What Circle’s US Trust Bank Bid Means for USDT and Stablecoin Competition

With the end of March, Q1 2025 is also coming to a conclusion. This quarter was not the best for the crypto market, with its excessive losses and extreme volatility, similar to how meme coins operate.

Discussing the bane of the meme coin market, Harrison Seletsky, the Director Of Business Development at Digital Identity Platform SPACE ID, talked about the role of a strong investor base.

“Hype can move the price of a memecoin up, but they also collapse just as fast if there is no interest to sustain them, which is usually the case. That’s why it’s so important to filter out the noise as much as possible,” Seletsky noted.

Thus, BeInCrypto has analyzed five meme coins that have stood the test of time and volatility and are preparing for further gains in April.

Fartcoin (FARTCOIN)

FARTCOIN has emerged as one of the top-performing meme coins this month, rising 107% to trade at $0.61. This impressive increase has allowed the meme coin to recover all the losses it faced in March and February.

To recover its January losses, FARTCOIN will need to continue its upward momentum. The key resistance level to watch is $0.69. A successful break above this level and a move toward $1.00 could signal the beginning of a sustained rally, potentially pushing the price higher in the coming days.

However, if FARTCOIN fails to hold $0.69 as support and misses the $1.00 target, it could face a sharp decline. A drop back to $0.37 would erase much of the recent gains, invalidating the bullish outlook. This pullback could shift investor sentiment towards caution, stalling further growth.

Cheems (CHEEMS)

CHEEMS has emerged as one of the top-performing meme coins this month, rising 130% since the beginning of March. Currently trading at $0.000001927, the altcoin has also posted a new all-time high (ATH) of $0.000002179.

The shift in broader market cues toward recovery has likely sparked newfound interest among CHEEMS investors. If the positive trend continues, the meme coin could push toward $0.000002500, further fueling its rally.

However, if the bullish signals begin to fade or if investors start selling their holdings, CHEEMS could face downward pressure. A fall toward the support level of $0.000001660 or lower would invalidate the bullish outlook. This potential decline could halt the altcoin’s growth and shift market sentiment.

Mubarak (MUBARAK)

MUBARAK launched this month and has already experienced notable volatility. The meme coin is up 95% since its launch, with the current all-time high (ATH) at $0.221. This strong early performance reflects investor optimism and a positive market reception for altcoin’s entry into the crypto space.

Currently trading at $0.145, MUBARAK is aiming to break through the resistance levels at $0.149 and $0.173. Successfully clearing these levels would likely lead to a new ATH beyond $0.221. Such a breakthrough would demonstrate continued bullish momentum and attract more investors to the altcoin.

However, if MUBARAK fails to capture sufficient investor attention, the price could dip to $0.130. A further decline could push the altcoin down to $0.118 or $0.105, invalidating the bullish outlook. Such a drop would signal weakening market sentiment and potential setbacks for MUBARAK’s growth.

Dogecoin (DOGE)

Dogecoin has not registered exceptional gains this month but managed to break out of a two-month downtrend. The altcoin rose 22% in a week, trading at $0.203. This recent upward movement signals a potential shift in market sentiment, suggesting that Dogecoin could see more positive momentum.

Given the current market conditions, Dogecoin is likely to continue its gradual uptrend. This momentum could help the altcoin breach the $0.220 resistance and move toward $0.267. If this upward trend continues, Dogecoin could see sustained growth and attract additional investor interest.

However, if Dogecoin fails to breach the $0.220 level, the price may struggle to maintain its upward movement. A failure to hold above this level could lead to a drop toward $0.176 or even $0.147, invalidating the bullish outlook and potentially extending the losses experienced by the altcoin.

Peanut The Squirrel (PNUT)

PNUT has experienced a 17% loss this month but is closer to recovering its losses. Currently trading at $0.221, the meme coin is beginning to show signs of recovery. The altcoin’s recent price movement signals that it may be positioned for potential growth if market conditions improve.

The primary target for PNUT is to breach the $0.260 resistance and flip it into a support level. If successful, this would pave the way for the meme coin to reach the next key resistance at $0.330. A move above $0.260 would signal further bullish momentum for PNUT.

However, if PNUT fails to breach $0.260 and the price struggles to hold, it could fall back to $0.219. A further drop to $0.182 would invalidate the bullish outlook, erasing recent gains and potentially setting the stage for a prolonged downtrend.

The post 5 Meme Coins to Watch in April 2025 appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft have been pulling back from AI data center investment, suggesting problems with the centralized model. Analysts are taking this latest development to reiterate why decentralized blockchain-based infrastructure could be the solution.

Kai Wawrzinek, co-founder of Impossible Cloud Network, discussed these looming questions in an exclusive interview with BeInCrypto.

AI Data Centers Hit a Wall

A few months ago, AI seemed like one of the global tech industry’s most promising sectors. However, with firms like AWS and Microsoft announcing pauses in AI data center construction, the picture looks very different. What happened? What does the future of AI look like? Kai Wawrzinek described the situation as it stands today:

“News that AWS is joining Microsoft in pulling out of new data centers when demand for AI is growing exponentially is testament to the enormous inefficiency this model presents for scaling the global internet. Microsoft and AWS may be coming to realize that centralized infrastructure models simply can’t adapt fast enough,” Wawrzinek claimed.

AWS and Microsoft aren’t the only companies facing these problems. Although Meta publicly claimed it would spend hundreds of billions on AI infrastructure and data centers, it asked competitors for funding less than three months later.

OpenAI, too, has been rocked by the sheer cost of operating ChatGPT; Sam Altman tacitly admitted that its research may never be profitable.

Wawrzinek sees a clear solution – abandon the centralized model altogether and focus on DeFAI. Although these industry leaders accumulated billions in capex and pioneered LLM development, the entire strategy can be self-defeating.

For example, US AI data center construction is swamping electrical engineers with work to an unprecedented degree. With so many professionals focusing on the centers themselves, it’s creating a bottleneck for skilled labor.

This harms renewable energy projects and the electrical grid, ironically harming the data centers’ functionality.

“The AI era needs infrastructure that can match its speed and scale, and decentralized systems are the only models built for that future. In contrast, a decentralized, market-driven approach solves this problem: capacity can be deployed more efficiently where and when it’s needed without waiting years for centralized megaprojects,” Wawrzinek added.

Can DeFAI Handle the Challenges?

Compared to the centralized data center model, DeFAI has increased AI compute accessibility. Blockchain-enabled economic incentives can accelerate deployment speed, enhance scalability, and optimize resource allocation without massive upfront capital.

These decentralized systems, in short, have more agility than their competitors.

Blockchain-based AI companies have been able to leverage significant compute capacity without centralized data centers. For example, the DePIN firm Aethir has made great strides with its GPU-as-a-service model.

Other firms like 0G Labs have proved that decentralized AI development isn’t just theoretically feasible; it’s profitable and necessary for the ecosystem.

If this all seems far-fetched or utopian, it’s important to remember AI’s “black swan” event – DeepSeek.

China’s market-moving genAI model proved to the entire world that AI firms can make state-of-the-art LLMs at a fraction of the hardware cost. So, the AI industry may need to rethink the data center model altogether if this one developer proved so successful.

Although skeptics have wondered whether decentralized AI can compete with data centers, the reality is that centralization can have its own inefficiencies.

“The future of AI infrastructure lies in open, permissionless networks, where supply meets demand dynamically and globally, not through outdated hyperscaler models that are struggling to keep up,” Wawrzinek finished.

So far, centralized AI firms have accumulated billions in venture capital investment, but their ability to innovate is hitting a brick wall. We may need a better model to create the best possible outcomes.

The post AWS and Microsoft Data Center Pullback Reveals Blockchain’s AI Imperative appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Confidentiality has always been a contentious point in blockchain technology. As public ledgers provide transparency, they often compromise privacy. The drive to reconcile transparency and privacy is at the heart of progress in crypto, and nobody epitomizes this better than Rand Hindi, CEO of Zama.

Hindi and Zama are pioneering the integration of fully homomorphic encryption into public blockchains. BeInCrypto interviewed Rand Hindi at Cannes to discuss Zama’s journey, the mounting investor interest, and the potentially transformative implications of this technology.

Hindi, who leads one of the most acclaimed teams in cryptography, has shepherded Zama to a billion-dollar valuation by focusing on a breakthrough technology that might address some of the sector’s core adoption barriers. The conversation explores how Zama’s protocol operates, the future of confidential payments, and what it means for traditional finance and on-chain scalability.

Hindi shares essential insights on technology’s progression, Zama’s testnet, and the security benefits that go beyond today’s industry standards.

Building Zama: Addressing Privacy Through Homomorphic Encryption

We like to joke that we’re probably the company that raised the most money without anybody understanding what we’re building. The reason for this is because cryptography as a field is very obscure and opaque, but the use cases it enables are very obvious once it actually works.

Zama as a company specializes in something called fully homomorphic encryption, FHE, which is a new encryption technique that allows you to have confidentiality on top of public blockchains. For example, imagine you want to send money confidentially to someone on a blockchain. Today, you wouldn’t. The amount of money you own, the amount you’re sending is public. With our technology, you would actually have that encrypted on chain but still be able to use it as part of any kind of blockchain application.

That is really a radical new proposition, I would say, because up until now, the only way to use a blockchain was to disclose everything to everyone. We’re effectively bridging that gap.

Inside the Zama Protocol and Testnet

When we started a company a few years ago, we focused on licensing our technology to other people. Most people don’t know that nine out of ten blockchain projects that use FHE use Zama technology in the backend.

Now, we are moving to having our own protocol called the Zama protocol that allows you to have confidentiality on top of any blockchain, even those that don’t license our technology directly. So you can have confidentiality on Ethereum, on Base, on Solana, on any really public blockchain.

The ability to have that on a public blockchain means that anybody can now start building apps where the on-chain data stays confidential regardless of which chain they actually want to use to deploy it. So the Zama protocol, like every protocol, has a testnet phase where we effectively launch that and allow developers and users to try it, start building the first apps and use cases ahead of a mainnet launch where it actually goes into production.

Use Cases: Confidential Payments and Beyond

I would say, by far, the biggest use case is confidential payments. If you look at stable coins, you look at global remittances, if you look at payroll, it’s very obvious that if you want to use a blockchain for that, you need to keep data confidential. I mean, if I told you right now to open your phone and show me your bank account, would you? Definitely not a chance.

Okay, there you go. This is what happens in a blockchain because I could see everything you own and do. That makes no sense whatsoever. Once you can encrypt it with homomorphic encryption, then you can start using a blockchain like you use a traditional bank account, like use a traditional credit card for anything from buying your coffee to getting your salary to buying a house. You can do it without other people knowing about it.

That’s one use case. The second one is enabling trading and tokenization of financial assets confidentially. Let’s imagine you are a large financial institution. You’re a hedge fund, you’re a bank. You want to use a blockchain for trading or even for just like, you know, settling some trades with a partner.

If everybody can see your trades and your positions, you’re not going to have much of an advantage in the market. The whole point is to have what we call an alpha, like something, a secret sauce that you don’t reveal. Blockchain today don’t allow you to keep things private. We’re also solving that.

Scaling, Developer Experience, and Security

When we started working on this, there were three main issues. First, it didn’t work. So we had to make the technology work. That’s done. Today, we have the most secure confidentiality technology. It’s even secure against quantum computers. So it’s as secure as it can ever be.

The second problem was it was very difficult to use for a developer. We actually solve that by integrating our technology into existing programming languages for smart contracts, like Solidity, for example, on Ethereum. As a developer, you don’t need to know cryptography to build a confidential application on chain.

And finally, there’s performance. FHE traditionally was very slow. We fixed that through new mathematics, better engineering, but also with better hardware. Effectively, today, scaling FHE and, therefore, scaling global payments on-chain, all these are use cases, is just a matter of putting more compute behind it. If there is one thing we learn from AI, it is that we can throw more compute than it works. We know how to do that. Just put more servers, put more GPUs, it’ll go faster.

So, there’s really nothing preventing homomorphic encryption from becoming the technology that makes it possible to have on-chain finance in a confidential manner.

You can think of it a little bit like, in your browser, when you connect to a website, you have this small lock that tells you that this is encrypted and protected. We’re effectively doing the same thing for blockchain.

Traditional Finance Appetite and Industry Examples

I would say that probably over half of the companies we talk to are financial institutions that are not Web3 native. They all want the same thing. They want to use blockchain because blockchain is the right solution for finance. We all agree on that. That’s established by everybody from Circle to all of these other companies doing that. Confidentiality was the last blocking point for the mass adoption of blockchain for finance.

I’ll give you two examples. We are working with a company right now that is issuing a confidential stablecoin. What it means is, it’s a regular stablecoin, you can use it for payment on chain, but the issuance is confidential, the amounts that you own is confidential, the amount you transfer is confidential, so you can actually use it for payment without having to disclose anything to other people.

That’s one example. Another example is that there is a company building an on-chain self-custodial bank where your money on chain is kept confidential with our technology. We’re talking about something like Revolut, fully on-chain, self-custodial, so even if the bank goes down, you can get back your money because it’s on-chain.

Try to imagine like the first bank that cannot rug you.

Performance, Security, and Cost

Speed-wise, there is going to be almost no difference. It’s not going to slow down the underlying blockchain. The latency is a couple of seconds, a few seconds. You’re probably not going to see it. Just clicking around on an app is going to take longer than that, effectively. So speed is not an issue. Cost is not an issue. At scale, it can be as cheap as about a cent per confidential token transfer.

On like an L2, like base, even in Ethereum, we’re just adding a couple of cents on top of Ethereum gas fees. We’re almost as cheap as the underlying blockchain allows us to be, pretty much. So that’s not an issue. The third one in terms of security we are post-quantum. Even a quantum computer cannot break homomorphic encryption, FHE. That is very important because there are many technologies that are being used today as shortcuts because they’re supposedly more performant.

First of all, that’s not true. But second of all, those technologies have been broken and will be broken going forward. If you want to have the best amount of security, you have to use FHE. There is nothing else that can actually get even closer.

The Road Ahead: Future Developments and Adoption Trajectory

So we’re in testnet now, that’s already big. We’re planning to have our first main net at the end of, let’s say October.

From that point, we’re gonna have other blockchains being supported, and then it’s game on. You know, initially let’s get at least 1% of watching transactions confidential, then 10% and 20%. If we take again the example of HTTPS, in your browser, the small lock protects your data. We’re connecting to the website. It went from 5% of the internet traffic being encrypted in 2010 to 96% now, I believe. We believe FHE will follow a similar type of trajectory where, five, six, or 10 years from now, over 90% of blockchain transactions will be encrypted and confidential with homomorphic encryption.

Conclusion

Rand Hindi’s vision for Zama represents a major leap for both user privacy and institutional confidence in blockchain networks. Fully homomorphic encryption is set to enable confidential apps, payments, trading, and on-chain banking, all without sacrificing security or speed.

As Zama moves from testnet to mainnet, the aim is to make confidential blockchain transactions as common as secure web browsing. Hindi’s conviction is clear—within the next decade, encrypted, private transactions could become the standard, not the exception, across every major blockchain.

The post Zama CEO Rand Hindi: Why Homomorphic Encryption Is Key to Blockchain’s Future appeared first on BeInCrypto.