The week in crypto: bitcoin holds above $80,000 as Hyperliquid debuts prediction markets

Bitcoin tops $80,000; Hyperliquid adds prediction markets; Bitcoin Core fixes critical bug.

Bitcoin held above $80,000; Hyperliquid entered prediction markets; a critical bug was fixed in Bitcoin Core; and other highlights from the week.

Bitcoin retests $81,000

On the morning of May 4th the price broke above the $80,000 psychological threshold. A shift in headlines around the US–Iran conflict was among the drivers.

In the following days the asset extended gains, rising above $82,000. 

On May 6th the price on Binance hit $82,791, then pulled back. The cryptocurrency held $80,000 and began testing $81,000 again.

Over the week bitcoin was up roughly 2.9%, while ether was little changed around $2,320.

Several large altcoins outpaced the bellwether. SOL added more than 11%, BNB about 5.2%, HYPE rose 4.5%, and TRON’s token gained 4%.

Spot bitcoin ETFs logged a sixth straight week of net inflows, for the first time since July 2025, taking in $622.75m.

Ethereum-based funds saw $70.5m of inflows, not enough to offset the prior period’s $82.5m outflows.

The crypto fear-and-greed index dipped to 38 during the week but ended at 47, in neutral territory.

Total market capitalisation is $2.69trn; bitcoin’s dominance is 60.2%; ether’s share is just over 10%.

Hyperliquid launches prediction markets

Developers of the decentralised exchange Hyperliquid activated HIP-4 on the HyperEVM mainnet. The headline addition was prediction markets.

On day one, trading volume reached 6.05m contracts. For comparison, over the same period Kalshi recorded 546m contracts, and Polymarket 190m.

HIP-4 lets users create markets on outcomes within Hyperliquid’s infrastructure. To launch one, a user must stake 1m HYPE. The approach differs from Polymarket, which requires platform approval.

Contracts are natively integrated into the L1 HyperEVM network. On Polymarket, event wagers are a separate product on Polygon’s L2.

Predictions are available in the same wallet and trading interface as other Hyperliquid tools. P&L settles in the project’s USDH stablecoin. Trading uses a central limit order book.

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Bitcoin Core developers fix a critical vulnerability

The Bitcoin Core team patched a memory-safety bug. A significant share of nodes still runs vulnerable software.

The flaw was found by researcher Cory Fields, who reported it on November 2nd 2024. 

A few days later developer Pieter Wuille issued a stealth patch, presenting it neutrally as another improvement to parallel script-verification debugging so as not to alert would-be attackers.

The fix landed in the codebase in December 2024 and shipped with Bitcoin Core 29.0 in April 2025. The last vulnerable 28.x branch reached end of life on April 19th 2026—only then did developers disclose the details.

Bitcoin Core stressed that the vulnerability did not affect blockchain consensus rules and concerned only local memory handling in node software.

Western Union launches a Solana-based stablecoin

Western Union launched its own stablecoin, USDPT, on the Solana blockchain. The coin is issued by the crypto bank Anchorage Digital.

The token’s reserves are held in US dollars. Integrating Solana will speed up settlements and bypass traditional interbank systems and their delays.

Western Union chief Devin McGranahan said the introduction of a regulated digital dollar would create an efficient settlement layer for partners and agents.

In 2026 the company plans to launch Stable by Western Union, allowing customers in 40 countries to spend stablecoins directly. USDPT will also be listed on licensed crypto exchanges.

Also on ForkLog:

• No secrecy in chats: law enforcement used conversations with ChatGPT to bring a murder charge.
• The market cap of tokenised US Treasuries on Ethereum hit a record $8bn.
• Zcash will release quantum-resistant wallets.
• Kalshi raised $1bn at a $22bn valuation.

Galaxy proposes a strategy to protect bitcoin from quantum attacks

Alex Thorn, head of Galaxy Research, outlined the impact of quantum computing on bitcoin. A consensus is emerging on two key points.

Thorn argues that Satoshi’s coins (P2PK format) should not be touched even under threat of compromise. Violating the creator’s property rights would undermine bitcoin’s value proposition. 

The risk of expropriating those funds is lower than commonly assumed. The coins are spread across 22,000 addresses. An attacker would have to crack each wallet individually, not the entire network at once. He noted that the market could absorb even a sharp dump of coins. In his view, bitcoiners would prefer temporary price pain to compromising the protocol’s first principles.

Thorn backed the development of post-quantum cryptography. Testing new algorithms and optimising signatures benefits the network, so long as it does not spark community rifts or distract developers from other tasks. 

He proposed preparing a technical fix and “putting it on the shelf” so it can be deployed quickly once the quantum threat becomes real.   

What else to read?

We explain what is happening in the InfoFi niche after a blistering rise, spam accusations and a crackdown by X.

We sketch a Web3 future in which decentralisation is achieved via personal and local apps built by AI agents.

We round up the week’s most notable security events in our traditional digest.