Bitcoin’s underwhelming price actions as of late continued on Saturday and early Sunday as the asset stands close to $85,000 without making a big move in either direction.

The larger-cap alts are also quite sluggish on a daily scale, with ETH slightly below $1,600 and XRP down by around 1%.

BTC Consolidation Continues

The past seven days went entirely differently from the previous week. Back then, BTC went through a massive five-digit price rollercoaster. However, it finally calmed after the tariff pause announced by Trump for most countries and remained in a tight range for the entire week.

After it bounced above $82,000 last weekend, the asset went to a local peak of just over $86,000 on a couple of occasions but to no avail. Just the opposite, it was pushed back down to $83,000 both times.

Since then, the cryptocurrency has traded within an even smaller range between $84,000 and $85,500. It now stands approximately in the middle of it, with many industry experts suggesting a breakout is just around the corner.

For now, though, BTC’s market cap has retraced to $1.680 trillion on CoinGecko, while its dominance over the alts has taken a slight hit and is down to 60.7%.

FARTCOIN Is Back

Most larger-cap alts have failed to post any significant moves in the past day. Minor losses are coming from ETH, XRP, DOGE, and ADA, while SOL is slightly in the green.

More interesting price developments come from the mid- and lower-cap alts. FARTCOIN has stolen the show and returned to the top 100 alts by market cap after a 10% surge. FET follows suit, gaining 9%, and TAO is net (8.5%).

The cumulative market cap of all crypto assets has remained at the same level it has been in the past several days, at $2.770 trillion on CG.

At Paris Blockchain Week, Ben Elvidge, Product Lead at Uranium.io, introduced one of the most unexpected tokenization use cases yet: physical uranium.

While tokenizing real estate, art, or equities has become increasingly familiar, uranium—a tightly controlled, highly capital-intensive commodity—has remained far out of reach for the average investor. That’s changing.

Why Uranium?

The uranium market, traditionally opaque and hard to access, trades over the counter in massive lot sizes—typically 100,000 pounds, valued at around $6 million at today’s prices. It’s safe to say that it’s not accessible to retail investors.

“It’s an asset class of critical importance,” said Elvidge, “but historically very difficult to access.”

Through a partnership with the Tezos Foundation, Uranium.io acquired a minimum tradable lot of uranium, stored it in a certified facility, and tokenized it, becoming one of the more interesting RWA crypto projects. Now, the average investor can gain exposure to physical uranium for as little as $4—no need for millions in capital or complex brokerage agreements.

How It Works

Uranium.io leverages a trust-based legal framework under English common law to represent fractional ownership in physical uranium.

The uranium itself is stored in Cameco, one of three global storage facilities approved for this purpose (the other two are in the U.S. and France). Their partner, Curzon Uranium, helped facilitate the process.

Users can buy tokens directly through the platform using a MetaMask wallet and USDC, with built-in on-chain analytics flagging suspicious activity. The onboarding is KYC-light, only requiring full identity verification if a red flag is raised. Each token represents a portion of the physical uranium stockpile, and—unlike most tokenized commodities—token holders can actually request physical delivery, assuming they have an approved converter account and pass relevant nonproliferation checks.

One of the core advantages, Elvidge emphasized, is transparency. Currently, uranium pricing is derived from voluntary broker submissions and updated only during U.S. and UK trading hours.

Uranium.io’s platform introduces real-time price discovery through live token trading. While the platform is still in its early stages, a market-making partner helps ensure price accuracy relative to legacy data feeds.

Beyond Tokenization Hype

Elvidge argues that Uranium.io is a case of real-world tokenization moving beyond buzzwords.

“We’re not doing tokenization for tokenization’s sake,” he said. “This is about taking something previously inaccessible and opening it up.”

Increased access helps retail investors, but also benefits the broader uranium supply chain—particularly fuel buyers and utility providers—by improving liquidity and price transparency. These market efficiencies are sorely lacking in the current OTC-only trading structure.

While spot uranium trading is unregulated in many jurisdictions, Uranium.io has taken a careful approach to legal structure. Its framework doesn’t rely on an SPV and avoids categorizing the tokens as securities. Still, the regulatory environment is complex and remains under constant review, particularly as the project scales.

Why Uranium Now?

The fundamentals support long-term interest. Elvidge pointed to increasing demand from tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, all showing interest in nuclear power as a reliable energy source. Governments are shifting toward pro-nuclear energy policies. In 2023 alone, uranium demand reached 194 million pounds, while supply lagged behind at 155 million pounds.

“Uranium has no meaningful correlation with Bitcoin, the S&P 500, gold, or oil,” Elvidge noted.

That makes it an attractive uncorrelated asset at a time when crypto investors are seeking diversification and stability amid risk-off market sentiment.

This interview was produced in partnership with Paris Blockchain Week 2025.

“The Ethereum ship is slowly turning around,” claimed David Hoffman from Bankless on April 19.

He added that the process started over six months ago and changes are already observable, highlighting six areas of change Ethereum is undergoing.

The project went through a rough patch earlier this year with leadership issues at the Ethereum Foundation, developers jumping ship, and record levels of FUD being disseminated.

However, despite that, it is still the industry standard network for DeFi, stablecoins, real-world asset tokenization, and decentralized applications.

Evolution of Ethereum

After primarily being research-focused for years, Ethereum is now recognizing the need to adapt in response to competitive pressures that emerged around 2021, argues Hoffman.

He added that the Ethereum community is actively addressing these issues through aggressive layer-1 scaling, with plans to increase gas limits tenfold over two years.

There has also been a shift from protocol-first to product-first thinking, with new leadership roles, and the Ethereum Foundation is taking a more active coordinating role with new co-executive directors.

He also said there is now a more inclusive culture as the doors to the “Ivory Tower” open, enabling a welcoming ecosystem of voices into roadmap conversations.

There is better layer-2 integration and developing interoperability standards, positioning Ethereum layer-1 service provider to L2s. Finally, an increased urgency is embracing shorter roadmap cycles and faster protocol upgrades.

“Ethereum’s Strategic Pivot”

The Ethereum ship is slowly turning around.
In fact, this process started over 6 months ago – changes are already observable

I wrote an article on @BanklessHQ doing my best to identify6️⃣arenas of change Ethereum is undergoing

Read! pic.twitter.com/zxDOXOlVdP

— David Hoffman (@TrustlessState) April 19, 2025

In a recent podcast Ethereum Foundation researchers Ansgar Dietrichs and Dankrad Feist said that the organization was stepping up to facilitate these steps.

“Parts of the Ethereum community have been pushing for this shift, while others have been resisting it,” said Hoffman, who added, “Ethereum is a big tent that holds space for many different voices.”

The Scaling Debate

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams weighed in on the Ethereum scaling debate, stating, “I’m all for scaling improvements to L1, the rollup-centric roadmap actually requires it,” but pointing out that if Ethereum ultimately relies on L1 to support DeFi, Solana may have a stronger roadmap, team, and scaling model.

He argued Ethereum should stick to its rollup-centric layer-2 scaling strategy, which it has developed over the past five years.

“People need to pick a lane and attempt to mitigate the risks associated with it vs scrambling to shift narratives and strategy every month.”

He added that he was also against “just do every approach,” which is probably the only thing worse than not picking an approach.

Meanwhile, Ethereum prices remain at March 2023 levels, failing to push much higher than $1,600 so far this weekend.