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Crypto prices rose Thursday after the Senate Banking Committee advanced the CLARITY Act. Bitcoin climbed to $81,899 (about +2.7%) while XRP jumped above $1.50 with gains of more than 6%, a level it had not reached since March. Despite the move, the legislation still faces additional votes and procedural steps before it can become law.

On Wednesday, spot bitcoin ETFs saw $635.23 million in net outflows, led by Blackrock’s IBIT at $284.69 million, while total trading volume reached $1.99 billion. Ether ETFs extended their decline to a third session with $36.30 million leaving the group, as Solana ETFs stood out with $5.97 million of net inflows and XRP ETFs showed no trading activity.

Barclays said prediction markets have surged in popularity since the 2024 U.S. presidential election, with growth accelerating last fall. The bank said monthly notional volume now sits near leveraged exchange-traded products and some call overwrite strategies, though it still trails the scale of S&P 500 zero-day-to-expiration options.

CME Group said on May 14 it plans to introduce Nasdaq CME Crypto Index (NCI) futures on June 8, pending regulatory review. The financially settled contracts will be offered in micro-sized and larger-sized versions tied to a market-cap weighted crypto basket. As of March 31, the index weightings were BTC 76.96%, ETH 12.68%, XRP 5.80%, SOL 3.23%, ADA 0.65%, LINK 0.37%, and XLM 0.30%.

Bitcoin broke below $80,000 after hotter-than-expected US inflation data and briefly dipped to $78,725 before rebounding to around $79,500. The move has concentrated leverage near $78,000, where a further drop could trigger about $1 billion in long liquidations, while a rebound toward $80,458 could put roughly $640 million of shorts at risk. Spot demand indicators have softened alongside reported spot Bitcoin ETF outflows of more than $800 million this week.

Bitcoin has been trading steadily around $80,000, with market strength largely supported by institutional demand while retail participation remains limited. March marked the start of three straight months of net inflows, with $405 billion accumulated since February's low, alongside $1.05 billion added this month via Spot U.S. Bitcoin ETF net inflows. Over the past 30 and 60 days, retail spot buying tracked by net inflows has stayed relatively light at about $313 million and roughly $606 million.

On May 14, 2026, XRP derivatives positioning on Binance showed open interest at $475.4M, about 8% above the 30-day average of $440.7M, while the OI Z-Score rose to 1.65. At 07:09 UTC, XRP traded at $1.4330 versus a 1-hour SMA200 at $1.4303, leaving a $0.0027 buffer that could amplify moves if key moving-average levels break.

Crypto trader Cheds says Bitcoin could face a sharp pullback after rebounding back into the $70,000 zone, unless it can reclaim $85,000 as support. He argues a move through the mid-$80,000s would help validate a W/double-bottom setup, and he prefers seeing a weekly close above $85,000. At publication, BTC traded at $79,402, down 1.5% on the day.

Cisco Systems (CSCO) sent shockwaves through the tech sector on Wednesday, surging nearly 20% in after-hours trading after reporting a massive uptick in AI-related infrastructure orders. The networking giant raised its full-year AI order forecast to $9 billion, up from a previous estimate of $5 billion, proving that the "AI Gold Rush" is moving beyond chips and into the fabric of the data center itself.

Alibaba Group (BABA) stunned markets on Wednesday, reporting that its strategic pivot into Artificial Intelligence is paying off faster than even Wall Street anticipated. Despite an 84% drop in core profitability, the result of a massive reinvestment cycle, shares surged over 8% as investors embraced the company’s AI-first future.