Spree cut short
What's being bought and sold*
TOP TRENDING ASSETS
*Trading activity in the past 24 hours on the Uphold platform, as of 8 a.m. 4th May 2026.
The combined total of buy and sell percentages can exceed 100% due to customers who engage in both buying and selling the same asset within the 24-hour time frame.
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What’s up
Bitcoin Briefly Tops $80,000
Overnight, Bitcoin topped $80K before pulling back as of sunrise on the Eastern Seaboard. When we checked BTC at 9:36 a.m. (EST), it was nestled near $79K, or essentially where it was on Sunday morning around this time.
Reports out of the Middle East are a murky mix of conflicting developments pertaining to the status of a U.S. warship. A dispatch from an Iranian news agency said it was hit by two missiles. U.S. Central Command on X said no U.S. Navy ships were struck. Oil prices jumped. This remains a volatile situation. Loins would seem particularly in need of girding at the moment.
What's down
Global Markets Decidedly Uneasy
Dow futures dropped 200 points early Monday amidst reports of escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
Just before 8 a.m. (EST), NBC News quoted a U.S. official who denied Iranian claims that U.S. Navy ships were prevented from accessing the Strait of Hormuz. Not only that but, the official added, the U.S. has begun guiding ships through the strait as part of President Trump's newly announced "Project Freedom.”
We’re watching the greenback. The dollar index (DYX), a measure of the dollar’s strength versus a basket of other major currencies, fell below 98 on Friday to reach a two-month low. But U.S. government bond yields are rising now. Nervousness about the war heating up likely will push the “safe haven” dollar higher, possibly dampening the outlook for crypto. While the two biggest coins, Bitcoin and Ethereum, are holding flat on the week, two major altcoins, XRP and Solana, have each slightly slipped over the past seven days.
Best to keep an eye on the sliding yet suddenly strengthening yen, too. So, it does appear, per Reuters, that Japanese authorities discreetly staged a currency intervention last week. Yen volatility and the related “carry trade” implications can create havoc if the stock market weakens at the same time that the yen strengthens.
What's next
Ripple CEO Reaffirms XRP Relevance
The recently concluded XRP Las Vegas ’26 event covered the entire Ripple ecosystem, top to bottom, with sessions that mapped out the road ahead and dove into developers’ plans. A bold expansion in the Middle East was unveiled.
But the biggest headline came on Friday when Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse used his microphone time to aggressively push back on lingering concerns about the ledger technology company becoming less and less aligned with its native token.
"Ripple is extremely committed to make XRP the most useful digital asset, the most liquid digital asset, and the most trusted digital asset," Garlinghouse said.
Consternation regarding Ripple supposedly having moved away from XRP — to instead focus more on institutional payment solutions such as RippleNet and xCurrent, which do not necessarily involve tokens — has been stewing for some time now. This declaration by Garlinghouse confronted the elephant in the room head on.
“He signaled that institutional payments and XRP adoption are complementary, not competing, strategies,” BeInCrypto concluded.
Ripple also used the annual conference to announce the opening of a new regional headquarters in Dubai. The move, per BeInCypto, allows Ripple to expand operations across a region that is viewed as rife with long-term growth opportunities surrounding the adoption of blockchain technology.
