TL;DR

• One Big Beautiful Bill to be enacted soon, the US fiscal deficit is expected to be expanded over the next decade.
• This week’s incoming data includes the US labour market report, ISM PMI and jobs opening data.
• Altcoins have seen an average drawdown of 6.5%, while BTC remains resilient.
• The SOL/ETH exchange rate marked at 0.06, breaking below its ascending channel.
• Reddio has launched on Binance Alpha, with its last funding round valuing the project at $80 million. Its current fully diluted valuation (FDV) stands at $86 million.
• Ethereum enters public company balance sheet via SharpLink’s pivot.
• Tether-Backed Bitcoin Treasury firm adds $100M to increase mainstream adoption.
• Ethena and TON unlock potential 1B+ user access in TON’s DeFi with new yield program up to 18% APY.
• Most funded projects are in the Data sector.

Macro Overview

One Big Beautiful Bill to be enacted soon, the US fiscal deficit is expected to be expanded over the next decade.

On May 22, the US House of Representatives passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, and the Senate is expected to vote on the measure in June. A finalized, reconciled version of the bill could potentially be enacted by July 4th, in line with Donald Trump’s stated goal. This sweeping legislative package — which combines tax cuts, spending reductions, an increase in the debt ceiling, and reforms in defense and immigration policy — is likely to significantly expand the US fiscal deficit over the next decade.

For a medium to long-term outlook, given the deep-rooted issues in widening domestic income inequality, reindustrialization and geopolitical competition, it is unlikely that the US will have the objective conditions necessary to reduce fiscal deficit in a meaningful way. For short-term, once the debt ceiling is lifted, a surge in US Treasury issuance is expected between July and September. The US could accelerate adjustments in monetary and fiscal policy, reintroduce QE, adjust supplementary leverage ratio exemptions and prepare for other financial reforms. These means will aim to stabilize investor confidence.

US economic release highlights this week include non-farm payrolls on Friday, alongside with the ISM PMI updates. Earlier forecasts could tell that employment could fall slightly in May amid the concerns on future demands, which would raise the risk of a weaker non-farm payroll reading. Also, the front-running of possible tariff-related issues mean any growth upturn could be temporary.

The dollar index saw a slight gain last week, as the ease of trade tensions earlier last week brought the dollar index to near $100 level, but later dropped to around $99 as the geopolitical situations changed again.

The total assets ripped off $15.5bn last week. MBS dropped significantly while the US Treasury held by the Fed remained relatively stable.

Earlier last week, the gold price fell nearly 1% as Trump dropped his threat to impose 50% of tariffs on goods from the EU from June 1st. The gold price then has been floating around the $3,300 level.

Crypto Markets Overview

1. Main Assets

As of this Monday, the prices of BTC and ETH were around $105,000 and $2,500 respectively, marking weekly decreases of 4.3% and 2.4%. Last week, the market focused on the binance alpha like before.

Solana was priced at $155, down approximately 12% from the previous week. The SOL/ETH exchange rate, marked at 0.062, has collapsed from the upward trend in the last week.

2. Total Market Cap

Last week, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $3.23 trillion. Excluding BTC and ETH, the altcoin market cap was $842.9 billion, representing a week-over-week decrease of 4.7% and 6.7%, respectively. BTC continues to significantly outperform altcoins. Given the significant fluctuation of altcoins, it is advisable to maintain selective bets on tokens driven by strong individual fundamentals, rather than adopting a broad-based investment view on an altcoin market-wide rebound.

3. Top 30 Crypto Assets Performance

Last week, altcoins experienced significant pullbacks, with SOL down 12%, HYPE down 12%, and PEPE dropping 17%.

Ton benefited from the news that xAI would pay Telegram $300 million to fully integrate Grok into the Telegram app for one year, surging 20% last week. However, Elon Musk stated that the deal is still in progress and no contract has been signed yet. As a result, Ton has retreated to around $3.

4. New Token Launched

Last week, the market saw a sharp pullback, with Reddio being the only newly launched altcoin. Reddio is a parallel Layer 2 on Ethereum, with its most recent funding round valuing it at $80 million, led by Paradigm and Arena.

It has launched on Binance Alpha, with a current market cap of $16.3 million and a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $86 million.

The Key Crypto Highlights

1. Ethereum enters public company balance sheet via SharpLink’s pivot

SharpLink Gaming has raised $425M in a PIPE round to accumulate ETH as its primary treasury asset, marking one of the first Ethereum-focused treasury strategies by a public company. The round was led by ConsenSys with support from Pantera, Galaxy, Electric Capital, and others. Proceeds will be used to purchase ETH, with ConsenSys founder Joseph Lubin joining the board as Chairman. Legal advisors included Sullivan & Worcester, Thompson Hine, and Baker Botts. The announcement drove SharpLink Gaming stock up 375%. This move places SharpLink alongside firms like MicroStrategy and Semler, signaling Ethereum’s growing role in corporate balance sheets.

2. Tether-Backed Bitcoin Treasury firm adds $100M to increase mainstream adoption

Bitcoin treasury firm Twenty One Capital has raised an additional $100M through convertible note issuance, bringing its total capital raised to $685 million. The firm is backed by Tether, SoftBank, and Bitfinex, already holding $3.6B worth of bitcoin on its balance sheet. Twenty One’s emergence comes as institutional interest in BTC exposure via treasury vehicles accelerates. It joins a growing cohort of publicly traded firms leveraging public market capital structures to build bitcoin-native balance sheets. Similar to recent moves by Trump Media and Technology Group, which aims to raise $2.5B to buy BTC, the trend underscores growing demand for equity-based BTC exposure amid increasing mainstream adoption

3. Ethena and TON unlock potential 1B+ user access in TON’s DeFi with new yield program up to 18% APY

Ethena has launched a high-yield staking for tsUSDe on the TON blockchain, enabling users to earn up to 18% APY directly through Telegram-integrated wallets such as TON Space, MyTonWallet, TonKeeper, and TonHub. The integration positions Telegram as a gateway to DeFi for over 1 billion users by abstracting away complexity and embedding staking directly within the user interface of popular wallets. This marks a strategic push by Ethena to increase USDe adoption while boosting TON’s DeFi activity. From a trading perspective, the launch coincided with a spike in TON market performance. On-chain data showed over 5,000 wallets engaging with tsUSDe contracts within hours of launch.

Key Ventures Deals

1. Donut raises $7M in Pre-Seed to launch agentic crypto browser on Solana

Donut, an AI-native crypto infrastructure startup, has secured $7M in PreSeed funding to develop a Solana-based agentic browser designed to automate real-time on-chain activity. The round was led by Hongshan (formerly Sequoia CN), BITKRAFT, and HackVC, backing Donut’s mission to abstract blockchain complexity through AI-powered user interfaces. Donut aims to simplify complex actions like bridging, swapping, or interacting with smart contracts by turning them into autonomous flows. As agent-based interfaces become a point for Web3 usability, Donut’s approach underscores the emerging synergy between blockchain programmability and real-time AI execution environments The Donut browser integrates and leverages AI agents capable of interpreting webpage content and user behaviors. It functions like a terminal, streamlining operations typically requiring multiple manual steps and interfaces.

2. AI Media Startup-Rumi Secures $4.7M to launch streaming Infrastructure

AI media infrastructure startup Rumi has raised $4.7M in Pre-Seed funding, co-led by a16z crypto CSX and EV3, to develop a decentralized platform that transforms passive media consumption into interactive, intelligent experiences. Early partners include Virtuals.io, TVision, and Story Protocol, which will use Rumi APIs to enrich AI applications with contextual media awareness. At the heart of Rumi’s approach is a watch-to-earn model that allows users to contribute compute power while watching content, powering an AI-powered indexing network capable of deeply understanding videos in real time. Rumi’s architecture is designed specifically for video understanding, aiming to move beyond text-based LLMs by distilling story arcs, character dynamics, and cultural context. With a focus on Web3-native audiences and compute contributors, the startup positions itself at the convergence of AI, media, and decentralized infrastructure, creating a new entry point into how stories are consumed, understood, and monetized

3. Conduit raised $36M Series A to expand stablecoin cross-border payment infrastructure

Stablecoin payments network Conduit has raised $36M in Series A funding to scale its real-time cross-border payment rails that integrate stablecoins, USD, and local fiat currencies. The round was co-led by Dragonfly and Altos Ventures, with participation from Circle Ventures, Sound Ventures, Commerce Ventures, and DCG. Conduit saw a 16x increase in transaction volume in 2024, crossing $10B in annualized payments, while saving clients over 60,000 hours in settlement time and $55M in fees. The platform connects with over two dozen partner banks globally and offers seamless settlement across USD rails (SWIFT, ACH, FedWire) and local systems in regions like Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Its infrastructure bridges crypto-native tools with traditional finance, providing near-instant global transfers, stablecoin-fiat conversion, and integrated compliance (AML, sanctions screening). With a single API, Conduit enables businesses to transition between digital assets and fiat for invoicing, treasury, and FX operations.

The number of deals closed in the previous week was 24, with Data having 7 deals, representing 29% for each sector of the total number of deals. Meanwhile, Infra had 7 (29%), Social had 3 (13%), Gamefi had 1 (4%) and DeFi had 6 (25%) deals

The total amount of disclosed funding raised in the previous week was $189M, 21% deals (5/24) in previous week didn’t public the raised amount. The top funding came from Data sector with $76M. Most funded deals: Conduit $76M; Freysa $30M

Total weekly fundraising fell to $189M for the 5th week of May-2025, a decrease of -27% compared to the week prior. Weekly fundraising in the previous week was up +5% year over year for the same period.

About Gate Ventures

Gate Ventures, the venture capital arm of Gate, is focused on investments in decentralized infrastructure, middleware, and applications that will reshape the world in the Web 3.0 age. Working with industry leaders across the globe, Gate Ventures helps promising teams and startups that possess the ideas and capabilities needed to redefine social and financial interactions.

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