Robinhood has launched BLEND

On May 8, Barclays noted it’s maintaining its forecast for average Brent crude prices at $100 per barrel in 2026, with risks tilted to the upside. Even under the most optimistic scenario, the bank sees oil prices may still be too low—demand remains robust, and inventories continue to draw down rapidly. (FX168)

Per Botify Beating’s monitoring, the UK-based Financial Times reported that British billionaire Chris Hohn’s hedge fund TCI has sold nearly $8 billion in shares of U.S. software giant Microsoft (MSFT.O) and informed investors that artificial intelligence (AI) threatens the company’s flagship software products.

May 8 — Sporadic clashes have broken out between Iranian military forces and a U.S. naval vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, per a report from Iran’s Fars News Agency, roughly an hour prior to this update.

On May 8, Onchain Lens data reveals Garrett Jin—agent for the "BTC OG Insider Whale"—deposited 78,077 ETH into Binance, valued at roughly $177.92 million.

May 8, according to Bitget market data, Micron Technology (MU.O) — a storage-focused concept stock — saw its share price surpass $700, up 9.03%, with its market capitalization exceeding $790 billion.

On May 8, Glassnode released a report noting Bitcoin recently broke above a key resistance level to hit the $82k-$83k range — escaping the narrow trading range it’s occupied for weeks and reigniting market volatility. Option data shows short-term implied volatility (IV) has jumped sharply: the 1-week IV is up ~6 volatility points from its lows, while long-term term structure changes remain muted. This signals short-term trading demand is rebounding fast. On the sentiment and positioning front: the 25-delta skew (a metric tracking whether markets fear downside more than they crave upside in options) is moving toward neutrality. The short-end skew even rebounded to ~5% put premium after briefly balancing out, though overall downside hedging demand is fading. Notably, skew shows divergence: short-term bias remains tilted toward downside, but longer-term structure is gradually shifting bullish — a sign markets are starting to reprice upward expectations. Structurally, IV has ri