Crypto Pulse Media

The new bond structure gives BTC credit utility, but ties that access to clear liquidation thresholds if prices fall.
On Mar. 31, Moody's assigned provisional Ba2 ratings to up to $100 million in taxable revenue bonds for the Waverose Finance Project. The bonds are secured by a loan to NH CleanSpark Borrower Trust 2026-1, with Bitcoin (BTC) as the pledged collateral.
Those numbers set the conditions under which traditional finance agreed to work with Bitcoin at all: 72.06 cents of credit for every dollar of collateral value, a two-day exposure window to act on price moves, and 1.60x initial collateral coverage, which forces action when it drops to 1.40x.
Bitcoin has spent years auditioning for legitimacy as a store of value, a corporate treasury reserve, and an ETF asset. The New Hampshire deal points to Bitcoin as collateral.
Collateral is where an asset earns credit utility, something institutions can borrow against inside structures that credit markets can understand, price, and, when necessary, liquidate fast. That is the line Bitcoin just crossed.
The Waverose structure is a taxable conduit revenue bond.
At 1.60x initial collateral coverage, the bond starts with debt equal to about 62.5% of collateral value. The 1.40x trigger, at which automatic action kicks in, implies a debt of roughly 71.4%.
The structure hits its wire trip when BTC falls by approximately 12.5% from issuance pricing, a move Bitcoin has executed routinely.
Moody's stressed the collateral value at 72.06% of the market price. Mapped to Bitcoin's Apr. 1 price in the $68,000 zone, the stress zone lands near $49,600.
Standard Chartered put its near-term bear case for Bitcoin at $50,000, and the traditional finance firms calibrated their first public finance haircut on Bitcoin almost exactly on top of a downside path that one of the world's largest banks still considers reachable
New Hampshire arrived alongside two other recent moves pointing in the same direction.
In February, S&P assigned the first-ever rating to a structured finance transaction backed by Bitcoin. The transaction was the Ledn Issuer Trust 2026-1, with roughly $199.1 million in loans secured by 4,078.87 BTC, carrying a fair market value of approximately $356.9 million, implying an LTV of about 55.8% at inception.
In March, Better and Coinbase launched what they called the first crypto-backed conforming mortgage, in which a borrower pledges $250,000 in BTC to fund a $100,000 down payment, while the first lien stays Fannie Mae-backed.New Hampshire arrived alongside two other recent moves pointing in the same direction.
Bitcoin received three credit wrappers in roughly six weeks, each with different haircuts, liquidation mechanics, and regulatory constraints. Together, they describe a process in which Bitcoin enters credit markets through multiple doors at once, and those doors are edging closer to ordinary household finance.
#ChaosLabsLeavingAave
#MarketRebound
#PolymarketMajorUpgrade
#StrategyBTCPurchase
#TrumpDeadlineOnIran

Bitcoin prices drop as much as 3.2 per cent to US$66,604 on Tuesday, before paring the decline
Bitcoin extended a four-week slide as investors returned to a more cautious macro backdrop.
The token dropped as much as 3.2 per cent to US$66,604 on Tuesday, before paring the decline.
Bitcoin, which has traded like a high-beta tech proxy in recent months, mirrored an earlier move lower in US equities, but failed to keep pace when stocks edged higher.
#Volatilidad
#XRPRealityCheck
#INNOVATION
#receita_federal
#KeonneRodriguez

A stronger-than-expected payrolls print landed into a market closure, leaving Bitcoin to absorb the macro signal before stocks reopen.
At 8:30 on a Friday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped one of the more surprising jobs reports of the past year. The US economy added 178,000 jobs in March, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3%.
When put against a Wall Street consensus calling for roughly 57,000 nonfarm payrolls, the number was an especially emphatic beat. It was the strongest monthly gain since the end of 2024, higher than every estimate in Bloomberg's recent surveys.
NYSE, Nasdaq, and bond markets were closed in observance of Good Friday, sealing off every traditional channel through which a data surprise like this would normally be absorbed and repriced.
For one of the most market-sensitive economic prints on the calendar, the timing couldn't have been more off.
That's why what follows is going to be a rare and instructive moment: a forced experiment in what price discovery looks like when all the normal machinery is offline.
February had been a disaster. The economy lost 92,000 jobs that month, nearly double the expectations, marking the fourth monthly job loss in nine months. The revisions compounded the damage: December was revised down by 65,000, from +48,000 to -17,000, and January was revised down by a further 4,000.
Heading into Friday, even the most optimistic forecasters weren't calling for anything like a rebound of this scale.
Much of March's gain came from healthcare. A strike of healthcare workers had pulled February's payrolls down, and the sector added 76,000 jobs in March to push overall job growth higher. Positions were also added in construction, transportation, and warehousing.
While the bounce itself was real, it's important to note that a big part of the growth was mechanical, a catch-up from previous disruptions rather than evidence of a suddenly recovered economy.
Still, 178,000 jobs against expectations of 57,000 isn't a rounding error. The implications for the Federal Reserve's policy were immediate and precise: if the numbers come in strong, crypto prices will fall because interest rate expectations rise.
Stronger labor data reduces the Fed's space to cut rates, and tighter financial conditions ripple through every risk asset. So the question here wasn't whether markets would react, but which markets, specifically, were still open to react at all.
Bitcoin remained the only major financial market still trading as the March report landed at 8:30 AM ET, with the NYSE closed and sentiment sitting at extreme fear levels. The crypto Fear and Greed Index had printed at 9 out of 100 on Apr. 3, a reading so low that it doesn't even signal panic anymore, but something closer to exhausted resignation. Bitcoin touched $66,300 in the morning, with traders seemingly focused on the incoming data.
The hot jobs print wasn't bullish or bearish per se. It was complicated, and Bitcoin, in its flatness, reflected that complexity with more fidelity than a knee-jerk rally or selloff would have.
Consider what the report contained beneath its surface. Long-term unemployment stood at 1.8 million, up 322,000 over the year. Federal government employment, under relentless contraction, continued to fall. The ongoing war with Iran still threatens to strain a delicate labor market, and developments in AI that lead to mass layoffs add further uncertainty.
When the opening bell rings Monday morning, stocks will be absorbing not only a jobs report that surprised every forecaster, but also whatever develops over the Easter weekend in a geopolitical environment that remains acutely fragile, with an ongoing Iran conflict still reshaping oil prices and the dollar simultaneously.
Bitcoin's stillness means that the market is holding a position, aware that any verdict rendered now may need to be revised entirely by what Monday brings.
The real judgment on March's jobs report will arrive when the institutions that normally lead this conversation are finally allowed back in the room. Until then, the numbers belong to the bond market, the foreign exchange desks, and the one financial market that does not observe holidays.
For three days, Bitcoin is the only clock still ticking. The question is whether it keeps accurate time
#writetoearn
#quickfarm
#DelistingAlert
#tobechukwu
#SniperStrategy .

Algorand has emerged as an early standout in the crypto market’s latest quantum security debate after a recent Google Quantum AI paper highlighted the blockchain as a live example of post-quantum cryptography being deployed on a network.
The attention came as the paper sharpened concerns around Bitcoin and Ethereum, two networks whose size, age, and design choices could make any future migration to quantum-resistant infrastructure slower and more complicated.
Against that backdrop, Algorand’s quieter work on Falcon digital signatures, state proofs, and key rotation suddenly looked less like a niche technical experiment and more like a practical head start.
The shift in attention helped lift Algorand’s token sharply over the past week, with traders treating the Google paper as validation of work already underway on the network.
According to CryptoSlate's data, ALGO, the blockchain network's native token, is one of the top performers over the past week, gaining around 50% to rise to $0.12 as of press time. Notably, the price performance came less than a week after the token fell to an all-time low of $0.08.
Algorand’s advantage over Bitcoin and Ethereum is narrower than the recent enthusiasm suggests, but it is also more concrete than what many larger chains can currently show.
In its paper, Google described Algorand as an example of real-world deployment of post-quantum cryptography on an otherwise
The distinction was important. It did not say Algorand had solved the problem end-to-end, but it did point to a network that had moved from theory into live implementation.
Algorand’s core consensus and built-in transactions still rely on Ed25519, which remains vulnerable in a sufficiently advanced quantum scenario.
However, the network has already deployed Falcon digital signatures for smart transactions and state proofs, the cryptographic attestations used to verify blockchain state across chains. It has also made Falcon verification available as a primitive for developers building on the Algorand Virtual Machine, giving the ecosystem a working set of tools rather than just a roadmap.
The network executed its first post-quantum-secured transaction in 2025, a milestone that set it apart from many larger rivals that are still debating design paths, governance trade-offs, and implementation timelines.
Algorand also allows users to rotate the private keys associated with their accounts, a feature that does not eliminate the underlying threat but could make future migrations more manageable.
That combination, live transaction capability, developer tooling, state-proof support, and native key rotation, is what turned Algorand into a focal point as the paper circulated through the market.
In a sector where many conversations around quantum risk remain theoretical, Algorand could point to infrastructure already in production.
For Bitcoin, the concern is not only whether quantum computers will eventually be able to derive private keys from public information, but also how much of the network’s legacy footprint would be difficult to migrate in time.
The paper said a quantum computer with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits could crack the elliptic-curve cryptography protecting Bitcoin wallets, a far lower threshold than earlier estimates that ran into the millions.
Google’s own most advanced chip, Willow, remains far below that level, but the revised estimate has intensified scrutiny of how much Bitcoin could be exposed if the technology advances faster than expected
The burden is particularly acute because some of Bitcoin’s oldest addresses keep public keys visible on-chain.
The paper cited an estimated 6.7 million BTC in older Pay-to-Public-Key addresses, including coins long associated with Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
Even outside those legacy wallets, the migration challenge is politically and technically heavy for a network that prioritizes backward compatibility and moves cautiously on base-layer changes.
Quantum risk, in Bitcoin’s case, is as much a governance and coordination problem as it is a cryptographic one.
Meanwhile, Ethereum’s exposure to the same quantum computing risk is somewhat broader.
Once an Ethereum user sends a transaction, the public key tied to that account becomes permanently visible on-chain. The paper said that this leaves the top 1,000 Ethereum wallets, holding roughly 20.5 million ETH, exposed under a sufficiently advanced quantum attack.
It also identified at least 70 major contracts with administrator keys visible on-chain, which ultimately control far more than the ETH they directly hold, including stablecoin minting authority and other system-critical permissions.
Moreover, the attack surface extends beyond wallets and contract administrators.
Ethereum’s proof-of-stake validator set, major Layer 2 networks, and parts of its data-availability architecture all rely on cryptographic components the paper described as vulnerable.
According to the paper, roughly 37 million ETH is staked, and much of Ethereum’s transaction load now flows through rollups and bridges that inherit assumptions from the base layer.
That means any serious post-quantum migration would have to reach not only users and validators, but also the network of applications and scaling systems built around them.
#PolymarketMajorUpgrade
#ChaosLabsLeavingAave
#StrategyBTCPurchase
#TrumpDeadlineOnIran
#USNFPExceededExpectations

The real question in Bitcoin’s quantum threat is who could actually use a multi-billion dollar quantum machine for criminal activity?
Quantum computing has advanced materially over the past 18 months, but the field remains in the transition from noisy hardware to early fault tolerance.
The key shift is away from raw physical-qubit counts and toward logical qubits, gate fidelity, runtime, and error correction. That shift is important for Bitcoin because risk estimates are driven by logical qubits and fault-tolerant operations rather than headline hardware totals.
Progress is visible across three fronts: below-threshold error correction, small logical-qubit demonstrations, and deeper circuits with lower noise.
In late 2024, Google’s Willow chip demonstrated below-threshold error correction, in which error rates fell as the encoded system scaled up. IBM says its current systems can run certain circuits with more than 5,000 two-qubit gates and has published a roadmap to a 200-logical-qubit fault-tolerant system by 2029.
Quantinuum has reported 48 error-corrected logical qubits and 64 error-detected logical qubits from 98 physical qubits, along with 50 error-detected logical qubits on Helios at better-than-break-even performance. Microsoft and Atom Computing reported 24 entangled logical qubits and computation with 28 logical qubits on neutral-atom hardware.
The sector remains short of a large-scale fault-tolerant machine. That is one reason DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative exists.
Its target is a quantum computer whose computational value exceeds its cost by 2033, and the agency is still validating competing architectures rather than certifying that any team has already reached that point.
Today’s systems can do four things with credibility. They can run benchmark problems beyond classical brute-force methods, including Google’s random circuit sampling and more recent work on Quantum Echoes.
They can perform limited, specialized simulations in physics and chemistry, often in hybrid workflows with classical high-performance computing. They can demonstrate logical qubits and fault-tolerant subroutines on small scales. They also function as testbeds for error correction, decoding, and control systems.
No public system has anywhere near the logical-qubit count, fault-tolerant gate budget, or sustained runtime needed for cryptographically relevant attacks on secp256k1. Google’s Willow contains 105 physical qubits.
The leading public demonstrations of logical qubits remain in the tens, not the thousands. A recent estimate from Google researchers and co-authors puts a Bitcoin-relevant attack in the range of 1,200 to 1,450 logical qubits and tens of millions of Toffoli gates, leaving a large gap between current machines and a cryptographically relevant system.
Bitcoin is not under quantum attack today. The threat has moved out of the science-fiction category and into the planning category.
Google’s new estimate reduces the required resources enough to sharpen the central question: whether Bitcoin and the broader cryptographic stack can migrate before fast-clock fault-tolerant systems cross the threshold for cryptographically relevant attacks.
Even if a top lab reaches that threshold sooner than expected, the limiting factor for bad actors is likely to be access, because the first cryptographically relevant systems would still be facility-scale machines with billion-dollar economics rather than tools that can be quietly bought, rented, or assembled at criminal scale.
Yes, we need a migration plan for Bitcoin. Yes, it's worth starting earlier than later. But no, your wallet is not going to be cracked, and the BTC stolen by a quantum computer anytime soon. Probably not even within our lifetime, to be honest.
Once a quantum computer exists in a frontier lab that can crack Bitcoin, if the migration isn't complete, the price will likely crater on sentiment, but there will still be decades before on-chain data is genuinely at risk.
#Dogecoin‬⁩
#ChaosLabsLeavingAave
#PolymarketMajorUpgrade
#TrumpDeadlineOnIran
#BTCBackTo70K

Charles Schwab operates 38.9 million active brokerage accounts and holds $12.22 trillion in client assets. For years, investors in those accounts could reach Bitcoin and Ethereum through ETFs, crypto-related equities, and futures.
A phased launch beginning in the second quarter closes the gap with direct investments. Schwab Crypto, offered through Charles Schwab Premier Bank, SSB, will let qualifying clients buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum directly.
The offer is available in all US states except New York and Louisiana, on a timeline that starts with employees and a small initial cohort before broadening.
The product architecture includes a structural boundary that clients and operators will immediately feel. Schwab Crypto operates through a dedicated account with an affiliated bank subsidiary.
This means that the structure is in a separate account from the brokerage accounts where investors already hold stocks, bonds, and ETFs. The crypto assets carry no SIPC or FDIC protection.
Schwab currently accepts no crypto deposits and does not settle securities or futures transactions in crypto. Mainstream access is real, and it arrives on carefully controlled broker-defined terms.
What drove the timing into 2026 is a policy calendar that dissolved three major institutional frictions within four months.
In January 2025, SAB 122 rescinded the earlier SAB 121 crypto safeguarding guidance that had made custody economics unattractive for traditional banks.
In March 2025, the OCC reaffirmed that crypto custody, certain stablecoin activities, and participation in distributed ledgers are permissible for national banks and removed the supervisory nonobjection requirement.
In April 2025, the Federal Reserve withdrew its earlier crypto guidance and moved to supervise those activities through the standard process.
Schwab CEO Rick Wurster described those regulatory moves as “pretty green” for large firms to expand into crypto, and the launch's timing confirms how directly the policy calendar shaped the product calendar.
#pepepumping
#Kriptocutrader
#BinanceHerYerde
#NOTCOİN
#CryptoPatience

The Pentagon is expanding a list of Iranian energy sites it can target for attacks to include ones that provide fuel and power to both civilians and the military, a likely workaround if the administration is accused of war crimes for striking basic infrastructure.
War planners are revising the list, according to two defense officials, as American and Israeli warplanes search for new targets after five weeks of around-the-clock strikes on military sites and U.S. ground troops surge into the region. The dual-use nature of the targets would make them legitimate, the officials said.
President Donald Trump has found himself increasingly hemmed in as the U.S. runs out of strategically important sites to attack in Iran and the regime in Tehran strangles the global economy with its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical pathway for the world’s oil. Trump could send in ground troops and open the door to an extended war that is already unpopular with the American public. Or he could target civilian infrastructure, a violation of international law, and face accusations of war crimes. The new option — which Israel has also employed — may offer a way out.
Trump on Monday threatened a situation “where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again.”
But Pentagon officials have debated whether that justification is valid, according to a third official who, like others interviewed, was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The tension revolves around where to draw the line between military and civilian targets, such as water desalination plants, which could be considered targets because military forces also need water to drink.
Trump has threatened to launch strikes on infrastructure Tuesday night if the Iranians don’t reach a deal with the U.S. by 8 p.m. Eastern time. The U.S. alone has hit more than 13,000 targets in Iran, according to U.S. Central Command.
It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander-in-chief maximum optionality,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “It does not mean the President has made a decision. The Iranian regime has until 8:00 p.m. tomorrow to make a deal with the United States. If they fail to do so, the president will send them back to the Stone Age, just as he promised.”
The Pentagon referred questions to the White House.
The American-Israeli bombing campaign has generally spared the country’s supply of electricity and fuel. But as frustrations grow at the White House over Iran’s refusal to capitulate to what are — publicly at least — somewhat vague American demands, the target list has grown.
Trump, during a press conference Monday on the Iran war, said the Iranian people would welcome energy infrastructure strikes. They “would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom,” he said. “They want us to keep bombing.”
You know what’s a war crime? Having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “Allowing a sick country, with demented leadership, [to] have a nuclear weapon — that’s a war crime.”
Trump, at the annual White House Easter event earlier Monday, said he is “not worried” about bombing civilian power plants and that it was Iran committing the war crimes.
Before targets get approved, they have to go under operational legal review,” said Sean Timmons, a former Army Judge Advocate General. “Some civilian infrastructure, if dually used by the military, can under the laws of war be a legitimate target. The concern that people have, that this will get excessive, is legitimate … but there are checks and balances.”
The Geneva Convention, which spells out the international humanitarian law, allows for leeway when strike sites are used by both the military and civilians.
Hegseth instead chose to reduce the number of employees working on the issue from 200 to less than 40. The laid-off staff assisted military commanders in choosing targets that would spare civilian lives, and investigated strikes after they occurred to better spare civilians in the future.Hegseth instead chose to reduce the number of employees working on the issue from 200 to less than 40. The laid-off staff assisted military commanders in choosing targets that would spare civilian lives, and investigated strikes after they occurred to better spare civilians in the future.
But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last year gutted the Pentagon offices that assist with military targeting and preventing civilian harm, which may mean less oversight of such issues.
But Timmons also noted that Trump has repeatedly called for the Iranian population to help overthrow regime leaders. Attacks against key civilian support facilities could work against that goal.
Hegseth last month announced he would further cut the lawyers who advise commanders of an operation’s legality, known as judge advocate generals. He fired Army, Navy and Air Force lawyers in the first days of the administration.
If your objective truly is degrading their military capacity … then indiscriminately bombing would only prolong the suffering of the individual people,” he said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, in a statement, blasted Trump’s threats to attack infrastructure targets as “reckless, dangerous, and indicative of a mindset that shows indifference to human life and contempt for religious beliefs.”
#QueencryptoNews
#writetoearn
#EconomicAlert
#receita_federal
#YiHeBinance

That’s the largest drop since Apartment List began tracking in 2017and larger than the record set in the early months of the Covid pandemic.
The war with Iran has caused mortgage rates to rise sharply and quickly. Applications to refinance a home loan have been sinking in response.
Opendoor is acquiring part of Doma, a property technology company that uses machine learning and AI to make real estate closings faster and more affordable, the companies told CNBC exclusively.
Now two property tech leaders are joining forces to lower those costs.
Opendoor
, which buys homes directly from sellers and has a title and escrow business, is acquiring part of Doma, a property technology company that automates title searches, the companies told CNBC exclusively. Doma says it uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to make real estate closings — specifically title, escrow and underwriting — faster and more affordable.
We’re in the process of completely rebuilding and automating, like most of the other pieces of technology that Opendoor is working on ... to eliminate time and money for customers,” said Lucas Matheson, president of Opendoor.
Since 2024, Doma’s technology has been used in a Fannie Mae pilot program designed to reduce title insurance costs on eligible refinance transactions. It was just extended through 2027.
Under the program, certain refinance transactions determined by Doma to have low title risk may be sold to Fannie Mae without needing a lender’s title insurance policy or an attorney opinion letter. So far, that has been about 80% of the refinance candidates, according to Doma.
The title insurance, however, is only one component of the refinancing process. Closing costs include other services, such as setting up an escrow account, making sure all the mortgages are paid off, paying transfer fees and taxes. Some of this is still manual and highly service-oriented; it can take several days and add thousands of dollars to the cost of the refinance.
This program grew so dramatically last year, we were operating our own closing and escrow agency, and it’s a sizable one, and doing a decent job of keeping up, but, frankly, the demand was outstripping our ability to close transactions,” said Max Simkoff, CEO of Doma. “We just did not have the resources to be able to do both the tech for the risk decisioning and the closing side.”
So Doma went looking for a company with the technology to scale its business as far as possible and ended up with Opendoor, whose technology can do the closings much more efficiently. As a result, the price that it charges for closings is lower than the industry average, according to Simkoff.
Following the acquisition, 85 employees from Doma will be joining Opendoor.
The refinance business, however, is not what it was just a month ago. The war with Iran has caused mortgage rates to rise sharply and quickly. Applications to refinance a home loan have been sinking in response. Demand is down 20% in just the past four weeks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Refinances in the current market represent the most challenged home ownership experience,” said Simkoff. “Nobody doing refinance at a six and a quarter, 30-year fixed mortgage is doing it because they want to, they’re doing it because they have to.”
But both Simkoff and Matheson say the timing of this collaboration is irrelevant.
Last year, they note, mortgage rates were higher, and the program with Fannie Mae still saw enormous growth. Even if the pool of refinances shrinks, the share of borrowers using Opendoor’s closing services with Fannie Mae will grow, according to Matheson.
This is around $1,100 per refi that a family would save while injecting effectively no risk into the system,” he said. “Just for context, Doma has had a zero defect track record in this program.”
#PolymarketMajorUpgrade
#ChaosLabsLeavingAave
#StrategyBTCPurchase
#TrumpDeadlineOnIran
#BTCBackTo70K

Home buyers in the first quarter were more concerned about the economy and mortgage rates than they were about home prices, according to the CNBC Housing Market Survey.
The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage hit a low of 5.99% the day before the Iran war started and is now hovering around 6.5%.
Affordability is not improving as much as most experts had forecast, which means buyer demand is dropping and homes are sitting on the market longer.
The all-important spring housing market is well underway, but expectations are falling short due to the war in Iran and its impact on both the U.S. economy and consumer sentiment.
Mortgage rates, which were previously forecast to be far lower this spring than last, are now much higher, and concerns over employment and inflation are throwing cold water on pent-up homebuyer demand.
Buyers in the first quarter of this year were more concerned about the economy and mortgage rates than they were about home prices, according to real estate agents who participated in the quarterly CNBC Housing Market Survey.
They’re fearful of the war, they’re fearful of gas prices, [for] their job security,” said Faith Harmer, an agent in the Las Vegas metropolitan area.
The CNBC Housing Market Survey is a national inquiry of real estate agents selected randomly across the United States. Responses for the first-quarter survey were collected between March 24 and March 30. This quarter, 70 agents shared their insights.
When asked about their buyers’ primary concern, about one-third of agents said the economy, while another third said mortgage rates. The latter marked a big jump from just 26% in the fourth quarter.
Only 9% of agents in the first-quarter survey said prices were their buyers’ biggest concern, down from 18% in the previous period.
This should come as no surprise, as the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage hit a low of 5.99% the day before the Iran war started and then began to climb. It’s now hovering around 6.5%.
Still, while most agents said prices were either flat or falling, nearly twice as many agents, 29%, reported home prices rising during the first quarter than did in the previous quarter. Price dynamics can vary widely depending on the market and region of the country.
But affordability is not improving as much as most experts had forecast. When asked how affordability was hitting buyers, 19% of agents said it was causing them to get out of the market. That was up from just 11% at the end of last year.
We’ve had two sellers who were planning on listing in May already decide, ‘Let’s hold, let’s search later in the summer for our next home to buy, and then we’ll try and list in the fall,’” said Dana Bull, an agent in the Boston area. “So they originally thought that the spring would be perfect for them, because it just felt like it was going to be the best time, and now they don’t feel as confident, and they want to wait and see.”
Just over half of agents surveyed said they expect the market to improve as the spring goes on, but that share is way down from the end of last year, when there was no war in the picture.
A higher share of agents said they expect the market to stay the same as last quarter, which is significant, given that the market is going from the historically slowest season for housing to the usually busiest.
#USNFPExceededExpectations
#VeChainNodeMarketplace #UnicornChannel
#XRPRealityCheck

Citrini Research said it dispatched an analyst to Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, where the analyst traveled by boat to observe shipping activity in the Strait of Hormuz.
What the unnamed analyst claims to have found challenges the dominant narrative gripping global markets that the critical oil artery is effectively shut.
The analyst found that vessels are still moving through the strait, with traffic picking up recently to about 15 ships per day, Citrini’s Substack report said.
As the world’s oil traders parsed satellite images and official statements for clues on the fate of the Strait of Hormuz, one research firm seems to have taken a different approach: It says it sent an analyst directly into the conflict zone.
Citrini Research, which issued a market-shaking bearish call on artificial intelligence earlier this year, said it dispatched an analyst to Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, where the person traveled by boat to observe shipping activity firsthand amid escalating tensions between Iran and the U.S. What the analyst claims to have found challenges the dominant narrative gripping global markets that the critical oil artery is effectively shut.
Instead, the analyst, whom the firm did not name due to the sensitivity of the activity, found that vessels are still moving through the strait, with traffic picking up in recent days to roughly 15 ships per day, according to the firm’s report posted on Substack. While far below normal levels, the flow suggests the disruption is partial and evolving rather than absolute.
Tankers passing through four or five a day, completely dark on AIS. The volume, they said, is higher than what the data suggests, and it’s been accelerating in the past couple days through the Qeshm channel,” Citrini’s post said.
AIS is a ship-tracking system that broadcasts a vessel’s location, speed, identity and route. Citrini asserts that the actual shipping volume is higher than reported data as many ships turn off their transponders and are not visible on official tracking systems.
Citrini didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Based on the Substack post, the analyst’s interviews with fishermen, smugglers and regional officials point to a system in which Iran is selectively allowing ships to pass. Tankers are required to secure approval before transiting waters near Iranian territory, creating what the firm described as a “functional checkpoint” rather than a blockade, Citrini said in its post.
This should drive home that what we’ve described as our view of the conflict is nuanced — it doesn’t fit neatly into ‘strait open crude down’ or ‘strait closed crude parabolic,’” the firm said.
To be sure, the findings are based on a single field trip and anecdotal accounts that are difficult to independently verify, particularly given limited transparency in the region.
The firm said it expects a more prolonged disruption that embeds a lasting risk premium into oil markets. That view underpins a preference for longer-dated crude exposure, with the firm favoring December 2026 WTI contracts over the front month.
We think the disruption is longer and the new normal involves a permanent risk premium, but that we’ll likely see as high as 50% of pre-conflict traffic within the next 4-6 weeks,” Citrini said.
#StrategyBTCPurchase
#TrumpDeadlineOnIran
#BTCBackTo70K
#DriftProtocolExploited
#ADPJobsSurge

If you own a home Wi-Fi router (and who doesn’t?) you might be in a pinch: you own an aging, insecure gateway, but the government isn’t going to allow you to easily upgrade it.
The FCC’s March decision to block Wi-Fi consumer routers made or designed on foreign soil immediately crippled the market: virtually all routers are made or designed overseas, either by foreign companies or contract manufacturers.
The FCC’s actions are already in place. They don’t block the actual transactional sale of a new router, but they block the licensing and approval of new routers to be sold in the United States — an indirect ban, but an effective one. The FCC’s regulation also guarantees that you’ll be upgrade the firmware of your router through March 2027. After that, it’s up in the air. It’s an effective cap on new routers being developed, approved, and sold, but also might affect the supply of existing, approved routers, too.
A recent study by Ookla, the manufacturer of Speedtest, offers some additional perspective: The study says that the top Speedtest users (used by Ookla as a “market share” proxy for the United States) not only use routers made outside the U.S., but that those routers are due for an upgrade.
The study also indirectly addresses another issue: most of the listed brands aren’t well-known retail names, implying that they are actually “white label” hardware. In fact, several of the names on the list are used by major ISPs like Comcast and Charter. Under the new rules, your ISP wouldn’t be allowed to offer you an upgrade…or even possibly a firmware upgrade, either.
It’s a big problem, since just over a third (35 percent) of all tested routers ran either 2009’s Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) or 2013’s Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) standards, which have long been superseded by 2023’s Wi-Fi 7 and the upcoming Wi-Fi 8. Most of the flagship features on each wireless standard deal with improved throughput and connectivity, but they also include under-the-hood protections which help secure your data. Upgrading your router certainly helps solve that problem, as well as ensuring your firmware is up to date too.
The top brand used by Speedtest users is Amazon’s Eero, which doesn’t disclose where the router is manufactured. But as Ookla notes: ““It is not possible to build a consumer router based entirely on U.S. components; that part of the supply chain doesn’t exist in the United States,” added analyst Avi Greengart of Techsponential.
Other brands, such as Asustek and Arcadyan, are headquartered in Taiwan. That would almost immediately disqualify them from future sale.
The vast majority of Eero routers use either Wi-Fi 7 or Wi-Fi 6, the most modern standard. The manufacturer with the oldest hardware listed is Google, with about 66 percent of its users stuck on Wi-5 or Wi-Fi 4.
Ookla’s vendor list also includes several white-box brands: Arcadyan, the top vendor of hardware to Verizon customers; Arris, the top vendor of Comcast-branded routers; and Askey and Sagemcom, which supply router hardware to Charter.
The trouble isn’t owning one of these routers; the trouble is in replacing them. Analysts have told me that the only routers that they’re aware of that are (probably) all domestically designed and built are the Starlink routers. (The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.) However, this solution won’t work for everyone.
Instead, the industry (and government!) are going to have to come up with come middle ground. Otherwise, the only strategy possible is to buy up all the available supply of modern routers — and when those are gone, they’re gone.
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PC gamers face an ongoing problem: more powerful games demand more powerful resources, all in the service of games that deliver more realistic experiences and graphics. But can gamers avoid paying out outrageous sums of money to keep up?
Texture compression might be an answer, shrinking down the size of games as well as allowing them to fit into the limited video memory of older, cheaper cards. Both Nvidia and Intel are working on ideas, which could be available to new and existing hardware in the coming months. All told, it’s an exciting potential solution to the ongoing scarcity of RAM and video RAM, which is driving up prices (including video cards) and holding back new graphics-card releases.
Both companies outlined their plans in recent weeks: Intel announced its Neural Texture Compression SDK this weekend, while Nvidia’s related neural texture compression talk at GTC 2026 showed how textures could be effectively impressed using its hardware, too.
3D graphics is essentially a puppet show: Historically, each object is created by a framework of surfaces, and then the game designers tell your PC how to “cover” them with textures that are individually lit and colored. It’s this texture data that can make up the bulk of the game’s size, since each object can have several “maps” applied to it.
A realistic-looking “brick” might be coded to tell the game which parts of the brick are shadowed, which are rough or glossy, and how those differences affect the color of the brick itself. These are called “maps.” And they matter: A game like Hogwarts: Legacy might require 58GB of data; the “High Definition Texture Pack” can require an additional 18.3GB. Loading textures in and out of memory can also cause stuttering in games, so reducing the size of those textures also can improve the way the game plays, too.
Microsoft, which is trying to build a DirectX API that will allow this to happen, has already said that it plans to build support for neural texture compression into DirectX. It’s assuming that developers will want to use what it calls both “small models” and “scene models” to allow next-generation scene rendering, which could include neural lighting and neural texture compression. In both, AI would be used to calculate how a scene should be drawn and shaded, versus actually performing all of these calculations itself.
Intel engineers showed its Texture Set Neural Compression working in two variants, compressing textures up to 9X or over 17X versus uncompressed data, depending upon the method used. According to Intel graphics engineer Marissa Dubois, the textures could be decompressed at various points: at installation, while the game was loading, or even later. Like other compression techniques, it uses similarities in the data texture maps to try and reduce the data size.
Intel’s presentation noted that there is a bit of what it calls “perceptual error: 6-7 percent for the second 17X variant, or 5 percent with the first. Both can either use the XMX cores inside the Intel Arc GPUs, or “fall back” to a more generic implementation that can be used on other CPUs and even GPUs. XMX inference on Panther Lake is about 3.4 times faster than the fallback method, Intel said.
For now, this is a demo, Intel engineers said. An alpha software development kit (SDK) is scheduled for later this year, followed by a beta and then an eventual release.
Nvidia has already unveiled DLSS 5, the controversial graphics enhancement which adds generative AI as a way to “improve” the quality of games — where DLSS 5’s “improvements” is very much in doubt. Nvidia’s Neural Texture Compression is explicitly deterministic, which means that it always reconstructs the same texture that the developer designed
Nvidia does use a small neural network to reconstruct the data, running on its Tensor cores. The RTX Neural Texture Compression SDK is available for developers to use today.
Nvidia showed off two demonstrations: neural texture compression and neural materials. Nvidia demonstrated how NTC could be used to compress a scene that previously required 6.5GB of VRAM to just 970 MB with NTC. It’s not as clear what Nvidia is doing with neural materials, but it appears the company is trying to tell the GPU what the properties of a material actually are, and then compress those instructions. The graphics card would then essentially construct the material, speeding up the process from between 1.4X to 7.7X, according to Nvidia.
AMD doesn’t yet offer an SDK to lower memory consumption in games. However, in 2024 it published a paper on neural texture block compression, slicing texture sizes by 70 percent.
All told, neural compression isn’t something that can benefit you yet. But it appears to be just a few months off…and let’s face it, it probably can’t get here soon enough.
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The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI also packs an Intel Core Ultra 9, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD for $1,200 now at Best Buy.
The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI just got a massive price cut, dropping from $1,600 down to $1,200 at Best Buy. It hits that rare trifecta of gaming gear: a stunning display, a powerhouse configuration, and a price tag that won’t make you close the tab in a panic.
Built for gamers, this laptop comes equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor that’s ready to tackle anything you ask of it, aided by 16GB of speedy DDR5 RAM and a full 1TB of storage space that’s perfect for all those games you promise you’ll play soon. The cherry on top of this cake is the presence of the RTX 5060 GPU. This is the best one you’ll get at this price point, but it’s going to do its job just fine as long as you don’t expect to use this laptop for any gaming competitions.
Then there’s the 16-inch OLED display. Now that’s a screen you’ll absolutely adore using day in and day out. Not only will it deliver impressive colors, great contrast, and deep blacks, but it will also keep up with all your gaming sessions, delivering smooth visuals. The 240Hz refresh rate will make sure of that.
Connectivity isn’t something you’ll have to worry about because this laptop comes with several USB ports, an Ethernet port, a couple of USB-C ports, HDMI, and even a microSD card slot.
For $1,200, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S is a heck of a catch. If you’re interested, get it before this Best Buy deal ends. Otherwise, if it’s outside your budget and you need something a little cheaper, check out PCWorld’s picks for the best gaming laptops under $1,000.
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Kenya has blocked a second fuel shipment from docking at the Port of Mombasa as investigations intensify into a controversial cargo import deal, deepening scrutiny of the country’s oil supply chain and triggering high-level resignations.
Kenya has blocked a second fuel shipment at Mombasa amid investigations into a controversial government oil import deal.
Scrutiny intensified following irregularities with an initial shipment, leading to a probe into possible system manipulation.
Key officials, including the heads of regulatory and supply agencies, have resigned over attempts to undermine the fuel import framework.
President William Ruto vowed a crackdown on entrenched oil cartels and external pressures affecting the sector.
The move follows concerns surrounding an earlier fuel shipment that had already entered Kenya's supply chain but was later flagged over irregularities linked to its procurement and handling under the government-to-government oil import framework.
The initial cargo, now at the center of investigations, raised red flags within regulatory and government circles, prompting a broader probe into potential manipulation of the system.
The recent investigation has triggered the resignation of senior executives in Kenya’s energy sector amid allegations of fuel stock data manipulation and the procurement of an emergency cargo at inflated price
The affected officials include Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority Director-General Daniel Kiptoo, Kenya Pipeline Company Managing Director Joe Sang, and Petroleum Principal Secretary Mohamed Liban.
According to Reuters, the Kenyan government said the manipulated data was used to justify the emergency importation of fuel, despite standing contracts ​with Saudi Aramco Trading Fujairah, Abu Dhabi's ADNOC Global ​Trading Ltd, and Emirates National Oil Company Singapore Ltd., all of which ‌are ⁠meeting their contractual obligations.
Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi confirmed that it was findings from this first shipment that led authorities to take decisive action against a second cargo headed for Mombasa.
The decision comes amid growing concerns about malpractice within the sector and fears of supply disruptions tied to tensions in the Middle East.
Speaking in Narok, President William Ruto struck a defiant tone, linking the crisis to entrenched cartels and external pressures tied to instability in the Middle East.
He added that his administration would dismantle entrenched networks in the oil sector just as it has done in the coffee and tea industries since taking office.
Despite the disruptions, the government has moved to calm fears of fuel shortages. Wandayi emphasized that petroleum stocks remain sufficient to meet current demand and that the country’s supply framework remains intact.
The ministry has also launched an internal review of petroleum management systems to strengthen transparency and protect supply chain integrity, warning that there will be “no tolerance for cartels, profiteers, or extortionists” exploiting the crisis.
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Africa’s largest uranium producer, Namibia, hosts a new high-grade critical mineral site after Australian-listed Askari Metals (ASX: AS2) reported Phase 1 trenching results at its 100%-owned Uis Project, confirming extensive polymetallic mineralisation.
Askari Metals has discovered high-grade tin, lithium, tantalum, and rubidium at its 100%-owned Uis Project in Namibia
These minerals are critical for high-tech, electronics, batteries, and renewable energy applications, enhancing the project's strategic importance.
Phase 1 trenching reported significant assay results, with lithium and tin exceeding common industry benchmarks.
The discovery positions Namibia as a key player in the global critical minerals supply chain.
The results highlight strong tin, lithium, tantalum, and rubidium along a 2.2-kilometre pegmatite trend, supporting potential resource definition and future mining development.
These minerals are considered critical metals due to their essential role in modern technology and industrial applications. Tin is used in electronics and alloys, lithium powers batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage, tantalum is crucial for capacitors in high-tech electronics, and rubidium has applications in specialty electronics and atomic clocks.
Trenching was completed on roughly 40-metre spacing to guide follow-up drilling in the second half of 2026. Peak results included 8,340 ppm tin, 0.57% lithium oxide, 299 ppm tantalum, and 2,380 ppm rubidium, with lithium grades exceeding commonly used cut-off thresholds for spodumene pegmatites.
The discovery therefore positions Namibia as a potential key supplier of materials underpinning the global technology and green energy supply chain, highlighting both strategic and economic significance for the country.
The discovery positions Namibia, Africa’s largest uranium producer, as an emerging critical minerals hub, complementing its established revenue streams from uranium, diamonds, and base metals.
Critical minerals such as lithium and tantalum are in growing global demand for batteries, electronics, and renewable energy technologies, meaning successful development could generate substantial export revenues and strengthen Namibia’s strategic role in the continent’s mining landscape.
With tin prices hovering around US$46,000 per ton and peaks of US$57,000 per ton, the project could contribute substantially to national mining revenues, attract foreign investment, and create employment in a region already benefiting from established infrastructure, including the Walvis Bay deepwater port.
Executive Director Gino D’Anna noted that the project’s proximity to the operating Uis tin mine provides logistical advantages and untapped potential for multiple pegmatite targets. “The Uis Project is shaping up to be a major strategic asset, offering substantial economic upside,” he said.
As Namibia seeks to diversify beyond traditional minerals, discoveries like Uis underscore the country’s potential to capture a growing share of Africa’s critical minerals market, with long-term implications for revenue, industrial development, and global supply chain relevance.
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The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has launched the active phase of a $46.5 million regional programme that aims to turn the long-neglected Ubangi River basin into an engine of economic growth, food security and cross-border trade in Central Africa.
The DRC launched the active phase of PREDIRE, a $46.5M AfDB-backed programme in the Ubangi River basin.
It targets water infrastructure, agriculture, river navigation and climate resilience in three provinces.
2.4 million people are expected to benefit, with 3,400 jobs created and a focus on women and youth.
The programme mirrors a parallel initiative in the Central African Republic, creating a rare cross-border development corridor.
The programme, known by its French acronym PREDIRE, was officially kicked off in the DRC on 16 February 2026, backed by the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group.
It targets three provinces, Nord-Ubangi, Sud-Ubangi and Mongala, areas that have for decades struggled with poverty, weak infrastructure and growing climate pressures.
The Ubangi River stretches over 2,272 kilometres, flowing between the DRC, the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Republic of Congo.
It is the main right-bank tributary of the Congo River, the second-largest river basin in the world. Despite its strategic location, the basin has remained largely underdeveloped.
Over the past 30 years, shifting rainfall patterns have reduced water levels and runoff in the Ubangi by up to 18%, damaging biodiversity, crippling river navigation and restricting trade.
PREDIRE is designed to reverse that trajectory. The programme is funded jointly by the African Development Fund, the AfDB’s concessional arm, the OPEC Fund and the DRC government.
It takes what planners call a water,food security, climate nexus approach, linking water infrastructure with agricultural support and climate adaptation.
On the ground, this means building climate-resilient water systems to underpin the DRC’s national agricultural transformation agenda, modernising the river’s information and monitoring systems, and improving navigation along the Ubangi to ease trade with the CAR and the Republic of Congo.
Beyond water access, the initiative is targeting the creation of 3,400 jobs, including 1,200 permanent positions, alongside entrepreneurship training and support for local livelihoods.
Working alongside the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the programme will also run a dedicated resilience component for the most vulnerable, directly supporting 25,000 people in fragile and displacement-affected communities, while building capacity among more than 1,300 institutional and community actors.
The DRC’s component of PREDIRE is being supervised by the Ministry of Rural Development and technically coordinated through the PRISE II project, which will also introduce modern tools for water governance, data-driven planning and cross-border coordination.
The DRC launch follows the start of the CAR component in August 2025, making the Ubangi basin the site of one of the most ambitious transboundary development programmes currently underway in Central Africa.Beyond water access, the initiative is targeting the creation of 3,400 jobs, including 1,200 permanent positions, alongside entrepreneurship training and support for local livelihoods.
The broader PREDIRE initiative sits within a wider cluster of investments in the basin. A separate $8.7 million initiative backed by the Global Environment Facility, with $67 million in co-financing, complements PREDIRE by integrating environmental and ecosystem approaches across the water, agriculture and transport sectors.
For a region where water scarcity, conflict and climate stress have long fed each other, the programme represents a bet that shared rivers, managed well, can do the opposite.
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Africa is sitting on a revenue goldmine it has barely touched. If the continent’s governments modernise how they collect taxes, using digital tools, closing enforcement gaps and cutting wasteful exemptions, they could unlock an additional $469.4 billion a year between 2025 and 2029.
Africa collects far less in taxes than it needs to fund development, and loses even more to illicit flows, corruption and wasteful exemptions.
The African Development Bank says $469.4 billion in additional annual revenue is within reach if governments digitise, enforce and simplify their tax systems.
Nigeria, which has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios on the continent, signed landmark reform laws in 2025 that took effect in January 2026.
But experts say the scale of the challenge demands far bolder and faster action across the continent.
That is the scale of opportunity the African Development Bank (AfDB) placed before finance ministers gathered in Tangier, Morocco, for the 58th Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.
According to The Guardian, the bank’s Chief Economist, Prof. Kevin Urama, told ministers that Africa’s average tax revenue currently sits at about 18.4 per cent of GDP.
The AfDB estimates this ratio needs to reach at least 27 per cent to close the continent’s annual financing gap of roughly $402 billion, the amount needed to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 targets.
The shortfall is driven by a large informal economy, patchy enforcement, fragmented data systems and tax evasion.
The problem is not just what governments are failing to collect. It is also what they are actively losing.
Africa bleeds an estimated $587 billion every year through illicit financial flows, a figure that actually exceeds the $578 billion the continent mobilised in total tax revenue in 2023.
The losses include illegal mining, unregulated trade and billions drained through international tax evasion loopholes. Urama described these as losses largely within governments’ own power to stop.
To close the gap, the AfDB urged ministers to deploy digital payment platforms, unique taxpayer identification systems and artificial intelligence to catch compliance failures.
The bank also called for the elimination of tax exemptions that produce no measurable return and for tighter rules on transfer pricing and capital flight, practices that allow corporations and wealthy individuals to shift profits out of African jurisdictions.
The prescription is not theoretical. Uganda’s Revenue Authority introduced an Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing System that lifted VAT revenue by 50 per cent after its launch in 2021.
Kenya’s revenue grew 11.1 per cent in 2024, up from 6.4 per cent the year before, on the back of digital compliance systems. These numbers show what is possible when technology meets political will.
For Nigeria, the challenge is especially sharp. Between 2013 and 2023, Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio barely moved, edging down slightly from 8.3 to 8.2 per cent, even as the average across 38 African countries rose from 14.7 to 16.1 per cent over the same period.
The country has one of the lowest tax collection rates on the continent.
President Bola Tinubu signed a sweeping set of four tax reform laws in June 2025, the most comprehensive overhaul of Nigeria’s fiscal architecture in decades.
The laws, which took effect in January 2026, consolidate dozens of overlapping levies into a unified system, create a new Nigeria Revenue Service and introduce digital VAT tools.
The goal, according to the government’s reform committee, is to raise non-oil revenue to 40 per cent of GDP by 2030. But Urama’s remarks in Tangier were a reminder of how wide the gap remains, and how much work lies ahead.
The AfDB said it currently runs 31 active revenue mobilisation programmes across 22 member countries and is prepared to support governments through financing, technical assistance and policy support.
In March 2026, the bank approved a $5.52 million grant to strengthen tax administration in Nigeria and other West African countries, marking the first region-wide tax project the AfDB has financed through the West African Tax Administration Forum
The bank also announced the launch of a Public Service Delivery Index for Africa, a scorecard designed to measure how effectively governments convert tax receipts into actual services.
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Senegal cracks down on foreign trips for ministers as global oil prices surge
Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko says crude prices are nearing double the budget benchmark, forcing urgent fiscal adjustments.
Senegal has banned ministers from non-essential foreign travel to curb rising government spending amid escalating oil prices.
The move reflects a broader African response, with countries adopting measures to manage fuel costs and energy shortages.
Experts warn that disruptions to global supply chains could worsen food security, especially in vulnerable regions.
Addressing a youth rally on Friday, Sonko revealed that the cost of a barrel of oil was nearing twice the level initially projected in the national budget, signalling a sharp and unexpected fiscal strain.
In response, he confirmed that he had personally suspended planned visits to Niger, Spain, and France, underscoring the seriousness of the government’s cost-cutting drive.
Further measures to rein in public expenditure are expected, with the minister of mines set to outline additional steps in the coming days.
Senegal’s decision reflects a broader continental response to surging energy costs, driven in part by escalating tensions in the Middle East. Several African countries are already adjusting policies to cushion the impact, including tax reductions on fuel and energy rationing.
Despite recent progress in developing its domestic oil and gas sector, Senegal remains heavily reliant on imported fuel, leaving it vulnerable to global price shocks. Sonko acknowledged the challenges but sought to strike a measured tone, telling young people he did not wish to “frighten” them, but rather to offer “a sense of this world, which is a difficult world”. He added that, even in hardship, Senegalese citizens remained resilient.
The country’s economic outlook had appeared strong as recently as last year, with the International Monetary Fund describing growth as “robust” at nearly 8% and inflation relatively low. However, high public debt, estimated at over 130% of GDP, continues to weigh heavily. Sonko attributed much of this burden to the previous administration, arguing it has compounded the current crisis.
Across Africa, the ripple effects are becoming increasingly visible. South Africa has moved to cut fuel taxes; Ethiopia is grappling with fuel shortages that have disrupted public services; and South Sudan has begun rationing electricity. Zimbabwe, meanwhile, is increasing ethanol blending in petrol.
Compounding concerns, disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have constrained fertiliser supplies globally, prompting warnings of a looming food security crisis, particularly in East Africa.
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Ghana’s Energy Chamber, led by Executive Chairman Joshua B. Narh, has announced its withdrawal from the Africa Energies Summit in London, citing discriminatory hiring practices and the systematic exclusion of African professionals from leadership and decision-making roles.
Ghana’s Energy Chamber has withdrawn from the Africa Energies Summit in London, citing discriminatory hiring and exclusion of African professionals from key roles.
This decision reflects a broader continental push, with other African countries and organizations demanding better representation in international energy forums.
The Chamber called on Ghanaian stakeholders to reconsider summit participation until corrective actions are taken by organizers.
Despite Africa's growing influence in global energy, platforms often fail to include African professionals in staffing and agenda-setting, undermining credibility.
The move, formalized in a statement on April 2, 2026, reflects a growing trend across the continent, as African governments, national oil companies, and indigenous firms push back against platforms that claim to speak for Africa while sidelining its talent.
The decision mirrors similar actions by Mozambique and petroleum ministers from the African Petroleum Producers Organization, signaling a broader push for principle and representation in international energy forums
For Ghana, the withdrawal is not simply about missing a conference but about asserting the continent’s right to influence discussions about its own resources and ensuring that African professionals have access to leadership and decision-making roles they have long earned.
Africa is emerging as a major player in the global energy market. Expanding oil and gas production, growing expertise in renewable energy, and an increasing pool of highly skilled engineers, energy economists, and project managers are helping shape global energy strategies.
The Dangote Refinery, Africa’s largest, continues to exert influence on international energy markets, emerging as a key fuel supplier as the US-Iran crisis disrupts global oil flows.
Yet, many platforms that claim to represent Africa’s energy future fail to reflect this reality. African professionals are often excluded from staffing, programming, and agenda-setting roles, undermining both credibility and the continent’s opportunities in the sector.
Ghana has long been at the forefront of Africa’s energy evolution. From pioneering petroleum governance frameworks after the Jubilee discovery to advancing gas-to-power integration and regional electricity cooperation, Ghanaian institutions and professionals have shaped much of the continent’s modern energy sector.
Yet, conferences operating under Africa’s name frequently fail to reflect African leadership in staffing, programming, and agenda-setting.
For Ghana, local content is more than a conference theme—it is national policy, workforce development, and intergenerational strategy.
The statement underscores that panels and discussions alone are not enough; African professionals must be actively included in staffing, leadership, and programming.
The Energy Chamber Ghana has demanded that summit organizers: disclose workforce diversity data, clarify recruitment pathways, include Africa-based professionals in leadership, and establish engagement channels with African institutions supporting workforce and capacity building.
As Africa grows in global energy influence, Ghana’s withdrawal signals a clear message: African talent cannot be treated as optional participants in discussions about its own resources, and platforms claiming to represent Africa must reflect African leadership at every level
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It's the reaction to market turbulence that separates the average investors from the great ones.
It's been a turbulent year for the stock market. The S&P 500 index has been hurt by worsening sentiment. It could be from the Middle East conflict, the acceptance of higher interest rates for longer, or general uncertain
As of April 1, the widely followed benchmark is down 4% in 2026. This is after it produced a total return of 18% in 2025. The slow start can keep some market participants on edge.
Long-term investors shouldn't panic, though. Here's the right approach.
Over the past decade, the S&P has generated a total return of 277%. On an annualized basis, this means your capital compounded at a 14.2% rate. This is a wonderful outcome, and it's substantially higher than the longer-term historical 10% yearly average.
Despite that impressive performance, investors who captured this gain had to deal with sizable occasional drawdowns. For example, the S&P posted double-digit percentage drops in 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2025. The benchmark always recovered, showing that volatility is normal in the world of stock market investing.
In order to be successful, it's crucial to adopt a mindset that allows you to ignore the short-term noise. That's because the S&P 500 will continue to have periods of weakness
How you navigate those times will undoubtedly affect your financial well-being. The best course of action during moments like now is usually to ride out the volatility and stay focused on the next five years and beyond.
When it seems that everyone is selling their positions and running for the exits, the smartest investors keep a level head. "Be greedy when others are fearful," the legendary investor Warren Buffett once said. While the S&P 500 takes a breather, it's time for investors to seriously consider putting some extra cash to work.
While the market is on the dip, investors will want to look at buying the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) right now. It's an extremely low-cost option, charging an expense ratio of 0.03%, that provides investors with access to the S&P 500. This is a solid choice at any time, but it's particularly interesting today since it's off 4% this year.
Investors can also identify individual stocks that are taking it on the chin. Alphabet and Meta Platforms, both outstanding businesses, have seen their share prices fall 5.5% and 13%, respectively, in 2026. They are down even further from their all-time peaks. Opportunistic investors probably don't want to pass up on these two top artificial intelligence stocks. Those who are in it for the long term will take advantage of what the market is offering.
Nvidia’s CEO just revealed that one breakthrough could create more millionaires in the next five years than the internet did in two decades.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says it is “hard to overstate the impact.” And Cathie Wood projects AI could be an $80 trillion opportunity by 2030. That is the equivalent of 18 Nvidias, 29 Microsofts, or 35 Amazons.
But here’s what most investors miss: almost all that growth runs through a single choke point. One little-known company, called an “Indispensable Monopoly,” provides the critical technology Nvidia, AMD, and Intel cannot function without. And it is still just a fraction of Nvidia’s size. We just released a brand-new report with the full story and the company’s name.
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