Equities update | May 29th, 2026

Week 22 saw further volatility compression across equities, with the VIX dropping below 16 as markets looked through a still-fragile geopolitical backdrop. Reports of a potential 60-day US-Iran ceasefire extension and efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz helped reduce immediate tail-risk concerns, although continued regional hostilities kept the broader macro environment complex. The stronger market driver was the continued acceleration of the AI trade, with robust earnings and guidance from semiconductor and AI infrastructure companies reinforcing demand across the compute supply chain. This provided a strong tailwind for blockchain equities, particularly mining operations and hardware names, where investors continue to re-rate companies with credible exposure to power, data-centre capacity and AI/HPC workloads.

Elsewhere, digital asset treasury companies continued to add crypto exposure despite weaker token prices, while crypto platforms pushed ahead with new product and infrastructure launches. 

Week 22 key developments in Blockchain Equities:

• Index performance: The Index rose 4.7% this week, outperforming Bitcoin, which declined 3.4%, driven by strength across mining operations and hardware. The macro backdrop remained mixed: April PCE rose 3.8% YoY, while core PCE increased 0.2% MoM, slightly below expectations, suggesting underlying inflation pressures were not as severe as headline energy-driven inflation implied. At the same time, Q1 GDP was revised down to 1.6% annualised from 2.0%, reflecting softer inventory investment and consumer spending.

• Block Index key movers: 7-day top performers: Keel Infrastructure (+21.1%), Hut-8 (+18.0%), Softbank (+18.0%) 7-day worst performers: Flow Traders (-16.1%), CoinShares (-11.3%), Strategy Inc (-8.0%)

• Index constituent Strategy continued to tighten its Bitcoin-backed credit profile — Strategy Inc completed the repurchase of US$1.5B of its 0% 2029 convertible notes for approximately US$1.38B in cash, reducing total convertible debt outstanding from US$8.2B to US$6.7B. While this does not legally change STRC’s ranking, it is credit-positive for the preferred stack because it removes a layer of senior debt sitting ahead of STRC and improves economic asset coverage for digital credit investors. The move appears consistent with Saylor’s broader ambition to improve the investability and credit quality of Strategy’s preferred securities, particularly STRC, which has become a key funding tool for the company’s Bitcoin treasury strategy. However, STRC traded below par during the week, likely reflecting a combination of weaker Bitcoin/MSTR sentiment, higher required yields, and concern that the debt repurchase reduced Strategy’s USD Reserve to US$871m, even though the company plans to replenish reserves over time.

• Index constituent Robinhood saw positive news flow this week, with shares rising 11.7% — The company benefited from the nationwide launch of the Trump Accounts app, developed with BY Mellon to support government-backed child investment accounts, alongside the launch of Agentic Trading, which allows customers to connect AI agents to dedicated Robinhood accounts to automate trading and credit-card activity. While neither initiative is directly crypto-specific, both deepen Robinhood’s distribution and engagement funnel at a time when crypto transaction revenue remains cyclical, having declined 47% YoY to US$134m in Q1. Strategically, the developments support Robinhood’s broader positioning as a retail financial operating system spanning equities, options, crypto, event contracts, AI-driven interfaces and, over time, potentially tokenised market access.

Other news - index constituents:

• Bit Digital originated a US$100M delayed-draw term loan facility for it’s WhiteFiber subsidiary, expandable to US$150M, to support near-term growth across WhiteFiber’s AI/HPC infrastructure platform. Separately, Bit Digital purchased US$20m of ETH, adding approximately 8,568 ETH at an average price of US$2,334, taking total holdings to 158,462 ETH.

• Sharplink announced it will be added to the Russell 2000 and Russell 3000 indexes effective 29 June 2026, following FTSE Russell’s preliminary reconstitution list.

• IREN agreed to purchase approximately US$1.6B of NVIDIA air-cooled Blackwell systems from Dell, including GPUs, servers, storage, networking, integration services and warranties. The hardware will be deployed across IREN’s existing Childress, Texas data centres to support its previously announced US$3.4B deal with Nvidia.

• Coinbase continued to push into agentic crypto infrastructure, with reports that it launched an AI-driven autonomous trading feature through its Base wallet app, allowing users to select AI agents to execute crypto trades.

• CME Group’s crypto futures and options move to near 24/7 trading from 29 May, aligning regulated derivatives markets more closely with spot crypto.

Other news – non-index constituents:

• SoFi made SoFiUSD available directly within its banking app, allowing nearly 15m members to buy, sell, hold and swap the bank-issued stablecoin without using an external wallet or crypto exchange.

• TeraWulf acquired the Muskie Data Campus in Eastern Kentucky, a hyperscale AI/HPC development site expected to support 1GW+ of data-centre capacity, with the first 500MW targeted from H2 2028 and a further 500MW targeted from H2 2030.

• Strive acquired a further 1,109 BTC for approximately US$85.4M, taking total holdings to 16,500 BTC, with its SATA perpetual preferred programme continuing to act as a key funding tool for Bitcoin accumulation.

• Grayscale reportedly paused its US IPO plans due to unfavourable market conditions and is unlikely to restart preparations before Q4, despite having confidentially filed last November.

• Samsung Securities, Samsung SDS and Samsung Card agreed to acquire a combined 4% stake in Dunamu, the operator of South Korea’s Upbit exchange, for approximately ₩612.8B / US$408M, with Samsung Securities taking 2% and Samsung SDS and Samsung Card taking 1% each.

• Nasdaq moved closer to launching cash-settled Bitcoin index options after the SEC conditionally approved Nasdaq PHLX to list QBTC, a European-style option settled in US dollars and linked to a Bitcoin spot-market benchmark.