Day 1 • The digital asset industry arrives in Miami

🎊 Day 1 Highlights   Tokenization, agentic payments, and digital security took center stage as thousands descended on Day 1 of Consensus Miami.   Consensys' Joe Lubin and a panel of Wall Street executives agreed: the global economy is moving onchain — while Cloudflare CSO Stephanie Cohen revealed that more than half of all internet traffic now originates from AI tools.    Networking was already at record highs, with over 165,000 minutes of meetings requested on the first day and the Bridge Deal Flow zone converting cold contacts into new partnerships.   CFTC Chair Michael Selig closed the day defending his agency's oversight of digital assets and prediction markets, before attendees scattered across Miami for an evening of parties across the city. 📰 Breaking News   Bullish to acquire Equiniti from Siris in $4.2 billion transaction, creating the global transfer agent for tokenized securities (Source: CoinDesk)   OwlTing Group launches self-custody wallet built for AI agents, targeting the emerging multi-trillion-dollar agentic commerce economy   Babylon & GoMining plan integration to activate up to 1,000 BTC through trustless Bitcoin vaults   Kraken eyes IPO as it partners with MoneyGram to bridge crypto-to-cash gap (Source: CoinDesk) 📣 Overheard in Miami   “AI agents will help people pick their next partners instead of regular dating apps”  — Yat Siu, Animoca Brands   “Consensus Miami is the best crypto conference of all time”   — @chilearmy123   “My belief is all value will be digital, and everything that can be tokenized will be tokenized because it’s too attractive not to.”  — Tom Zschach, Swift   “2031 we’ll [stablecoins] hit $3T in market cap”   — Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple   WATCH THE HIGHLIGHTS Share Your Experience Not here IRL or missing a session?  STREAM WITH A VIRTUAL PASS Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk. All rights reserved. CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY, 10011, USA Unsubscribe Manage Preferences

Wall Street came to disrupt crypto. Now it's building on it.

Tokenization is remaking Wall Street's rails — not replacing them. Bitcoin hits $81,500. And Strategy posts a $12.54B Q1 loss. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Tuesday, May 5, 2026 Tokenization won't disrupt banking rails — but improve them, Wall Street executives say At Consensus Miami's Capital Markets Summit, executives from Franklin Templeton, Apollo, and State Street argued that tokenization isn't replacing existing financial rails — it's making them faster, more programmable, and always-on. Apollo's Christine Moy described a future where "every penny of my earnings is fully invested from the moment I earn it to the moment I spend it," enabled by real-time settlement that eliminates idle cash. State Street and Galaxy have already launched a tokenized cash-management fund to that end. The main bottleneck, panelists agreed, isn't transaction speed — it's the absence of shared governance standards and legal frameworks that large institutions need before they can rebuild core infrastructure on blockchain rails. Read the full story → Consensus preview sponsored by GoMining Discover GoBTC Pay by GoMining — a simple way to pay for everyday shopping with Bitcoin: on-chain, instant, secure. At Consensus, you can try it yourself and buy coffee and snacks with Bitcoin at the GoBTC Pay outlet. We'll give everyone who wants to test the solution the equivalent of $20 in sats, so your first coffee paid in BTC is on us! Learn more at the GoMining booth or the GoBTC Pay outlet. Markets Bitcoin extends gains to $81,500 as tokenization push lifts Bullish, Galaxy, Centrifuge Bitcoin climbed to $81,500 Tuesday — its strongest level since January, up 35% from February lows — as more than $500 million in spot ETF inflows from BlackRock and Fidelity pushed the rally higher. The day's biggest movers were tokenization plays: Bullish surged on news of its $4.2 billion acquisition of transfer agent Equiniti; Galaxy Digital gained 3.6% after unveiling its tokenized cash-management fund with State Street; and Centrifuge's CFG token jumped 15% after Coinbase named it preferred tokenization infrastructure and took an equity stake, with the first institutional assets expected to launch on Base within weeks. Read more → Markets Strategy posts $12.54 billion Q1 loss on declining bitcoin price Strategy reported a $12.54 billion net loss for Q1 2026, driven almost entirely by bitcoin's 22% price decline during the quarter — its worst quarterly performance since 2018. The loss generated a $2.42 billion deferred tax asset, reducing the carrying value of its 818,334 BTC holdings to $51.65 billion against a cost basis of $58.02 billion. Revenue came in at roughly $125 million, up about 12.6% year-over-year as the underlying software business continued to grind higher. Saylor signaled bitcoin purchases resume next week, and Wall Street's consensus remains Strong Buy — though price targets range from $212 to $705, reflecting genuine disagreement on how much premium MSTR deserves above the raw value of its coins. Read more → Know someone who should be reading this? Share this newsletter See all of CoinDesk’s newsletters    CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York,NY,10011,USA, Unsubscribe Manage Preferences   Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.