The information flow is too fast, and in-depth analysis articles are easily drowned out by trending topics. The "Weekly Editor's Picks" column sifts through the sea of information to retrieve content of discernible value, filtering out the noise for you, leaving behind insights, and bringing inspiration.
Macro
'TACO' Is Outdated, 'NACHO' Trading Rises on Wall Street
NACHO, short for "Not A Chance Hormuz Opens," meaning there's no chance the Strait of Hormuz will reopen.
It is the opposite version of TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). TACO bets on "people chickening out"—that Trump will back down at critical moments. NACHO bets on "things getting stuck"—this time, the Strait of Hormuz cannot be reopened with just one Truth Social post.
NACHO is not empty talk; it's the same bet placed with real money across three independent derivative markets: insurance, oil prices, and interest rate cuts.
The market is no longer trading on Trump's next Truth Social post; it's now trading on the Strait of Hormuz's early June inventory data.
Investment & Entrepreneurship
After 50x Storage, Justin Sun Always Looks to the Next Decade
"Shortage of chips in the short term, shortage of energy in the long term, and perpetual shortage of storage."
At the beginning of 2026, Justin Sun's prediction was: Embodied AI, Drones, Spatial Computing, Space Exploration.
Anthropic and OpenAI Personally Sever the Logic of Pre-market Crypto-Equities
Anthropic and OpenAI have taken stances one after another, clearly stating they "do not recognize unauthorized stock transfers." The risk of "layering" due to over-financialization of SPVs has begun to surface. Reflecting on the market level, pre-market stock tokens plummeted, while futures contracts remained relatively stable.
The public "crackdown" by Anthropic and OpenAI is, to some extent, also redefining the boundaries for this wildly growing new market. For speculators, this is a risk education; but for the industry's long-term development, the market might need such a "de-bubbling" moment.
Bitwise: Why Are Top-Tier Capital Firms Frantically Betting on New Public Blockchains?
The three public blockchains—Arc, Canton, and Tempo—are all tailor-made for stablecoin and asset tokenization scenarios.
A key takeaway from this wave of concentrated financing fervor is: Capital always follows regulatory legislation; Privacy protection may become a phenomenal core application.
Niche View: Why It's Hard for HYPE to Double Again
75% of the token supply remains unlocked, implying sustained selling pressure in the future; The current FDV is already approaching or even exceeding the valuation ranges of some traditional exchanges; And at this price point, it's still unclear whether new marginal buyers will come from retail investors, traditional institutions, or crypto funds.
More importantly, HYPE faces not only valuation issues but also risks such as regulation, hacker attacks, key-person dependency, and trader liquidity migration.
For an asset that has already gained significant market attention and is heavily promoted by KOLs, the real question is no longer "Does it have a narrative?" but rather "At this price, who will continue to buy?" When a crypto asset transitions from alpha to consensus, investors need to re-evaluate not just how excellent the project itself is, but whether the current price has already priced in the future.
AI
The Semiconductor Century: An Investment Roadmap Amid the 2026 AI Frenzy
High-value AI chips contribute to about half of the industry's revenue but account for less than 0.2% of total shipments. Semiconductors have evolved from consumer electronics components into strategic assets for companies with market caps exceeding $10 trillion.
The four key roles in the supply chain are: Designers (Architects), Foundries (Manufacturers), Equipment Suppliers (Toolmakers), and Memory Makers (Storage Layer).
Companies worth studying include: NVIDIA, TSMC, ASML, AMD, Broadcom (AVGO), SK Hynix.
Semiconductor ETFs include: SMH — VanEck Semiconductor ETF, SOXX — iShares Semiconductor ETF, SOXQ — Invesco PHLX Semiconductor ETF.
Key catalysts to watch: The Trillion Dollar Milestone, TSMC Arizona Fab Capacity Ramp-up, NVIDIA Vera Rubin Platform Deployment, AMD Market Share Progress, Memory Pricing & HBM4 Supply.
Policy & Stablecoins
When Stablecoins No Longer Earn Interest: 7 DeFi Protocols Benefiting from the CLARITY Act
Once the CLARITY Act is officially enacted, it will immediately trigger two major shifts: Institutional funds will have barriers to entry cleared. BlackRock, Apollo, Deutsche Bank, pension funds, corporate treasury funds, etc., which have been on the sidelines, could not previously get compliance teams to assess whether related assets were securities and dared not allocate large-scale. Now, with the CFTC clearly asserting jurisdiction and DeFi safe harbors established, institutions can finally enter in a big way. Profit-seeking funds will withdraw from idle stablecoin yield farming. The model where simply holding USDC on exchanges yielded around 5% annual interest will no longer exist. Hundreds of billions in funds seeking stable returns must find new allocation outlets.
Therefore, two massive waves of funds (institutional investors finally entering + retail investors seeking yield) will surge towards the same type of targets: compliant, yield-generating products with real business scenarios and structured frameworks.
Protocols tailor-made for this new regulatory landscape include: Underlying yield infrastructure layer Pendle, On-chain Prime Broker Morpho, Sky (USDS / sUSDS), On-chain credit trading desk Maple Finance, RWA asset native issuance layer Centrifuge, Related protocols leveraging STRC assets (a pathway in the fixed income track).
Also recommended: "Earnings, Legislation, the Fed... Circle Faces Three Major Tests This Week," "CLARITY Act Released: Is Ethereum the Biggest Winner?", "The New Order for XRP and Crypto Markets Under the CLARITY Act."
CeFi & DeFi
Has the Hook Summer Really Arrived? Sato, Lo0p, FLOOD Ignite the New Uniswap v4 Narrative
Since ASTEROID, ecosystem tokens backed by Uniswap v4 Hook protocols like sato, sat1, Lo0p, and FLOOD have gradually become the focus of market attention, with market caps ranging from millions to tens of millions of dollars, bringing much-needed concentrated liquidity to the narrative-dry crypto market.
Hook mechanism tokens drive Uniswap ecosystem development: UNI is bullish long-term but has limited short-term upside.
$3 Billion DeFi Fund Migration: LayerZero Stumbles, Chainlink Feasts
Rescue efforts for the Kelp DAO attack incident have also seen substantive progress recently. However, compared to financial recovery, the harder repair is restoring market trust.
At the center of this vortex, the cross-chain leader LayerZero is facing accelerated withdrawals by many protocols and was forced to make an abrupt shift in stance within just a few weeks—from initially shifting blame to now publicly apologizing and initiating reforms. Meanwhile, Chainlink has unexpectedly become a beneficiary of this crisis, with its CCIP protocol absorbing a large amount of migrated liquidity and showing significant growth in on-chain data.
Airdrop Opportunities & Interaction Guides
Hot Interactions Compilation | The Beacon Season 1 Pre-registration; GenLayer Latest Testnet Interaction (May 15th)
Circle Releases Arc Whitepaper, What Are the Early Interaction Opportunities?
Meme
From A9 Myth to Millions in Debt: A Meme Player's 5-Year Journey
Ethereum & Scaling
Grayscale: Ethereum's Staking Model Needs an Overhaul
Ethereum's current staking reward model faces two structural issues: L2s diverting activity lead to reduced token burns and increased net issuance; Staking barriers approaching zero may eventually lock nearly all ETH in staking.
The community is discussing implementing a staking reward cap curve, which Grayscale believes would be beneficial for ETH's price long-term. The Ethereum community is considering modifying the network's staking reward model, with the core idea being to incentivize staking only up to a certain ratio, with no additional rewards beyond that.
If implemented, stakers' nominal returns would decrease. But Grayscale believes this is good for ETH's price long-term for two reasons: controlling ETH inflation and strengthening ETH's narrative as a store-of-value asset.
Weekly Hot Topics Recap
Policy & Macro Markets
Trump conducts a state visit to China, accompanying entrepreneurs draw attention;
Trump's Q1 "stock trading operations" revealed, sparking heated discussion;
U.S. Senate votes to approve Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve Chair;
U.S. Senate Banking Committee passes CLARITY Act (Analysis);
Some senators submit "anti-DeFi" amendments that could weaken protective clauses related to the CLARITY Act;
Opinions & Statements
Arthur Hayes: U.S.-China AI arms race combined with war inflation makes a return of BTC to $126K inevitable, the AI bubble is the biggest opportunity;
Wintermute: This round of BTC rise is clearly driven by leverage, open interest surges while spot trading volume remains sluggish;
New CZ Interview: Still dedicates 80% of his energy to blockchain, believes $10 million is enough for financial freedom;
Institutions, Major Companies & Leading Projects
Cerebras lists on Nasdaq, triggers strong upside circuit breaker on first day;
Solana Foundation partners with Google to launch Pay.sh (Analysis);
Data
ZEC up 15x year-to-date (Analysis); TON continues to rise (Analysis); L1 tokens gain strength (Analysis);
Circle Q1 revenue reaches $694 million, USDC on-chain transaction volume up 263% YoY (Earnings report details);
Gemini Q1 revenue grows 42%, after-hours stock price surges up to 30%;
Bitcoin long-term holders are accumulating heavily, institutional buying pushes price back above $80,000...
Attached are portals to the "Weekly Editor's Picks" series. See you next time~
