TL;DR
- 24/7 hybrid market: Binance launches trading in Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm stocks. This is a historic shift, as trading tech giants is now possible around the clock, ignoring the schedule and weekends of NASDAQ.
- XRP utility status: David Schwartz from Ripple rejected the “$10,000 XRP” theory, calling the asset a payment bridge. Its real value lies in 50% savings on banking costs, not in speculative comparison with BTC.
- Mathematical BTC deficit: Institutional demand has reached 500% of daily issuance. According to Charles Edwards, the depletion of exchange reserves opens a direct path to a Bitcoin price impulse toward $96,000.
- Crypto market outlook: Despite a correction to $78,300 due to events in the Persian Gulf, the market is supported by a fresh issuance of 1 billion USDT. The entire focus of the week is on the Non-Farm Payrolls report. This data will determine whether $96,000 becomes reality within the next month.
XRP is not the new Bitcoin: David Schwartz explains why price comparisons no longer work
CTO Emeritus at Ripple, David Schwartz, criticized popular price comparisons between XRP and Bitcoin, calling them weak and ignoring fundamental differences in market scale.
In a series of recent statements on X, Schwartz emphasized that XRP’s current market capitalization significantly exceeds that of BTC during its “penny price” era, making expectations of similar exponential growth unjustified without considering liquidity.
Schwartz explicitly challenged theories about XRP reaching $10,000 and other extreme scenarios, stating that if rational investors believed even in a 1% probability of such an outcome, the asset would already be priced at least at $20. At the moment, XRP trades in the $1.37-$1.50 range.
According to Schwartz, within the next 10 years, traditional banks will either fully transition to public blockchains or lose their status as financial hubs, becoming providers of niche products. In this context, the main value of XRP remains its utility.
Using the asset as a bridge allows cutting currency conversion costs in half. If you do not know which asset will be needed next, holding XRP is a way to minimize costs, Schwartz explains.
At the same time, Schwartz admitted he deliberately maintains a conservative portfolio, reducing his BTC holdings to less than 1 BTC and ETH to less than 2 ETH. His main exposure in the crypto space is concentrated in Ripple equity, which forces him to minimize risks in other assets despite potentially higher returns from aggressive strategies.
Wall Street without weekends: AMD and Qualcomm enter Binance
Binance confirmed the launch of perpetual futures contracts on Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm stocks. Trading starts on May 6, 2026, with leverage up to 10x. Alongside them, USA Rare Earth is included in the listing, highlighting interest in the strategically important rare earth metals sector.
The main interest here is not the names of the companies themselves, but the change in market mechanics as traditional stocks are “moving” into an environment that never sleeps. While NASDAQ closes on weekends and holidays, crypto infrastructure allows trading contracts on the same AMD and Qualcomm around the clock.
This turns Binance into a global hedge fund in the user’s pocket, where one can react to news in real time without waiting for New York to open.
The tokenization experiment has already shown viability, and over the last quarter, trading volume in gold and silver on the platform increased 5,000 times. The fact that silver trading volume on Binance reached up to 20% of COMEX levels indicates that crypto investors are actively seeking safe-haven assets within familiar interfaces.
With a user base of 310 million and integration of equity instruments, Binance aims to position itself as a major competitor to regional exchanges. For the average user, this means one simple thing – a portfolio of cryptocurrencies, gold, and shares of major chipmakers can now be managed with a single button in one app.
How 500% Bitcoin demand erased quantum fears and opened path to $96,000
According to Charles Edwards, the current level of institutional buying stands at 500% of daily miner issuance. In conditions where the network produces only a fixed amount of BTC after the halving, funds and corporate treasuries are forced to absorb liquidity from exchange reserves.
Thus, according to Edwards, as of May 2026, the main driving force of the market is not speculative hype, but a mathematical deadlock: institutional demand exceeds daily coin production by more than five times.
Historical data shows that such a gap between demand and supply – when institutions literally “vacuum” the market – precedes a sharp price impulse. The average increase in such conditions was +24% within a month.
Given the current consolidation, this brings Bitcoin to a calculated target of $96,000, Edwards believes.
Despite the bullish stance, Edwards is known as one of the loudest alarmists of the quantum threat, calling it the main existential risk for Bitcoin’s cryptography in the long term. However, the analyst highlights an important market nuance: this fear has already been priced in for more than four months.
Investors no longer react to alarming headlines about quantum computers, viewing Bitcoin as an asset with deep intrinsic value that still appears undervalued at current levels. If the absorption of supply continues, the $96,000 level will become not just a target, but a logical consequence of the depletion of exchange order books.
Crypto market outlook: Bitcoin nears $80,000 amid Gulf tensions
While Bitcoin faces rising volatility at the start of the week due to an incident in the Persian Gulf, the long-term fundamentals are strengthening through the readiness of major funds to buy and inflows of fresh stablecoin liquidity.
Key checkpoints:
- Bitcoin price outlook: BTC is testing support after the U.S. vessel incident. Price corrected to $78,300. Holding the $77,500-$78,000 range is now critical to maintain the bullish trend and avoid cascading liquidations.
- Morgan Stanley and $3 billion from Strategy: Analyst Taiki Maeda expects BTC purchases of $2-3 billion within two weeks for Strategy. Morgan Stanley’s 2%-4% allocation recommendation creates a fundamental floor for price, absorbing market panic.
- Tether printing press: Today’s issuance of 1,000,000,000 USDT confirms readiness of large capital to buy dips.
- Macro storm May 8: The week’s main focus is the Non-Farm Payrolls report and consumer expectations index on May 8. Cooling labor data could act as a catalyst for risk assets.
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