The crypto rally extended into Monday, with traders pricing in the CLARITY Act compromise and Trump’s “Project Freedom” Hormuz operation.
Crypto markets opened the week firmly in the green, with Bitcoin reclaiming $80,000, Ether pushing toward $2,400, and altcoin breadth widening as multiple policy and geopolitical catalysts converged over the weekend.
Bitcoin is trading at $80,292, up 1.9% on the day and 4.8% on the week, capping a four-session recovery from last week’s $75,500 low. Total crypto market capitalization climbed 1.5% to $2.74 trillion on $127.6 billion in 24-hour volume, for CoinGecko.
Ether rose 1.6% to $2,367, up 4% on the week. Solana climbed 1% to $85, BNB added 1.2% to $627, and XRP held the $1.40 level with a 0.7% daily gain. Meanwhile, Dogecoin rallied 2.2% on the day and 14% on the week.
ETF Bid Resumes
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $629 million in net inflows on Friday, per SoSoValue datathe strongest day in three weeks. Spot Ether ETFs added $101 million in the same session, snapping a four-day outflow streak that had bled roughly $184 million between April 27 and April 30.
April closed as the best month of 2026 for spot BTC ETFs, with net inflows of roughly $1.97 billion, led by BlackRock’s IBIT. Cumulative net inflows since the January 2024 launch sit at $58.72 billion, still shy of the $61.19 billion record set in October when BTC printed its $126,000 all-time high.
BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) crossed 5 million ETH in holdings last week with a 101,901 ETH purchase, lifting total holdings to 5,078,386 ETH worth approximately $11.85 billion at current prices.
CLARITY Act Compromise Text Drops
The bigger structural catalyst landed late Friday. Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) released compromise text on the stablecoin yield carveout in the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, the single biggest sticking point holding up the bill since January.
The language bars stablecoin issuers from paying interest or yield “economically or functionally equivalent” to a bank deposit, but preserves activity-based reward programs tied to “bona fide activities” on crypto platforms.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong responded with a two-word post on X, saying, “Mark it up.”
Polymarket odds of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 jumped by nearly 20 percentage points to 64% on the news.
Project Freedom
President Trump announced Sunday that the U.S. military will begin “Project Freedom,” an operation to guide ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz out of the waterway, per a Truth Social post Trump described as a “humanitarian gesture.” U.S. Central Command confirmed in a separate statement that the mission will involve guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft, and 15,000 service members.
Iran’s parliamentary national security commission warned that any U.S. interference in the strait would violate the April 8 ceasefire.
Crude staying sticky above $100 has been the dominant macro overhang on crypto since the war started in late February. Any sustained move back toward double digits would alleviate inflation fears that have kept rate-cut expectations on ice.
The Senate Banking Committee now has a narrow window to schedule the CLARITY Act markup. The week of May 11 is the earliest possible date, ahead of the Memorial Day recess starting on May 21.