🌴 Consensus is here. Are you ready?

Consensus Miami kicks off tomorrow. Circle surged 18% on CLARITY Act news. And Canada just launched its first regulated digital dollar. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Monday, May 4, 2026 · Special Edition Consensus Miami kicks off tomorrow — here's what to expect MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — CoinDesk's flagship Consensus conference kicks off tomorrow at the Miami Beach Convention Center, bringing thousands of people together for the annual big-tent event to discuss the digital assets sector. Day one of the conference will see local officials and startup executives lay out the state of the crypto world. Arthur Hayes, Lily Liu, Jesse Pollak, Anatoly Yakovenko, Mike Cagney, Brad Garlinghouse and more will present keynotes or take place in firesides to open the conference, weighing in on everything from the current macroeconomic environment to the future of AI tooling to the growth of decentralized finance. On the policy front, CoinDesk will see discussions about the U.S. Department of Justice's fight against developers of mixers and hear from Congressional staffers about how exactly crypto-specific legislation is being written. Congressman Steven Horsford will discuss his effort to reform how the U.S. handles taxes around crypto transactions, while CFTC Chairman Michael Selig talks about his agency's growing efforts to wrangle crypto and prediction markets. Agentic payments, privacy tools and more familiar crypto tooling will — naturally — also see discussions throughout the day. Tomorrow will also see CoinDesk host its Capital Markets Summit, bringing together traditional finance veterans with companies trying to bring these products onchain. A key theme at Consensus Hong Kong this past February was the growth of tokenization as a way for these long-established firms to build faster, more efficient tooling for their existing products. Is that trend real and will it continue? Come find out. Tomorrow — and throughout the week — we'll also have meetups for folks interested in different topics, like prediction markets or the midterm election, to connect with each other. Definitely take advantage of those; the Consensus Lobby has been one of the most-appreciated aspects of this event for the last decade, but now you can hang in a dedicated space for it instead of hoping for an empty corner in an actual lobby. For a full agenda, click here. See you tomorrow! Get your pass → Sponsored GoMining is your all-in-one Bitcoin app — built to make Bitcoin simple, secure, and useful every day. From earning Bitcoin to paying with it and spending it, GoMining brings key Bitcoin use cases together in one easy ecosystem. Join 5,000,000+ users already exploring a simpler way to use Bitcoin. Visit the GoMining booth at Consensus to learn more, or explore the ecosystem at gomining.com. Markets Circle, Coinbase lead crypto stock rally amid CLARITY Act progress, bitcoin above $80,000 Circle surged 18% and Coinbase gained over 7% Monday after Senators Tillis and Alsobrooks released a bipartisan compromise on stablecoin yield in the CLARITY Act — banning passive interest-like payouts but preserving activity-based rewards. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong posted "Mark it up." on X. Strategy, Robinhood, and Bitmine also rose 3–4%. The move came alongside bitcoin clearing $80,000 for the first time since January, with analysts at 10x Research saying markets are beginning to price in potential winners under a clearer regulatory framework. Bank of America called the yield compromise "a net positive" for the sector. Read more → Business Shopify and National Bank of Canada are among backers of a new digital currency built to settle trades 24/7 Tetra Trust has launched CADD — the first Canadian-dollar stablecoin issued by a regulated financial institution — approved by Alberta's Treasury Board and Finance and live on Base, Ethereum, and Stripe's Tempo blockchain. Backed by Shopify, National Bank of Canada, Wealthsimple, Shakepay, ATB Financial, and others, CADD is aimed squarely at institutional use: 24/7 cross-border settlement, real-time corporate treasury transfers, and direct fintech-to-fintech settlement without correspondent banking delays. Reserves are held 1:1 in Canadian dollars under domestic trust law, and Solana support is planned next. Read more → Know someone who should be reading this? Share this newsletter See all of CoinDesk’s newsletters    CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York,NY,10011,USA, Unsubscribe Manage Preferences   Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.

Do Americans trust Trump on crypto?

62% of voters don't trust Trump to regulate crypto. Bitcoin just broke $80K — barely. And a big week ahead: Strategy earnings, Consensus Miami, and April jobs data. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Monday, May 4, 2026 U.S. voters don't trust Trump administration to oversee crypto sector, CoinDesk poll finds 62% of registered U.S. voters don't trust the Trump administration to regulate crypto — and 73% say senior government officials shouldn't have personal business dealings in the industry, according to a new CoinDesk/Public Opinion Strategies poll of 1,000 voters. Only 17% are aware of the full extent of Trump's involvement with World Liberty Financial and other digital asset interests, yet 45% know he and his family have built a profitable stake. Even 59% of Republican voters oppose those kinds of ties. The findings land at Consensus Miami this week, where the CLARITY Act's path — already complicated by Trump's own crypto interests — is one of the central political storylines of the conference. Read the full story → Sponsored GoMining is your all-in-one Bitcoin app — built to make Bitcoin simple, secure, and useful every day. From earning Bitcoin to paying with it and spending it, GoMining brings key Bitcoin use cases together in one easy ecosystem. Join 5,000,000+ users already exploring a simpler way to use Bitcoin. Visit the GoMining booth at Consensus to learn more, or explore the ecosystem at gomining.com. Markets Jobs data, earnings calls: Crypto Week Ahead The most consequential week in crypto this year opens with Consensus Miami (May 5–7) and doesn't let up: Strategy reports Q1 earnings Tuesday, with all eyes on its bitcoin yield and whether Saylor doubles down on accumulation. April nonfarm payrolls drop Friday — the last major jobs print before the Fed's June meeting, and the first data point Warsh will be watching as chair-in-waiting. Coinbase, Galaxy Digital, and Bullish are also reporting. With bitcoin back above $80,000 and 30-year Treasury yields at 5%, macro and crypto are pulling in opposite directions at exactly the wrong moment. Read more → Markets Bitcoin reclaims $80,000 as flows build, but traders hedge and doubt a breakout Bitcoin crossed $80,000 for the first time since late January, but CryptoQuant analysts say the move is being driven by ETF inflows and leveraged longs rather than broad spot demand — historically a fragile foundation. April's rally was powered almost entirely by perpetual futures, with spot demand actually contracting throughout the month. Polymarket puts the odds of $90,000 this month at just 23%. Over $150 million in short positions were liquidated in a single hour after the breakout, with Binance showing 62.8% of futures positions short going into the session — making the move look more like a squeeze than a conviction-driven rally. Read more → Consensus Miami · May 5–7, 2026 Join CoinDesk at Consensus Miami, where agentic commerce, crypto at scale, and institutional integration are redefining the future of finance. Save 20% with the code HEADLINES Get your pass → Know someone who should be reading this? Share this newsletter See all of CoinDesk’s newsletters    CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York,NY,10011,USA, Unsubscribe Manage Preferences   Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.

🤖 An AI just incorporated itself. Now what?

An AI just incorporated itself. Ark sees bitcoin at $16 trillion by 2030. And the case that bitcoin's best narrative isn't digital gold — it's digital collateral. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Friday, May 1, 2026 AI agent forms its own company, gets ready to trade crypto ClawBank's Manfred AI agent has autonomously formed a U.S. corporation — obtaining an IRS Employer Identification Number, an FDIC-insured bank account, and a crypto wallet capable of transacting in more than 30 cryptocurrencies — without a human initiating the process. Manfred, which runs its own X account under the persona "Manfred Macx," is designed to trade crypto and is expected to begin doing so by the end of May. The project is framed as a first demonstration of AI agents operating as fully independent economic actors, echoing predictions from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Binance founder CZ — who have both said AI agents will soon outnumber humans in internet transactions and make payments at one million times the scale of people. Ben Goertzel of SingularityNET says AI will surpass human-level crypto market analysis within two years. Read the full story → Sponsor message Opinion A new narrative for bitcoin that will last Bitcoin is not digital gold. It is a digital collateral asset — and that reframing, argues CoinDesk contributor Alex Blume, is the only narrative that actually holds up under pressure. Every prior identity (inflation hedge, geopolitical safe haven, institutional adoption story) has broken down in this cycle. What bitcoin consistently does instead is fall first and fall hardest when financial conditions tighten, acting as a forward indicator of stress rather than protection from it. The implication isn't bearish: as collateral, bitcoin's value scales with the size of the financial system it underpins. Jamie Dimon's banks integrating it into traditional finance isn't a contradiction — it's the mechanism. Read more → Markets Institutional demand to drive bitcoin market cap to $16 trillion by 2030: Ark Invest Ark Invest's Big Ideas 2026 report projects bitcoin's market cap reaching $16 trillion by 2030 — a more than 10x increase from its current ~$1.5 trillion — driven by six demand channels: institutional ETF adoption, digital gold displacement (40% of gold's $24.4 trillion market), nation-state treasuries, corporate allocations, and bitcoin-based financial services including Lightning and Layer 2s. That implies a price above $730,000 per coin. The one notable trim: Ark reduced its emerging-market safe-haven estimate by 80%, acknowledging stablecoins may absorb much of that demand instead of bitcoin. Read more → Consensus Miami · May 5–7, 2026 Join CoinDesk at Consensus Miami, where agentic commerce, crypto at scale, and institutional integration are redefining the future of finance. Save 20% with the code HEADLINES Get your pass → Know someone who should be reading this? Share this newsletter See all of CoinDesk’s newsletters    CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York,NY,10011,USA, Unsubscribe Manage Preferences   Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.