defi

DeFi infrastructure Unitas Labs announced the launch of the interest-bearing gold asset xGLD, aimed at introducing gold exposure into its product matrix, marking Unitas's expansion from stablecoin infrastructure into more interest-bearing asset domains.It is reported that xGLD is issued on the Binance Smart Chain and is 100% backed by Tether Gold (XAUt), which represents physical gold. Whitelisted users can mint xGLD using USDT, and the protocol will then lend out the XAUt collateral at a loan-to-value ratio of 70% to generate stablecoins, which will be deployed into yield strategies, with the returns distributed to xGLD holders.In terms of operational mechanics, the minting fee for xGLD is 0%, and the redemption fee is 0.1%. Ordinary users can obtain this asset through USDT/xGLD swaps on BSC; during redemption, xGLD must be exchanged for XAUt, with a 7-day cooling period before XAUt can be claimed on Ethereum. In the future, this asset is planned to be further integrated as collateral into lending markets, liquidity pools, and other DeFi ecosystems. Additionally, Unitas plans to collaborate with Accountable and Primus to provide reserve proof dashboards and backup data support to ensure the transparency of the collateral.

According to SoSoValue data, the cryptocurrency market sectors are mixed, with the DeFi sector performing well, rising 2.43% in 24 hours. Among them, Hyperliquid (HYPE) increased by 4.14%, briefly breaking through $73 during the day, continuing to set historical highs, while LAB (LAB) rose by 21.78%.Other standout sectors include: the SocialFi sector, which rose 3.61% in 24 hours, with Toncoin (TON) increasing by 4.18%; the AI sector rose by 0.92%, with Worldcoin (WLD) increasing by 7.96%; the Meme sector rose by 0.25%, with Binance Life (币安人生) increasing by 21.61%.In other sectors, the PayFi sector fell by 0.04% in 24 hours, but Stellar (XLM) rose by 15.03%; the Layer1 sector fell by 0.35%, with Zcash (ZEC) relatively strong, rising by 5.07%; the Layer2 sector fell by 0.57%, with Linea (LINEA) rising against the trend by 2.66%; the CeFi sector fell by 2.72%, with Bitget Token (BGB) dropping by 6.00%.The cryptocurrency sector index reflecting historical market trends shows that the ssiSocialFi, ssiDeFi, and ssiGameFi indices rose by 5.41%, 1.43%, and 0.47%, respectively.

According to statistics from the tokenized asset data platform RootData, the total disclosed financing amount in the crypto primary market in May 2026 is approximately $2.21 billion, with a total of 62 financing events disclosed. In terms of the distribution of financing tracks, market funds are still mainly flowing into DeFi, infrastructure, and CeFi, while institutional attention on trading, payment, compliance, and institutional-level services continues to increase.DeFi has become the most active track this month, completing 26 financing events, covering areas such as stablecoins, liquidity protocols, on-chain trading, and yield strategies; the infrastructure track ranks second with 18 financing events, as capital continues to bet on underlying technologies, AI+Crypto, middleware, and on-chain scalability; CeFi has completed 12 financing events, although the number of events is less than DeFi, it performs outstandingly in terms of financing amount, with significant increases in large strategic financing.The top three projects by financing amount are: the parent company of the South Korean exchange Dunamu ($667 million), payment infrastructure project Reap ($600 million, acquisition), and institutional-level stablecoin infrastructure Arc ($222 million). In addition, the prediction market platform Kalshi ($200 million) and on-chain compliance company Elliptic ($120 million) also received significant financing. The top five financing projects this month totaled over $1.9 billion, accounting for about 85% of the overall disclosed financing scale.In May, multiple high-value financings were concentrated in the fields of exchanges, payment infrastructure, prediction markets, and on-chain compliance analysis. In particular, projects related to trading and institutional services such as Gemini, Coincheck, SignalPlus, Variational received financing, indicating that the market is positioning itself around the next phase of incremental funds and institutional demand.In terms of investment institutions, Kraken, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly, HashKey Capital continue to remain active, with top capital preferring to bet on projects with clear business models and institutional service capabilities. Overall, the financing market in May shows a trend of gradually returning from high narrative-driven to infrastructure, financial services, and real demand scenarios.

AML / KYT provider Shard disclosed that the number of cyber attacks in the cryptocurrency industry doubled year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, exceeding 80 incidents, but total losses decreased by 69% year-on-year to $496 million, compared to $1.6 billion in the same period last year. Shard stated that the losses in the same period of 2025 were mainly impacted by a significant theft incident of approximately $1.4 billion involving Bybit; while the attacks in 2026 were more dispersed, targeting DeFi protocols, infrastructure services, and individual users.Looking at the months, there were a total of 29 attacks in January, with losses exceeding $392 million; 26 attacks in February, with losses exceeding $22 million; and 27 attacks in March, with losses exceeding $81 million.

The crypto sentiment platform Santiment published an analysis stating that the ratio of positive to negative comments about Ethereum has shifted from a strong FOMO sentiment in late April to a clear FUD sentiment now. Harvard University completely liquidated its $87 million Ethereum ETF one quarter after buying in; researchers from the Ethereum Foundation announced their resignations; and David Hoffman publicly stated his exit from the Ethereum project. The Santiment team interprets this trend as a mildly bullish signal, similar to the significant rise that followed the mid-2023 market sentiment low.Despite the panic sentiment, the number of non-bearish wallets for Ethereum remains as high as 192.92 million, more than three times Bitcoin's approximately 59 million. The activity in DeFi and staking trading surged at the beginning of the year and has since normalized, but the creation of new wallets continues to maintain a healthy growth rate. Fundamental data such as holders and activity do not support the claim that "the Ethereum network is dying." Additionally, the long-to-short ratio for Bitcoin has reached 2.23, the highest level since 2026. Previously, the highest daily long-to-short ratios often resulted in short-term price corrections, while extremely low short ratios indicate a local bottom. The current optimism stands in stark contrast to the outflow of short funds from ETFs, thus caution is warranted.

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.

According to SoSoValue data, the cryptocurrency market sector is generally in a downward trend, with the NFT sector down 4.68% in 24 hours. Within the sector, Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) fell by 4.46%, and Audiera (BEAT) dropped by 14.38%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) decreased by 1.21%, falling below $74,000; Ethereum (ETH) fell by 0.79%, briefly dropping below $2,000.Only the DeFi sector rose against the trend, increasing by 0.35% in 24 hours, with Hyperliquid (HYPE) up 6.79% and Dexe (DEXE) up 5.53%.In other sectors, the PayFi sector remained unchanged at 0.00%, with Stellar (XLM) rising 13.35%; the Layer1 sector fell by 0.80%, but Algorand (ALGO) rose by 7.72%; the Meme sector decreased by 1.02%, with Pump.fun (PUMP) down 5.06%; the Layer2 sector dropped by 1.12%, while Stacks (STX) remained relatively strong, rising by 1.84%; the CeFi sector fell by 1.25%, with OKB (OKB) gaining 1.45% during the session.The cryptocurrency sector index reflecting historical market trends shows that the ssiDeFi and ssiPayFi indices rose by 1.44% and 0.65%, respectively, while the ssiAI index fell by 9.50%.

According to Decrypt, analysts at Standard Chartered Bank pointed out in a report on Thursday that the current price of Ethereum does not reflect the growth in its on-chain transaction volume, nor does it reflect the value of digital assets deposited in DeFi applications. The price of Ethereum has "significant room" to catch up with its internal metrics, as its native network is expected to benefit from Wall Street's steady migration to digital assets.Ethereum has dominated the stablecoin and tokenization markets, which are set to experience rapid growth. Analysts reiterated a year-end target price of $4,000 for Ethereum, predicting it could reach $40,000 by 2030. This would bring the price ratio of Ethereum to Bitcoin back up to 0.08. Standard Chartered stated that year-to-date, stablecoins have accounted for 33% of Ethereum transactions.The "Economic Zone" supported by the Ethereum Foundation will launch this summer, further enhancing on-chain activity. As real-world assets go on-chain, if RWAs grow as expected by 50 times, the importance of Ethereum will increase dramatically, with transaction volume and total locked value continuously setting new historical highs.

The tokenized U.S. Treasury fund VBILL under VanEck has officially launched on the DeFi lending protocol Euler. The fund is issued and tokenized by Securitize, allowing investors to use tokenized U.S. Treasuries as collateral for on-chain lending and liquidity operations, while also meeting compliance requirements. This move reflects that DeFi protocols are accelerating their transformation towards institutionalization and compliance to attract traditional financial capital into the on-chain market.Data shows that the scale of tokenized U.S. Treasuries has surpassed $15 billion, growing approximately 150% over the past year. Traditional asset management giants such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Janus Henderson have all launched on-chain Treasury or money market products. Euler has previously integrated Securitize's DS Protocol to support the access of tokenized securities with investor qualification restrictions and transfer rules to the lending market. DeFi protocols like Aave are also laying out institutional-level RWA business. Institutions expect that the asset tokenization market could reach $18.9 trillion by 2033. Securitize executives stated that as traditional financial institutions enter the crypto space, DeFi protocols must find a balance between openness and compliance requirements.

ETH has fallen below $2000 for the first time since March this year. Over the past 7 days, ETH has cumulatively dropped nearly 8%, with a decline of over 5% in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, ETH futures open interest (OI) has risen for the third consecutive day, reaching a historic high of 16.39 million ETH, with a nominal value of approximately $3.25 billion. Analysts believe that the continuous rise in OI against the backdrop of falling spot prices indicates that the market is experiencing more aggressive leveraged short-selling behavior.Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, stated that more and more investors are beginning to abandon ETH, "ETH does not generate cash flow, and in the context of rising U.S. Treasury yields, the attractiveness of staking yields is declining." Additionally, U.S. spot ETH ETFs have seen a cumulative net outflow of $401 million this month, completely reversing the net inflow of $354 million in April. Market sentiment has also continued to deteriorate due to the departure of core members from the Ethereum Foundation.David Hoffman, co-founder of Bankless, previously stated that he has sold his ETH holdings, believing that the narrative of "ETH as currency" has been fully priced in. The Web3 research institution House of Chimera indicated that the market is questioning the advantages of the Ethereum ecosystem in DeFi, RWA, and tokenization, and whether it can truly reflect back to the ETH token itself.

Decentralized USDD announced that its yield-bearing token sUSDD officially launched on Pendle's Ethereum chain 91-day fixed income market, marking another breakthrough for USDD in the DeFi yield scenario and capital efficiency layout.This event will take place on May 28 at 8:00 AM (Singapore time), and sUSDD holders can participate by locking in fixed rates, trading yield rights, providing liquidity, and more. During the event, YT users can share over $300,000 in incentives, combined with Pendle's official 30% exclusive rewards, and have the chance to receive random airdrops of TRX.The official stated that they will continue to explore diversified yields in the future, effectively meeting market liquidity demands and promoting USDD's deep integration into the mainstream DeFi ecosystem.