Key takeaways:

Bitcoin price slips, but BTC dominance is on the rise.

Sizable purchases by Strategy and the spot BTC ETFs highlight institutional investors’ appetite for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price has dropped by 4.3% in the last three days after nearly reaching $97,900 on May 2. Despite showing resilience at the $94,000 level on May 5, some traders are disappointed that strong institutional inflows have not been enough to maintain bullish momentum. However, several encouraging signs suggest that a new all-time high for Bitcoin in 2025 remains within reach.

Bitcoin market share excluding stablecoins. Source: TradingView / Cointelegraph

Bitcoin’s dominance over the broader cryptocurrency market has surged, currently standing at 70%, its highest since January 2021. This has occurred despite a wave of new token launches, including several top-50 projects such as SUI, Toncoin (TON), PI, Official Trump (TRUMP), Bittensor (TAO), Ethena (ENA), and Celestia (TIA). This dominance makes riskier altcoins less appealing to new market entrants.

The spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $4.5 billion in net inflows between April 22 and May 2. At the same time, the increasing appetite for Bitcoin futures signals growing institutional adoption regardless of whether leverage is used for downside protection or bullish bets.

Bitcoin futures aggregate open interest, BTC. Source: CoinGlass

According to CoinGlass, the total open interest in Bitcoin futures markets has reached 669,090 BTC, a 21% increase since March 5. Even after Bitcoin’s price crashed below $75,000 in early April, demand for leveraged positions remained strong. The open interest in BTC futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) alone exceeds $13.5 billion, indicating robust institutional demand.

Several factors explain why Bitcoin has struggled to reclaim the $100,000 level. Traders who bought in anticipation of the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve bill on March 6 are growing increasingly frustrated, as the government has yet to disclose its BTC holdings or announce plans for further purchases. Additionally, similar state-level Bitcoin bills have repeatedly failed, including the latest setback in the US state of Arizona.

Strategy doubles its plans for BTC acquisitions despite the global trade war 

Over the past three months, gold has outperformed most assets, rising 16%, while Bitcoin has declined by 5% and the S&P 500 has corrected by 6.5%. This has challenged the notion of Bitcoin as an uncorrelated asset, as the cryptocurrency has repeatedly failed to decouple from the S&P 500 amid rising economic risks. The global trade war has led investors to favor fixed-income assets and cash positions.

5-year US Treasury yield (left) vs. Bitcoin/USD (right). Source: TradingView / Cointelegraph

Bitcoin’s recent drop to $94,000 is particularly concerning given that Strategy, a US-listed company led by Michael Saylor, announced the acquisition of 1,895 BTC on May 5, after doubling its capital increase plan to fund further Bitcoin purchases. However, since investors were previously uncertain about Strategy’s ability to raise additional capital, the announcement of an $84 billion plan on May 1 has reduced some of this risk.

For Bitcoin to reach a new all-time high, investors will likely need reassurance that US-China trade relations are improving, as tariffs have negatively impacted overall risk appetite. Nevertheless, the key elements for a BTC bull run above $100,000 appear to be in place.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

US President Donald Trump’s crypto businesses are drawing increased scrutiny on Capitol Hill and beginning to influence the progress of US digital asset legislation. As Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives unveiled their draft of a digital asset market structure bill on May 5, Democrats prepared for a united response to Donald Trump’s deepening connections with the industry.

Speaking to Cointelegraph on May 5, a Democratic staffer with knowledge of the matter said that House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters planned to lead some members of her party out of a Republican-led hearing discussing digital assets. The May 6 hearing, entitled “American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets” and led by Committee Chair French Hill, could address draft legislation proposed by Republican lawmakers to establish a crypto market regulatory structure.

In a May 5 statement, Rep. Hill and three top Republicans unveiled the draft bill, which could clarify the treatment of digital assets by the US’s financial regulators: the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Hill and others echoed some of Trump’s talking points on crypto — e.g, making the US a “crypto capital of the world” — suggesting deference to the president’s previously announced policies.

The draft bill included a provision requiring the SEC and CFTC to issue joint rules defining digital commodities. According to the text, transactions involving digital commodities “shall be deemed not to be an offer or sale of an investment contract” as long as the purchaser did not have “an ownership interest or other interest in the revenues, profits, or assets.”

According to the Democratic staffer, rules required all members of the House Financial Services Committee to agree to move forward with the digital asset hearing, suggesting that Waters intended to block the Republican-controlled event and conduct a shadow hearing to explore Trump’s and his family’s ties to the crypto industry. At least nine Democrats have reportedly considered a similar move to oppose a proposed stablecoin bill in the Senate.

Calls for impeachment, criticism from both sides

Some members of Congress have already called for Trump’s impeachment after he offered the opportunity for some of his top memecoin holders to tour the White House and attend a private dinner. In addition to the memecoin, the president’s family has backed the firm World Liberty Financial, which recently launched its own stablecoin, and an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm used the USD1 stablecoin to settle a $2 billion investment in Binance.

Related: US Senator calls for Trump impeachment, cites memecoin dinner

Waters, according to the staffer, requested that Hill and Republicans amend any proposed legislation to explicitly prevent potential conflicts of interest in which Trump could personally enrich himself through crypto ventures. Cointelegraph reached out to Hill’s office but did not receive a response at the time of publication. The Arkansas lawmaker reportedly said in March that the Trump family’s involvement in the crypto industry makes related legislation “more complicated.”

Republican lawmakers in the United States currently have control of the House, Senate, and presidency. At least two senators supportive of Trump have criticized his memecoin dinner, hinting that the president was selling access to his office. It’s unclear at the time of publication who among the memecoin holders could attend the May 22 dinner in person.

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) enforcement approach on crypto firms has left a lasting “regulatory overhang” within the industry, according to Devin Finzer, co-founder and CEO of OpenSea. 

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Finzer said that during Biden’s administration the agency unfairly targeted good actors in the crypto space, including OpenSea. “There’s all sorts of digital assets, you know, you shouldn’t treat them all the same. That’s obvious. But I think the approach that the prior SEC was taking was kind of this, you know, very, very generic.”

The SEC issued a Wells notice — a formal notification that is often a precursor to enforcement action — to OpenSea in 2024, alleging that the NFT marketplace was operating as an exchange for unregistered securities. At the time, Finzer criticized the SEC for taking an approach of “regulation by enforcement” and said that OpenSea was prepared to “stand up and fight.”

With the SEC under new leadership by Chair Paul Atkins, Finzer is hopeful for a more balanced regulatory framework. “Good crypto regulation needs to balance, sort of, protecting consumers but also preserving the ability to innovate,” Finzer said. “It’s not just a one-size-fits-all problem, right?”

Under the Trump administration, the SEC has scaled back enforcement actions against several crypto firms, marking a policy shift in the US after years of enforcement actions led by former Chair Gary Gensler.

For instance, the agency has withdrawn legal challenges against exchanges Coinbase and Kraken, NFT companies Yuga Labs and OpenSea, and decentralized finance protocol Uniswap — most of them opened during Gensler’s term. The SEC has even dismissed its years-long case against Ripple.

During the 2024 US election cycle, the crypto industry widely backed then-candidate Donald Trump, who promised to make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet.” Overall, crypto super political action committees, or PACs, donated over $119 million into the coffers of pro-crypto candidates, helping shape the elections.

Related: Crypto’s debanking problem persists despite new regulations

NFTs: Low trading volume, high innovation

The SEC crackdown on crypto firms had weighed on the markets downturn following FTX collapse in November 2022, driving investors away from crypto products such as nonfungible tokens

Since then, NFT trading volume has plummeted from its 2021 peak, affecting protocols and platforms such as OpenSea. In 2023, the company laid off 50% of its staff amid the market turmoil.

Finzer says the NFT space is still flourishing, with innovation and new applications coming to life — especially in the gaming industry and art collectibles. Despite this, OpenSea has started exploring other areas, seeking to diversify its business to become a destination for all onchain trading beyond NFTs.

“I mean, for the first time in the history of the internet, people have the ability to own digital stuff, right, in a real way,” Finzer said. “[…] you can move them around between different applications and take them with you wherever you go on the internet. And that’s something that’s really powerful.”

Related: OpenSea denies NFT airdrop rumors, calls website a test page