Cryptocurrencies enter the week caught between regulatory tailwinds and a hawkish Fed, with Wednesday’s FOMC minutes providing the first detailed read on the Fed’s new structure.
Hot inflation and solid employment data have led the swap market to price in the possibility of further U.S. interest rate hikes by the end of the year. Bitcoin is trading around $77,000 after falling from $80,000, but is losing momentum heading into the release.
Kyle Rodda, senior market analyst at Capital.com, told CoinDesk that interest rate trends “haven’t really entered the mainstream narrative yet,” reading Bitcoin’s stall as a harbinger for risk assets more broadly.
Jennifer Honey, a partner at Echo Base, framed the setup as a tug of war for liquidity. The idea is that regulatory clarity will provide a lower bound, and rising long-term interest rates will create a heavy upper bound. According to him, with BTC unable to recover $80,000, the initial spot ETF accumulation phase has been exhausted and the capital will be directed towards specific infrastructure investments.
A single dovish signal from the Fed could trigger a rapid rally, while continued silence could prolong the decline in stock prices.
what to see
(all times Eastern)
- cryptography
- May 18: Enjin (ENJ) receives Kallang upgrade.
- May 20: Public comment is scheduled at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on NYSE Arca’s proposed T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF.
- May 20: Meta deadline to respond to questions posed by Senate Bank Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren regarding reported stablecoin trials and broader integration plans for the second half of this year.
- macro
- May 18th, 6:50 p.m.: Japan’s GDP growth rate is estimated to be 0.4% quarter-on-quarter (previously 0.3%). First quarter annual rate Prel estimated 1.7% (previously 1.3%)
- May 19, 7:30 a.m.: April Canadian Consumer Price Index year-on-year change (2.4% year-on-year). Core rate (previously 2.5%)
- May 20th 1:00 am: April UK Consumer Price Index year-on-year change (3.3% year-on-year). Core rate (3.1% last time)
- May 20th, 4:00 a.m.: Estimated final year-on-year change in the Eurozone consumer price index for April: 3.0% (previously 2.6%)
- May 20th, 4:00 a.m.: Eurozone core consumer price index year-on-year change estimate for April is 2.2% (previously 2.3%)
- May 20th 1:00pm: US FOMC Minutes
- May 21, 7:30 a.m.: New U.S. unemployment claims for period ending May 16 (previously 211.0K).
- May 21st 8:45am: May US S&P Global Comprehensive PMI Report (previous price 51.7)
- May 21, 6:30 p.m.: Japan’s consumer price index for April year-on-year change (1.5% year-on-year). Core rate (previously 1.7%)
- May 22, 9:00 a.m.: Final estimate of consumer sentiment in Michigan for May: 48.2 (previously 49.8)
- revenue
- May 19: Canaan (CAN) pre-market, -$0.07.
- May 19: Antalfa Platform Holding (ANTA) pre-market, $0.07.
token event
- Governance votes and calls
- The Lido DAO is voting on five proposals: retaining Pier Two, adopting CircuitBreaker emergency outages, starting NEST automatic buybacks, introducing the CMv2 operator framework, and increasing LOL funding limits. Voting ends on May 18th.
- The Decentraland DAO is voting to reduce the wearable publication fee from $100 to $50 by reducing the DAO’s revenue deduction. Voting ends on May 19th.
- Balancer DAO has voted to switch from veBAL to a “1-BAL-1-Vote” governance model across all active chains, increasing quorum to 10M BAL and requiring users to redelegate. Voting ends on May 19th.
- 1inch DAO is voting on two proposals: 1IP-98 allocates $200,000 $USDC Governance operations in 2026, and $695,000 in 1IP-99 requests. $USDC We will sponsor 21 ETHGlobal developer events from 2026 to 2027. Voting ends on May 19th.
- Instadapp DAO is voting to transfer Treasury’s iETHv2 and redeemed fGHO balances to Team Multisig to settle unpaid debts from March’s Resolv hack. Voting ends on May 19th.
- Compound DAO is voting to lower the Ethereum WETH Comet supply cap from 33,163 ezETH to 500 ezETH due to low usage. Voting ends on May 20th.
- Superfluid DAO is voting to allocate SUP and select established project campaigns for inclusion in Season 6 from a list of 10 options. Voting ends on May 21st.
- Uniswap DAO is voting on temperature checks to extend protocol fee collection and write infrastructure to BNB Chain, Polygon, and Celo. The proposal would enable v2 and v3 protocol fees on these networks and send the collected fees back to the Ethereum mainnet to burn UNI tokens. Voting ends on May 21st.
- Arbitrum DAO votes on ~30,765 frozen transfers $ETH to Aave LLC pursuant to a US court order following the rsETH case. Voting ends on May 29th.
- unlock
- May 19: Pais Network (PYTH) releases 36.96% of its circulating supply worth $92.1 million.
- May 20: LayerZero (ZRO) releases 5.07% of its circulating supply worth $32.91 million.
- Activate token
- May 24: Sonic Labs final airdrop application deadline (penalty included).
conference
- May 18-22: Global Digital Asset Forum (Vienna)
- May 18-19: Vienna Blockchain Week 2026 (Vienna)
- May 19-20: Stablecon EMEA 2026 (Amsterdam)
- May 20th-21st: 2026 Southeast Asia Blockchain Week (Bangkok)
- May 21st-22nd: ETHMilan (Milan, Italy)
- May 24-27: Web3 Builders’ Summit: LFBUIDL 2026 (Da Nang, Vietnam)
