Crypto Craze: Bitcoin Hits New Highs as MetaPlanet Defies Gravity! 🚀💰

What to know:

By James Van Straten (All times ET unless you’re awake at 3 a.m.)

Bitcoin (BTC), the cryptocurrency darling that everyone loves to ignore until it skyrockets, just closed Tuesday at a staggering $106,830. Yep, it’s basically pulling off the financial equivalent of that guy at the gym who lifts more than he should, without the minor risk of tearing something. With minimal dips, it’s inching closer to that Jan. 20 high of over $109,000, making experts wonder if we’re all caught in a never-ending episode of “Can It Go Higher?”

This bullishness has made Bitcoin-leveraged stocks look like they’ve had too much coffee, especially Japan’s MetaPlanet (3350), which has surged 160% in 2025 alone—talk about a stellar year to be a space-themed tech stock. Strategy (MSTR), the poster child for Bitcoin buying, has added 44%, because apparently, pie charts and bitcoin are now best pals.

MetaPlanet is such a overachiever that it keeps hitting Japan’s daily limit-up faster than you can say “HODL,” freezing trading and turning the market into a slow-motion sci-fi thriller. The speculation about MetaPlanet’s Bitcoin hoarding—thanks to metrics like Days to Cover mNAV—has investors losing their minds. Meanwhile, CEO Simon Gerovich took to X to say MetaPlanet is now Japan’s most shorted stock, with 25% of shares out on loan, which is perfectly normal if you’re into gambling with other people’s money.

Meanwhile, the macroeconomic landscape is one giant confusing puzzle. Japanese bond yields are soaring—30-year yields above 3.1%, and the 10-year surpassing 1.5%, the highest since 2008. Over in the UK, inflation decided to throw a surprise party, climbing to a 15-month high and pushing yields on 10-year gilts past 5%. It’s like the world’s central banks are competing to see who can make bonds more exciting.

With Bitcoin teasing new highs amidst rising yields and inflation, markets are dancing on the edge of chaos. Stay vigilant—or just pretend to understand what’s happening. 🤷‍♂️

Token Events

Governance votes & calls
- Arbitrum DAO is pondering “The Watchdog,” a 400,000-ARB bounty for uncovering grant misuses—voting ends May 23, so hurry!
- Upgrading Arbitrum to “Callisto” (ArbOS 40), scheduled for June 17, with voting ending May 29—because why not upgrade faster than your phone?
- May 21, 11 a.m: Maple announces “the next chapter,” which I assume involves more confusing jargon.
- May 22: Official Trump to reveal his “next Era” at a fancy dinner—because nothing says “financial revolution” like food.
- June 10: Ether.fi hosts an analyst call—because everyone loves a good Q&A session that might as well be in Martian.
Unlocks
- May 31: Optimism (OP) unlocks 1.89% (~$22.58 million).
- June 1: Sui (SUI) and ZetaChain (ZETA) release a little bit of their digital spoils—$169M and $11M-worth, respectively.
- June 12: Ethena ($15M) and Aptos ($58M) join the unlock party.
Token Launches
- May 21: Mantra (OM) debuts on Upbeat and Crypto.com—because we all need more tokens to forget about.
- June 1: Rewards for staking OM end, leaving stakers with a weird feeling of accomplishment.
- June 16: Last chance to unstake stMATIC before Polygon’s sunsetting party—bye-bye, stale tokens.

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa and Oliver Knight

Hailey Welch, aka “Hawk Tuah Girl,” is now backing away from her December 2024 obsession—HAWK memecoin—probably because it crashed faster than a karaoke singer in a thunderstorm. Despite calling it “kid-friendly,” it went from $491 million market cap to a sad $104K—ouch! 💸
She claims she didn’t know much about crypto and is “sick” that her fans trusted her. Funny, because last November she was all about how much she’d “learned,” which now sounds a lot like “I learned I should have kept my mouth shut.”
Critics on YouTube are having a field day, saying she endorsed a project she clearly understood about as much as quantum physics, which is to say, not at all. Her team insists she’s legally OK because Cayman Islands or something, and her tokens will vest over three years—like a bad movie plot that drags on forever.

Derivatives Positioning

Bullish signals emerge: CME futures for BTC have crossed $17 billion—more than your annual salary—while ETH stalls at $2 billion. Funding rates on offshore exchanges look friendly enough to get you to buy more, or panic sell, whichever suits your mood.
BCH and TON futures show negative funding, hinting that traders are betting on falling prices—screaming “short squeeze” quietly in the background.
Options flows point towards demand for the 180K call expiring in September—probably hoping to hit the jackpot or just have fun dreaming.

Market Movements

Bitcoin is down 0.64% since Tuesday at $106,257.16, but it’s still in the green—because markets are super consistent like that.
Ethereum crept up 0.42% to $2,525.16, doing its best.
Other indices are ignoring the crypto party: S&P 500 down 0.39%, Nasdaq dipped 0.38%, and DJIA gave a little shrug at -0.27%.
Gold, silver, and currencies are varying between “meh” and “thanks for the update.”

Dollar Index (DXY) is down 0.49%, and gold is enjoying a 1% bump—guess everyone’s looking for shiny things.
Major stock indices are also just chilling: Hang Seng +0.62%, FTSE -0.15%, and the usual suspects doing their thing.
U.S. 10-year Treasury yield up 5 bps at 4.54%, because someone still loves bonds.

Bitcoin Stats

Dominance: 64.01% (because Bitcoin is basically the prom queen of crypto)
ETH/BTC ratio: 0.02378 (who knew ratios could be so exciting?)
Hashrate: 884 EH/s, or “The machines are working harder than I do on Monday mornings.”
Total Fees: 7.42 BTC—because nothing’s free, not even in crypto.

Technical Analysis

Bitcoin peaked at about $108,000 but couldn’t keep the party going—looks like it’s taking a coffee break, as MACD turns negative.
Expect some consolidation—because markets love to pretend they’re taking a breather before more chaos.

Crypto Equities

MSTR closed at $416.92, up slightly, but pre-market shows a tiny dip—buy the dip, or so they say.
Coinbase, Galaxy Digital, Mara, Riot, and others are all down a tad—because what’s a day without some stocks tanking?

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net: $329.2M—because everyone loves buying digital gold this week.
Cumulative: $42.75B—enough to buy a small island, or at least a really fancy coffee machine.
Holdings: 1.19 million BTC—more than most people’s entire life savings.

Spot ETH ETFs:

Daily net: $64.8M—because ETH is still the cool kid on the block.
Cumulative: $2.61B—pretty impressive for a digital art project.
Holdings: 3.47 million ETH—more than enough to make any ETH maximalist cheer.

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

Strategy (MSTR) has been speed-dialing Bitcoin at breakneck speed—seriously, it’s like they’re trying to out-arc the Las Vegas strip. Even during the March-April dip, they kept adding to their $60 billion stash. Because what better way to flex than transforming corporate finance into a crypto carnival?
“From GameStop to MetaPlanet to Strategy’s stash—BTC is rewriting the rules,” says 21Shares on X. Someone call Harvard, this could be the next business case.