Stocks and the U.S. dollar have taken a beating as markets focus on Trump&#8217;s potential threat to Fed&#8217;s independence.

DOW Jones down 1000 points amid uncertainty over tariffs, Fed’s future

Astra Fintech, a global blockchain payments provider, has launched a $100 
million fund to support the Solana ecosystem&#8217;s growth throughout Asia, 
according to an April 21 announcement.
Through the fund, Astra Fintech plans to deploy capital to accelerate projects 
and form partnerships with developers, companies, and regulators. The fund&#8217;s 
base of operations will be in South Korea, a country Solana&#8217;s venture arm 
invested in after the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in 2022.
The fund will focus on projects and developers working on PayFi solutions &#8212; a 
conglomeration of systems that use blockchain technology to facilitate 
payments. Astra&#8217;s main suite of products attempts to blend traditional finance 
with digital currencies.
According to data from Electric Capital, Solana and Solana Virtual Machine 
(SVM) blockchains are currently within the top 10 blockchains for developer 
activity, only behind Ethereum.
In 2021, Solana created a $5 million development fund to spur projects in 
Southeast Asia. The region is a hotspot for Web3 games, a crypto use case that 
has proliferated on Solana due to the blockchain&#8217;s fast speeds and low 
transaction costs.
## Solana, with its ups and downs
The Solana ecosystem has had quite the ride in 2025. Its native token, Solana 
(SOL), rose to an all-time high of $293.31 on Jan. 19, two days after US 
incoming President Donald Trump launched a memecoin on the network. It trades 
at $136.61 at this writing, a fall of 53.4% since then.
However, crypto executives and companies continue betting on the Solana 
ecosystem. On April 7, a group of former Kraken executives acquired Janover, 
aiming to transform the real estate firm into a de facto Solana treasury. Just 
weeks later, Upexi &#8212; a brand management and supply chain company &#8212; saw its 
shares surge 630% on April 21 after announcing a similar strategy. Meanwhile, 
Canada approved SOL staking in early April, and ARK Invest has since added 
exposure to Solana funds through its tech-focused ETFs.
_**Magazine:**__**X Hall of Flame: Solana &#8216;will be a trillion-dollar asset&#8217; &#8212; 
Mert Mumtaz**_

Astra Fintech commits $100M for Solana growth in Asia

Pepe is encountering resistance, but this rejection could mark the beginning 
of a bullish continuation setup. Traders are watching for a potential higher 
low that may set the stage for a strong rotation to the upside. Pepe price 
action (PEPE)…

Pepe eyes higher low formation after local rejection — is a 35% rally on the table?

A group of investors has filed a class-action lawsuit against decentralized 
cryptocurrency exchange Meteora, alleging the firm was involved in 
manipulating the launch and market price of the M3M3 token.
In an amended complaint filed on April 21 in the US District Court for the 
Southern District of New York, the plaintiffs allege that venture capital firm 
Kelsier Labs, Meteora, and four current or former executives &#8220;intentionally 
misrepresented&#8221; information in the M3M3 launch in December 2024.
The investors claimed that they suffered at least $69 million in losses 
between December 2024 and February 2025 after the parties presented &#8220;trusted 
leaders in the Solana ecosystem&#8221; as being behind the token launch, rather than 
a &#8220;blatant fraud&#8221; in which sales were manipulated to artificially inflate the 
price.
&#8220;This artificially-inflated valuation communicated highly misleading 
information to non-insider investors, who reasonably relied on Defendants&#8217; 
representations that the $M3M3 launch was fully accessible to the public and 
conducted in a transparent manner fair to non-insider investors, and thus 
reasonably relied on $M3M3 market price as a meaningful measure of its value,&#8221; 
the complaint reads. &#8220;The post-launch price spike also served to corroborate 
Defendants&#8217; aggressively-marketed, but misleading, assertions that $M3M3 had 
intrinsic value and a comparatively low risk profile.&#8221;
_Class-action lawsuit against Meteora, Kelsier Labs, and current and former 
executives. Source: PACER_
The lawsuit is one of many involving different crypto firms that have alleged 
fraud through violations of US securities laws. Though the US Securities and 
Exchange Commission (SEC), under acting chair Mark Uyeda since US President 
Donald Trump took office, has scaled back or dismissed many enforcement 
actions involving digital assets, the agency said in February it still 
intended to pursue cases against fraudulent token projects.
The investors added:
&gt; &#8220;Together, Defendants designed the $M3M3 Token and planned its launch on 
&gt; Meteora in a manner intended to illicitly enrich themselves at the expense 
&gt; of the unsuspecting investing public.&#8221;
_**Related:**__**Meteora says co-founder &#8216;s X account hacked after &#8216;parasitic&#8217; 
memecoin post**_
## Memecoins in the Solana ecosystem
Meteora has been tied to the launch of several high-profile yet controversial 
tokens, including those for Trump (TRUMP), his wife Melania (MELANIA), Libra 
(LIBRA), and online influencer Haliey Welch (HAWK).
According to the lawsuit, the firm &#8220;purported to offer a comprehensive 
solution to the problems in the memecoin investment market&#8221; with the launch of 
M3M3. The defendants in the case allegedly attempted to distinguish the token 
from other notable memecoins by highlighting the &#8220;legitimacy and 
trustworthiness&#8221; through the involvement of Meteora co-founder Ben Chow and 
the platform.
Kelsier Ventures, KIP Protocol, and Meteora face a similar class-action 
lawsuit filed in New York in March over LIBRA allegedly being launched in a 
&#8220;deceptive, manipulative and fundamentally unfair&#8221; manner. Argentine President 
Javier Milei briefly promoted the token over social media after his sister 
reportedly received payments from the project.
_**Magazine:**__**Memecoin degeneracy is funding groundbreaking anti-aging 
research**_

Investors sue Meteora and VC firm, alleging fraud

A coalition of over 1,300 economists—including Nobel laureates and former 
policymakers—has publicly denounced the Trump administration’s 2025 tariff 
policies as reckless, harmful, and historically misguided. Trump’s Tariffs 
Face Elite Academic Rebuke In a sweeping condemnation of U.S. trade policy, 
more than 1,300 economists have signed the &#8220;Anti-Tariff Declaration,&#8221; a public 
statement opposing the Trump administration’s […]

Over 1,300 Economists Condemn Trump’s Tariffs as Economic Folly

U.S. stocks fell across the board Monday after former President Donald Trump 
intensified attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and cast fresh 
uncertainty on trade policy, unnerving investors. The Dow Jones Industrial 
Average dropped more than 971 points, or…