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9 Jun 2025|RESEARCH

Alpha Navigator: Quest for Alpha [May 2025]

Most asset classes increased in May, with crypto leading price increases. Ethereum’s Pectra mainnet upgrade went live on 7 May, and BTC reached an all-time high on 22 May. These coincided with multiple tariff updates in the month.

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Executive Summary

  • Most asset classes increased in May, with crypto leading price increases. Ethereum’s Pectra mainnet upgrade went live on 7 May, and BTC reached an all-time high on 22 May. These coincided with multiple tariff updates in the month.
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  • Australia, China and New Zealand reduced interest rates.
  • The US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell mentioned that longer-term interest rates are likely to be higher as the economy and policies change. The US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Minutes revealed uncertainties around the economic outlook and tariffs that may worsen inflation. Moody’s credit rating agency downgraded the credit rating of the US government from Aaa to Aa1, mentioning the rising national debt as the main reason. 
  • BTC reached an all-time high (ATH) above US$111,800 on 22 May. In the month, the US and UK announced a limited bilateral trade agreement, and the US and China agreed to roll back tariffs for an initial 90-day period. The US also suggested imposing a 50% import tariff on all European Union (EU) goods from 1 June before agreeing to delay it to 9 July. 
  • Key macro events in June include interest rate decisions from the US, UK, and Japan.
  • BTC’s one-month performance correlation turned positive with most benchmarked assets, except the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, and US Core Aggregate Bond.
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  • US spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw $5.2 billion in net inflows in May. This coincided with the US and China agreeing to roll back tariffs for an initial 90-day period, as well as the US and UK announcing a limited bilateral trade agreement. Bitcoin reached an all-time high above $111,800 on 22 May, and BlackRock’s IBIT ETF saw its highest daily net outflow of $431 million on 30 May.

  • ARB/OP (0.91) showed the strongest price performance correlation, followed by DOT/ATOM (0.86) and ETH/ARB (0.85).
  • For the BTC vs. ETH pair, the price ratio (BTC price divided by ETH price) dropped sharply from +2 standard deviation (SD) to +1 SD in May.

  • Our style-factor screens track momentum, value, growth, and risk for the Layer-1 and Layer-2, DeFi, Gaming, and NFT categories. Below is the screen for selected top crypto tokens by market cap in the Layer-1 and Layer-2 category. L1 and L2 tokens had mixed performances. SOL(+17.6%), POL (+16.1%), BTC (+14.4%), and AVAX (+14.0%) led the growth, while TON (-18.2%) dropped the most.
  • Our events section shows recent and upcoming events for selected tokens, as well as important macroeconomic events.
Token1M Price (%)Events
Bitcoin (BTC)+10.4%US spot BTC ETFs saw $5.2 billion in net inflows in May. Bitcoin reached an all-time high above $111,800 on 22 May. New Hampshire and Arizona established crypto reserves, and Pakistan is establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Ether (ETH)+40.4%US spot ETH ETFs recorded $564 million in net inflows in May, the highest monthly net inflow year-to-date. Ethereum’s Pectra mainnet upgrade went live on 7 May.
Cronos (CRO)+20.1%Canary Capital, a digital asset-focused investment firm, submitted an S-1 to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the first spot CRO ETF in the US. Crypto.com will serve as a custodian and liquidity provider of the fund.
USD Coin (USDC)N/ACircle launched an initial public offering (IPO) of 24 million shares of its class A common stock and applied for listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with the ticker ‘CRCL’. Additionally, Circle Payments Network, a blockchain-enabled payments coordination protocol, went live. It allows banks and payment providers to settle global payments, including cross-border remittances and payroll or enterprise payments, using USDC on public blockchains. 
Sky (SKY)+7.0%Sky DAO formally defined the process to upgrade its governance token from MKR to SKY. This includes three phases across a few executive votes: disablement of the SKY to MKR conversion, activating SKY staking, and imposing a delayed upgrade penalty to MKR if it hasn’t upgraded to SKY by 18 September. 
Jupiter (JUP)+12.1%The Jupiter team shared plans to launch Jupiter Lend, a money market on Solana powered by Fluid, in Summer 2025.
Sui (SUI)-9.3%The community and validators of the SUI network voted to upgrade the protocol to freeze and recover stolen funds from the hacked Cetus Protocol by transferring them to a multisig custodial wallet without requiring the hacker’s signature.
As of 6 June 2025 Sources: CoinGecko, Crypto.com Research

Read the full Alpha Navigator report: Alpha Navigator: Quest for Alpha [May 2025]

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Research & Insights Team

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