🪙 What’s Next for Bitcoin? 
🗞️ 100% Backed in May
💰 Yield Recap
📈 Weekly Market Review

A “what’s next for BTC?” question came up in almost every conversation I had this week. 

I shared my answer on The Income Show with Joe Burnett, VP of Bitcoin Strategy at Strive: Bitcoin is becoming the base layer of the next financial system, and Hermetica is building the yield layer on top.

As we build forward, transparency remains non-negotiable. The May custodian attestations are in. USDh remains fully backed, independently verified by Copper and Ceffu.

Brick by brick, the future is taking shape.

Bitcoin has already proved it can serve as collateral and a reserve asset. The question more Bitcoiners are asking now is: what comes next?

The answer is here: a financial system being built on Bitcoin. Bitcoin is becoming the foundation for the future of money. The growing adoption of BTC-backed credit products and capital markets is proof.

Jakob laid out his outlook for the future on The Income Show, joining Joe Burnett, VP of Bitcoin Strategy at Strive, for a conversation on Bitcoin, digital credit, STRC, AI, and the future of money.

Watch the recap to see where Bitcoin-native finance is heading, and the role Hermetica is playing in building it.

A claim is not enough. It should be independently verified.

May 2026 proof of reserve attestations are live. USDh remains fully backed and independently verified. This time, with STRC.

In summary, as of the snapshot time:

See the full breakdown of USDh’s Bitcoin backing.

Another week:

hBTC earned 3.6%
USDh earned 7.5%

Sometimes the best move isn't doing something different.

It's making what you already hold do more.

Bitcoin sold off for a fourth consecutive week to $63,700 after losing the $72,000 shelf and testing the 200-week SMA region near $61,700. Price traded just below $77,000 early in the week, met resistance at the 7-day SMA, broke the yellow trend line in Figure 1, and moved into the horizontal green demand area. The move became a liquidation event, with more than $1.5B in crypto positions liquidated over 24 hours.

Semiconductor and AI names continue to attract marginal risk bid. Micron crossed a $1T valuation, the SOX made a new high, and SpaceX's IPO headlines are pulling attention deeper into the AI complex. The same investor base often allocates across crypto, AI, and technology stocks, making crypto a liquid source of capital when managers need cash for private AI allocations, public AI equities, and the coming SpaceX deal.

Data Summary:

Simple Moving Averages (SMA) in Figure 1:

Bitcoin is below every SMA except the 200-week SMA. Bitcoin needs to reclaim $69,600 before it can make a meaningful attempt at the $76,300-$77,800 cluster. Below the 200-week SMA at $61,700, price has little technical support until the $60,000-$58,000 range, which has marked broad-cycle bottoms in 2015, 2018, and 2022. Support levels are $61,700, $60,000, $58,000, while resistance levels are $65,000, $69,600, $76,300-$77,800, $93,700.

Net outflows totaled $1.748B this week.

Outflows across IBIT, FBTC, ARKB, and legacy products exceeded last week’s $1.273B, making this the fourth consecutive review period of material ETF selling. The four-week sequence is now $1.251B, $1.209B, $1.273B, and $1.748B, totaling $5.481B in cumulative redemptions.

HYPE ETF flows are small in dollars, but they are still a negative marginal development for Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs because the same crypto-allocation dollar is being split across more products.

DVOL rose to 50.05% from 37.22% last week. This week, price lost $72,000, front-week basis turned negative, and liquidation selling accelerated below $65,000. Figure 5 places DVOL above the 35%-45% range that followed recent geopolitical developments, but still below February’s high.

Covered calls on Bitcoin ETFs, Strategy-related securities, and miners still supply options market makers with volatility and can pin spot around expirations. That pinning is now happening during a liquidation move. As long as market makers are not forced to hedge lower, DVOL can stay contained. A break through $61,700 would test how much downside risk those trades have suppressed.

Basis is no longer positive across every observed maturity. The equal-weighted spread fell to 1.87% APR from 2.61% last week. June 12 trades at -0.84%, a backwardation print, while June 19 trades at only 0.48%. The curve then rises through June 26 at 1.44%, July 31 at 1.94%, August 28 at 2.40%, September 25 at 2.87%, December 25 at 3.23%, and March 26, 2027 at 3.44%.

Traders are not paying to hold near-term leveraged Bitcoin exposure. The low-to-high spread widened to 4.28 percentage points from 1.16 points last week. This is not full-curve capitulation, but it is a stressed curve: a healthier bull-market curve would have positive front-end carry and long-end yields closer to the 5%-8% range.

The Federal Reserve held the federal funds range at 3.50%-3.75% on April 29, citing recent geopolitical developments as a risk to the outlook. The 10-year near 4.49% and DXY near 99.4 are not crisis levels, but they are not the backdrop for a solid crypto liquidity bid either. Bitcoin is dependent on private demand at a moment when private demand is moving elsewhere.

Talks between the U.S. and Iran have produced a temporary framework that would extend the current ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and ease part of the U.S. blockade, while leaving enrichment, sanctions, and the broader security framework unresolved.

China’s drawdown of domestic crude inventories has helped ease global supply pressure and limit the energy shock. Even so, the underlying supply picture remains constrained, and any renewed disruption would quickly push oil and inflation expectations higher.

Sincerely,
The Hermetica Team