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Public company Hut 8 announced an agreement with West Feliciana Parish in Louisiana to invest approximately $16 million to expand the local water system capacity in conjunction with the development of its River Bend AI data center campus. This investment includes the construction of new water wells and approximately 8 miles of water supply main, which is expected to be completed in the second half of 2026 and will be transferred to the parish at no cost.The first phase of the River Bend campus represents a multi-billion dollar capital investment, and once fully operational, it is expected to support a total of 268 jobs. The campus will utilize a closed-loop cooling system to reduce the demand on local water resources.

According to Bloomberg, Senator Elizabeth Warren has questioned the decision by financial regulators to allow cryptocurrency companies into the banking system. The Massachusetts Democrat wrote to Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), pointing out that the regulator has approved at least 9 national trust charters for crypto companies that "seem to be unqualified." Warren stated that these charters "appear to far exceed the narrow scope of activities permitted by law," constituting a "clear violation of the National Bank Act." She questioned whether the OCC adhered to relevant legal provisions during the approval process and requested clarification on the compliance of these cryptocurrency companies in obtaining banking charters.

Research firm Bernstein released a report stating that as the demand for AI data centers explodes, Bitcoin mining companies are becoming important participants in large-scale computing infrastructure, with a positive outlook on the future performance of miners such as IREN, Riot Platforms, CleanSpark, and Core Scientific.The report points out that major cloud providers, AI cloud service providers, and chip companies have announced over $90 billion in AI infrastructure collaborations, involving approximately 3.7 GW of power capacity. Bernstein states that "Follow the Gigawatts" is becoming the core of competition in AI infrastructure, and the large-scale power resources controlled by mining companies hold strategic value.Analysts have given IREN, Riot, CleanSpark, and Core Scientific an "outperform" rating, with a target price of $100 for IREN, indicating about a 98% upside potential from the current stock price; CleanSpark has a target price of $24, corresponding to about a 78% upside potential.The report states that Bitcoin mining companies currently control over 27 GW of planned power capacity, and in some areas of the United States, the new 1 GW power connection cycle may take up to 50 months, making existing mining sites important locations for the expansion of AI data centers.Bernstein also mentioned several AI collaboration cases, including IREN planning a 5 GW AI computing park based on NVIDIA's AI Factory architecture, and Riot reaching a collaboration with AMD for an AI data center of up to 200 MW.However, analysts also warned that the industry still faces challenges such as environmental reviews, grid capacity, and regulatory approvals. Additionally, if mining companies overly shift their computing resources towards AI, they may miss out on future gains during the Bitcoin bull market cycle.

On May 19, the Financial Services Agency of Japan announced the revised Cabinet Office Ordinance related to electronic payment methods and transaction operators, clearly including trust beneficiary rights established under foreign laws that are equivalent to the Japanese system within the scope of electronic payment methods under Japan's Fund Settlement Act, providing a legal basis for the compliant circulation of trust-type stablecoins issued by specific foreign entities within Japan. The new regulations will take effect on June 1, 2026, and also clarify that the relevant foreign trust beneficiary rights are not considered securities under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.

According to PRNewswire, Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury company Hyperscale Data stated that as of May 17, 2026, it and its wholly-owned subsidiary Sentinum jointly hold 692.4093 bitcoins with Ault Capital Group.Based on the closing price of Bitcoin on that day of $77,429, the total value of the aforementioned holdings is approximately $53.6 million. As of the end of that week, neither Sentinum nor Ault Capital Group had increased their Bitcoin holdings in the public market. The company also stated that it plans to gradually invest cash allocated for the digital asset reserve strategy into Bitcoin purchases in the future.

According to the Korea Economic Daily, South Korea's seventh-largest pension relief company Bumo Sarang invested 59.5 billion won of operating funds last year into the Ethereum-themed stock Bitmine's daily double return leveraged ETF, incurring a loss of 49.3 billion won (approximately 32.73 million USD).A comprehensive review of the 2025 audit reports of 75 pension relief companies shows that 42.7% of the companies have total assets below the advance payments that should be made to clients, meaning that if all clients were to terminate their contracts simultaneously, the companies would be unable to refund the full amount.

According to CoinPost, the "Next Generation AI and On-Chain Finance Concept Project Group" of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan has released a proposal that suggests combining AI with blockchain to automate decision-making, financing, and asset management, operating around the clock, and lists finance as the "18th growth investment area."Specific measures in the proposal include: promoting the tokenization of current accounts at the Bank of Japan (including wholesale CBDC), completing the argument organization within the year; the three major banks jointly issuing stablecoins, aiming to launch practical operations before March next year; and promoting the on-chain tokenization of real assets (RWA) such as accounts receivable and real estate.On the international cooperation front, the proposal suggests establishing an "AI and On-Chain Finance Asia Policy Dialogue Framework" and advancing cross-border settlements using yen-denominated stablecoins, building a "Global SC Corridor Concept."

According to Jinshi reports, S&P Global Market Intelligence economist Harumi Taguchi stated that the Bank of Japan may raise the policy interest rate from the current 0.75% to 1% in July, and again in December and 2027, bringing the policy interest rate to 1.5%. Taguchi pointed out that rising oil prices and a weak yen may exacerbate concerns about inflation, prompting the Bank of Japan to further increase interest rates.

The fintech company Antalpha (NASDAQ: ANTA) announced a strategic expansion into the field of AI infrastructure and intelligent routing systems, positioning it as a new growth engine for the company's long-term technology roadmap.To advance the implementation of this strategy, Antalpha has launched a self-developed MCP (Model Context Protocol) framework, aimed at supporting intelligent routing and coordination across data and execution environments. Based on this underlying architecture, the company has recently launched an early agent interface layer named "Nina."Antalpha officially stated that the company expects intelligent routing and coordination technology to become a core component of future infrastructure architecture. In the future, its long-term strategy will focus on the research and development of such intelligent infrastructure and digital coordination technologies to support increasingly intelligent and interconnected digital systems and Web3 scenarios.

According to informed sources, Analog Devices is in deep negotiations to acquire AI chip startup Empower Semiconductor for approximately $1.5 billion.If the deal is reached, it will further expand Analog Devices' presence in high-performance computing infrastructure. The transaction reflects the strong demand in the market for AI chip power and energy management technologies, as the growing artificial intelligence workloads place higher demands on power management and energy efficiency.

According to Jinshi News, the USD/JPY has once again risen above 159, with an intraday increase of 0.13%.

According to CoinDesk, the stablecoin payment blockchain Tempo, supported by Stripe and Paradigm, is integrating Morpho's $7.5 billion DeFi lending market to provide on-chain lending and yield products for fintech companies and enterprises built on it. This integration allows Tempo users to access one of the largest lending protocols in DeFi, transforming stablecoin balances from idle assets into interest-bearing assets.Previously, Tempo was primarily positioned as a funds transfer blockchain, providing enterprises with stablecoin transfer, foreign exchange, and settlement tools. The addition of Morpho expands it into a more complete financial stack.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Alphabet's Google and Blackstone plan to jointly create an artificial intelligence cloud company, centered around Google's proprietary chips, directly competing with rivals like CoreWeave. Blackstone will invest $5 billion in equity capital and hold a majority stake in the company. The deal was officially announced on Monday local time, and the name of the new company has not yet been disclosed.

Cryptocurrency infrastructure service provider Zerohash Europe has obtained an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license issued by the Dutch central bank, becoming the first company to hold both the EU MiCA cryptocurrency license and full EMI qualifications.Zerohash previously obtained the MiCA license from the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets in October 2025, allowing it to provide cryptocurrency asset services across the EU. With the acquisition of the EMI license, the company will be able to handle both cryptocurrency asset services and traditional electronic money circulation, particularly suitable for stablecoin-related payment and settlement scenarios.The European Banking Authority has previously clarified that some stablecoin fund flows may be considered electronic money business, thus requiring relevant institutions to obtain an additional EMI license. Zerohash stated that the dual-license structure will enable it to provide compliant infrastructure for banks, brokerages, fintech companies, payment service providers, and enterprise platforms in the European market.

According to CoinDesk, former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner has increased his disclosed investment size from $5.5 billion to $13.67 billion as of March 31, 2026, and has significantly bought shares in Bitcoin mining companies and AI infrastructure companies.His key holdings include mining companies such as IREN, Core Scientific, Riot Platforms, CleanSpark, Bitfarms, Bitdeer, and Hive Digital, betting that their power resources and data center capabilities will benefit from the growing demand for AI computing power.At the same time, he has also established a short position of approximately $7.46 billion in semiconductors, including large put option positions on the VanEck Semiconductor ETF, NVIDIA, Oracle, and Broadcom.

According to The Block, the stablecoin issuer Tether has invested in the cross-border remittance fintech company LemFi, with the specific amount undisclosed. LemFi was founded in 2021 and has raised a total of $85 million, with over 1 million users.As part of this investment, LemFi will integrate Tether's settlement network, using USDT as the settlement layer in its main remittance corridors operating in Africa and Asia, to reduce reliance on traditional payment networks like SWIFT. Both parties stated that they will collaborate to enhance the speed, cost, and transparency of cross-border remittances.

According to CoinDesk, Kraken's parent company Payward announced its Q1 2026 performance, showing adjusted revenue of $507 million, a year-on-year increase of 3%, achieving growth despite the overall downturn in the cryptocurrency market.The report indicated that Payward's futures business performed strongly during the period, with daily average revenue trades (DARTs) increasing by 51% year-on-year, primarily benefiting from the expansion of NinjaTrader, Breakout, and derivatives business.However, the company's adjusted EBITDA fell to $18 million. Payward stated that it continues to invest in mergers and acquisitions, product development, and regulatory infrastructure construction, rather than prioritizing short-term profits.Data shows that during Q1 2026, Bitcoin fell by 22%, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization shrank by 23%, and the industry's spot trading volume decreased by 38%. In contrast, Kraken's performance during the bear market remained relatively stable.Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi stated, "While other companies choose to contract, we choose to continue investing."Additionally, the company disclosed that Kraken's spot market share has increased from about 3.5% in mid-2025 to 5.2% in March 2026; the number of funded accounts on the platform grew by 47% year-on-year to 6.1 million, and the platform's asset scale rose to $40 billion.

According to SoSoValue data, as of 8 AM Eastern Time on May 18, 2026, the total net purchase of Bitcoin by global listed companies (excluding mining companies) for the week was $2.03 billion, an increase of 4,403.11% compared to last week.Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) announced an investment of $2.01 billion (an increase of 4,574.4% compared to last week) to purchase 24,869 Bitcoins at a price of $80,985, bringing the total holdings to 843,738 Bitcoins.The Japanese listed company Metaplanet did not purchase Bitcoin last week.In addition, four other companies purchased Bitcoin last week. Asset management company Strive announced on May 12 that it bought 9 Bitcoins, without disclosing the specific amount spent, bringing its total holdings to 15,009 Bitcoins; the UK Bitcoin company The Smarter Web Company announced on May 12 and May 15 that it invested $2.84 million to purchase 25 Bitcoins at a price of $81,592.67 and 10 Bitcoins at a price of $79,662, bringing its total holdings to 2,840 Bitcoins; the French Bitcoin company Capital B announced on May 18 that it invested $15.02 million to purchase 192 Bitcoins at a price of $78,205.4, bringing its total holdings to 3,135 Bitcoins; the Brazilian Bitcoin company OrangeBTC announced on May 18 that it invested $390,900 to purchase 5 Bitcoins at a price of $78,180, bringing its total holdings to 3,737 Bitcoins.As of the time of publication, the total amount of Bitcoin held by the listed companies worldwide (excluding mining companies) is 1,113,841 Bitcoins, an increase of 2.37% compared to last week, with a current market value of approximately $86.16 billion, accounting for 5.6% of Bitcoin's circulating market value.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, during last week's decline of BTC -4.3% and ETH -7.7%, the largest treasury companies for Bitcoin and Ethereum both purchased BTC and ETH. The specific purchases last week were:Bitcoin treasury company Strategy (MSTR) purchased 24,869 BTC (approximately $2.014 billion) at a price of about $80,985 last week. They now hold a total of 843,738 BTC ($6.5221 billion), with an average cost of $75,700, resulting in an unrealized profit of $1.35 billion (+2.1%).Ethereum treasury company BitMine (BMNR) purchased 71,672 ETH (approximately $161 million) at a price of about $2,251 last week. They now hold a total of 5,278,462 ETH ($1.1312 billion), with an average cost of $3,522, resulting in an unrealized loss of $7.279 billion (-39.1%).

According to Techfundingnews, London-based AI audit automation startup Calibre has announced the completion of a $3.3 million Pre-Seed funding round, led by Vicus Ventures and CIV.Calibre was founded by former Palantir executives with the goal of using AI Agents to enhance efficiency in the certification and auditing industry. The company believes that current auditors spend a significant amount of time on document review and process organization rather than applying professional judgment. Calibre plans to deploy AI Agents to automatically handle repetitive tasks such as document review, information extraction, and compliance verification, aiming to reduce labor costs and improve efficiency in the certification industry.Investors believe that the certification and auditing industry has long faced issues of cumbersome processes and high reliance on manual labor, and that AI Agents are expected to become an important infrastructure in this field.