Note
Welcome to Sunday issue of the Boba Brief Newsletter. This is last 24hrs in crypto, macro, ai, tech world and little added topic with my thoughts.
UPCOMING BOBA to keep and eye on
The Clarity Act could unlock yield-as-a-service
CRYPTO Brief
Over $1B in liquidations in the last 24 hours, here
SEC has approved Nasdaq Bitcoin Index Options trading.
META flips BTC in market cap; META $1.549T and BTC $1.495T.
Tokenized assets have surpassed the $30B market cap milestone, with US.
Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF BHYP has already surpassed $30M in trading volume, says Bitwise CEO Horsley.
Polymarket has partnered with Nasdaq Private Market to offer private company prediction contracts.
Core researchers like Carl Beek, Julian Ma and few others have resigned from Ethereum in 2026.
OCC giving Ripple approval to operate as a National Trust Bank, its 'illegal.' says US Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Japan is set to classify Ethereum as a financial product in 2026.
UAE has approved BITCOIN to be taught in schools now.
REAL WORLD Brief
Anthropic is entering the US intelligence world, they are reportedly nearing a deal for AI use across US spy agencies, read more.
Foreign investors poured $29B into Chinese stocks in April, making it one of the largest inflows on record.
Howie Liu, co founder of Airtable launched a $10M initiative to back 500 founders building agent first AI companies.
IREN co founder Dan Roberts said, power, land and data center capacity are becoming more valuable then chips.
Taiwan will be investing $500B in the US chip industry in exchange for 15% tariff cut.
A Turkish YouTuber just got sentenced to 45,367 years in prison, for selling VIRTUAL COWS.
TOP COINS in last 24hrs
Convex Finance, Ergo, Pudgy Penguins, Near Protocol, Railgun, Hyperliquid, Venice Token, Bitcoin and more
COINS I am watching
HYPE $58.31
VVV $18.70
ZEC $613.11
NEAR $2.38
BIG BOBA BRIEF OF THE WEEK
Ethereum’s biggest believers just SOLD. Is this the end or the most obvious contrarian setup of 2026 ?
David Hoffman built his entire career on one conviction; Ethereum is the future of finance. He named his podcast BANKLESS which is a manifesto about a world running on ETH. He wrote about it, spoke about it., evangelized it on every stage that would have him; for years.
But this week he sold every last ETH he owned.
Meanwhile Harvard's Q1 SEC filing confirmed that their Ivy League endowment fund sold its entire $87 million Ethereum ETF position after holding it for exactly one quarter. The largest new buyer of BlackRock's ETH ETF in Q4 2025 was gone by March 2026.
Then there are the eight Ethereum Foundation researchers who have resigned in 2026, including core researchers Carl Beek and Julian Ma.
The ETH/BTC ratio at its year-to-date low. Five straight weeks of ETH underperforming Bitcoin, a price that's down over 50% from its August 2025 ATH.
Lot of people coming up with the simple explanation after all this is that, Ethereum is done. But is it really ?
- 50% ETH down from its $4,954 ATH in August 2025
8 Ethereum Foundation researcher resigns in 2026
June is the target date for Glamsterdam; the biggest upgrade since The Merge
Bear Case Scenerio after this :
Bankless was Ethereum's most important media brand. When its founders publicly exit, the community signals that the cultural layer is cracking.
Harvard is one of the most sophisticated endowment managers in the world. They bought, watched ETH underperform for 90 days, and left; which says Institutions arent convinced yet.
Eight departures in a year from the team that steers the protocol suggests internal disagreement about direction that isn't fully visible from the outside. So could this mean, governance problem ?
Institutions that would have defaulted to ETH two years ago are now choosing Solana. JP Morgan, State Street, Western Union, Israel's government, everyones shifting.
Bull Case Scenerio after this :
Santiment's onchain analysts say; these high profile exits, extreme negative sentiment, rock bottom ETH/BTC ratio; mirrors mid-2023 sentiment low that later brought in ETH's biggest rally of that cycle.
The biggest upgrade since The Merge, Glamsterdam launches in June; 78% lower gas fees, 10,000 TPS, parallel transaction processing. Technical catalysts like this historically price in slowly, then sharply.
The same smart money that accumulates before rallies is accumulating right now; Bitfinex whales are at a 2.5-year high in ETH longs.
Standard Chartered still says that ETH is gonna hit $4,000. The bank that manages $800B in assets published this target the same week Hoffman sold. (One of them is going to look very wrong.)
"Extreme negative sentiment from high-profile exits has historically created contrarian opportunities once selling exhausts. The current setup echoes the mid-2023 sentiment trough that preceded a major ETH rally."
— Santiment analysts, Week 3 May 2026 summary
TBH Ethereum has been here before if you look at the pattern :
Mid 2023 - ETH sentiment at cycle low. ETH/BTC ratio collapsing, major voices publicly questioning whether ETH had a future against competing L1s; and Santiment called it extreme negative sentiment. What happened next was, ETH doubled in six months.
Mid 2022 - Post-Terra collapse, ETH at $900. Celsius bankrupt, Three Arrows gone., the entire DeFi narrative was being buried, major podcasters and investors publicly exited. What happened next; The Merge shipped, ETH rallied 80% in three months.
Early 2020 - ETH at $100, "Ethereum killers" everywhere. EOS, Tron, Cardano all claiming Ethereum was too slow, too expensive, too old. What happened next was DeFi summer; ETH went from $100 to $1,400.
May 2026 - You are here. ETH down 50% from ATH; bankless sold, harvard left, eight Foundation researchers resigns, ETH/BTC at year-to-date low but Glamsterdam shipping in June and Standard Chartered is still bullish. History rhymes.
So if you are currently holding ETH;
The question isn't whether to feel good about this; you shouldn't. The question is whether the fundamental case has changed or the sentiment has changed.
Sentiment and fundamentals are different things. Harvard sold a position it opened three months ago during Ethereum's lowest sentiment period. That's not a long term fundamental call; it's a short term position that didn't work. Glamsterdam didn't factor into their Q1 decision but it should factor into yours. The Santiment analysts who correctly called the mid-2023 bottom are drawing the same comparison now but its not a guarantee; whales are accumulating.
If anything, the decision will be yours but fundamentals should be taken into consideration as well.
NFA
BOBA BRIEF
