Circle Files for IPO, BlackRock To Buy 10%

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ Circle $USDC files for an IPO on the NYSE; targeting a ~$600M raise at a ~$5.4B valuation; offering 24M class A shares with an expected price range of $24 to $26; to trade under the ticker symbol CRCL.

• BlackRock $BLK to buy ~10% of Circle's $CRCL IPO shares; Ark Invest to buy up to $150M in shares.

• Ethereum $ETH validators signal another gas limit boost; ~15% of validators are proposing a new limit of 60M gas units, up from the current 36M; increasing the gas limit allows more data and transactions to be processed per block.

• MetaMask launches support for Solana $SOL; to launch support for Bitcoin $BTC in Q3.

• ⭐️ Echo launches Sonar, a platform that lets anyone host a public token sale; Plasma to host $XPL token sale on Sonar soon.

Alpha

• Camp launches Yap To The Summit campaign in partnership with Kaito; earn up to 0.25% of the $CAMP supply and $40k USDC / monthly in rewards.

• Treehouse launches GoNuts Season 2: A New Chapter In the Forest; Season 1 users to receive a Squirrel Army Medal & 50% Universal Nuts Buff (through Season 2).

• Avantis extends Season 2 to Q3; awards 10% bonus XP to all users in the Season 2 leaderboard; to launch $AVNT in mid-late Q3.

• Espresso launches The Composables NFT allowlist checker; to launch mint on May 30th in four phases, 0.0359 ETH cost, 5K supply, on RARI Chain.

• Namada to launch Phase 4 soon; $NAM transferability to enable in Phase 5.

• Nansen posts "Every loyal step remembered. Fortune favors the bold. Nansen Points — Season 1: Activation. June 17 👀" on X; to potentially launch Season 1 Points on June 17th.

Airdrops

• ⭐️ Sophon launches $SOPH airdrop claim; early adopters, ZKsync power users, and more are eligible.

• Resolv launches $RESOLV airdrop claim; users who missed the airdrop registration window can still complete registration via Resolv Discord until June 9th.

• Reddio launches $RDO airdrop eligibility & allocation checker; based on snapshot announced on March 3rd.

• Lagrange launches $LA airdrop eligibility checker & registration; registration ends on June 2nd.

• ICYMI Weekly Airdrop Recap by Earndrop.

Finance News

• US Federal Court rules President Trump does not have the authority under economic emergency legislation to impose sweeping global tariffs; the Trump Administration has since appealed the ruling.

• ⭐️ Trump Media and Technology Group $DJT establishes Bitcoin $BTC treasury; to raise $2.5B to buy BTC.

• ⭐️ GameStop $GME buys 4,710 Bitcoin $BTC worth ~$505M; company’s board approved a policy to adopt BTC as a treasury reserve asset in March.

• SharpLink Gaming $SBET raises $425M to buy Ethereum $ETH for its treasury; the raise was led by Consensys; Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin to serve as chairman of SharpLink Gaming's board of directors.

• Rumble $RUM enters strategic collaboration with TRON $TRX; to provide TRON with data storage infrastructure.

Security and Exploits

• Circle freezes ~$58M of $USDC connected to $LIBRA memecoin team; it is unclear who exactly requested the freeze with multiple parties claiming credit.

• Cetus to use cash, token treasuries, and a loan from the Sui $SUI Foundation to make a 100% recovery for all affected users; Cetus was exploited for $223M last week.

• Cork Protocol exploited for ~$12M of $wstETH; exploiter has since swapped the stolen funds for $ETH; Cork team to publish post-mortem report soon.

• Security Alliance receives 1M $USDC donation from Wintermute.

Token Unlocks

• Kamino $KMNO / ~$15M / MAY 30th
• Optimism $OP / ~$25M / MAY 31st
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• Conduit raises $36M in Series A funding led by Dragonfly & Altos Ventures.

• Beam raises $7M in funding led by Castle Island Ventures.

• Oncade raises $4M in funding led by a16z Crypto CSX.

• Asigna raises $3M in Seed funding led by Hivemind & Tykhe Ventures.

• Ego raises $800K in Pre-Seed funding from several investors.