Payments-focused blockchain Tempo has added Visa, Stripe and Zodia Custody by Standard Chartered as its first external validators, the network announced on Tuesday.

The trio collectively process trillions of dollars in payments each year across nearly every country. Their validator nodes are responsible for verifying, sequencing and finalizing transactions on the network, bolstering operational resilience for stablecoin-based settlements.

Visa’s node was configured and managed entirely in-house following six months of collaboration with Tempo’s engineering team, according to a press release from the payments giant. The company is serving as an “anchor validator” during this initial phase.

“We’ve spent years building our expertise in blockchain, and now we’re expanding that work by running critical blockchain infrastructure ourselves,” said Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto.

Validators on Tempo are rewarded in stablecoins for serving as “lead validators” who package transactions into blocks. Visa also serves as a Super Validator on the Canton Network, making it one of the very few traditional payments firms running blockchain infrastructure across multiple chains.

Tempo said it plans to continue expanding the validator set with additional partners as it progresses toward fully permissionless validation.

Institutional Momentum

The validator additions cap a rapid buildup for the Ethereum-compatible Layer 1, which was first reported in August 2025 before Stripe and Paradigm officially unveiled the project the following month.

Tempo raised $500 million in a Series A led by Thrive Capital and Greenoaks in October 2025 at a $5 billion valuation, launched its public testnet in December with partners including UBS and Kalshi, and went live on mainnet in March alongside the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard for AI agent-to-service payments co-authored with Stripe.

Still, Tempo faces skepticism from decentralization advocates who question whether a corporate-backed L1 can deliver on its permissionless promises. Whether onboarding institutional validators satisfies those concerns or reinforces them will depend on how quickly Tempo opens participation beyond its hand-picked partners.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

Solana price is at $83.37 on April 14, down 3.63% on the session, as a symmetrical triangle formed on the daily chart over the past two months continues to compress price action toward its apex. A daily MACD bullish crossover has now printed inside the pattern, adding a momentum signal to a setup that traders and analysts are watching closely for directional resolution.

Solana (SOL) price is trading at $83.37 on April 14 with 24-hour volume of $6.28 billion, as a symmetrical triangle tightens on the daily chart. The pattern has been compressing price since mid-February, with the upper descending trendline connecting the February highs and the lower ascending trendline running from the cycle lows. The MA ribbon sits entirely above price: SMA 20 at $82.74, SMA 50 at $85.61, SMA 100 at $98.42, and SMA 200 at $129.44, all acting as sequential overhead resistance. The MACD crossover inside the triangle narrows the window before a directional resolution is forced by the apex.

The symmetrical triangle on the daily chart is defined by two converging trendlines that reflect a standoff between sellers applying progressively lower resistance and buyers establishing a higher floor from the February lows. The pattern has been building since mid-February, with price oscillating inside the boundaries through the Iran-driven volatility in March and into April. Price is now within striking distance of the apex, where a breakout or breakdown is typically accelerated by the energy stored in the compression.

The MACD (12,26,9) has printed a bullish crossover inside the triangle, with the MACD line at -0.72 crossing above the signal at -1.16 and the histogram expanding to a positive 0.45. Both lines remain below zero, which limits the strength of the signal, but the expanding positive histogram confirms that sellers are losing control of momentum. Symmetrical triangles resolved with a MACD crossover in the direction of the breakout have historically carried higher follow-through rates than pattern breakouts occurring on flat momentum.

A CoinMarketCap markets update on April 14 noted that analysts see $108 as the next major target for SOL if momentum holds above $87, with bulls defending the $80 structural floor. The same update flagged Solana’s total economic activity reaching $1.1 trillion in Q1 2026, a 6,558% increase from the prior quarter, as evidence that the network fundamentals are decoupled from the current price structure.

Key Levels: Support, Resistance, and Price Targets

The SMA 20 at $82.74 is the immediate support and the level price must hold on a daily close basis to avoid slipping into the lower trendline near $80. A daily close below the lower trendline near $76 would break the ascending floor of the symmetrical triangle and shift the bias decisively bearish.

On the upside, the SMA 50 at $85.61 is the immediate resistance and the level a confirmed triangle breakout must clear on a daily close basis to attract follow-through buying. A close above $85.61 opens $98.42 as the next resistance, where the SMA 100 sits. The extended bull case, consistent with the symmetrical triangle measured target using the pattern’s widest point, points toward $108 to $110.

Invalidation: a daily close below $80.

On-Chain and Market Data Context

Solana open interest stands at $5.01 billion per Coinglass, with futures volume reaching $10.98 billion in the past 24 hours. The elevated futures volume relative to spot activity of $630 million confirms that derivatives participants are the dominant force at the current price level, and the symmetrical triangle breakout direction is likely to be amplified by a cascade of positions on the wrong side of the move. Approximately $8.1 million in Solana futures positions were liquidated in the same 24-hour window.

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart noted in March that roughly 30 institutional investors had accumulated approximately $540 million in Solana ETF exposure, led by Electric Capital and Goldman Sachs, providing a structural demand floor at current levels even as price action remains technically compressed.

If Solana holds $82.74 on a daily close basis and the MACD histogram continues to expand, a test of the SMA 50 at $85.61 becomes the nearterm base case. A confirmed daily close above it would trigger the symmetrical triangle breakout and open $98.42 as the primary target, with $108 as the extended objective.

Avalanche is moving beyond finance and into outer space, with a new network designed to verify telescope data in real time.

SkyMapper has introduced a dedicated Avalanche-based network that cryptographically records observations from telescopes around the world, turning each data point into a secure, verifiable digital record.

The new network, SkyMapper L1, collects data from a wide range of telescopes and sensors around the world and turns each observation into a secure digital record. The company calls this a “Proof of Space Observation” (POSO) — essentially a way to prove that a specific event in the sky was actually seen, when it happened, and that the data hasn’t been altered. These verified records can then be used by scientists, businesses or government agencies that need reliable space data.

The SETI Institute, known for its search for extraterrestrial intelligence, is contributing live observational data, marking one of the first production-scale integrations of institutional science into a blockchain-based verification system.

SkyMapper’s pitch centers on a growing problem: the explosion of data from satellites, drones and space missions, and the difficulty of verifying that data hasn’t been altered or misattributed. The team argues that blockchain can help solve this by creating a permanent, tamper-resistant record of each observation that anyone can independently verify.

The system works by validating observations at the moment they are captured. When a telescope in the network records an event — such as a satellite pass or deep-space signal — the data is immediately cryptographically signed, effectively creating a unique fingerprint tied to that device. The observation is then time-stamped and transmitted through SkyMapper’s infrastructure.

Instead of keeping all the data in one central database, SkyMapper spreads it across a decentralized storage network. At the same time, it saves a kind of digital fingerprint of that data on the Avalanche blockchain. This fingerprint means anyone can later check it to confirm the data is real and hasn’t been changed.

The network uses smart contracts to check incoming data, organize it, and control who can access it. Some information — like sensitive government or defense data — can be kept private, while other data, such as scientific research, can be shared openly.

The result is a system where each observation can be independently verified: users can check when and where it was recorded, confirm it hasn’t been tampered with, and trace it back to its source.

“We’re building blockchain infrastructure for real-world impact,” said Emin Gün Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs. “SkyMapper’s work anchoring observatory data on Avalanche shows how this technology can transform science, providing tamper-proof, verifiable telescope records.”

Read more: FIFA Teams Up With Avalanche to Build Its Own Blockchain, Expanding Web3 Ambition

World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token risks dipping 20% in April, according to a mix of convincing technical and fundamental indicators.

Key takeaways:

Bear pennant hints at WLFI dip in April

As of Tuesday, WLFI was consolidating inside a classic bear flag, a continuation pattern that typically forms after a sharp decline.

In technical analysis, a bear flag typically resolves when the price breaks below the lower trendline alongside rising trading volumes and falls by as much as the structure’s maximum height.

Applying this classic rule to WLFI’s chart brings its measured downside target to around $0.066 in April, down about 20% from the current price levels.

Conversely, a break below the upper trendline risks invalidating the bear flag setup, with the 20-day (green) and 50-day (red) exponential moving averages (EMAs) at around $0.081 and $0.085 serving as primary upside targets.

Insider activity, token unlock fears add pressure

Beyond technicals, WLFI faces mounting scrutiny that continues to weigh on sentiment.

On-chain data from Arkham Intelligence show wallets linked to the project deposited roughly 3–5 billion WLFI tokens—largely illiquid—as collateral on Dolomite to borrow about $75 million in stablecoins, including USD1 and USDC.

Over $40 million was later moved to Coinbase Prime. The position pushed pool utilization to ~93%, restricting withdrawals and drawing criticism for “circular” liquidity extraction.

The structure is risky because it uses thinly traded internal tokens to borrow real liquidity, meaning any sharp WLFI price drop could trap depositors, trigger bad debt, and deepen selling pressure.

At the same time, markets are bracing for a proposed unlock of over 16 billion WLFI tied to still-locked public allocations, raising dilution risks.

Adding to the pressure, Tron founder Justin Sun, who reportedly invested ~$75 million and became an adviser, again accused WLFI of embedding a hidden backdoor blacklisting function in the smart contract.

Related: US President Trump faces renewed backlash as Trump-linked tokens crash

This allegedly allowed the team to unilaterally freeze his wallet/assets without notice or recourse, violating “decentralization” promises.

He called it a trap, denounced “token scandals,” claimed governance votes were rigged/non-transparent and demanded unlocks/transparency.