每周编辑精选 Weekly Editor's Picks (0516-0522)

郝方舟

Odaily资深作者

@OdailyChina

2026-05-23 01:30

This article is about 3412 words, reading the full article takes about 5 minutes

An essential catch-up on in-depth quality analysis articles and this week's hot topics.

AI Summary

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Core Viewpoint: This week, the crypto market's focus shifted from macro narratives to specific sector competition, including the consolidation of a duopoly in the prediction market, the SEC's major policy easing on tokenized stocks, and the battle in stablecoins and DeFi shifting from "high yields" towards "compliance" and "channel" access.
Key Elements:
1. The SEC is expected to issue an "innovation exemption" policy, allowing third parties to issue stock tokens without authorization from the listed company, potentially enabling platforms like Coinbase to compliantly list US stock token trading.
2. Polymarket and Kalshi now control over 97.5% of prediction market volume, with the former relying on on-chain transactions and the latter on compliance credentials, while new platforms seek opportunities in niche areas.
3. USDC is shifting from "compliance competition" to a "battle for trading gateway" through deep integration with Hyperliquid, aiming to counter USDT's network effects.
4. DeFi yields are decreasing, but low-yield interest-bearing stablecoins like USDC and sUSDS are gaining institutional credit ratings and being integrated into collateral systems, becoming part of the new infrastructure.
5. If the CLARITY Act passes, it will formally establish Bitcoin and Ethereum as commodities and permanently end the SEC lawsuit against XRP.
6. WLFI's self-rescue measures, including token burns and exchange listings, have inadvertently led long-term holders to use the liquidity window for cashing out.

The information flow is too fast, making it easy for in-depth analysis articles to be drowned out by hot topics. The "Weekly Editor's Pick" column sifts through the vast amount of news to salvage these valuable pieces, helping you filter out the noise, capture insights, and spark inspiration.

Macro Overview

The "Trump Paradox" of the Midterm Elections: The Stronger He Gets, The More Dangerous It Is for the GOP

The political paradox of Donald Trump is becoming increasingly clear: while his approval rating among the national electorate continues to decline, his dominance within the Republican Party is stronger than ever.

On one hand, through endorsements, primary challenges, and political purges, he forces party candidates to pledge loyalty to him; on the other hand, this political screening centered on personal loyalty may undermine the GOP's competitiveness in the general election.

Also recommended: South Korea's Financial Turmoil: Samsung Strikes, AI Communism, and Major Crypto Losses.

Investment & Entrepreneurship

Clash of the Titans: 13F US Stock Holdings Panorama of Top Institutions, Are They Becoming Each Other's Counterparties?

Also recommended: As the World Cup Approaches, Sports Enter the Era of "Fractionalized Finance" and After Developer Numbers Halve: Crypto Isn't Dead, It's Just Ceding Talent to AI.

Prediction Markets

Polymarket and Kalshi Command 97.5% of Volume, Is There a Dark Horse Left in Prediction Markets?

The core landscape of the prediction market in 2026: on one side is the duopoly of Polymarket and Kalshi — the former leveraging on-chain trading, USDC settlement, and media distribution to expand influence, the latter utilizing CFTC compliance credentials and platforms like Robinhood to enter mainstream financial scenarios. On the other side, a group of new platforms seek opportunities in short-cycle trading, sports predictions, media embedding, on-chain native metrics, and infrastructure layers.

Policy

SEC's "Innovation Exemption" is Coming: No Need for Listed Company Authorization, Stock Token Trading May Be Approved

The SEC could release its "innovation exemption" policy for tokenized stocks this week, allowing third parties to issue and trade tokens corresponding to a company's stock without the company's consent.

Crypto-native platforms like Coinbase are expected to be able to list US stock token trading without needing a full broker-dealer license.

Traditional institutions like DTCC, Nasdaq, and NYSE are already accelerating their布局, with live trading of tokenized assets expected to begin between July and October.

What Will Happen to the Crypto Market After the CLARITY Act Passes?

The commodity status of Bitcoin and Ethereum will be written into federal law, completely eliminating the tail risk of future executive reversals.

XRP will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the bill, with the shadow of the years-long SEC lawsuit finally ending permanently at the legal level.

The passive interest-generating function of stablecoins will be limited, but activity-linked yields tied to trading and liquidity provision will be protected.

Stablecoins

USDC's Counterattack Against USDT: The Real Battlefield is Hyperliquid

The stablecoin competition is shifting from "who is more compliant" to "who can capture more trading entry points."

On the surface, USDC has regained its status as the primary pricing asset on Hyperliquid, with Hyperliquid securing a higher revenue share. But on a deeper level, this is a distribution channel war.

For Coinbase and Circle, Hyperliquid provides a global reach that they themselves find difficult to replicate. Constrained by regulations, Coinbase cannot cover as broad a market as Binance or Hyperliquid. Therefore, embedding USDC into Hyperliquid's trading layer could be a realistic path for it to counter USDT's network effects.

CeFi & DeFi

220 Days After the Trade.xyz Launch, Hyperliquid is Becoming the "New Nasdaq"

Following the pre-market battle over Cerebras (CBRS), Hyperliquid has begun to play the role of a "US stock price discovery machine" and is becoming the new Nasdaq.

The New Pre-IPO Battle: On the Eve of Listing, $SPCX is Already Pushed to $2.5 Trillion

As crypto's own narrative weakens, star IPOs in the US stock market have perfectly filled this gap. Every player is vying for this category, and the on-chain pricing for humanity's largest IPO has begun.

Tiger Research: DeFi No Longer Chases High Yields; Yield-Bearing Stablecoins are the New Infrastructure

While the supply of sUSDe has halved, capital has flowed into USYC and sUSDS, which offer lower yields. This isn't capital exiting the market; it's a change in selection criteria.

APY is no longer the dividing line for assets. More important is whether an asset can be adopted as collateral, a savings product, or a reserve.

S&P has issued DeFi's first-ever credit rating for USDS, while assigning a 1250% risk weight to USDe.

Ethena plans a comprehensive overhaul of its collateral structure in April 2026, shifting from a synthetic model to a hybrid one. A single source of yield is no longer sufficient to survive in the YBS market.

DeFi is transitioning from a market that produces yields to one that imports and distributes yields from traditional finance. The stronger the foundation, the more robust the upper layers can be.

Why is the RWA Boom Struggling to Benefit DeFi?

The vast majority of RWA assets remain isolated from scenarios like lending markets and collateral vaults that enable the composability of crypto assets. Bond and money market funds are the largest RWA categories, but only a small portion of their capital has entered DeFi. The private credit sector is a standout, primarily because projects like Maple Finance and Centrifuge were designed from the outset as lending instruments, naturally fitting DeFi applications.

Permissioned architectures represent the biggest barrier to DeFi composability.

Bullish outlook: High-fit products have established a template. Bearish reality: Industry growth may be constrained by the traditional financial system.

WLFI's Self-Rescue Turns into a Dump: Long-Term Holders Use the Opportunity to Liquidate

Facing months of pressure from governance disputes, unlocking concerns, and liquidity doubts, World Liberty Financial has taken multiple measures: burning WLFI tokens, engaging with exchanges, and launching a reward program tied to its stablecoin USD1, aiming to revitalize the entire WLFI ecosystem.

While these measures boosted market sentiment, they also created a new liquidity window for long-dormant holders, allowing them to cash out at a profit.

Also recommended: SpaceX's Wealth Wave and the "Blind Box Shareholders": A Nesting Doll of Layers, Who's Swimming Naked? and TradeXYZ's Mysterious Founder Shoku: A Man Forever Seeking Asymmetric Opportunities.

Airdrop Opportunities & Interaction Guides

Hot Interaction Collection | Catena Labs Waitlist Application; DogeOS Launches Points System (May 22)

$50 Million Funding Fuels Airdrop Expectations, Variational Becomes the New Focus of Perp DEX

Security

Vitalik's Latest Long-Form Post: In the Age of AI, How Can Code Become Safer?

Facing stronger AI attackers, the key is to compress critical systems into smaller, more verifiable, and more trustworthy "security cores" — through formal verification.

Ethereum Pushes for "What You See Is What You Sign": Why Clear Signing is an Essential Patch for the AI Era

On May 12, Clear Signing was further pushed into Ethereum's open standardization process, aiming to solve an old problem: many users aren't indifferent to security, but they simply don't understand what they're signing before clicking confirm.

The role of Verifiable UI is to ensure that what the user sees (on the webpage) is exactly what will happen (the transaction signature).

Weekly Hot News Catch-Up

Policy & Macro Market

National Development and Reform Commission: Never required Chinese tech companies to refuse foreign investment.

Securities Regulatory Commission: Seriously investigates and penalizes illegal cross-border operations; proposes to confiscate all illegal gains from related entities of Tiger Brokers, Futu, and Longbridge, both domestic and abroad.

CSRC & Seven Other Departments: Strengthen internet platform and information cleanup; Completely Ban illegal cross-border operations of foreign securities, futures, and fund institutions.

US-Iran Agreement Reaches Final Draft.

Iran launches digital marine insurance platform Hormuz Safe, supporting cryptocurrency settlement (Analysis).

EU Launches MiCA Regulatory Framework Assessment, Global Crypto Regulation Race Intensifies.

Trump Administration Provides a Total of $2 Billion in Grants to 9 Quantum Computing Companies.

Musk's Lawsuit Against OpenAI Dismissed Unanimously.

Samsung Electronics' Korean Union Announces Strike for Thursday.

Google I/O Conference Goes All-in on AI (Key Highlights).