The Wire PM — May 25, 2026

The Wire PM — May 25, 2026

Bitcoin Rebounds Past $77K After Weekend Flush to $74,344 BTC hit a five-week low of $74,344 over the weekend as thin liquidity and cascading long liquidations created a self-reinforcing sell loop. Total forced closures topped $917 million in 24 hours, with longs accounting for the bulk of the damage. The price has since recovered above $77,200 heading into Memorial Day, but the rebound is happening on low volume with U.S. equity markets closed. Kaiko Research flagged the structural problem: BTC is deep and efficient during U.S. weekday hours, driven by ETF flows, but brittle and high-risk on weekends when those market makers step away. Spot Bitcoin ETFs shed over $1.25 billion across a six-day outflow streak leading into the weekend. (Source: CoinDesk, Bloomberg, Kaiko Research)

Nasdaq Wins SEC Approval for Bitcoin Index Options The SEC approved Nasdaq to list cash-settled Bitcoin index options under ticker QBTC on May 22. Each contract tracks one one-hundredth of the CME CF Bitcoin Real-Time Index, making the notional size roughly 1 BTC per contract, far smaller than CME's 5-BTC futures. Cash settlement means no custody or assignment risk, which lowers the barrier for smaller institutions and retail traders looking to hedge or trade BTC volatility on a regulated equity exchange. Trading can't start until the CFTC grants exemptive relief, since BTC is classified as a commodity. Realistic launch window: second half of 2026. (Source: Bloomberg, CoinDesk, CryptoBriefing)

US Commits $2 Billion to Quantum Computing Under CHIPS Act The Department of Commerce signed letters of intent with nine companies for $2.013 billion in quantum computing incentives. IBM gets the largest share at $1 billion for a quantum wafer fab in Albany, NY. GlobalFoundries gets $375 million, and seven other firms (Atom Computing, D-Wave, Infleqtion, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, Rigetti, Diraq) split the rest. The crypto angle: Project Eleven, a quantum security firm, warned that machines capable of breaking elliptic curve cryptography could arrive by 2030. Roughly 6.7 million BTC sits in wallets with exposed public keys, one-third of total supply. Solana and Ethereum's faster governance cycles may allow quicker adoption of post-quantum cryptography than Bitcoin. (Source: NIST, Decrypt, CryptoBriefing)

Numbers (Updated)

• BTC: $77,292 (+1.5% from AM, recovering from $74,344 weekend low)
• SOL: $85.93 (+0.1% 24h)
• ETH: $2,114 (-0.5% 24h)
• Liquidations (weekend): $917M in 24h
• BTC ETF outflows (6-day streak): $1.25B

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