Wall Street built crypto this week

Hey,

Another wild week in crypto and in the world:

Let’s unpack everything together.

April US CPI came in at 3.8%, the highest reading since 2023.

That single print pushed rate-cut expectations from 2026 into 2027 and lifted bond yields.

BTC has been rejected twice at the $82K wall and closed Wednesday near $80,860. ETH around $2,300.

The Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair on Tuesday. His first FOMC is June 16-17. Trump expects cuts. Warsh has publicly called for "regime change" at the central bank. That's a setup, not a policy.

🟠 BTC ETFs went choppy:

May 7 saw a $268.5M net outflow that reversed six weeks of $3.4B in inflows. Then the bid came right back — eight straight days of net inflows totaling $2.1B, with IBIT capturing 75%. Net pattern: tactical positioning around macro, not a structural exit.

🔷 ETH ETFs went red:

Five consecutive days of net outflows through May 15. The May 15 print alone was $65.7M out, with BlackRock's ETHA accounting for ~$50.4M of it. ETHA holds ~$7.19B in AUM. That's institutions trimming ETH risk while BTC flows stay choppy-positive.

🔴 MicroStrategy signaled the unthinkable:

On its Q1 earnings call, Michael Saylor publicly broke the "never sell" stance, saying Strategy may sell some BTC to fund dividend obligations. The company holds 818,869 BTC.

🟦 Coinbase reported Q1 the same week it cut 14% of staff:

In other news, Ledger paused its $4B IPO citing market conditions.

We covered the CLARITY Act in full last week, so I'll keep this to what's new.

The Senate Banking Committee passed CLARITY in a 15-9 vote on May 14.

The bill now heads to the full Senate, where it needs 60 votes.

🗓️ Industry timelines target July 4 as the signing date.

Whether that holds is now a Senate-floor math problem, not a committee problem.

Three things landed in the same week that, together, describe a different industry being built right next to crypto. None of them shared a headline, but the pieces are interlocking:

🔷 JPMorgan launched JLTXX on Ethereum:

On May 13, JPMorgan Asset Management deployed its OnChain Liquidity-Token Money Market Fund (JLTXX) on Ethereum mainnet.

It holds only short-term US Treasuries and overnight Treasury repos.

That's the exact asset list the GENIUS Act permits stablecoin issuers to use as reserves.

Tokenized Treasury products now sit around the $15B range.

🔗 DTCC picked Chainlink for its Collateral AppChain:

The clearinghouse that processed $4.7 quadrillion in securities transactions last year named Chainlink as the data and orchestration layer for its tokenized collateral platform.

Production launch targets Q4 2026.

If it ships, it's the first CFTC- and SEC-regulated clearinghouse running collateral workflows across multiple chains, 24/7.

✴️ Anthropic voided every unauthorized tokenized share trade:

On May 11, Anthropic issued a transfer-restriction policy invalidating direct sales, SPVs, forwards, and tokenized shares of its stock.

CLARITY clearing committee 15-9 with every anti-DeFi amendment defeated is, on paper, the best regulatory week DeFi has had in years.

The framework is now real.

The most aggressive attempts to criminalize developers, sanction immutable code, and strip BRCA protections all got voted down.

If the bill survives the floor anywhere close to its current shape, crypto-native protocols get a legal path to operate in the United States.

The asset is a tokenized Treasury, the rail is a permissioned blockchain, the data layer is Chainlink, the legal cover is GENIUS plus CLARITY.

Is legislation finally catching up with the technology?

I don't think so.

But it's taking its first real step.

— Juan