Happy Monday everyone, and welcome back to this week’s market newsletter. Please see below this week’s market data.

Bitcoin Market Update and News

• Bitcoin remains above $100,000: Bitcoin trended above $100,000 last week and has stayed above the key threshold for 10 days at the time of publication, the longest streak yet. Bitcoin is up 10.5% year-to-date and 23% over the last month. At the time of publication, bitcoin is $105,300.
• Coinbase customer data stolen in inside job, exchange estimates up to $400m in damage: Overseas Coinbase support staff leaked personal information on nearly 100,000 customers to hackers, the exchange revealed last week. The information belonged to so-called “monthly active users” (i.e., active users), and Coinbase estimates that the leak has cost anywhere from $180-400 million to users who lost funds to social engineering attacks and from other damages. The untimely news dropped the same week that Coinbase graduated to a position in the S&P 500. Coinbase’s stock took a 6.5% hit on the news, but it is still up 27.6% on the week after strong Q1 earnings.
• Steak n’ Shake now accepts bitcoin as payment: Fast food joint Steak ‘n Shake, which has 393 locations in the U.S., now accepts bitcoin. The company rolled out bitcoin payments, both on-chain and lightning, on May 16 at all U.S. locations. Steak n’ Shake may introduce bitcoin payments at international locations at a later date. 

Interesting Reads and Videos

• Watch CCM’s Christian Lopez and Will Levin’s panel on Bitcoin Mining Capital Markets at Consensus 2025
• The True Cost of the Dollar Empire
• Eric Trump and Asher Genoot Discuss American Bitcoin at Consensus 2025
• J.P. Morgan analysts expects bitcoin to outpace gold in 2025

 Bitcoin Mining Market News and Trends

• American Bitcoin seeks Nasdaq listing with Gryphon Digital merger: American Bitcoin, the Hut 8 subsidiary that launched on March 31, 2025 with Eric Trump as cofounder and CSO, is gearing up for a public listing. The company has entered into a reverse merger agreement with Gryphon Digital to list on the Nasdaq, estimated for completion by Q3 2025. The combined company would list under the ticker ABTC, and American Bitcoin shareholders would retain a 98% stake to Gryphon’s 2%. 
• IREN challenges $100M tariff bill: IREN is entering the legal arena with the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency over a surprise $100 million tariff bill. The CBP has charged IREN back tariffs on ASIC miners the company imported between April 2024 and February 2025, claiming that the ASICs originated in China and re thus subject to 25% duties. IREN has said that the equipment did not come from China and that it has certificates of origin and other documents to prove it. 
• PP&E spending for leading public miners falls in Q1: Public bitcoin miners are spending less on equipment as the industry grapples with thin margins and a general shift to AI/HPC business lines. According to TheMinerMag, the eight leading public miners spent $600 million on property, plant, and equipment in Q1, down from $770 million in Q4 2024 and over $1 billion in Q3 2024. This is the lowest PP&E spending from the cohort in at least a year.  

Market Overview

• Stocks surge as Nasdaq flips from bearish to bullish, S&P 500 and Dow Jones recoup year-to-date losses: Stocks had a stellar show last week, with the Nasdaq leading the way gaining 7% and entering bull market territory as it is now up 20% from its April low. For its part, the S&P 500 is up 19% over the last 27 trading days, and the index and the Dow Jones are now slightly in the green year-to-date after last week’s rally.
  • S&P 500: $5,958.38 (+5.3%)
  • Dow: $42,654.74 (+3.4%)
  • Nasdaq: $19,211.10 (+7.2%) 
  • Russell 2000: 2,113  (+4.4%)

• Stock market volatility moderates: The stock market is smoothing out after an April jostled by turbulence. Last Friday, the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) closed down 86% from its multi-year high in April. 
• Moody's downgrades U.S. credit rating: Moody’s dinged the United States’ long-term issuer and senior unsecured credit rating from AAA to AA1, stripping the U.S. of its last triple-A rating from the three major credit agencies (Moody’s, Fitch, and S&P). This is the first time since 1919 that the U.S. does not have at least one AAA rating from a major ratings agency. Moody’s cited rising government debt, high interest rates, proposed tax cuts, and rising fiscal deficits for the downgrade. 
• CPI cools slightly in April: Inflation continued to take a breather in April, according to the latest Consumer Price Index. The all-items index rose 0.2% month-over-month (seasonally adjusted) in April, up from -0.1% in March. Year-over-year inflation slowed to 2.3%, down from 2.4% in March, marking the lowest annual increase since February 2021. Both reads beat consensus expectations. Core inflation stood at 0.2% month-over-month (up from 0.1% in March) and 2.8% year-over-year. Shelter costs rose 0.4% for owners’ equivalent rent and 0.3% for primary residence rent, and food at home dropped 0.4% while food away from home rose 0.4%. Energy prices rose 0.7% while gas fell 0.1%. Over the year, shelter (+4%), energy services (+6.2%), and utility gas services (+15.7%) saw the largest increases.

• University of Michigan consumer survey shows decades-high inflation expectations, drooping confidence in May: The University of Michigan’s preliminary report for May consumer confidence shows consumer outlook is dimming this month while inflation expectations are surging. The preliminary May reading dropped to 50.8 from 52.2 in April, down 20% since December and 40% below the historical average of 84.5. 12-month inflation expectations jumped to 7.3% from 6.5% in April, the highest read since November 1981. Five-year inflation expectations to 4.6% from 4.4% in April. 

• Banks backpedal on recession expectations:  A handful of banks are walking back their recession forecasts. In a report last week, J.P. Morgan dropped the probability of a U.S. recession below 50%, and Barclays also announced that it no longer expects a recession in 2025 while upping the probability of 0.25% Fed rate cuts in March, June, and September 2026. Goldman Sachs reduced its own recession odds from 45% to 35% and expects a rate cut in December 2025. The more optimistic forecasts follow last week’s U.S.-China trade deal, where the U.S. and China will respectively lower tariffs against each other to 30% and 10% for a 90-day period.
• Import prices rise slightly in April but slow year-over-year: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. Import and Export Price Indices for April showed a slight monthly increase to importation costs and a slower annual increase. Import prices rose 0.1% in April month-over-month, versus a 0.4% decline in March and 0.2% increase in February. Year-over-year, import prices rose 0.1%, a significant reduction from 1.9% in January. Export prices rose 0.1% in April, the same as March but above the 0.4% expected decline. Annually, export prices were up 2% in April, down from 2.7% in January. 

• Housing starts rise in April from March but decline year-over-year: The U.S. Census Bureau’s April 2025 New Residential Construction report had housing starts rising 1.6% on a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 1.361 million in April from March, while the SAAR for housing starts declined 1.7% year-over-year in April. The monthly increase was driven by a 10.7% to 11.1% surge in multifamily starts (420,000–434,000 units), while single-family starts fell 2.1% to 927,000. Building permits dropped 4.7% to 1.412 million, missing forecasts and signaling caution, with single-family permits down 5.1%. From March to April, completions declined 5.9% to 1.458 million, with single-family completions off 8%. 
• Retail and food service sales rise monthly and annually in April: The U.S. The Census Bureau’s retail sales report recorded a rise in business for the third month in a row, although sales growth slowed in April from March. Seaonally adjusted sales in April were $724.1 billion, up 0.1% from March 2025’s revised $723.4 billion (previously 1.5%, revised to +1.7% month-over-month). Annually, April sales were up 5.2%, while the three-month annual trend recorded a 5.2% increase. Leading the increase in sales, motor vehicle and parts dealers reported a 9.4% bump in business and food services and drinking places sales increased 7.8%. Sporting goods (-2.1%), furniture (-0.7%), electronics (-0.6%), gasoline stations (-0.4%), health/personal care (-0.3%), clothing (-0.2%), and auto dealers (-0.1%) saw monthly dips to sales. 

The week ahead in data:

• The Conference Board Leading Economic Index for the U.S. (Monday)
• U.S. Census Bureau Q1 e-commerce retail sales report (Monday)
• National Association of Realtors existing home sales report (Thursday)
• U.S. Department of Labor unemployment claims (Thursday)
• Chicago Fed National Activity Index (Thursday)
• Kansas Fed Manufacturing Index (Thursday)
• U.S. Census Bureau new home sales report (Friday)

Notable corporate earnings this week:

• Trip.com (Monday)
• SIM Integrated Shipping Services (Monday)
• Home Depot (Tuesday)
• Palo Alto Networks (Tuesday)
• Lowe’s (Wednesday)
• Analog Devices (Wednesday)
• TJX Companies (Wednesday)
• Target (Wednesday)
• Zoom (Wednesday)
• Snowflake (Wednesday)
• Baidu (Wednesday)
• Intuit (Thursday)
• Autodesk (Thursday)
• Deckers Outdoor Corporation (Thursday)
• Workday (Thursday)
• Ross Stores (Thursday)

Thank you for reading, and please feel free to reach out with any questions.

Christian Lopez