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Key TakeawaysThe US government is beginning a process to refund roughly $166 billion in tariffs imposed under emergency powers during the Trump administration.More than 330,000 importers covering about 53 million shipments may be eligible.Refunds are expected within 60 to 90 days for straightforward claims.The Supreme Court ruled that only Congress has the authority to impose tariffs under the relevant law.The US government is launching a new refund system for businesses that paid tariffs imposed under President Donald Trump under emergency powers.The move follows a Supreme Court ruling that found those tariffs unlawful because they were imposed under emergency powers rather than through Congress. The Court concluded that only Congress has the authority to impose tariffs in this way.The refund process will be handled through a new customs system that allows businesses to file claims electronically and receive consolidated refund payments with interest.More than 330,000 importers across roughly 53 million shipments may qualify for refunds, with total repayments estimated at around $166 billion.Businesses that previously paid the tariffs can submit claims through the new customs portal.Officials expect many standard claims to be processed within 60 to 90 days, although more complex cases may take longer due to the scale of the refund effort and the need for additional review.The refunds will go directly to the importers that actually paid the tariffs rather than to consumers, although some businesses may later pass on benefits through lower prices or future settlements.

On April 16, AO, a scalable blockchain network based on Arweave, announced the launch of its 'Network Availability Staking Alpha (NASA)' test program. According to BlockBeats, this initiative marks a significant step in the AO ecosystem, aiming to improve the availability and reliability of decentralized data networks through a staking mechanism. Currently in its Alpha phase, users can participate in network availability verification and earn rewards by providing data services to Arweave gateways and staking AO tokens.

In the initial trial, AO introduced an 'availability staking' mechanism, requiring node operators to stake 25 AO tokens to participate in the network and compete in terms of speed and stability in responding to user requests. The system allocates rewards from a monthly pool of 1,000 AO tokens based on nodes' performance in data services. This mechanism leverages the next-generation HyperBEAM architecture, enabling higher verifiability and trustlessness for gateway and routing services while significantly reducing operational costs.

The project team stated that NASA aims to establish a stronger decentralized economic model for the entire permanent network infrastructure, paving the way for future expansion into areas such as computational scheduling, data indexing, and network services. Although the current reward scale is small and still in the testing phase, the program is seen as a crucial starting point for the AO-Core economic system and will gradually expand to more network infrastructure services.