Today’s Major Crypto Assets (BTC·ETH and other top market cap assets) Price Movements

Note: As of May 26, 2026, based on the latest data in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)

·Bitcoin (BTC)

The current trading price is hovering in a range of about $76,500 to $77,300, with ongoing fluctuations up and down. In today’s market, the overall trend is either a slight decline or a lack of directional momentum, moving sideways.

Even after selling pressure from profit-taking and position adjustments that occurred last weekend, BTC has barely maintained the $77,000 level. However, it has pulled back somewhat from the recently recorded high near $77,800.

Bitcoin daily chart

·Ethereum (ETH)

The current price is around $2,090 to $2,110. Relative to Bitcoin’s moves, ETH appears weaker at the upside, following a minor downtrend or flat movement. With deteriorating market sentiment, there were moments when the psychologically important $2,100 level briefly broke.

Ethereum daily chart

·Other major altcoins (reference data)

BNB (Binance Coin): Traded in a range of about $650 to $660, and in the current unstable market environmentrelatively stable price movementis being maintained.

Solana (SOL): around $84, with a slight downtrend appearing from recent moves.

XRP (Ripple): around $1.33 to $1.36, currently remaining in a narrow range with small fluctuations.

·Overall market summary

Overall, the current crypto market is in a weak, heavy-for-downside phase. Bitcoin’s share of the market, BTC dominance, remains high at around 58% to 60%, indicating continued capital concentration in Bitcoin. As a result,major assets like Ethereum (ETH) underperform Bitcoin (BTC)relative to Bitcoin’s performance, becoming more evident.

Key factors and news moving the market

·Macro economy and geopolitical risks

While the US stock market (e.g., S&P 500) shows solid gains driven by AI-related equities, the crypto market exhibits a risk-off sentiment, presenting a contrasting pattern. At times, the market was supported by expectations of geopolitical easing between the US and Iran following remarks by former President Trump, but those positives did not persist. Inflation concerns remain persistent, and the outlook for interest rate moves by the Federal Reserve continues to weigh on the market overall.

·Market structure and technicals

From a technical perspective, Bitcoin (BTC) has begun to show a bearish pattern not seen since October of last year, with a potential formation of a lower high, signaling a possible longer-term downtrend. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) has continued to stagnate within a relatively tight range with no clear direction in recent months. Against this backdrop of major coins’ stagnation,AI-related tokens and other sectors are showing relatively strong performance, leading to a sectorial bifurcation in market leadership.

Price movement comparison since last week (about 1 week ago)

·Bitcoin (BTC)

Compared with the same period last week, BTC is down roughly -0.5% to -2%. BTC had held in the upper range of $77,500 to $78,000, but has gradually declined. Looking back at May’s overall movement, volatility has been very high, with wide swings between $75,000 and $78,000.

·Ethereum (ETH)

ETH is down roughly -1% to -6% versus last week, clearly weaker than BTC. It has fallen clearly from the $2,100 to $2,130 range. Notably, the ETH/BTC ratio has dropped to around 0.027, near its annual low, highlighting Bitcoin strength dominance in the crypto market.

·Market-wide trend

May 2026 crypto market experienced high volatility overall. Bitcoin, while in a longer-term downtrend from the start of the year, has shown some stabilization in price range compared with April. Still, global geopolitical risks and macroeconomic uncertainty continue to weigh heavily on price formation across the market.

Bitcoin spot ETF fund flow

Spot Bitcoin ETFs listed and traded in the US (representative examples include BlackRock’s IBIT, Fidelity’s FBTC, Grayscale’s GBTC) are highly popular financial instruments allowing investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin indirectly without directly holding crypto. The inflows and outflows of these ETFs are closely watched as a key barometer of market sentiment worldwide.

·Latest fund flows (as of late May 2026)

Recent trend: In the US spot Bitcoin ETF market, there have been six consecutive days of net outflows. Total outflows amount to about $1.55B (USD), equivalent to roughly 155 billion yen. For example, on May 22 alone, about $105M (approximately 10.5 million dollars) flowed out of the market in a single day.

2026 year-to-date: Overall net inflows remain positive for the year (roughly $536M to $57B in net inflows), but the concentrated outflows in May have significantly reduced the previously accumulated gains. In April, inflows exceeded $2B in a single month, while in May the trend reversed.

·Main reasons for outflows

1. Downward trend in spot Bitcoin price, rising macroeconomic concerns such as persistent inflation and long-lasting high interest rates, and capital moving away from risk assets as major US indices reached new highs.

2. Ironically, BlackRock’s “IBIT” and other large inflow sources have become the largest outflow sources, illustrating that traditional institutional investors are aggressively de-risking and moving to risk-off positions.

3. Similarly, Ethereum spot ETFs (ETH ETFs) have also shown a trend of 10 consecutive days of net outflows, indicating capital is leaving from institutions across the market.

Asset-sector trends: standout performance

Within the current market, two sectors have shown exceptionally strong performance: Perps (perpetual futures and derivatives protocols) and Privacy (privacy-focused technologies). Perps posted a 37% gain, and Privacy up 14%.

In recent weeks, one of the hottest focal points for investors has been privacy-related crypto assets.

Current interest is mainly concentrated in the privacy coin pioneer “Zcash (ZEC),” but recently the impact has broadened to include names like Near Protocol (NEAR) and Railgun (RAIL), which embed or extend privacy features. Additionally, within the Solana ecosystem, smaller-cap asset “ORE” has surged dramatically, benefiting directly from this privacy-focused global trend, gaining about 50% in the past week.

Japan’s external assets situation

·External assets fall behind China to become world’s third largest

Japan’s external asset balance has finally been overtaken by China, dropping to the world’s third place.

Japan had proudly held the position of the world’s largest external assets for 34 years, but in just two years it fell to third place. This has sparked concern about Japan’s economic future for some, but the conclusion is: there is no need to panic excessively.

Japan has historically generated substantial passive income from vast overseas assets (foreign government bonds, corporate stocks, real estate, etc.), along with dividends and returns from overseas subsidiaries. This ongoing flow of funds provides more than 40 trillion yen annually in passive income, underscoring Japan’s status as a “strongest passive income nation” with a robust economic foundation.

Bitcoin-related important topics and news

·May 19: Bitcoin Pizza Day

On this day 16 years ago, a historic exchange occurred in the crypto market: 10,000 BTC traded for just two delivered pizzas.

The Bitcointalk post by Laszlo Hanyecz offering 10,000 BTC to anyone who would order him pizza led to what is considered one of the first real-world commercial transactions using Bitcoin. At current rates, the 10,000 BTC paid for two pizzas would be worth over $7.67 million (well over 100 billion yen).The value today would be astronomically high—over $7.67 million for two pizzas at today’s rate.

·Korean government: considering abolishing 22% cryptocurrency taxation

Korean financial authorities and government officials have decided to revert and discuss abolishing the proposed 22% separate taxation on crypto assets that had been planned for 2027. Compared with Japan’s current crypto tax regime being taxed as miscellaneous income up to a combined 55% (including residents’ tax), Korea’s flexible approach is seen as a highly enviable policy shift by Japanese investors.

Tax policy competition among Asian nations to attract Web3 and crypto dominance will be watched to see how it lands in the future.

·SpaceX: SpaceX officially reveals ownership of 18,712 Bitcoins

Elon Musk-led SpaceX has disclosed holding a total of 18,712 Bitcoins (current value approximately ¥230.9 billion) on its balance sheet. The company reportedly aims for an IPO around June 2026, and even from the current mark-to-market value, this translates to an unrealized gain of about ¥12.59 billion. If they go public as planned, they would instantly rank around 7th in Bitcoin holdings among public companies.

·Strive, the asset management firm led by Ramasswami, buys 1,109 BTC

Strive aims to outperform Bitcoin itself over the long term, increasing the intrinsic value of Bitcoin per share. Strive Asset Management, LLC is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and currently oversees substantial assets across ETFs and other investment vehicles.

·Cathie Wood (ARK Invest): Institutional investor resilience analyzed

ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood analyzed the current behavior patterns of institutional investors in detail.

Wood notes that even if Bitcoin price were to drop by 50% from current levels in a major crash, holders of spot ETFs have remained remarkably steadfast. While retail, short-term traders may capitulate, institutions with strong capital view this dip as an attractive buying opportunity and are continuing to accumulate.They see this decline as a dip to buy rather than a reason to retreat

· Wang Chun, founder of F2Pool: SpaceX manned mission to Mars crew selection

This represents a dramatic expansion of influence beyond Earth as a key crypto industry figure embarks on a pioneering space journey.

· Arthur Hayes warns: AI could trigger a new subprime crisis

Hayes predicts that rapid AI advancement could displace high-income knowledge workers, causing many SaaS companies to suffer and fail, which in turn might cause banks that funded these firms to fail—a modern version of a subprime crisis.This is his warning about the potential chain reaction

Hayes recently lowered his long-term Bitcoin price target from $500,000 to $125,000, reflecting concerns about AI-driven financial system breakdown

· Eric Trump: Consensus conference keynote

“The current world situation is a global race among nations, companies, and individuals to acquire as much Bitcoin (BTC) as possible at the cheapest price in history.”

He also stated that digital technologies are rapidly displacing older analog systems, and even the global payments network SWIFT could eventually be replaced by decentralized systems including Bitcoin. It’s notable that his father, Donald Trump, is known to hold a substantial amount of digital assets (cryptocurrencies and NFTs) exceeding $50 million.

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Crypto Market Analysis [May 26]