Gate Research: May 2026 Crypto Market Review

Key Highlights:

• Crypto Market Performance: In May, the total crypto market capitalization traded within a high-level range before weakening toward the end of the month, declining from a local high of $2.8 trillion to $2.5 trillion. Most major crypto assets posted losses, with BTC breaking below several key moving-average support levels.

• Major Blockchain Data Analysis: On-chain activity remained resilient throughout May. Although active addresses declined across most major chains, Base and Avalanche bucked the trend and recorded growth. Base, Arbitrum, and OP Mainnet saw substantial net capital inflows, highlighting the continued migration of incremental liquidity toward Layer 2 ecosystems. Yield-focused protocols such as Lido, Aave, and Morpho supported TVL growth, while Hyperliquid maintained its leadership in on-chain derivatives trading.

• Trending Projects and Sectors: Crypto payment card transaction volume reached $752 million in May, representing a 12.5% month-over-month increase. Prediction market trading volume remained above $10 billion for the fifth consecutive month, with the industry gradually shifting from crypto-native users toward institutional and regulated participants. At the same time, leading platforms such as Kalshi and RedotPay continued to strengthen their market positions, while exchanges like Gate and wallets such as MetaMask emerged as important distribution gateways for prediction market products.

• Fundraising and Security Incidents: The Web3 industry completed 64 fundraising rounds in May, raising approximately $2.284 billion in total. The largest financing round was completed by Dunamu (parent company of Upbit), which raised $871 million. Meanwhile, Web3 security-related losses totaled approximately $81.72 million, representing a 73% decline from April. The largest single incident involved the compromise of a Superfortune multisig address, resulting in losses of approximately $15.18 million. Smart contract logic vulnerabilities remained the most common attack vector during the month.
  

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