[PRESS RELEASE – Vilnius, Lithuania, May 19th, 2025]

Ukrainian Max Hamaha claimed the title in a dramatic comeback, with his name lighting up the LED boards during El Clásico as the world watched.

WhiteBIT, Europe’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by traffic and an official cryptocurrency partner of FC Barcelona, successfully hosted the first-ever International Crypto Trading Cup (ICTC 2025) on May 9-10. This global live-streamed tournament marked a significant step toward establishing crypto trading as a competitive, spectator-worthy discipline on par with traditional esports.

This two-day event brought together eight of the world’s top crypto traders from across the globe to compete in real time on stage. Trading for six hours each day—twelve hours in total—they executed 269 trades, providing unprecedented insight into advanced trading strategies, risk management, and decision-making under pressure.

Beyond the main stage, ICTC 2025 featured a total of 33 squads, the largest two with 369 and 298 members, and around 3,000 individual traders from around the world.

Max Hamaha Secures Win Following Notable Recovery

Ukrainian Max Hamaha emerged as the first-ever ICTC Champion after starting day one at the bottom of the rankings. His bold comeback on day two — driven by a high-conviction long position on Ethereum — earned him a rPNL of 7,488.84 USDT and the top spot. He executed 47 total trades, the second-highest count in the competition, just behind Muslim Abdullayev (Mus_money_) from Kazakhstan, who made 49.

Reflecting on the experience, Max shared: “Trading live on stage was an incredibly exciting experience—more intense and way more fun than trading at home. I had to adjust my usual approach to fit the tournament rules, but I still focused on active intraday trading with high leverage. I felt confident throughout, though the final minutes got nerve-wracking as others went all-in. WhiteBIT is setting a new trend—competitive trading could easily go mainstream like esports. In a few years, I can see crypto trading tournaments rivaling Dota 2.”

Max was joined on the podium by Dutch Merlijn The Trader with rPNL 6,745.96 USDT in second place, and another Ukrainian Eugene Loza (EXCAVO) with rPNL 4,098.90 USDT in third.

Meanwhile, Malik Roth Klindt Jensen (Coinvo) achieved the tournament’s single largest gain — a sharp 12,249 USDT profit on ETH_PERP position. The tournament’s largest single loss, also on the ETH_PERP pair, totaled -10,725 USDT, underscoring the high-risk nature of trading. While traders did not use their personal funds, each was allocated 50,000 USDTB—WhiteBIT’s internal asset for futures trading—creating a powerful educational experience.

ICTC Winner Takes the Spotlight at El Clásico

A highlight moment came when Hamaha’s name lit up the LED boards during El Clásico — the biggest football match between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid — marking the first time in history a trading competition winner was featured during one of the world’s most-watched sporting events.

Key Trading Strategies

Beyond the competition, ICTC offered a rare look into professional trading techniques, as participants shared live screens and walked through their setups and decisions. One of ICTC’s hosts and market technician Marc Principato noted the educational value of seeing trades executed in real time:

“The competition highlighted diverse trading styles, including standout performances such as Mauro Ciami’s aggressive “go big or go home” strategy that dominated day one, and Merlin and Excavo’s high-risk overnight positions that paid off significantly on day two.”

Mark adds:

“The lessons learned in this one of a kind event are priceless for aspiring and experienced traders alike. Putting your reputation on the line and showing the world your secrets is not something most professional traders are willing to do so watch carefully and take notes. From higher probability patterns to mean reversion tactics, you will come away with practical knowledge that you can incorporate into your own style now.”

Laying the Groundwork for a New Era

Speaking on the success of the inaugural event, Volodymyr Nosov, Founder and President of WhiteBIT Group, said: “With this tournament, we’re pioneering a new frontier. This is not just about trading—it’s about building community, sharing knowledge, and accelerating global adoption of blockchain. We’re building the infrastructure for the future. ICTC 2025 was a first step to understand what works, what our traders and audience want, and where we can go from here. Our goal is to make this a recurring, global event—bigger and better with each edition.”

What’s Next: ICTC 2026 Registration Now Open

WhiteBIT is already preparing for the next chapter: registration for ICTC 2026 is now open, inviting new and experienced traders worldwide to compete, connect, and make history.

As the lines continue to blur between finance, technology, and entertainment, ICTC 2025 stands as a clear signal of where the future of crypto trading is headed—interactive, competitive, and globally accessible.

The recordings of the live streams are available on WhiteBIT’s YouTube channel.

About WhiteBIT

WhiteBIT is the largest European cryptocurrency exchange by traffic, offering over 780 trading pairs, 330+ assets, and supporting 9 fiat currencies. Founded in 2018, the platform is a part of WhiteBIT Group which serves more than 35 million customers globally. WhiteBIT collaborates with Visa, FACEIT, FC Barcelona, Trabzonspor and the Ukrainian national football team. The company is dedicated to driving the widespread adoption of blockchain technology worldwide.

This material does not pertain solely to the company’s European transactions but applies to the activities of all WhiteBIT Group companies globally.

The post WhiteBIT Crowns World’s Top Trader in First-Ever Live International Crypto Trading Cup appeared first on CryptoPotato.

In his latest market rundown, Amsterdam-based trader and educator Michaël van de Poppe warns that “retail isn’t here in the markets as of yet” and notes that the widely-followed Altcoin Season Index is still languishing around 29—well below the 50-point threshold that would signal a rotation out of Bitcoin and into the broader market.

Against that still-cautious backdrop, Van de Poppe argues that the recent 38–42 percent rebound in the ETH/BTC pair is the first concrete sign of capital rotating down the risk curve, echoing on-chain data that show Ethereum clawing back ground after months of under-performance. “We’ve had a 40% return against Bitcoin in just a week,” he says, “and therefore the blue chips or the large caps are the ones to watch.”

Crypto Watchlist: Top 5 Altcoins

Van de Poppe’s thesis rests on a classic money-flow model: funds move from Bitcoin to Ethereum, then to large-cap altcoins, mid-caps and, finally, into the smallest caps once animal spirits truly take hold. With that framework in mind, he singles out five names that he believes sit at different rungs of the risk ladder, each with a specific macro- or sector-level tail-wind.

The first pick, Chainlink (LINK), is Van de Poppe’s “easiest play” on institutional adoption because “we require oracles to provide data in the web-3 space to connect between web 2 and web 3.” The analyst emphasises that LINK’s bitcoin-denominated chart is “still at an all-time low,” suggesting asymmetric upside if a true altseason materialises.

Next on the large-cap list is Aave (AAVE). Van de Poppe calls the decentralised lending protocol “a large cap which implies less risk,” but adds that the market is under-pricing its role in bringing bank-grade yield products on-chain. Notably, the token has attracted high-profile flows this cycle—Donald Trump–linked World Liberty Financial disclosed cumulative AAVE purchases alongside LINK and ETH earlier this year.

Moving down the capitalization spectrum, the analyst turns to Wormhole (W), a cross-chain messaging and liquidity layer he describes as “being used to transfer between the chains,” with revenues that cycle back into the protocol. He flags its selection as exclusive bridge infrastructure for multiple real-world-asset initiatives in which “tokenised T-bill funds” migrate across networks. Wormhole’s fundamentals received a liquidity boost when Binance listed the W token with four trading pairs on 3 April 2024, broadening access for retail and institutional desks alike.

For investors willing to venture further out on the risk curve, Van de Poppe highlights Peaq (PEAQ), a layer-1 focused on DePIN and the machine economy. “It’s the largest ecosystem within the machine economy and … finally waking up again,” he says, citing on-chain data that already show more than 50 companies and six-million devices active on the network. He argues that growing transaction counts and cross-industry partnerships make PEAQ “interesting for an investment thesis” at current valuations.

His smallest-cap mention is Alkimi (ADS), which he dubs “an advertising project” whose revenue “has gone 4x from $1.2 million to $5 million” even as the token corrected from $0.50 to $0.10 during the recent macro-driven sell-off. Alkimi positions itself as a decentralised ad exchange designed to cut supply-chain fees and provide on-chain transparency, a use-case the company claims can slash CPMs by over 200 percent for advertisers.

Van de Poppe closes with portfolio construction advice rather than price targets. “The larger the market cap, the longer it’s in business, the larger your allocation can be because the lower the risk involved. The smaller and newer the project, the smaller the allocation,” he says.

At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $3.18 trillion.

Stock markets notched solid gains last week while crypto markets lost a bit of ground and cooled slightly.

The weaker-than-expected readings on CPI and inflation expectations keep markets buoyed, while the Trump administration’s Middle East deals were a boon for the AI sector.

Additionally, US Treasury yields are surging again. “Trade deals, recession worries, lower inflation, and slowing GDP all can’t get lower yields,” said the Kobeissi Letter, which added, “Meanwhile, Fed Chair Powell remains adamant on not cutting rates.”

Moody’s downgrade of the US credit rating on Friday was also good news for store-of-value assets such as Bitcoin and gold.

Economic Events May 19 to 23

There may be some market reaction to the Moody’s downgrade on Monday, which could set the stage for further volatility this week.

May’s S&P Global Manufacturing and Services PMI (purchasing manager’s index) preliminary readings are due on Thursday. These leading economic indicators gauge activity in the manufacturing and services sectors, which reflect business and consumer sentiment.

Most official economic data has suggested that the US economy is holding up reasonably well. However, they have been more backward-looking and don’t yet properly capture the aftermath of President Trump’s announcement of widespread tariffs in early April. PMIs may provide a more accurate picture of the real impact.

There are also some home sales reports coming this week, which shed light on the US housing market but have virtually no impact on crypto asset markets.

Key Events This Week:

1. Markets React to Moody’s Downgrade – Monday

2. US Crude Oil Inventory data – Wednesday

3. S&P Global Manufacturing PMI data – Thursday

4. April Existing Home Sales data – Thursday

5. April New Home Sales data – Friday

6. Total of 14 Fed speaker…

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) May 18, 2025

‘Soft data’, such as activity and confidence surveys, “paint a potentially grimmer picture, particularly in the US where consumer and business confidence are still deteriorating,” said Citigroup analysts, according to the WSJ.

In Asia, markets will watch for progress in trade talks between the US and regional players in addition to key data from China and a central bank rate announcement.

Crypto Market Outlook

Crypto markets started the new week solidly with Bitcoin closing its highest-ever daily and weekly candles at just below $106,500.

However, the asset has started to cool during Monday morning trading in Asia, dropping back below $103,000 following its multi-month high.

“As the US Dollar weakens and uncertainty rises, Bitcoin and Gold are thriving,” said Kobeissi.

Ethereum has weakened significantly, falling almost 3% on the day back beneath the $2,400 level following a solid week.

The altcoins were a mixed bag, with gains for Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Litecoin, while Tron, Leo, and wrapped ETH derivatives lost ground.

The post 3 Things That Could Impact Crypto Markets in Week Ahead  appeared first on CryptoPotato.