trading

According to Fortune, the decentralized derivatives trading platform Variational announced the completion of a $50 million Series A funding round, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto and Coinbase Ventures.The company is headquartered in the Cayman Islands and is dedicated to building an on-chain derivatives protocol for institutional and traditional financial traders. By aggregating liquidity from traditional finance and the crypto market, it aims to provide an on-chain market for real assets such as oil and commodities that can be traded instantly. Its core product, the Omni platform, adopts a zero-fee model and combines a liquidity pool mechanism to enhance market depth and execution efficiency.Variational stated that its goal is not to compete directly with centralized exchanges but to connect multi-source liquidity through a "brokerage-style" model, including traditional financial market makers and mainstream crypto trading platforms, to address the "liquidity cold start" problem in on-chain markets.

According to official news, Coinbase announced that it will launch spot trading for Nexus (NEX), and the NEX deposit function will be available after the issuer of Nexus opens the transfer function.

Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart posted on the X platform, revealing that Morgan Stanley has submitted a revised application for its Solana ETF, with the proposed trading code $MSOL. The management fee information has not yet been disclosed.

According to CoinDesk, newly unsealed court documents show that Wall Street quantitative trading giant Jane Street is accused of obtaining insider non-public information from Terraform Labs through a private Telegram group called "Bryce's Secret" before the collapse of Terra in 2022, and preemptively selling approximately $192 million UST while establishing short positions, profiting about $134 million during the collapse of the Terra ecosystem, which was around $40 billion.The lawsuit claims that Jane Street sold approximately $85 million UST on Curve just 9 minutes after Terraform withdrew $150 million liquidity from the Curve pool on May 7, 2022, with the related wallet subsequently suspected of being a significant address that contributed to the UST depegging.Jane Street denies the allegations, stating that the lawsuit is "baseless" and that it will actively defend itself. The lawsuit also names co-founder Robert Granieri and trader Michael Huang, accusing them of violating federal securities laws and the Commodity Exchange Act.

As cryptocurrency trading platforms gradually extend from trading single digital assets to traditional asset trading scenarios such as stocks, gold, foreign exchange, and indices, platform competition is shifting from "asset coverage" to "trading entry points, operational paths, and execution efficiency." Whether users can discover opportunities faster, enter the market, and complete transactions is becoming an important measure of the product experience on exchanges.Recently, Bitget announced the launch of the 10-second gold buying challenge, inviting users to record the entire process from opening the Bitget App homepage to completing a XAUUSD gold CFD transaction, with a chance to win rewards if completed in less than 10 seconds. The activity showcases the changes in mobile TradFi trading paths through actual user operations, reflecting that cryptocurrency exchanges are attempting to further streamline and simplify the trading experience of traditional financial assets.According to Bitget, the platform has previously brought TradFi to the first-level entry of the App homepage, covering traditional asset trading scenarios such as gold, stocks, foreign exchange, and indices. Compared to the past, where traditional asset trading typically required completion on independent platforms or through multiple entry points, Bitget aims to allow users to engage with various asset types more directly within the same platform through a unified entry point and optimized mobile processes.

The decentralized trading platform Aster announced that it officially launched the ZESTUSDT perpetual contract trading pair at 22:30 Beijing time on May 19 (14:30 UTC), and simultaneously opened the "Rocket Launch" Phase 9 trading incentive activity.It is reported that Zest Protocol is a Bitcoin-native lending protocol that allows BTC holders to earn yields or borrow stablecoins by collateralizing their assets. The protocol currently has a TVL of 100 million dollars and has received support from Draper VC and YZi Labs.According to the official statement, the duration of this trading activity is from May 19 to May 26. During the event, users participating in ZESTUSDT perpetual contract trading will share a prize pool of ASTER tokens worth 50,000 dollars based on their proportion of generated trading fees.

OKX will stop supporting new order trading with USDC in the USDT/USDⓈ trading pair on May 20, 2026, at 17:00, but will continue to support trading with USDG or RLUSD. Existing orders will remain valid, and strategy orders using USDC will be canceled at the effective time. Please be aware to adjust your strategy orders.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is reviewing the surge in crude oil futures trading that occurred before Trump postponed action against Iran in March, and the CFTC has expressed concern about at least three companies.

According to Bits.media, the Central Bank of Russia aims to prohibit Russian citizens from trading on cryptocurrency exchanges that comply with international sanctions. Ekaterina Lozgacheva, head of the Central Bank's Strategic Development Department, stated that the Central Bank plans to ban Russians from trading on foreign cryptocurrency exchanges that adhere to international sanctions. Russians can only trade cryptocurrencies on foreign platforms through Russian brokers, provided that these foreign platforms do not comply with international sanctions.The country's central bank will establish its own standards for foreign platforms that Russian brokers and investors can use. Lozgacheva noted that even trading cryptocurrencies abroad through Russian intermediaries is subject to foreign regulation, posing additional risks. The annual purchase limit for non-professional investors is set at 300,000 rubles, and they can only access the most liquid cryptocurrency assets through domestic brokers. A test must be completed before trading, and qualified investors are not subject to the limit but must also undergo testing. Relevant restrictions will be included in the second reading version of the draft "Digital Currency and Digital Rights Law," with key provisions expected to take effect on July 1.

Data shows that the trading volume of tokenized stocks reached a historic high on Monday, with a total daily trading amount of $3.57 billion. Since the beginning of this year, on-chain stock trading volume has continued to grow, further breaking through after several weeks of consecutive increases in April. Currently, most of the tokenized stock trading volume is concentrated on two major platforms: the world's largest centralized exchange Binance and the on-chain derivatives trading platform Hyperliquid. In addition, platforms such as Kraken's xStocks, Ondo, and Bitget are also driving the expansion of on-chain stock trading scale, bringing the cumulative trading volume into the tens of billions of dollars.

According to Forbes, the cryptocurrency trading platform Ouinex announced the completion of a $3.5 million financing round, bringing the total funding to $9 million. It is reported that all investors in this round of financing are retail and professional traders from the platform, with no venture capital firms involved. The new funds will be used to build a "Non-Centralized Order Book (No-CLOB)" model, aiming to avoid and protect retail traders from directly competing with large market makers. It is reported that the platform uses a pricing mechanism similar to that of forex and CFD brokers, with market makers providing buy and sell quotes, but they cannot view user orders or trade directly with users.

According to SolanaFloor, Pump.fun will enable USDC pairing for the new token on May 21, marking a significant shift from the platform's previous reliance on SOL. This update was first announced on May 7, and existing SOL-based pairs will not be affected.Since its launch in January 2024, it is estimated that at least 5.07 million SOL (worth $430 million) have been locked in the liquidity pool at the time of the token graduation. Previously, all tokens that completed the Pump.fun joint curve would migrate to its AMM PumpSwap, where liquidity is paired with SOL and permanently burned.

Binance will delist the following spot trading pairs on May 22 at 11:00: AVAX/ETH, CHZ/BTC, FET/BNB, IOTA/BTC, UNI/ETH, UNI/FDUSD, XLM/BTC, and XLM/FDUSD. Users can still trade the related underlying assets and quoted assets on other trading pairs.

According to the official announcement, Binance Alpha will open trading for Zest Protocol (ZEST) on May 19, 2026, at 21:00 (UTC+8). Users with at least 240 Binance Alpha points can claim an airdrop of 800 ZEST tokens on a first-come, first-served basis.If the reward pool is not fully distributed, the points threshold will automatically decrease by 5 every 5 minutes. Please note that claiming the airdrop will consume 15 Binance Alpha points. Users must confirm their claim on the Alpha activity page within 24 hours, or it will be considered a forfeiture of the claim.

According to DeFiLlama, despite a decline in perpetual contract trading volume compared to earlier this year, Hyperliquid still maintains its market leadership, with monthly trading volume at least twice that of the second-ranked public chain. In May, Solana has risen to become the second-largest public chain in perpetual contract trading volume, with a market share exceeding 10%.

Coinbase announced that it will launch Wrapped Ronin (WRON) spot trading today. The WRON-USD trading pair will open later today after meeting liquidity conditions and will gradually go live in supported regions.The official statement indicated that WRON will be available for trading on the Coinbase website, App, and Coinbase Advanced platform, with institutional users able to access it directly through Coinbase Exchange. At the same time, the ERC-20 contract address for WRON based on Ethereum has been announced, and users are reminded to transfer only through the specified network to avoid asset loss.

According to Gate market data, the S&P 500 index and the Dow quickly turned negative at the beginning of the session, indicating a shift in market sentiment.

Hyperliquid stated on platform X that its platform's RWA trading open contract size has risen to $2.6 billion, setting a new historical high, doubling from two months ago.Hyperliquid indicated that the market demand for 24/7 on-chain access to real-world assets (RWA) continues to grow.

According to the official announcement, Gate will launch a VIP trading dividend event from May 18 at 18:00 to June 17 at 17:59 (UTC+8).During the event, users who participate in contract, TradFi CFD, and spot trading and meet the corresponding trading volume thresholds will receive exclusive VIP dividend shares. After the event ends, users at VIP5 level and above will share a cash prize pool of 100,000 based on the proportion of their held dividend shares.In addition, users who complete the specified trading days task can receive additional dividend share rewards. Specifically, for contract trading, completing 15 days or 25 days can earn up to an additional 15 shares; for spot trading, completing 10 days or 15 days can earn up to an additional 10 shares. Users who meet the trading volume conditions and achieve a net deposit of 50,000 USDT during the event period and maintain it for 15 days can also receive an additional 5 dividend shares.