retail

On-chain detective ZachXBT has released a lengthy article exposing the LAB project and its founder (@vsadkovv). The LAB token has surged to a $6 billion FDV, but the situation is very opaque.The team was founded by Vova Sadkov and Mark, whose previous Eesee project left many investors dissatisfied. Currently, the circulation data for LAB is chaotic, with Coingecko, RootData, and CMC reporting different circulation figures. The official team has not clearly disclosed the token distribution, and there is a significant overlap between investors and trading platforms. Most critically, insiders likely control over 95% of the tokens, leaving retail investors completely unaware of the true circulation situation.Additionally, the LAB team unilaterally changed the public sale lock-up period from 3 months to 9 months, while also defaulting on marketing fees, providing special treatment to KOLs and whales, and requiring them to post promotional content. The founder has mixed project funds with personal accounts, with large amounts of money directly entering the trading platform's recharge address. Insiders can sell off tokens without retail investors being aware.On-chain data shows that insiders recently withdrew over 100 million LAB from trading platforms, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, using tactics similar to those seen in previously manipulated projects. ZachXBT calls for trading platforms to conduct a thorough investigation and delist or freeze related funds. Furthermore, ZachXBT specifically states: this is not a short-selling recommendation. With such high supply control, short-selling instead becomes fuel.

American financial services giant Charles Schwab has begun to phase in the "Schwab Crypto" service for eligible U.S. retail customers, allowing users to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum directly.According to official information, users can view and manage their crypto assets directly through their existing Schwab accounts, with custody provided by Charles Schwab Premier Bank, while Paxos offers underlying custody and trade execution services. The platform charges a transaction fee of 0.75% of the transaction amount, and currently does not support external wallet deposits and withdrawals. Additionally, this service is not yet available to residents of New York and Louisiana. Charles Schwab currently manages approximately $12 trillion in client assets, with its clients holding about 20% of the assets in U.S. spot crypto ETFs.

Traditional financial giant Charles Schwab announced that Schwab Crypto accounts are now gradually opening to retail customers. The first batch of customers can trade Bitcoin and Ethereum on Schwab, managing them alongside other investment products.

Crypto analyst Murphy stated that data shows retail investors have not generally missed out on this round of Bitcoin market. He pointed out that addresses holding less than 1 BTC have increased their balance by 23,074 BTC in the past 30 days, and there were three significant accumulations around $66,000, $70,000, and $80,000.Murphy believes that the retail investors still in the Bitcoin market during this cycle are mostly "veteran players" who have experienced the altcoin and contract cycles. Meanwhile, whales holding more than 10,000 BTC began to significantly increase their holdings around $66,000, with a peak increase of 140,699 BTC in the 30-day balance, marking the largest net growth in nearly two years, showing clear accumulation behavior. Murphy stated that the market will always move towards areas of less resistance, and when the lower resistance is greater, prices naturally tend to continue upward until they encounter stronger resistance.

ZachXBT posted on platform X that the founder of LAB released philosophical nonsense while participating in the manipulation of the CEX market that harms retail investors; they attempted to contact privately, but the message was read and not replied to; the scammers further undermined the last remaining credibility of the industry.

According to BBX data, yesterday Wall Street institutions made a significant breakthrough in retail crypto layout, and today the dual verification point of the earnings season is approaching. The core dynamics are as follows:Morgan Stanley (NYSE: $MS) disclosed via Bloomberg on May 6 that its ETrade platform officially launched a pilot for crypto spot trading, with a fee structure of 50 basis points per transaction amount, lower than Coinbase (retail rates vary by tier and payment method, potentially exceeding 50 basis points), Robinhood (approximately 100 basis points, according to media estimates), and Charles Schwab (75 basis points); initially supporting three major assets: BTC, ETH, and SOL, with liquidity, custody, and settlement services provided by Zerohash; the pilot is currently aimed at a select group of users, with plans to open to all 8.6 million ETrade customers by the end of 2026. Head of Wealth Management Jed Finn characterized this move as "reverse disruption of disruptors," and Morgan Stanley is simultaneously advancing its application for a national trust bank license to achieve self-custody, with plans to launch Ethereum and Solana spot ETFs.Coinbase Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: $COIN) will release its Q1 2026 earnings report after the market closes today (May 7), with the earnings call scheduled for 2:30 PM (PT); analyst consensus expects Q1 revenue of approximately $1.5 billion (a year-on-year decrease of about -26%), and EPS of about $0.23---$0.36 (a significant decline from $1.94 in the same period last year); the relative resilience of subscription and service revenue (including stablecoins, custody, and staking) will be the core metric of most interest today.Block, Inc. (NYSE: $XYZ) will release its Q1 2026 earnings report after the market closes today (May 7), with an earnings call at 2:00 PM (PT); analyst consensus expects revenue of approximately $6.04 billion to $6.11 billion (a year-on-year increase of +5.79%), and EPS of $0.68 (an increase of about 21% from approximately $0.56 in the same period last year); consensus for Bitcoin ecosystem revenue is expected to be about $2.11 billion (down from $2.30 billion in the same period last year); Evercore ISI maintains an "Outperform" rating with a target price of $96 (implying about 35% upside from the current stock price of $70.92), focusing on the recovery progress of the fundamentals of the two major business lines, Square and Cash App.

Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi stated that retail investors have significantly exited the current crypto market, and institutions are becoming the market bottom and supporting Bitcoin prices. He pointed out that Bitcoin is being viewed as a mature asset with sustained growth potential over the next 15 to 20 years, while altcoins need to have a clear narrative to attract retail attention again.He also mentioned that the core of the crypto industry still revolves around money and financial scenarios, with areas such as DeFi, stablecoins, exchanges, and RWA having strong user stickiness. With the involvement of AI technology, future agents may take on intermediary roles in trading, thereby enhancing overall adoption, and low-risk preference users may become the main source of incremental growth.

According to a joint report by Bitget Wallet and Polymarket, Polymarket's trading volume in March reached $25.7 billion. Research based on 1.29 million active wallets in the first quarter of 2026 shows that 82.3% of users had trading volumes below $10,000, indicating that the platform is dominated by retail users. The average number of active days per user increased from 2.5 days to 9.9 days, and the average number of trading categories per user expanded from 1.45 to 2.34.Sports became the largest category in the first quarter, with a trading volume of $10.1 billion; the political category generated $5 billion in trading volume, of which geopolitical events accounted for $2.41 billion; the crypto category accounted for about 40% of new users' early activities, serving as a primary entry point. The report defines this trend as a shift driven by behavior rather than capital, with users visiting more frequently and rotating among multiple categories. The industry predicts that by the end of 2026, the annual trading volume will reach $240 billion, with a long-term goal of $1 trillion.

The newly appointed chief economist of New Fire Group, Fu Peng, stated on Twitter that the underlying business model of Bitcoin perpetual contracts is essentially the same as the "rollover fee/overnight fee" in traditional finance's gold and industrial commodity spot exchanges.Fu Peng pointed out that back in the day, gold exchanges settled through daily forced liquidation, with longs and shorts paying each other rollover fees. When retail investors held a large number of high-leverage long positions, the rollover fee became the most stable and hidden source of income for the platform. Nowadays, Bitcoin spot platforms mainly rely on perpetual contracts, with both sides settling the funding rate every 8 hours. When longs dominate, retail investors holding long positions continuously pay funding rates to shorts.Although the platform does not directly collect this fee, it significantly enhances trading activity, open interest, and liquidity, indirectly generating a large amount of fee income and forming a stable and substantial cash flow. Essentially, it is a business model where large players/institutions "collect rent" from long-term holdings, retail investors pay for leverage to go long, and the platform indirectly takes a cut.

Coinbase Institutional tweeted that its March market cycle survey shows that among institutional investors, 43% believe we are currently in the late bear market; among non-institutional investors (retail), 49% believe we are still in the bear market markdown phase.

According to Gate market data, the U.S. retail sales month-on-month rate exceeded expectations, causing the dollar index DXY to rise slightly in the short term, while spot gold fell by 14 dollars in the short term.

SpaceX will hold a three-day closed-door analyst meeting in the United States this week to promote its business and strategy to Wall Street institutions in preparation for a potential IPO. According to insiders, the company aims to raise about $75 billion, with a valuation possibly reaching $1.75 trillion, with plans to go public as early as June.The meeting will cover SpaceX's Texas Starbase launch site and Tennessee data center project, and participating analysts will need to submit electronic devices to ensure information confidentiality. This roadshow is a key part of the IPO process, and there will be subsequent model presentations to further disclose financial and growth expectations. In addition, the company plans to reserve about 30% of shares for retail investors and expand into global markets. Several Wall Street investment banks have already participated in the underwriting arrangements.

According to the latest research report released by Deutsche Bank, the participation rate of American retail investors in cryptocurrency rebounded in March, rising from 7% in February to 12%.The report, based on a survey of 3,400 consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, indicates that about 70% of surveyed crypto investors hold Bitcoin, far exceeding stablecoins like USDT or USDC; at the same time, 69% of American respondents view Bitcoin as their preferred investment for the future.

According to "on-chain detective" ZachXBT's post on platform X reviewing the previously disclosed suspected market manipulation incident involving RAVE, he stated that the RAVE token dropped from $26 to $1 in the past 24 hours. After calling for Binance, Bitget, and Gate to investigate the abnormal trading, the relevant platforms have gradually responded publicly.ZachXBT pointed out that RAVE was launched in December 2025, with an initial total supply of 1 billion tokens, of which about 95% is controlled by a few addresses, posing a high concentration risk. He discovered that some wallet addresses related to the RaveDAO team showed suspicious centralized exchange activity in April, which may contradict the team's claim of "not participating in price fluctuations." In addition to RAVE, several other tokens such as SIREN, MYX, and COAI have also recently exhibited similar suspicious trends.ZachXBT stated that he recognizes the significant losses this behavior causes to retail traders but still plans to investigate similar fluctuations in hopes of identifying the responsible parties. He also reiterated that he does not hold any RAVE positions; if he did, he would also be liquidated, and he cannot predict whether or when the exchanges will publicly comment.

According to Santiment monitoring, small retail traders are actively selling their holdings of Ethereum (ETH), with wallets holding 0.01 ETH or less having reduced their holdings by a total of 1,791 ETH (approximately 4.16 million USD) in the past two days. The market generally views the 17% increase since March 29 as a "Bull Trap," and this sentiment has actually strengthened the likelihood of a continued bullish momentum.

OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar stated in an interview with CNBC that OpenAI has begun to "test the waters" with retail investors in its recent round of financing and has seen "very strong demand" from individual investors.Sarah Friar also mentioned that OpenAI will reserve a certain share for retail investors during the IPO.

According to CoinDesk, in the first quarter of 2026, institutional investors purchased a total of 69,000 bitcoins, while retail investors sold 62,000 bitcoins during the same period.

Santiment posted on the X platform that Bitcoin's price has fallen to a low of $65,600 for the first time since March 1, and retail traders' sentiment has dropped to "extreme fear."Historically, collective panic sentiment is often a necessary factor for a rebound, as market trends usually go against the expectations of the masses.Given that uncertainty regarding the war remains high and optimism about price declines is still low, a price rebound may occur.