Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Price Index for May in the United States

Venezuela is preparing to increase the reliance of one of its main industries on crypto and stablecoins payments. According to reports received by Reuters from three undetermined sources linked to PDVSA, the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, the government would be prepared to increase the amount of payments received in USDT, affected by the reinstation of unilateral U.S. sanctions against the country. General License 44A, issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on April 17, provides the framework for companies with contracts with PDVSA and other Venezuelan gas and oil companies to wind down their joint business. The license established that these operations must be completed before May 31. Reuters states that since last year, the company has started using USDT, a dollar-pegged stablecoin with a market capitalization of over $100 billion, as part of its accepted payment currencies. However, the upcoming reinstation of sanctions by the U.S. government has accelerated this process, with PDVSA shifting to a contract model that now demands more than half of each shipment’s payment to be made using USDT. In addition, PDVSA would require companies adopting this kind of contract to register into its internal database and offer proof that they have the cryptocurrency needed to complete the payments, according to another source. These precautions could derive from the recently uncovered money laundering and embezzlement scheme involving crypto payments for unregistered oil shipments. The scheme involved several former high-level members of the Venezuelan government, including former oil minister Tareck El Aissami and Joselit Ramirez, former head of the Venezuelan cryptocurrency watchdog Sunacrip, both currently arrested. While there is still no information on the amount of money embezzled and then laundered using crypto as a tool, earlier reports indicate that at least $20 billion was subtracted from the public treasury. The alleged usage of USDT to sidestep U.S. sanctions has stirred the cryptocurrency community for its implied consequences. However, Tether vowed to uphold U.S. sanctions when required. Tether respects the OFAC SDN list and is committed to working to ensure sanction addresses are frozen promptly. This, however, might be difficult, as experts signal that the use of USDT for these payments might imply the intervention of intermediaries outside the traditional organizational structure of oil companies. A trader told Reuters that these transactions “don’t pass any trader’s compliance department, so the only way it works is to work with a broker.”

Journalist Hassan Shittu Journalist Hassan Shittu About Author Hassan, a Cryptonews.com journalist with 6+ years of experience in Web3 journalism, brings deep knowledge across Crypto, Web3 Gaming, NFTs, and Play-to-Earn sectors. His work has appeared in… Share Last updated:

Solayer is bringing unprecedented performance improvements and scalability to the Solana ecosystem through its innovative InfiniSVM Blockchain technology. This hardware-accelerated solution can achieve millions of transactions per second and over 100 Gbps of bandwidth, while ensuring low latency and high throughput, thanks to the SDN and RDMA technologies it employs. Solayer has established deep partnerships with multiple leading projects within the Solana ecosystem. Through integration with DeFi platforms such as Jupiter, Orca, and Kamino Finance, Solayer has launched a super liquidity pool that supports 1:1 swaps between sSOL and AVS tokens, significantly enhancing the liquidity efficiency of the ecosystem. Additionally, collaborations with Bonk, SonicSVM, and AltLayer further expand the performance optimization space for decentralized applications in gaming, NFTs, and finance. It is worth noting that the sUSD stablecoin launched by Solayer is backed by U.S. Treasury bonds, providing users with an annual yield of 4-5%, making it an ideal choice for low-risk, high-return investments in the DeFi space. Solayer has also simplified the cross-chain operation experience for users by enabling seamless transfers of USDC and USDT from Ethereum to Solana through partnerships with Wormhole and Mayan. The innovation of Solayer does not stop there. Its Solana Agent Kit provides developers with the ability to build AI-driven on-chain agents, supporting sSOL staking and Solana Blinks transactions, promoting the development of smart contract automation. The launch of the Emerald Card further connects on-chain earnings with real-world payments, with over 40,000 community users already having obtained this non-custodial metal card, greatly enhancing the practicality of crypto assets. As of February 2025, the total locked value (TVL) of Solayer has exceeded $500 million, with 295,000 independent deposit users, ranking among the top ten Solana DeFi protocols. Its hardware-optimized validator network offers an annualized return of up to 10.3%, attracting a large number of users to participate in staking. The Solayer ecosystem provides developers with the ability to quickly deploy high-performance decentralized applications through open APIs and SDKs, which will strongly promote the global adoption of Solana. As the core of the ecosystem, the $LAYER token plays a key role in governance and staking, and its market value potential continues to grow. Solayer is bringing transformative impacts to Solana with its innovative technology and extensive ecosystem integration, driving the future development of Web3 technology. As more developers and users join the Solayer ecosystem, we can expect to see more exciting innovations and applications emerge on the Solana network.

While most L1s chase headlines, @solayer_labs is engineering serious scale behind the scenes. Solayer isn’t just another chai, it’s next-gen modular infrastructure, purpose-built on Solana. Here’s why the smart money is watching: • InfiniSVM: Parallel VM powering 1M+ TPS • 100 Gbps throughput — no congestion bottlenecks • Native restaking with sSOL=better security + yield • SDN + RDMA = Web2-level low latency • Built to power DeFi, AI, DePIN, and more • Core team includes Solana OGs + seasoned engineers Amid the noise, here’s what stands out: ✅Infrastructure adoption is climbing ✅Bottlenecks in legacy L1s are being exposed ✅Solayer is positioning for the next wave of serious builders If you're betting on real infrastructure, $LAYER might be your quietest high-conviction play yet. #BuiltonSolayer

InfiniSVM is a new type of development network that demonstrates peak performance of over 340,000 TPS, surpassing existing public chains. It optimizes performance at the hardware level through RDMA technology and a multi-executor model, is compatible with well-known public chain virtual machines, and adopts a hybrid POAS Consensus Mechanism. Although the hardware solution increases costs, it also enhances efficiency, providing a new direction for Blockchain development.