May delivered one of the most paradoxical stretches in recent crypto memory. Bitcoin punched through every prior ceiling, even as DeFi suffered another nine-figure exploit and regulators in Washington and Brussels raced to tighten the rulebook. Here is a guided tour of the month that was.

Market Performance

Bitcoin hits $112k and reminds the world it’s a macro asset.

BTC printed a fresh all-time high of $112 000, breezing past the January record and extending a year-to-date gain of ~17 %. Analysts tie the move to two intertwined forces:

(1) a five-month slide in the U.S. Dollar Index, which is struggling under tariff uncertainty and fiscal angst

(2) hard evidence that a stablecoin framework is finally advancing in Congress.

The weaker greenback pushed capital into alternative stores of value, while the prospect of clearer policy reduced perceived headline risk around holding spot BTC.

A fast-follow rotation lifts majors and memes

Ethereum caught the tailwind, reclaiming $2600 before settling near $2400, while Layer-2 tokens such as Arbitrum and Base rallied double digits on surging on-chain activity.

Meanwhile, the Trump-era meme-coin phenomenon showed staying power: aggregate memecoin market cap rose significantly, with liquidity largely recycling out of small-cap NFTs.

Volatility spikes around U.S. inflation prints illustrate that crypto now trades as a barometer of both monetary and political risk rather than an isolated tech bet.

Security & Hacks

Cetus Protocol: $223 million gone in an avoidable overflow

Sui and Aptos’ flagship DEX became the month’s cautionary tale after attackers abused an integer-overflow bug in its AMM math.. Roughly $223 million in stablecoins and blue-chip tokens were siphoned in minutes.

Forensics outfit Dedaub traced the exploit to a single wallet; community validators later froze $162 million, and a make-whole proposal (funded via protocol fees plus a 5 % “security debt” tax) is headed to governance.

Coinbase data breach could cost up to $400 million

America’s largest exchange disclosed that threat actors bribed overseas contractors and exfiltrated partial KYC data for ~69 000 users. No customer funds moved, but legal, forensics, and remediation costs could reach $180-400 million, the company said in an 8-K filing—and it has posted a $20 million bounty for information leading to arrests.

The incident renews focus on the old-fashioned attack vector of human compromise, even at heavily regulated platforms.

Cork Protocol hack adds to May’s casualty list.

Cork, a smaller DeFi credit market on Ethereum, was drained for $12 million on 28 May via an unchecked price-oracle call. Smart-contract pausing contained further loss, but the exploit underlines how even mid-tier protocols remain soft targets.

Regulation & Policy

GENIUS Act clears its first Senate hurdle

The bipartisan Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act advanced out of committee on 29 May. The revised draft bans yield-bearing stablecoins, tightens reserve disclosure, and gives non-bank issuers a federal charter option—addressing previous Democratic concerns over consumer protection.

Market watchers see the bill as the most viable path to U.S. stablecoin clarity since 2022, a signal that the asset class is graduating from regulatory gray zone to mainstream payment rail.

Europe’s MiCA stablecoin rules cast a longer shadow

While Washington debates, the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation continues its phased rollout: rules for euro-denominated stablecoins took effect last June, and full CASP licensing begins this December. EU authorities are now drafting supervisory guidelines due by 30 June 2025, reinforcing a passportable yet stringent regime.

For issuers, the message is unmistakable: global harmonisation may still be messy, but the direction of travel is toward audit-ready transparency.

Institutional & Capital-Market Moves

Circle files to go public at a $6.7 billion valuation

USDC’s issuer made its long-anticipated NYSE debut filing on 27 May, targeting up to $624 million in proceeds. Existing backers Accel and General Catalyst will sell shares, while Cathie Wood’s ARK has expressed interest in snapping up $150 million of the float. If successful, Circle would deliver the largest crypto listing since Coinbase in 2021 and hand public-market investors a direct play on the dollar-stablecoin narrative

Strategy’s treasury micro-strategy keeps working.

MicroStrategy (now rebranded as Strategy) revealed another 4 000-BTC purchase, lifting corporate holdings to 580 250 BTC (≈2.7 % of supply) and adding about $5 billion in paper gains since January. Analysts credit the company’s aggressive bid, alongside ETF inflows, for tightening spot supply and amplifying upside swings.

ETF flows and ETP launches broaden access

CoinShares launched seven new physically-backed crypto ETPs on Nasdaq Stockholm via its XBT Provider platform on 21 May, adding staking rewards for PoS assets.

21Shares debuted a Cronos (CRO) ETP on Euronext Paris & Amsterdam on 6 May, giving TradFi portfolios one-ticket exposure to the Crypto.com ecosystem.

With these launches, the universe of listed crypto ETPs now spans 90+ tickers and nearly $50 billion in assets.

Regulated wrappers continue to knit traditional capital to on-chain value – a trend once catalysed by March’s BlackRock debut and now reinforced by specialised issuers.

Final Thoughts

May 2025 crystallised crypto’s dual identity: a maturing macro asset class and an experimental tech frontier still prone to self-inflicted wounds.

Bitcoin’s breakout underscores how quickly capital rotates into digital stores of value when fiat confidence wavers, yet the Cetus and Cork exploits prove that one missed line of code can vaporise fortunes in seconds.

If the GENIUS Act and MiCA succeed, they may provide the guardrails needed for mainstream adoption. Until then, investors ride a wave powered by policy optimism and tempered by security scepticism—a balance likely to define the second half of 2025.