Vitalik to Discuss Ethereum High-Performance Apps and ZK Rollup Scaling Roadmap with Lighter Founder Tonight at 11:00 PM

May 18 — According to monitoring from PeckShield, the attacker behind the Adshares cross-chain bridge exploit has returned 256 ETH to the project’s deployer address. The returned funds, worth roughly $540,700, account for about 86% of the total amount stolen in the prior breach. Earlier, the Adshares cross-chain bridge was attacked on May 17, 2026, causing losses of approximately $628,000.

On May 18, Binance Futures will announce the launch of the CBRSUSDT U-settled perpetual contract, which is set to go live on May 19, 2026, at 09:30 UTC. The contract will support up to 10x leverage.

May 18 – The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Bank of England (BOE) launched a joint public consultation on Monday, seeking feedback from industry players on regulating the country’s tokenized wholesale financial market, its underlying infrastructure, and related market practices. This effort is part of the UK’s broader Digital Financial Market Strategy, with a focus on tokenized securities and post-trade infrastructure. It covers areas like prudential regulation, tokenized collateral, and settlement tools, where regulators see significant opportunities for tokenization to improve post-trade processes and collateral management. The consultation is open to banks, investment firms, asset management companies, central securities depositories (CSDs), central counterparties (CCPs), trading platforms, fintech firms, and other relevant stakeholders. The current scope centers on tokenized bonds, stocks, and fund shares, with potential for future expansion. Market participants have

May 18 — Situational Awareness LP, the hedge fund led by the self-proclaimed (or nicknamed) “25-Year-Old AI Stock God,” executed a bold strategic shift in its Q1 2026 holdings, per the fund’s newly released 13F filing. The firm positioned itself heavily to short the semiconductor sector while doubling down on AI infrastructure bets this quarter. The fund’s largest short positions are via put options, totaling $8.46 billion—making up roughly 62% of its total declared portfolio value. The breakdown of these puts includes: $2.04 billion in VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) (its single-largest individual holding), $1.57 billion in NVIDIA puts, $1.07 billion in Oracle puts, $1 billion in Broadcom puts, $969 million in AMD puts, $535 million in TSMC puts, and $494 million in ASML puts. This marks a dramatic reversal from Q4 2025, when the fund held only $8.91 million in put options. For long positions, the portfolio remains concentrated in AI, power, and digital asset infrastructure: $879

May 18 — According to Coinglass data, as Bitcoin dropped below the $77,000 threshold, funding rates on major centralized (CEX) and decentralized exchanges (DEX) indicate the market has shifted back to widespread bearish sentiment, as shown in the specific funding rate figures in the accompanying image. BlockBeats Note: The funding rate is a fee mechanism implemented by cryptocurrency exchanges to maintain alignment between perpetual contract prices and the underlying asset’s spot price. It functions as a fund exchange between long and short traders—trading platforms do not charge this fee themselves. The rate adjusts the cost or profit for traders holding contract positions, ensuring the contract price stays closely linked to the underlying asset’s value. For reference: A 0.01% funding rate marks the baseline. Readings above this level typically point to a bullish market, while rates below 0.005% generally signal a bearish trend.

On May 18th, according to Onchain Lens monitoring, BlackRock deposited 2,221 BTC (valued at approximately $170.59 million) and 26,572 ETH (worth roughly $56.17 million) into Coinbase.