CME Group has announced plans to launch XRP futures, with the derivatives marketplace eyeing a debut date of May 19, 2025. In an announcement, the CME Group said the unveiling of XRP (XRP) futures, set to offer access to both…

CME Group plans to launch XRP futures on May 19

Global cross-border payment platform Axiym is targeting the rising demand from 
money services businesses (MSBs) for blockchain-based infrastructure and 
stablecoin solutions for international transactions, the company told 
Cointelegraph.
Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Axiym disclosed on April 24 that 
it has processed more than $132 million in cumulative volume on the Avalanche 
blockchain.
The platform uses Avalanche to deliver real-time credit and liquidity 
infrastructure to MSBs worldwide.
_Source:__Avalanche_
MSBs &#8212; a broad category that includes money transmitters like Western Union, 
currency exchanges, crypto platforms, fintech firms, and check cashers &#8212; are 
embracing these innovations, Morgan Krupetsky, head of institutions and 
capital markets at Ava Labs, told Cointelegraph.
In the case of Axiym, &#8220;MSBs themselves don&#8217;t operate onchain,&#8221; Axiym CEO 
Khibar Russel told Cointelegraph. Instead, &#8220;Axiym connects their existing 
payment operations to Avalanche behind the scenes using blockchain to 
automate, move, and manage capital far more efficiently.&#8221;
&#8220;Under the hood, Axiym has built an application that provides credit to global 
MSBs using stablecoins to power payments &#8212; these transactions occur on the 
Avalanche C-Chain,&#8221; Krupetsky said, adding:
&gt; &#8220;This enables real-time cross-border liquidity provisioning that would be 
&gt; difficult or expensive through legacy payment rails or slower blockchains.&#8221;
_**Related:**__**Luxury app Dorsia taps MoonPay for crypto payments**_
## The case for cross-border payments continues to grow
Russel told Cointelegraph that Axiym&#8217;s clients are primarily licensed payment 
companies based in major financial centers like the UAE, the United Kingdom 
and Singapore. However, these companies&#8217; users often send funds to major 
remittance hubs across Asia, Africa and Latin America, he said.
Axiym&#8217;s platform has been developed to address many of the pain points in 
traditional cross-border payments, including &#8220;capital inefficiency, SWIFT- 
based delays, high costs and fragmented frameworks,&#8221; Russel said.
While blockchain offers significant advantages in speed and transparency, 
regulatory fragmentation has made it harder for the technology to replace 
legacy payment systems.
Axiym is attempting to solve this problem by &#8220;embedding blockchain 
capabilities directly into existing payment operations&#8221; using Avalanche, 
Russel said.
Blockchain-based stablecoins have become a key tool for enabling low-cost, 
efficient cross-border payments, which explains why these fiat-pegged assets 
have gained traction in emerging markets.
A 2024 Chainalysis report showed that stablecoin remittances from Sub-Saharan 
Africa are 60% cheaper than traditional fiat rails.
_The power of blockchain technology: An average $200 remittance from Sub- 
Saharan Africa is 60% cheaper using stablecoins than fiat. 
Source:__Chainalysis _
As Cointelegraph recently reported, blockchain company Ripple has partnered 
with African payment infrastructure provider Chipper Cash to support cross- 
border crypto transactions.
Meanwhile, crypto-focused payment startups are also gaining traction in 
venture capital circles, with the Tether-backed Mansa recently closing a $10 
million funding round to expand its stablecoin cross-border payment services.
_**Magazine:**__**Altcoin season to hit in Q2? Mantra &#8216;s plan to win trust: 
Hodler&#8217;s Digest, April 13 &#8211; 19**_

Avalanche-powered Axiym bets on money services businesses

Ether (ETH) price has climbed above $1,700 after 16 days of selling pressure 
caused by macroeconomic uncertainty and a sharp decline in onchain activity. 
Despite the rebound, Ether has underperformed the broader altcoin market by 
23% year-to-date.
Some traders claim that ETH is set for a &#8220;generational&#8221; bull run by offering a 
&#8220;truly&#8221; decentralized and permissionless financial system, but is that really 
the case?
_Source:__X/0xMontBlanc_
Ether was one of the few major cryptocurrencies that did not reach a new all- 
time high in 2025, unlike competitors such as Solana (SOL), Tron (TRX), and 
BNB (BNB).
Some critics argue that moving away from proof-of-work mining removed a 
competitive advantage that Ethereum once had over its rivals.
## Ethereum fee drop signals ETH price weakness
Eventually, Ether may outperform its competitors, even if only for a short 
period, and influencers who are calling for a &#8220;generational bottom&#8221; will 
celebrate their predictions, despite the lack of strong fundamentals to 
support lasting price growth. However, considering the 95% drop in Ethereum 
fees since January, the chances of an immediate ETH surge seem low.
_Ethereum network daily fees, USD. Source: DefiLlama_
The low demand for data processing on the Ethereum network causes ETH to 
become inflationary, as the built-in burn mechanism is not enough to balance 
the new coins issued to cover staking rewards.
Despite being the clear leader in Total Value Locked (TVL), traders are 
generally uninterested in this metric since it hasn&#8217;t translated into higher 
demand for the Ethereum network or increased scarcity for ETH.
As a result, even if Ethereum&#8217;s fundamentals improve, optimism among ETH 
holders is declining, while competitors&#8211;especially Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) 
investors&#8211;are hopeful about the approval of their spot exchange-traded funds 
(ETFs) in the US. Currently, spot ETFs in the US are only available for 
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), so additional offerings would likely reduce the 
potential institutional demand for altcoins.
Adding to the concerns, US-listed spot Ether ETFs saw $10 million in net 
outflows between April 21 and April 23, while similar BTC instruments 
experienced record-breaking inflows.
## History shows ETH price rallies seldom last long
Historical evidence does not favor a lasting outperformance compared to 
competitors, which lowers the odds of a sustainable ETH rally.
_**Related:**__**Bitcoiner PlanB slams ETH: &#8216;Centralized &amp; premined&#8217; 
shitcoin**_
 _Ether market share among altcoins. Source: TradingView / Cointelegraph_
For example, Ether&#8217;s market share in the altcoin capitalization reached a low 
point in June 2022 at around 26.5% when the ETH price dropped below $1,100. 
After a quick rally to $2,000 by August 2022, the momentum faded, and ETH&#8217;s 
price fell below $1,200 less than three months later. This sudden correction 
likely left many investors frustrated, as they had to wait eight months for 
ETH to reclaim $2,000 in April 2023.
A similar pattern happened in April 2021, when Ether&#8217;s altcoin market share 
bottomed out at 26.8%. After that, the ETH price climbed from $2,100 to $4,200 
by May 2021, only to fall below $2,000 the following month. Again, traders who 
bought near the cycle top had to wait six months just to recover their 
investment. This history has taught Ether traders to take profits quickly, 
which reduces the chances of reaching a new all-time high.
It is difficult to pinpoint what triggered previous Ether bull runs, 
especially as the narrative has shifted from utility tokens to NFT 
marketplaces, artificial intelligence, memecoins, and, more recently, RWA 
tokenization. While some influencers believe in strong ETH momentum, others 
warn there could be another 15% drop compared to Bitcoin&#8217;s performance.
In the end, historical evidence does not support a lasting ETH price rally, 
even if it bottoms out relative to the broader altcoin market capitalization.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and 
should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and 
opinions expressed here are the author&#8217;s alone and do not necessarily reflect 
or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Was $1.4K Ethereum’s ‘generational bottom?’ — Data sends mixed signals

Ethereum&#8217;s focus on scaling through many layer-2 networks, each with its own 
transaction processing speed and parameters, potentially gives the network an 
unlimited number of unique high-throughput chains, according to Anurag Arjun, 
co-founder of Avail, a unified chain abstraction solution.
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Arjun acknowledged that Ethereum and high- 
throughput competitors with monolithic architecture are fundamentally 
different products. However, Ethereum&#8217;s choice to scale through a plethora of 
L2 solutions gives it an overlooked quality:
&gt; &#8220;The under-appreciated beauty of this rollup-centric roadmap architecture is 
&gt; that it allows multiple teams to experiment with different execution 
&gt; environments and different block times.&#8221;
This allows a diverse set of high-throughput sidechains to appear rather than 
just one singular architecture on any monolithic layer-1s, the executive 
added. However, without true interoperability, switching between L2s will 
remain as complex as bridging assets between different blockchain ecosystems 
altogether, Arjun warned.
_An overview of Ethereum &#8216;s layer-2 ecosystem. Source: __L2Beat_
The Avail co-founder&#8217;s perspective runs contrary to the many critics of 
Ethereum&#8217;s L2-focused approach, who say that the network&#8217;s scaling solutions 
silo liquidity and are ultimately corrosive to the base layer. Ethereum&#8217;s 
critics argue that L2s are one of the primary causes of Ether&#8217;s (ETH) poor 
price performance in the last year.
_**Related:**__**Vitalik Buterin proposes swapping EVM language for RISC-V**_
## Ethereum fees drop to five-year lows
Fees on the Ethereum layer-1 network dropped to five-year lows in April 2025, 
with the average transaction fee sitting at around $0.16.
According to Brian Quinlivan, the marketing director for the Santiment onchain 
analytics firm, the reduction in fees signals decreased demand for the base 
layer and waning investor interest in Ethereum.
_Ethereum network daily transaction fees dropped significantly in Q1 2025. 
Source:__Token Terminal_
&#8220;This large reduction in fees coincides with fewer people sending ETH and 
interacting with smart contracts,&#8221; Quinlivan wrote in an April 16 blog post.
These smart contract interactions include transactions across decentralized 
finance, digital collectibles like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other 
digital asset sectors, the Santiment executive added.
Ether&#8217;s declining base layer transaction fees and reduced retail interest also 
caused many institutional investors to slash their Ether allocations and issue 
revised price outlooks for the second-largest digital asset by market 
capitalization.
_**Magazine:**__**Make Ethereum feel like Ethereum again: Based rollups 
explained**_

Ethereum's L2 approach equals many high-throughput chains — Avail exec

Bitcoin is rapidly disappearing from cryptocurrency exchanges as both 
corporate treasuries and sovereign wealth funds accumulate the asset, creating 
a supply squeeze that could reshape market dynamics. Fidelity Data Shows 
Bitcoin Moving to Long-Term Holders at Record Pace Bitcoin reserves on 
cryptocurrency exchanges have plummeted to 2.6 million BTC, the lowest level 
since November 2018, […]

Fidelity Reports Record Bitcoin Exchange Withdrawals Amid Institutional Accumulation

Crypto analyst Rekt Capital has revealed that the Bitcoin price recovery could 
be at stake if it doesn’t hold above a particular level. Failure to hold this 
support level could cause the leading crypto to crash and erase all gains that 
it has enjoyed this past week. Bitcoin Price Needs To Hold Above $93,500 To 
Avoid Another Crash In an X post, Rekt Capital indicated that the Bitcoin 
price needs to hold above $93,500 to avoid another crash. He remarked that the 
downside deviation is on the cusp of ending, but BTC now needs to stabilize 
above this support level of $93,500. The analyst added that ideally, the 
leading crypto needs a weekly close above this level and reclaim it as new 
support to resynchronize with the former Reaccumulation range. Related 
Reading: Is The Bitcoin Price Top In At $109,000 Already? What The MVRV 
Z-Score Says The Bitcoin price has already rallied above $93,500 this week as 
the leading crypto decoupled from stocks, with investors viewing it as a safe 
haven amid the market uncertainty caused by Donald Trump’s tariffs. However, 
as Rekt Capital suggested, BTC now needs to hold above $93,500 to confirm this 
breakout and avoid this being another bull trap. The Bitcoin price is likely 
to reclaim the $100,000 mark and even reach new highs if it can hold above 
this crucial support level. Rekt Capital’s accompanying chart showed that BTC 
could rally to as high as $110,000, marking a new all-time high (ATH) for the 
leading crypto. Crypto analyst Ezy Bitcoin also predicted that the Bitcoin 
price could rally to as high as $166,700. He stated that the Wyckoff Re- 
accumulation phase is playing out beautifully. The analyst further remarked 
that the structure points toward continued strength with the spring confirmed 
and price jumping across the creek. Ezy Bitcoin outlined $131,500, $144,900, 
and $166,700 as the targets if this bullish momentum holds. BTC Needs One More 
Leg On The LTF To Confirm Breakout In an X post, crypto analyst CrediBULL 
Crypto stated that the Bitcoin price needs one more leg on the lower 
timeframes (LTFs) to seal the deal. If that happens, he asserted that dips are 
for buying until BTC reaches at least $150,000. His accompanying chart showed 
that the leading crypto could break above $100,000 again on this next leg up. 
Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Bullish Confirmation: What Needs To Happen For 
Next Leg Up To $130,000 However, if the Bitcoin price doesn’t record another 
leg to the upside and instead corrects below $89,000 first, CrediBULL stated 
that BTC then ends up with a 3-legged corrective structure. He added that it 
would mean that market participants have to wait longer for the “real” 
breakout. At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price is trading at around 
$92,600, down in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap. 
Featured image from Adobe Stock, chart from Tradingview.com