Pipe Network is launching rewards for node operators that help build the decentralized version of the internet.

Solana-based Pipe Network launches rewards for its decentralized internet

The final week of April delivered a jolt of optimism to a crypto market that 
has spent most of the year wrestling with macro cross-currents. Bitcoin’s 
resilience above the psychological $90,000–$95,000 level, an unexpected surge 
in stablecoin issuance and a swarm of textbook bullish patterns across large- 
caps and meme names have converged to create what veteran chartist Josh 
Olszewicz calls “one of the cleanest multi-asset breakout tapes we’ve seen 
since late 2023.” Crypto Bull Run Back? Olszewicz’s argument begins and ends 
with liquidity. Two consecutive one-billion-dollar Tether mints on 29 April 
pushed combined USDT + USDC supply to a fresh all-time high, an event he 
frames as an unequivocal tailwind for speculative assets. “Tether’s been 
printing, printing, and minting, baby,” he said, emphasising that the dual $1 
billion tranches arrived alongside a clear premium in the USDT/USD pair on 
Kraken—evidence, in his view, of real demand rather than opportunistic 
treasury rebalancing. “Typically that means people are deploying it in alts. 
That’s why stable-coin mints—specifically Tether—[are] generally bullish for 
alts because people are using it to speculate.” The liquidity pulse arrives 
just as several macro obstacles appear to be receding. Bitcoin survived a 
negative-print US GDP release, sticky PCE inflation data and what Olszewicz 
called “some jobs numbers that came out this week,” without surrendering its 
three-month up-trend. Meanwhile gold has rolled over and the Dollar Index 
remains pinned near cycle lows, recreating the “everything-rally” backdrop 
that powered crypto’s late-2023 melt-up. Funding markets, however, are 
delivering a curious split: “We still have negative funding on the BTC side on 
crypto exchanges. We have positive funding in legacy land with futures. So 
that’s very bizarre right now, but so far so good.” Against that backdrop, 
Olszewicz drills into the Ichimoku-cloud mechanics that underpin his altcoin 
watch-list. The premise is as old as the indicator itself: a daily candle 
close inside the cloud accompanied by a bullish Tenkan-Kijun (TK) cross 
triggers a mean-reversion target to the opposing edge of the cloud. “All these 
trades are always the same. I never treat them differently,” he said. “You get 
a better entry… it’s just a game of probabilities.” The strategy sets clear 
invalidations—either the Kijun line or a lower-low—and provides what he 
characterises as Dow-theory mean-reversion framed through an Ichimoku lens. 
That formula is now flashing across a surprising breadth of assets. Solana And 
Curve Solana sits at the top of his list. The layer-one token has posted six 
consecutive red daily candles, sculpting the “right shoulder” of an inverted 
head-and-shoulders whose neckline rises toward $200. “What I’ve got to laser 
focus on is this potential edge-to-edge move,” he explained, noting that ideal 
entries would materialise between $140 and $120 but are not essential. “Within 
the next week or two, you should get a great signal on an entry here on SOL 
just from the cloud.” Related Reading: XRP Gains Ground in Weekly Crypto 
Inflows as Ethereum Continues Downtrend Curve, by contrast, is already in 
motion—up double-digits on a day when most altcoins bled. “Why is it up 10 
percent today and everything else is down? I don’t have a good answer for 
that,” he admitted. Yet the technical structure leaves little to interpret: a 
multi-month flat-bottom accumulation, a candle close inside the cloud near its 
lower boundary and a bullish TK cross. “You’re on your journey to somewhere up 
here—the other edge of the cloud,” he said, implying a measured-move objective 
near $1.20 that would represent a near-doubling from current levels. Ethereum 
And Litecoin Where Solana and Curve show imminent triggers, Ethereum remains 
the quintessential laggard, still chiselling out what Olszewicz labels a 
bottoming process. “It’s going to take ETH kicking and screaming to get 
started here […] but this is a bottom in process. Certainly may take you into 
June.” The calculus is familiar: traders intent on rotation may find better 
risk-adjusted returns elsewhere, returning to ETH only once its own daily 
cloud admits a candle close. Litecoin exhibits a similar dynamic, with an 
inverted head-and-shoulders outline that “feels a little early,” perhaps 
ripening by early June. FET, LINK, ALGO Fetch.ai breached the cloud on April 
23 and already sports a bullish TK cross, yet Olszewicz acknowledges it 
arrives “after two or three weeks of up-move,” reducing risk-reward. Related 
Reading: CoinGecko Q1 Report: Top 10 Crypto Exchanges See Spot Trading Volume 
Drop To $5.4 Trillion Chainlink shows a textbook right-shoulder still under 
construction—“alerts at fifteen,” he suggests—while Algorand edges toward a 
32-cent cloud target, one daily close away from confirmation. In each 
instance, the analyst reiterates that until the formal triggers print, the 
probability of follow-through remains statistically lower. DOGE, PEPE And WIF 
The most combustible corner of the market—the meme cohort—is, in his telling, 
already foreshadowing a retail return. Dogecoin intrigues him most. “Along 
with ENA, one of the best bang for your bucks is Doge,” he said, though he 
concedes the pattern needs another week to sculpt a complete right-shoulder. 
He is explicit about his trigger: “Give it another week or two and this is 
definitely one of the better-looking setups,” with attention fixed on the 
$0.175 area. PEPE presents fewer moving parts: it is inside the cloud with a 
bullish TK cross and a clear neckline at the Kijun. “If ETH even sneezes 
higher, I expect this to just be up twenty-five percent one day,” he said, 
while cautioning that a transitional “negative twenty percent day” could 
precede the pop. WIF, for its part, is “slamming against the cloud,” on the 
cusp of its own TK cross. Having retraced from $4.80 to current levels, it 
offers what he calls “a great-looking setup,” albeit one where “the greed in 
me always wants an entry down here”—a reference to a hypothetical bid parked 
at the cloud’s lower edge. BTC Dominance Bitcoin dominance, still pressing 
cycle highs, complicates the rotation narrative. “Does it really matter that 
you’re not all-in BTC if this is an extreme in dominance?” he asked 
rhetorically. His answer is temporal. Dominance mattered enormously at the 
October 2023 bottom, and he suspects it will matter again once it rolls over. 
“Come May, June, I think we will start to see the outperformance of the 
altcoins,” he predicts, but he tempers that with a blunt reminder: “It hasn’t 
made sense to sit in these BTC pairs.” The exception is Solana’s BTC chart, 
which mirrors the USD thesis with a half-formed inverted head-and-shoulders 
and a cloud target significantly higher. At press time, SOL traded at $151.90. 
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Best Altcoins To Watch In May: Breakouts Are Brewing, Says Crypto Analyst

Tether, the company behind the world&#8217;s largest stablecoin by market 
capitalization, has released its financials for the first quarter of 2025, 
disclosing nearly $120 billion in exposure to US Treasurys and over $1 billion 
in operating profit.
According to Tether&#8217;s Q1 2025 financial report, the company&#8217;s assets include 
$98.5 billion in direct US Treasury bills, along with over $23 billion in 
additional exposure through repurchase agreements and other cash-equivalent 
assets.
_Excerpt from Tether &#8216;s Q1 2025 financial report. Source: __Tether_
According to the announcement, Tether holds $5.6 billion in excess of reserves 
for its USDt (USDT) stablecoin, down from $7.1 billion in excess from the last 
quarter of 2024. The stablecoin has a market capitalization of $149 billion as 
of May 1.
&#8220;Circulating supply of USDT grew by approximately $7 billion in Q1, with a 46 
million increase in user wallets,&#8221; it said.
The company&#8217;s excess capital continues to fund strategic investments, with 
more than $2 billion allocated in renewable energy, artificial intelligence, 
peer-to-peer communications, and data infrastructure.
The stablecoin market is broadly dominated by tokens pegged to the US dollar, 
with USDT and Circle&#8217;s USDC holding a combined 87% share. According to the US 
Treasury&#8217;s Q1 2025 report, the market cap for dollar-backed stablecoins is 
poised to reach $2 trillion by 2028.
European Union officials have recently raised concerns about the risks of 
overreliance on dollar-pegged stablecoins. According to the Bank of Italy, 
disruptions in the stablecoins market or the underlying bonds could have 
&#8220;repercussions for other parts of the global financial system.&#8221;
Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it&#8217;s becoming them in 
stablecoin fight

Tether posts $1B in Q1 operating profit, $5.6 billion excess in reserves

**Key takeaways:**
 * Despite weak US manufacturing data, Federal Reserve liquidity plans and strong corporate earnings keep equities and crypto afloat.
 * The total crypto market capitalization rose 8.5% since March.
Cryptocurrency traders have frequently zoomed in on the need for crypto to 
show a clear &#8220;decoupling&#8221; from the stock market, and over the past 10 days, 
the intraday movements of Bitcoin (BTC) and major altcoins have closely 
tracked those of the S&amp;P 500, even as trade war developments have dominated 
market sentiment.
_S &amp;P 500 futures (left) vs. Total crypto cap, USD (right). Source: 
TradingView/Cointelegraph_
A decoupling would validate digital assets as an independent class and address 
growing concerns about a potential global economic recession. This ongoing 
correlation has led market participants to question whether the cryptocurrency 
market is destined to follow the stock market&#8217;s lead indefinitely, and what 
conditions would be necessary for a genuine decoupling to occur.
## Stock market shows strength despite trade tensions
The S&amp;P 500 reached its peak on Feb. 19 and has since struggled to reclaim the 
5,800 level, a support that had held for four months. Despite persistent 
pressure from US trade disputes with Canada and Mexico, as well as the 
imposition of new tariffs affecting nearly every major economic region, 
equities have demonstrated notable resilience.
Chinese state media recently reported that the United States has quietly 
initiated trade negotiations. Although China officially maintains a 125% 
retaliatory tariff on US imports, it has granted waivers for sectors such as 
ethane, semiconductors, and certain pharmaceuticals. The United States, in 
turn, has partially exempted automakers from new tariffs. These actions 
suggest that both sides are gradually making concessions.
There is a reasonable possibility that the S&amp;P 500 established a bottom at 
4,835 on April 7, with further gains from the current 5,635 level remaining 
plausible. The stock market has responded positively to robust first-quarter 
earnings, as companies adapt to tariffs by relocating production outside China 
or expanding operations within the United States.
For instance, Microsoft reported a 13.2% year-over-year increase in revenue, 
with higher margins and strong demand for artificial intelligence. Meta also 
delivered earnings and revenue that exceeded market expectations on April 30. 
These results have alleviated concerns about a potential AI bubble or the risk 
that the trade war could force companies to reduce investment.
## The market&#8217;s focus shifts to the Federal Reserve
Rather than concentrating on the recent decline in US PMI manufacturing data- 
which reached a five-month low in April, market participants are closely 
monitoring the Federal Reserve&#8217;s next policy moves. Following a year of 
balance sheet reduction, the Fed is now considering asset purchases to help 
ease selling pressure.
An increase in liquidity is typically favorable for risk-oriented assets. 
Therefore, even if a full decoupling does not occur, cryptocurrencies could 
still benefit from a more supportive macroeconomic environment.
_S &amp;P 500 futures (left) vs. Total crypto cap, USD (right). Source: 
TradingView/Cointelegraph_
Despite the short-term correlation, the cryptocurrency market has outperformed 
equities in recent months. Since March, the total crypto market capitalization 
has risen by 8.5%, while the S&amp;P 500 has declined by 5.3%. Over a six-month 
period, this divergence becomes even more pronounced: the total crypto market 
cap is up 29%, while the S&amp;P 500 is down 2%. It is therefore inaccurate to 
suggest that these markets move in perfect synchrony, particularly when viewed 
over longer timeframes.
_**Related:**__**Bitcoin to $1M by 2029 fueled by ETF and gov &#8216;t demand &#8212; 
Bitwise exec**_
It is still premature to declare a definitive bottom for the S&amp;P 500 or to 
conclude that the trade war has been resolved. An economic recession would 
likely have negative implications for both markets. However, the current 
strength in equities indicates reduced risk aversion among investors. For the 
time being, the elevated correlation between cryptocurrencies and stocks may 
represent the most favorable scenario.
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.

Crypto ‘decoupling’ story ends as stocks follow Bitcoin’s rally

Sachs explained that the Trump administration&#8217;s emphasis on applying tariffs 
on rival governments would not impact the growth of China and Russia if 
international trade continues to follow WTO rules. Jeffrey Sachs Labels 
Tariffs as a Mistake, Disregards Effects in Global Trade The Trump 
administration&#8217;s tariff move and its subsequent effects on global trade 
continue […]

US Economist Jeffrey Sachs: Trump’s Take on Tariffs Is ‘a Serious Mistake’

Animoca Brands is looking at trends in real-world tokenized assets, AI 
projects, and the gaming sector to invest in and develop, according to Omar 
Elissar, the company&#8217;s managing director for the Middle East and the head of 
Global Strategic Partnerships.
In an interview with Cointelegraph&#8217;s Sam Bourgi at Token2049, Elissar said 
that stablecoins, real-world asset tokenization, the intersection between AI 
and crypto, alternative use cases such as decentralized science, and Web3 
gaming were all niches the company is exploring.
Gaming is &#8220;part of our DNA,&#8221; the executive said before reflecting on the 
current state of the Web3 gaming industry:
&gt; &#8220;It&#8217;s gone quiet for some time in terms of less PR, but there&#8217;s been 
&gt; building in the background. Recently, there have been a few games that have 
&gt; come out that have been truly fun to play, which I think has been one of the 
&gt; main negative sentiments about Web3 gaming.&#8221;
Animoca Brands is one of the foremost crypto-native venture capital firms in 
the space and can serve as a barometer of hot or emerging market trends for 
crypto investors.
_**Related:**__**VC Roundup: Funding surge targets confidentiality, 
tokenization and Web3 infrastructure**_
## Animoca Brands inks stablecoin, blockchain deals
In February 2025, Animoca Brands, Standard Chartered Bank, and Hong Kong 
Telecommunications (HKT) signed a deal to develop a Hong Kong dollar 
stablecoin that will be overcollateralized and pegged to the Hong Kong dollar 
at a 1:1 ratio.
The stablecoin must first be approved by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority 
(HKMA) before it begins trading. Hong Kong&#8217;s financial authorities are 
currently working on establishing comprehensive stablecoin regulations.
On March 27, Animoca Brands inked a deal with Soneium, a layer-1 blockchain 
network developed by Japanese tech company Sony, to develop a digital 
identification system that features pictures of anime characters that can be 
assigned to an onchain user to signify identity.
_Animoca releases financial assets and token reserves for 2024 as part of its 
overall financial report for the company &#8216;s 2024 fiscal year. Source: 
__Animoca Brands_
Animoca reported that it recorded 12% year-over-year growth during the 2024 
fiscal year in &#8220;bookings&#8221; &#8212; a figure that accounts for the sum of all revenue 
plus revenue that has been booked but not yet received by the company.
_**Magazine:**__**Crypto &#8216;more taboo than OnlyFans,&#8217; says Violetta Zironi, who 
sold song for 1 BTC**_