Yellen to Divest from Assets Prior to Swearing-In

On Tuesday, May 20, Deloitte announced the acquisition of crypto infrastructure firm Blocknative, a deal primarily centered on talent recruitment. Per the announcement, Blocknative’s team will focus on driving Web3 innovation within Deloitte’s client ecosystem moving forward. Blocknative’s official website currently features a notice saying the firm is “gradually winding down operations.” Its Blocknative API and Gas Network services will also be phased out, with functionality expected to remain available through June 19. Founded in 2018, Blocknative is a blockchain infrastructure firm specializing in real-time mempool monitoring, gas fee forecasting, and transaction management. The company provides APIs and related tools to optimize on-chain transactions; its Gas Network is a decentralized oracle network that delivers real-time gas fee data. This move comes amid a broader wave of consolidation across the crypto ecosystem. It follows a trend of traditional firms like Deloitte expandi

May 20 (Bloomberg) – Fintech firm Moment, founded by a former Citadel Securities quant trader and researcher, has closed a $78 million funding round. Over the past year, the company partnered with financial services players including Edward Jones, LPL Financial, and Hightower Advisors. The latest round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from existing backers Andreessen Horowitz and Avra. Moment’s core offering automates fixed-income and equity trading technology for financial institutions. The company’s prior financing round was last July, when it raised $36 million.

May 20 update: According to CME Group’s FedWatch data, the current probability of the Federal Reserve delivering a 25 basis point interest rate cut in June is 1.3%, while the odds of rates remaining unchanged stand at 98.7%.

May 20th: Per Coinglass data, as Bitcoin stays in sideways trading, funding rates on leading centralized (CEX) and decentralized (DEX) exchanges show a clear weakening of bearish sentiment—specific rate details are available in the attached image. BlockBeats Note: The funding rate is a fee mechanism used by crypto exchanges to align perpetual contract prices with spot market prices. It facilitates fund exchanges between long and short traders; platforms do not collect this fee. The rate adjusts the cost or profit of holding contracts to keep contract prices closely matched to spot values. Key benchmarks: The baseline funding rate is 0.01%. A rate higher than 0.01% typically indicates a bullish market, while a rate lower than 0.005% signals broad bearish sentiment.

May 20 – Samsung Electronics and its union will resume negotiations this Wednesday, according to Yonhap News Agency.

May 20: Japanese Finance Minister Kohei Otsuka said he's ready to take decisive action in the foreign exchange market, according to FXStreet.