SnapShot 206

ETH’s extended streak, meme coins fly, and the CPI data hauls market is up.

Hello SnapShotters,

Ethereum extended its rally post-Pectra, climbing to a high of $2,731 after soft U.S. inflation data reignited risk appetite. April’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in below expectations — just 0.2% monthly and 2.3% annually — fueling bets that the U.S. Federal Reserve could cut rates by September. With rate-cut optimism and capital rotating out of Bitcoin, ETH saw a surge of about 40% within three days from last week, outpacing BTC for the first time in months.

Bitcoin, by contrast, held steady between $103,000 and $105,000, having already priced in the U.S.-China trade truce. Both nations slashed trade penalties — U.S. tariffs down to 30% from 145%, and China’s from 125% to 10%. U.S. President Donald Trump called it a “total reset” in relations, lifting global markets and contributing to crypto’s broader rebound.

700 million — this key figure could also help justify the crypto market’s buoyancy; according to Crypto.com Research, the number of global crypto users crossed this milestone in April 2025.

Read on for the week’s biggest moves.

Market Spotlight

Note: Market prices captured in USD at the time of sending. Explore more on Crypto‌.com/Price. 
Want more? Get weekly Market and DeFi Updates from Crypto.‌com’s Research Team.

News Snaps

🦍 Animalistic Jumps

Moo Deng (MOODENG) recorded over 500% gains in the past week, leading a meme coin stampede from revived risk appetite. GOAT surged 164%, PNUT 160%, and WIF 99%, respectively, as traders rotated into risk-on plays.

🌍 Crypto.com Expands Real-World Payments

Crypto.com is powering crypto payments for residents and tourists alike, partnering with KSNET in South Korea to support retail and transit transactions for foreign travelers in Korea, as well as Dubai Department of Finance (DoF) to enable crypto payments for government services.

📜 SEC Eyes New Token Rules

SEC Chair Paul Atkins said the agency will draft new rules for crypto token distributions and explore exemptions for certain assets. The SEC may also allow broker-dealers to handle both securities and non-securities like BTC and ETH as part of a broader shift toward clearer regulations.

🛡️ Ethereum Targets Trillion-Dollar Security

The Ethereum Foundation unveiled its ‘1TS’ initiative, a three-phase plan to fortify Ethereum’s infrastructure to safely support trillion-dollar on-chain value. It will map systemic risks, fund critical upgrades, and benchmark blockchain security against traditional finance.

🇧🇹 Bhutan Lets Tourists Pay in Crypto

A newly launched national crypto payment system in Bhutan lets tourists pay for everything from visas to street snacks. Over 100 merchants have been onboarded, with settlements handled by DK Bank in local currency.

📣 Crypto.com’s Latest Regulatory Milestone

This week, Crypto.com Canada announced it received a restricted dealer registration in each of the provinces and territories of Canada. This allows Crypto.com Canada to continue offering crypto asset products and services to Canadians while it seeks registration as an investment dealer in Canada, as well as membership with the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO).

What’s Ahead

🍽️ TRUMP Holders Set for Dinner With Trump

The top 220 TRUMP token buyers will attend an exclusive gala dinner with President Trump at his Virginia golf club on May 22, which also coincides with Bitcoin Pizza Day. With a seat costing in the millions, the gala has drawn flak over blurred lines between political access and personal interests.

Number of the Week

Chart of the Week

Ethereum staged a breakout last week, climbing further post-Pectra to close above $2,500 — its strongest weekly gain since 2021 — and reaching a peak of about $2,731 on May 14. Cooling U.S. inflation data and the rollout of the Pectra upgrade contributed to the jump. On May 9 alone, ETH jumped 21%, marking its biggest single-day gain in three years.

The rally also reversed a months-long downtrend in the ETH/BTC ratio, which rebounded from a low of 0.018 in mid-April to 0.024 by May 11, signaling a rotation out of Bitcoin and into Ethereum as macro sentiment turned risk-on.

Research & Insights

Monthly Feature Article | Wall Street On-Chain Part 3: Trading & Liquidity

This report unpacks how crypto liquidity stacks up against traditional finance, revealing that Bitcoin’s 24/7 market now rivals top equities in trading intensity. Explore how innovations like DeFi, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and stablecoins are leading to greater institutional adoption and setting the stage for crypto to challenge legacy markets.

Read the full report here.

Crypto Trivia

Which of these early 2000s file-sharing firms has reinvented itself as a Web3 NFT marketplace?

A) LimeWire
B) Kazaa
C) Napster

Find the correct answer at the end of this newsletter. 👇

NFT Spotlight

Dive into the depths of human temptation with Morysetta’s latest NFT drop ‘Sinful Thoughts’, “an exclusive NFT series exploring the darker depths of human emotion” and the “first theme in an expansive, ongoing NFT collection inspired by the 7 Deadly Sins.” Featuring seven unique pieces, this collection “invites you to embrace the tension between desire, fear, and introspection — wrapped in cosmic, otherworldly visuals.” It drops on Wednesday, May 21.

Morysetta, an astronaut of the imaginary, is a self-taught digital collage artist from Romania. Her “cosmic vision focuses on daily objects and common feelings just to turn them into something special, as magic as life is (and the moon itself).” The secret of this success is “in the empathy behind every single collage: within them human emotions always find — drop after drop — a new place to be, without losing their truth.”

Each of the 400 mystery art packs contains a unique NFT representing one of the 7 Deadly Sins — pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Each of these limited-edition pieces “reveals a new dimension of temptation, laying the foundation for a much bigger collection to come.”

Explore the raw emotions that shape human behavior, from “the fiery passion of wrath to the quiet pull of sloth, all wrapped in cosmic visuals that transcend earthly bounds.”

Embark on a journey through the shadows of the mind from an astronaut of the imaginary.

Product Updates

Prediction Trading Has Arrived to the Crypto.com App in the U.S.

We’re thrilled to introduce Prediction Trading, a regulated prediction market feature that lets you potentially profit by forecasting the outcome of major political, economic, and cultural events. You can now trade your perspective for just $10 per contract and get $10 back for each correct one you own. Try It Now.

Two New Tokens Have Been Added to Target Price Orders

DOOD and MORPHO are now available on Target Price Orders, where you can automate orders at your preferred price on a growing list of over 330 supported tokens without having to monitor the market. Try It Now.

Top Up Your Card With Zircuit

You can now initiate top-ups of your Crypto.com Visa Prepaid Card with a non-custodial wallet via Zircuit. This addition joins our existing non-custodial wallet top-up options via Cronos EVM and Cronos zkEVM Chain, and is a major milestone in bridging DeFi and real-world payments. Learn More Here.

New Token Listings

Morpho (MORPHO)

Morpho is a decentralized, research-driven protocol that aims to make DeFi lending more open, efficient, and resilient. Built on the Ethereum Virtual Machine, Morpho replaces traditional intermediaries with immutable smart contracts, allowing overcollateralized lending and borrowing of crypto assets.  

This is informational content only and should not be considered as an investment recommendation. Some Crypto.com products may not be available in some jurisdictions.

Crypto Learn

Protecting Yourself From Crypto Hacks and Social Engineering

What would you do if you received a message from a stranger?

If you are a crypto owner, being friendly may do more harm than good, especially with the increasing use of social engineering to manipulate, influence, or deceive victims. Social engineering can be dangerous, as attackers bypass security measures by exploiting human psychology instead of finding flaws in security.

Common social engineering tactics:

Phishing: Fake emails or messages designed to steal credentials.

Pretexting: Creating a fabricated scenario to extract information.

Baiting: Offering something enticing, like free tokens or software, to lure victims.

Impersonation: Posing as a trusted person (like support staff) to extract info.

Some ways to protect yourself from the aforementioned tactics:

1. Being mindful about personal information.
2. Remaining skeptical of unexpected messages.
3. Verifying the identity of the other party in question by using official contact points.

View a more comprehensive list of tactics and security measures in this University article.

CryptoIRL

“When life tastes as good as it looks,” says @_silverstar88_, staying refreshed with the Crypto.com Royal Indigo Card in Dubai. Drink it in, CROFam.

Hashtag #CryptoIRL with your Crypto.‌com Card on your social profiles to get featured! Your 15 minutes of fame in the #CROFam awaits you!

Security Tips

Punycode Phishing Results in $20,000 Asset Loss

Recently, a Google Chrome recommendation misdirected a user to a malicious exchange, resulting in a loss of more than $20,000 in digital assets. 

The attack, known as ‘punycode phishing’, involves making subtle URL character swaps that are almost impossible to spot with the naked eye and registering a malicious website that is almost identical to the legitimate one. By exploiting Google Chrome’s poor security and user trust in the web browser, the attacker successfully tricked the victim.

Here’s how to stay safe from scams:

1. Double-check URLs, even if they were suggested by your browser.
2. Bookmark trusted sites and avoid using other links.
3. Consider adding browser security extensions to add an extra layer of protection.

Crypto Trivia Answer

A) LimeWire, which now operates as a creator-focused platform, where users can leverage AI tools to generate and edit images and music before minting them as NFTs on blockchains like Polygon and Algorand.