Thai Banks May Soon Hold Crypto; UNI Rises as Whales Return

Good Morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making information within the markets:

Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a every day abstract of prime tales throughout U.S. hours and an summary of market strikes and evaluation. For an in depth overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.

Uniswap’s UNI token surged from $6.00 to $6.65 over the previous 24 hours, pushing the token up 5%, whereas the broader market gauge CoinDesk20 Index fell 1.8% within the final 24 hours. This momentum coincides with Uniswap recording its highest month-to-month transaction quantity since February, processing over $73 billion in trades and producing greater than $380 million in income this yr, as institutional curiosity grows and a notable whale re-entered the market by buying practically $4 million price of UNI.

SCB10X’s New CEO Sees US-Asia Crypto Dealflow, AI Opportunities

Kaweewut Temphuwapat, the brand new CEO of SCB10X, the enterprise arm of Thailand’s SCB financial institution, sees important alternatives rising on the intersection of AI, crypto, and Web3. “We definitely [are] going more on AI and also crypto and AI plus crypto,” Temphuwapat advised CoinDesk, highlighting these hybrid investments as firmly “under our radar.”

He predicts clearer crypto regulation within the U.S. will gas elevated deal circulation into resilient Asian markets, noting SCB10X’s early success investing in Ripple: “We are an early investor in Ripple of 10 years ago… we’ve used that technology for the last five to six years in our SCB App.”

Temphuwapat praised Thailand’s proactive and revolutionary regulators, highlighting the nation’s strong funds infrastructure. He expects Thai banks, together with SCB, might quickly immediately maintain crypto tokens on their stability sheets, initially by regulatory sandboxes: “The intention is there… they allow us to do [it] in a small scale.”

Trader James Wynn Shifts From Billion-Dollar Bitcoin Bets to Memecoins, Goes Long Pepe

Pseudonymous dealer “James Wynn,” identified for high-stakes crypto bets on decentralized platform Hyperliquid, has shifted focus from billion-dollar bitcoin positions to memecoins, lately inserting a leveraged $1 million wager on Pepe (PEPE), CoinDesk reported earlier.

Previously, Wynn closed a large $1.2 billion bitcoin lengthy place at a $17.5 million loss, earlier than pivoting to a $1 billion brief place at 40x leverage, successfully wagering their whole $50 million pockets stability on bitcoin’s draw back. That brief briefly netted Wynn about $3 million in revenue earlier than closing, marking one of many largest trades ever executed absolutely on-chain.

Wynn introduced stepping again from perpetual buying and selling after securing a cumulative revenue of $25 million, earned from an preliminary funding of simply over $3 million. The dealer’s newest high-leverage PEPE place has already gained $500,000 amid an almost 6% rise within the memecoin’s worth.

Strategy Buys Another 4,020 Bitcoin for $427M, Total Holdings Surpass 580K BTC

Strategy (MSTR), the biggest company holder of bitcoin, bought an extra 4,020 BTC between May 19 and May 25 for roughly $427 million, bringing its complete holdings to 580,250 BTC, CoinDesk beforehand reported. The acquisition was funded by three separate at-the-market fairness packages, together with gross sales of frequent and most popular inventory totaling roughly $427 million.

These newest bitcoin purchases had been executed at a mean value of $106,237 per coin, pushing Strategy’s complete funding in bitcoin to over $40.6 billion, at a mean price foundation of $69,979 per coin. The acquisitions mirror the corporate’s ongoing dedication to increasing its sizable bitcoin holdings by common capital raises and share issuances.

Market Movements:

• BTC: Bitcoin holds regular close to document ranges round $109,000, consolidating positive factors regardless of tariff-induced volatility, as long-term buyers proceed accumulating amid macroeconomic uncertainty.
• ETH: Ethereum maintains resilience above $2,500 amid volatility and cautious whale conduct, supported by continued institutional inflows into spot ETH ETFs.
• Gold: Gold dips barely on tariff delay however stays above $3,310 as deficit considerations gas bullish outlook.
• Hang Seng: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng opened decrease, buying and selling above 23,304, led by tech losses, together with Meituan’s 4.9% decline.
• Nikkei: Japan’s Nikkei 225 dipped 0.13% Tuesday morning as markets assessed Trump’s tariff delay.
• S&P 500: Closed for Memorial Day.

Elsewhere in Crypto…