Crypto Currents: Bitcoin Depot files for bankruptcy

Bitcoin Depot’s kiosk empire is in bankruptcy court, Strategy just bought nearly 25,000 bitcoin into a falling market, and more than half a billion dollars in liquidations drove bitcoin to a two-week low amid Iran tensions. Galaxy Digital cleared the NYDFS’s highest regulatory bar, Bitmine disclosed a $12.6B ether-heavy treasury, and a Reuters investigation surfaced uncomfortable infrastructure overlaps between Iran’s top exchange and Trump’s crypto venture. Stay up on the crypto news that matters with “Crypto Currents,” daily from The Fly. Join us at 2 PM ET for your essential briefing on the fast-moving world of cryptocurrency on FlyCast radio.

BITCOIN DEPOT COLLAPSE: Bitcoin Depot the company disclosed in a press release. The company also issued WARN Act notices to all employees, and a court-supervised sale of assets is now underway. The collapse was driven by state-level compliance costs, proliferating transaction limits, and outright bans on bitcoin ATMs in several jurisdictions, Yahoo Finance reported. Bitcoin Depot’s wind-down marks the most visible failure yet of the physical crypto retail distribution model, a business that thrived on unbanked consumers but proved unable to absorb the sustained weight of fragmented, state-by-state regulation.

STRATEGY DOUBLES DOWN: Strategy (BTC-USD) at an average price of $80,985 per coin, the 8-K filing revealed. The company’s total holdings now stand at 843,738 bitcoin. The timing is notable: Strategy was buying into a declining market as bitcoin fell to multi-week lows during the same period. The purchase adds a roughly $2B demand signal to a tape already under macro pressure, and reinforces management’s stated policy of treating every liquidity event as a bitcoin acquisition opportunity regardless of near-term price action.

REGULATORY AND COMPLIANCE: Galaxy Digital the announcement confirmed. The dual authorization allows Galaxy to offer regulated digital asset trading, custody, and financial services to institutional clients across New York State.

A separate Reuters investigation revealed that Iran’s Nobitex exchange processed more than $2.3B via Tron (TRX-USD) and BNB Chain (BNB-USD) networks that also intersect with the infrastructure underlying Trump’s World Liberty Financial (WLFI-USD) crypto venture. The report raises compliance exposure questions across the broader industry given the shared infrastructure overlap between a sanctioned exchange and a high-profile U.S. crypto project.

Adding an unusual dimension to the Iran angle, Bloomberg separately reported that Iran launched a bitcoin-backed shipping insurance program for the Hormuz Strait, a state-level adoption move that simultaneously functions as a sanctions workaround and adds novel sovereign demand context to the market backdrop.

TREASURY AND INFRASTRUCTURE MOVES: Bitmine Immersion Technologies (ETH-USD) representing 4.37% of total ETH supply, valued at approximately $11.6B at $2,191 per coin, alongside 202 bitcoin, $685M in cash, and minority stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings, the release stated. Annualized staking revenues are now running at $289M.

Soluna Holdings the earnings release showed. Net loss for the quarter came in at $17.9M, approximately $1M wider sequentially, though adjusted EBITDA loss improved vs. the prior quarter. BTQ Technologies (BTQ) confirmed commercial-grade readiness of its QSSN quantum-secure stablecoin settlement infrastructure in South Korea, and separately completed what it believes is the first production-grade BIP 360 bitcoin quantum-safety implementation, with a shareholder call scheduled for May 19, the update noted. The company’s cash balance stood at C$12.1M.

PRICE ACTION: As of time of writing, bitcoin was trading at $76,261.10, while ether was trading at $2,103.23, according to price data from TipRanks.