agendas such as the defense authorization bill, the agriculture bill extension, and housing legislation. The Senate's schedule is tight in the coming weeks. In addition to the annual defense and agriculture bills, Trump stated on Wednesday that he would not support a major housing bill unless Congress first passes a bill requiring federal election voters to provide proof of citizenship. This housing bill also includes provisions to prohibit central bank digital currencies.As members of Congress will leave Washington before the August recess, if the relevant bills do not advance before then, the political focus will shift to the November elections when they return, further reducing the available floor time for cryptocurrency legislation. Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis indicated that a new version of the text is expected to be released around July 4 for final review by lawmakers, with a vote planned for July. A Senate aide also mentioned that the "Clarity Act" will become one of the bipartisan priorities when the Senate reconvenes in July. However, the bill still faces multiple uncertainties, including the level of Democratic support, controversies over Trump's related cryptocurrency conflicts of interest, the priority of other significant bills, and the Senate's limited scheduling.

According to a report released by the data analysis platform Glassnode (@glassnode), although the BTC price is still far below its historical high, traders on the Hyperliquid platform are continuously increasing their long positions, with a buy-the-dip sentiment prevailing throughout the downward trend, and the potential for market short squeezes is continuously accumulating.Meanwhile, the altcoin cycle signal has returned to "altcoin season," and the selling pressure on altcoins is tending to exhaust, but BTC is still under downward pressure, and the current market trend is still dominated by BTC movements.

According to the Iranian Tasnim News Agency, the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Hemmati, stated that there has been "significant progress" on the issue of unfreezing Iranian assets during recent negotiations, and relevant documents have been signed during this round of talks.Hemmati mentioned that the issue of frozen assets of the Central Bank of Iran is one of the most complex topics in the current negotiations. According to the relevant arrangements, in the coming days, the related funds will be gradually put into use based on established conditions and according to the procedures set by the Central Bank of Iran.When discussing the issue of oil and petrochemical product exports, Hemmati stated that, according to the memorandum of understanding reached between Iran and the United States, the sanctions exemption mechanism related to Iran's energy exports should have been activated. It has now been agreed that the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control will be responsible for implementing the relevant arrangements.

"On-chain detective" ZachXBT published a case analysis stating that in a cryptocurrency asset case involving an Indian scam gang, the relevant individuals reported the case to law enforcement after their assets were frozen, drawing attention. The incident began when a user sought help, claiming that approximately 5.73 BTC (about $475,000) was frozen on Changelly in March 2025.Subsequent on-chain analysis revealed that these funds could be traced back to multiple social engineering attacks and theft cases related to Bitcoin ATMs targeting U.S. users, with a total amount involved exceeding $1 million and several elderly victims. The investigation showed that the individual provided multiple changing explanations for the source of the funds, including "loan," "boss transfer," and "investment from 2014-2015," and there were significant contradictions in the evidence chain.More concerning is that this user had previously filed a police report in India in December 2025, attempting to recover the frozen funds (case number 3207-P/2025). Subsequent on-chain evidence collection and email data analysis indicated that they might be a "mule" for transferring funds, with some bank documents inconsistent with their identity information. ZachXBT noted that such cases demonstrate that social engineering attacks and cross-border fund transfers continue to occur and remind users to avoid interacting with funds from suspicious sources to prevent triggering compliance freezes or legal risks.

According to Livecoins, the Brazilian House of Representatives' Finance and Taxation Committee (CFT) has approved a bill to penalize cyber fraud, authorizing the freezing of cryptocurrency balances of individuals under police investigation, and also proposing amendments to relevant provisions of the Penal Code to increase penalties for cybercriminals.Crimes committed through social media or phone will face harsher penalties, with those convicted of cyber attacks facing imprisonment of 6 to 10 years, up from the previous 4 to 8 years. Additionally, judges will have the authority to freeze suspects' assets in Bitcoin exchanges and bank accounts. Some preventive measures include freezing physical assets and prohibiting the use of payment systems. The bill will next be submitted to the Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ) for review, which is expected to be completed in the coming days.

According to monitoring by ZachXBT, the address starting with TA6YHq received 120.2 million USDT on the Tron chain, then transferred over 12 million dollars to a Kucoin deposit address, and moved 8 million dollars to several instant exchanges. This entity created Monero orders, causing its price to briefly surge from 330 dollars to 420 dollars. Additionally, over 8 million dollars was transferred from Tron to Bitcoin and Ethereum via Near Intents.Previously, it was reported that Tether froze 72 million USDT in the address starting with TBzrPE, which is directly related to TA6YHq.

According to The Block, the U.S. Department of Justice stated that in a joint anti-fraud operation codenamed "Disruption Week," private sector participants froze over $3.8 million in cryptocurrency assets related to fraud. Participating organizations include Coinbase, Meta, Google, Microsoft, SpaceX, TRM Labs, and others.The operation also led to the arrest of 7 fraudsters by Thai police and the identification of multiple fraud platforms handed over for investigation by the U.S. authorities. Data from the FBI shows that losses reported from cryptocurrency investment fraud in 2025 increased by 24% year-on-year, exceeding $7.2 billion.

According to Cointelegraph, Coinbase has frozen over $3 million in cryptocurrency related to a Southeast Asian crypto fraud network. This action is part of the "Disruption Week" initiative led by the U.S. Department of Justice's Fraud Center, aimed at combating crypto fraud targeting American citizens. Meta, Microsoft, and Starlink also participated in this operation, collectively cutting off servers and hosting infrastructure associated with the fraud network, disrupting criminal activities across more than 1.4 million social media and email accounts. The Royal Thai Police's Anti-Fraud Center has carried out multiple arrests. The U.S. Department of Justice stated that investment fraud and pig butchering scams are the fastest-growing and most financially destructive types of fraud targeting Americans. Coinbase stated that blockchain technology provides law enforcement with transparent, immutable, and permanent transaction records that traditional financial systems often cannot offer.

HSBC released a research report stating that the global commodity market is entering a "super squeeze" situation dominated by supply disruptions. It noted that if the Strait of Hormuz remains substantially closed for an extended period, global commodity inventories will be rapidly depleted, and some varieties may approach critical price turning points.The report pointed out that the Middle East conflict has impacted aluminum smelting capacity, pushing aluminum prices to a four-year high; copper prices are mainly supported by a recovery in end-user demand, nearing $14,000 per ton. HSBC also mentioned that the supply of crude oil, liquefied natural gas, agricultural products, and industrial metals is facing tightening pressures.

Zama protocol founder Rand posted on the X platform that, with the assistance of on-chain detective ZachXBT, the root cause of the cUSDC contract freeze has been identified. This freeze was caused by a court-issued injunction against addresses related to the Overnight Finance hacker, which had deposited approximately $12.5 million USDC into the cUSDC contract, accounting for over 99% of the funds within the contract, leading to the entire contract being frozen.Rand emphasized that this freeze is unrelated to the protocol itself or privacy technology, and it is not a sanction against Zama, but rather a typical DeFi judicial restriction scenario. The project adheres to compliance and privacy principles, not confusing the parties involved in transactions, only hiding balances and amounts. Currently, Zama is communicating with multiple parties to advance a resolution, has suspended the cUSDC, cUSDT, and cWETH contracts, and will restore them after completing the investigation and handling of the involved addresses, and will release a detailed review report as soon as possible.

Zama's official response to Circle's freezing of the cUSDC contract event states that Circle's compliance system flagged a wallet belonging to an external depositor. Since this wallet holds funds in the cUSDC contract, the entire contract was automatically swept into a standard holding freeze. This is merely incidental damage and not a sanction against the Zama Protocol. The Zama legal team has intervened and is isolating the flagged address, and will restore access for all unaffected participants as soon as possible.

"On-chain detective" ZachXBT posted that the stablecoin issuer Circle blacklisted the privacy protocol Zama's Confidential USDC (cUSDC) contract on Ethereum about 7 hours ago, resulting in approximately 12.6 million USDC being frozen within the contract.ZachXBT stated that the cUSDC contract has been publicly labeled in both Zama's official documentation and blockchain explorers. The specific reason for Circle freezing the related USDC is currently unclear. ZachXBT also pointed out that it had disclosed in March 2026 that Circle froze over 16 hot wallet addresses belonging to enterprises, protocols, and service providers without providing transparent explanations.

Data shows that the implied volatility of Bitcoin has dropped to 36%, reaching a nearly 8-month low, indicating that the market expects BTC to continue fluctuating in the short term. The decline in volatility itself does not represent the direction of the market, but current derivatives market data suggests that shorts may have become overly concentrated. If BTC breaks through $82,000, it could trigger a large-scale short squeeze.CoinGlass liquidation heatmap shows that a large number of BTC short positions are concentrated in the $78,000--$83,000 range. Meanwhile, BTC has failed to regain the $90,000 level for nearly 4 months, and some shorts have begun to establish stronger bearish expectations. In addition, Glassnode data shows that the 30-day options Delta Skew for BTC currently remains at 14%, indicating a significant premium for put options compared to call options, reflecting that professional traders are still more concerned about the downside risk of BTC.The current expectation for BTC to pull back to $72,000 has been partially priced in by the market, but if BTC breaks through $82,000 with increased volume, it could trigger a more intense leveraged short covering rally.

The U.S. government, through the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), has initiated a multi-agency coordinated financial action aimed at systematically targeting Iran's domestic digital asset infrastructure, with the goal of dismantling Tehran's parallel shadow banking system. According to officially disclosed information, this operation has successfully identified and incapacitated a large interconnected digital wallet network directly controlled by the Iranian regime, and has immediately frozen nearly $500 million in sovereign-related crypto assets.The U.S. intends to disrupt Iran's ability to bypass long-standing Western trade embargoes by blocking these alternative capital channels, cutting off its resources to regional proxy networks, and systematically weakening the regime's ability to transfer or repatriate wealth outside the oversight of traditional global clearing institutions. The focus of this enforcement action is to systematically identify state-sponsored large cryptocurrency trading portals, which have quietly evolved into core nodes for evading sanctions.Federal intelligence reports indicate that these regional platforms have processed billions of dollars in high-frequency digital asset transactions, heavily relying on mainstream stablecoins and high-throughput alternative blockchain networks to obscure their illegal settlement flows. Under the newly implemented executive directive, the Treasury is actively blacklisting specific crypto addresses, tracking mining pool variables, and imposing sanctions on foreign technology providers that facilitate these state-supported networks.Additionally, the U.S. is leveraging its dominant position in international banking to compel foreign financial intermediaries to fully comply with its aggressive crypto asset control protocols. The Treasury has issued stern warnings to international technology centers that any platform providing clearing services or liquidity assistance to designated Iranian digital entities will face immediate risks of exclusion from the U.S. financial system.This comprehensive containment model shifts regulatory responsibility to global exchanges, forcing them to deploy advanced real-time blockchain analysis tools to programmatically identify and block any inbound transactions originating from Iranian internet protocol or historical wallet clusters. By installing these stringent crypto safeguards at the level of global gateways, the U.S. government is transforming permissionless distributed ledgers into highly controlled economic zones, ensuring that alternative payment infrastructures cannot be used to undermine broader Western geopolitical security objectives in the next decade.

According to a post by Santiment on social media, a large number of traders have bet on the decline of HYPE in the past few days, and significant negative spikes in funding rate data have appeared across trading platforms. However, the price of HYPE continues to rise, forming a classic short squeeze that forces bearish traders to automatically buy back their positions, further driving up the price. Currently, the total value of HYPE's open contracts remains at a very high level of over $1.92 billion.Although the market generally believes that liquidations will lead to the collapse of open contracts, HYPE remains one of the hottest assets in the crypto market, with new traders continuously entering, keeping the open contracts at a high level.The main catalyst for this round of increase is the growing enthusiasm for Hyperliquid-related ETF products. In May 2026, companies like Bitwise and 21Shares launched HYPE-linked ETFs, providing traditional investors with a channel to gain exposure to the asset without the need to directly use crypto wallets or decentralized exchanges. Market analysis suggests that the launch of these ETFs marks Hyperliquid's transition from a niche DeFi platform to an institutionally recognized crypto ecosystem.

According to Jinshi, citing Iranian media Fars News, the United States has made the unfreezing of up to 25% of Iran's frozen assets a condition, and also demands that Iran must hand over 400 kilograms of enriched uranium. Sources say that the United States has set conditions in its response to Iran, requiring Iran to operate only one nuclear facility, and the United States has made it clear that it will not pay any compensation to Iran.

According to The Block, the T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU), jointly established by Tether, TRON, and TRM Labs, announced that since its establishment in 2024, it has frozen over $450 million in illegal crypto assets globally.The unit intercepted illegal proceeds in 2025, with a year-on-year increase of 43.9%, covering 23 jurisdictions including the United States, Spain, and Germany, and was recognized by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as "an important resource for global law enforcement agencies."T3 FCU has participated in various criminal investigations, including exchange hacks, North Korea-related activities, terrorist financing, and violent crime cases, and assisted the Brazilian Federal Police in freezing over $5.989 billion in assets, including 4.3 million USDT.

U.S. Judge Margaret M. Garnett in New York postponed the ruling on Aave's emergency application on Wednesday, which aims to unfreeze $71 million in ETH related to the Kelp DAO hacking incident, and requested both parties to submit supplemental briefs before the hearing on June 5. Aave is attempting to reclaim the $71 million in ETH frozen on Arbitrum to assist in the asset recovery efforts from this hacking incident—Kelp DAO suffered losses of up to $293 million from the hack, making it one of the most severe security incidents in the DeFi space this year.However, the U.S. law firm Gerstein Harrow LLP submitted a restraining order to the court in early May, claiming that its client has rights to the aforementioned funds. Aave then filed an emergency motion to lift the freeze, warning that if the funds are not released in a timely manner, it could lead to user liquidations and potentially impact the entire DeFi market. Judge Garnett noted in her ruling that Aave failed to adequately explain how user funds would incur "compound losses" if the restraining order remained in place. She also acknowledged the complexity of the case, the risks faced by the victims, and requested both parties to provide supplemental statements on six key issues, including: whether the hacking transaction is subject to New York state sanctuary principles, the legal distinctions between fraud and theft and what rights the hacker has over the stolen assets, which laws apply to determine the priority of claims for frozen assets, whether constructive trusts are an appropriate remedy, and whether Aave or Arbitrum can identify individual victims and proportionally return assets. Both parties must submit supplemental briefs by May 22.Meanwhile, the overall compensation work for Kelp DAO is progressing. Kelp and Aave announced on Tuesday that the rsETH held by the hacker has been destroyed on Arbitrum, and approximately $278 million in loss tokens will be restored within the next two weeks through the funds of the Aave Recovery Guardian multi-signature wallet. Once the relevant smart contracts are reactivated, all functions of rsETH will return to normal.