In the early-1990s, telephone companies ran ads for long distance calls highlighting the cost per minute for a U.S. customer to speak to someone in another country. Today, that business does not exist. You can now Facetime or Zoom anyone, anywhere, for free.

What changed?

The shift to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) ultimately drove the price of calls down to nearly zero.

Today, we are experiencing a similar transformation as a global, embedded financial layer emerges within the internet. This will ultimately drive money transfer costs closer to zero, transforming a system long burdened by high fees, delays and middlemen.

Stablecoins are the application driving this evolution. The maxim “adoption is slow until it is fast”captures their explosive growth in recent years. To get an idea of scale, stablecoin transaction volume surged above $27 trillion in 2024 – surpassing Visa and Mastercard combined. Today, there are stablecoin providers, such as Tether, that hold more U.S. Treas..

The selling pressure caused by the tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump continues to be effective in both global markets and the cryptocurrency market.

At this point, while the FED is expected to cut interest rates for recovery in the face of ongoing negative winds, all eyes are on the statements to be made by FED Chairman Jerome Powell today.

Powell will speak at 18:25 GMT.

What to Expect?
After the FED kept the interest rate constant at 4.25%-4.5% in March, citing the current economic uncertainty, Powell is expected to make important statements about the economic outlook and signal the next interest rate decision in his speech.

After Trump announced tariffs with 185 countries, including China, the US has increased concerns that inflationary pressure will continue in the country. Analysts believe that the FED will have a difficult job amid the inflation-recession dilemma.

At this point, analysts state that the importance of Powell’s speech has increased, and they expect..

Solana price has stalled at a crucial make-or-break support level that could determine its next direction. After peaking near $300 in January, SOL price now sits around the key level at $120. This article explores whether its rising transaction count and decentralized exchange volume will help it bounce back.

Raydium’s dominance in Solana-based memecoin trading has increased to 83% over the past three months, even as overall memecoin market activity declined.

According to Memecoins in Q1 2025 report by CEX.io, Raydium has seen its memecoin trading volume surge to 83% despite the contraction in the overall memecoin market activity and market cap.

Memecoins were riding high on speculative momentum in January following high-profile political launches like the Trump (TRUMP) and Melania (MELANIA) tokens. At their peak, memecoins accounted for 11% of total crypto trading volume on Jan. 20, the CEX.io report noted. However, by April 1, the memecoin market cap had plummeted by 58% from its January high, with their share of trading volume falling to just 4%.

Source: Memecoins in Q1 2025 report by CEX.io

Despite the decline in the overall memecoin market activity, Raydium’s share of memecoin trading volume has increased from 77% to 83% in the first quarter of 2025. This is the direct result of th..

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It’s been three weeks since Solana’s validators failed to pass SIMD-0228, a governance proposal that aimed to shift Solana’s issuance to a market-based mechanism and reduce inflation in the process. But while validators — who earn their keep partly from Solana inflation — voted the measure down, issuance still doesn’t feel like a settled question.

With the implementation of SIMD-0096, which got rid of Solana’s priority fee “burn,” the network also lost a disinflationary mechanism, and many ecosystem participants feel that the network is “overpaying” for economic security by way of inflation. While there’s no looming fix for this in the short term, the Solana Foundation’s former head of strategy has made a counterproposal.

Austin Federa’s “left curve 228” pitch says Solana should accelerate the network’s disinflation curve and “see if anything breaks.”

Solana’s inflation curve sets a current issuan..

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Even before the tariffs, it was clear that risk assets — like bitcoin and crypto — were going out of style for a lot of investors.

And now, with the tariffs on the table, it wouldn’t be surprising if we continued to see folks move away from these riskier assets. Which leaves us with one big question: Does this mean we’re out of luck for an altcoin season?

A Kaiko Research and BRN report noted that altcoins just haven’t been able to break — or, in some cases, even come close to — their 2021-2022 peaks.

On the bright side, though, we are seeing altcoin dominance levels rise relative to bitcoin, but the distribution there has been uneven.

Source: Kaiko Research and BRN Report

“Altcoin trade volume has returned to pre-FTX levels, but it is more concentrated than ever. The top 10 altcoins account for 64% of the total volume, indicating that investors are focusing capital on a select group. Market depth mi..