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Best Rated Cryptos For 2025: Shiba Inu, FLOKI, BONK & 1Fuel – The Race For Top Gains Continues

By
TI Partners
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0

In the midst of market-wide uncertainty, some tokens are tipped to outperform the rest and stand out in the race for top gains. Among these, Shiba Inu, FLOKI, and BONK seem to be the ones that could yield impressive gains in the region of 3x-6x. However, there’s a new entry looking to steal the crown in 2025, 1Fuel (OFT). The real question is which of these tokens will dominate in 2025?

Here’s why savvy investors are jostling to lock in their position in the viral presale of the OFT token.

Shiba Inu Boosts Utility with Shibarium; Extends DeFi Possibilities

The Shiba Inu ecosystem continues to innovate and add utilities. The Shibarium, a layer-2 solution was launched and this has boosted transaction speed in the ecosystem and reduced costs drastically. This in turn has made SHIB more inclined to decentralized finance.

Moreover, there are presently more than 200 perpetual futures contracts available on Kraken. This gives SHIB additional utility as collateral. Members of the SHIB community are engaged and passionate. They regularly host events and donate to different charitable causes.

Members of the Shiba Inu Army are bullish in their outlook for 2025. Analysts have set ambitious targets between $0.0000743 and $0.0000888. Hitting these price levels depends on a strong showing of the token in the market in response to the ecosystem developments.

FLOKI In a Downtrend; What’s Happening With FLOKI?

FLOKI price analysis indicates a conspicuous downtrend in a falling wedge following the trendlines. A closer look at the price action reveals a trend of lower highs and lower lows, especially in the 4-hour chart. It indicates a strong bearish pattern. FLOKI attempts to break out of this bearish pattern, moving close to the regions around $0.00009422.

Despite attempting a breakout, FLOKI’s price remains well below key moving averages. The downward pressure is still very much in force. Should the FLOKI price remain below the key averages, a drop is inevitable. It could dip below $0.00007000 or go even lower.

BONK Price Disappointing Despite Token Burn

BONK, the first dog-themed memecoin on Solana rose to prominence when it launched with a massive community airdrop. Meme-focused and community-centered marketing proved very successful and boosted user adoption. BONK was more than a token; it was a unifying symbol for Solana memecoin enthusiasts. There have been innovations within the BONK community, including Bonkbot, Bonkswap, Moonwalk, and Bonk Bets. These have boosted their worth and impact on the Solana ecosystem.

Although it is true that BONK rose close to 70% in the last year, its performance has been underwhelming. Despite an increase in token burn, BONK still managed to slip by 27% in the past seven days. BONK trades at $0.00001770 with a 1.1% climb within the last 24 hours.

1Fuel Presale Enters Stage 4; Investors Eye Potential 100x Gains

1Fuel (OFT) is fast becoming the project to watch in 2025. It is a crypto wallet and DEX with the potential to disrupt digital asset management.

This upcoming wallet is privacy-centered and security-focused. To this effect, it has military-grade cold storage to store digital assets offline, away from the threats of hacks or breaches. It also includes a built-in privacy mixer and disposable wallets to guarantee anonymous transactions.

Although all its features position 1Fuel to become the next leader in the DeFi space, the stand out characteristic is its breakthrough 1-click cross-chain transactions. This capability has proved difficult to achieve for established wallets like Trust Wallet and MetaMask. Instead, they have an approach that uses third-party tools.

Moreover, it is deliberately designed in such a way as to be available to a wide range of users from crypto veterans to newbies.

Conclusion

1Fuel is ready to power the next generation of crypto transactions where user experience and cutting-edge functionalities are a necessity. The presale has entered stage 4, raising over $2 million in funding. Stage 4 introduces a price of $0.018. Early investors are already 80% up as analysts forecast over 100% in presale and a further rise when it officially lists on exchanges. This is not far-fetched given the unique capabilities and widespread appeal of OFT.

What’s your next line of action? Join savvy investors in the 1Fuel presale and watch your portfolio blow up in 2025.

 

To Find Out More About The 1Fuel Presale, visit the links below:

Website: https://1Fuel.io/

Telegram: https://t.me/Portal_1Fuel

Twitter/ X: https://x.com/1Fuel_?s=21

MTN Nigeria Raises Data Prices as NCC-Approved 50% Tariff Hike Takes Effect

By
Samuel Nwite
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0

Nigerians are set to pay more for mobile data and text messaging as MTN Nigeria has increased its data subscription prices, reflecting the 50% price increment approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

This move marks the beginning of a broader adjustment across the telecom industry, with other operators expected to follow soon.

According to the new MTN data prices, the 1.8GB monthly data plan now costs N1,500, replacing the previous 1.5GB plan priced at N1,000. Similarly, the 20GB data plan has been raised to N7,500, up from N5,500, while the 15GB plan now costs N6,500, a rise from N4,500.

In addition to data price hikes, SMS charges have also increased from N4.00 to N6.00 per message, aligning with the 50% tariff adjustment approved by the NCC.

More Telecom Operators to Implement New Tariffs Soon

While MTN has already updated its data tariffs, other telecom operators—Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile—are yet to implement their new pricing structures. However, industry sources confirm that all networks have already adjusted their SMS pricing, with calls and data tariffs expected to follow soon.

According to telecom insiders, the final approval for the new tariff structure was granted on Monday, and operators are currently in the process of updating their data and voice pricing plans.

The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, confirmed two weeks ago that all telecom operators had submitted their proposed tariff changes to the NCC and were awaiting approval.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had on January 20, 2024, officially announced the 50% tariff adjustment, citing rising operational costs and the need to sustain the telecom industry.

The NCC’s Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, in a statement, explained that the decision aligns with the Commission’s regulatory function under Section 108 of the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003.

The tariff increase comes as telecom operators have repeatedly complained about inflation, foreign exchange challenges, high energy costs, and increased equipment costs affecting their operations.

Subscribers and Advocacy Groups Oppose the Tariff Hike

Despite the government’s justification, Nigerian telecom subscribers have expressed dissatisfaction over the price hike. The National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS) has condemned the move and is threatening to challenge the NCC’s decision in court.

“This is a complete negation of the statutory duty of NCC to protect the interest of Telecom Services Consumers.

“We are aware of the arguments of the Telecoms Operators that there has not been any tariff increment in a decade, multiple levies slammed on them by different tiers of Government and the dollarization costs of their equipment.

“But truth be told, there are many other avenues through which the operators can generate funds to meet their rising operational costs without putting unbearable burden on their consumers,” it said.

According to NATCOMS, the tariff increment was implemented without proper consultation with subscribers, ignoring concerns about affordability, particularly amid Nigeria’s worsening economic conditions.

“This Association considers the decision of the NCC as very insensitive and not in the interest of Telecoms Services Consumers.

“The unrelenting rise in prices of Goods and Services in the country has made life extremely difficult for the generality of citizens who are the consumers of telecom services.

“The new increment is therefore one additional burden too many,” a spokesperson for NATCOMS stated.

Amid growing backlash, the NCC has defended the 50% tariff approval, arguing that it was necessary to ensure the sustainability of the telecom industry.

The commission also pointed out that telecom tariffs in Nigeria have remained static since 2013, despite inflation, rising energy costs, and naira devaluation.

Rising Costs, Economic Hardship, and the Burden on Nigerians

The tariff increase comes at a time when Nigerians are already struggling with economic difficulties, including high inflation, rising food costs, and currency devaluation.

In the past year, the cost of telecom services has been a major concern, as telecom operators continue to battle increasing diesel prices for powering base stations, foreign exchange shortages for importing network equipment, and higher taxes imposed by the government.

With Nigeria’s economy declining—as GDP per capita fell from $877.07 in 2024 to $835.49 in 2025—economists fear that higher data and call costs will further affect businesses, education, and general internet access in the country.

Baidu Gears up Plan to Launch Its Next Generation AI Model, Amid Rising AI Competition

By
Ojukwu Emmanuel
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0

Baidu, a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet services and Artificial Intelligence, plans to release the next generation of its AI model in the second half of this year, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The AI model known as “Ernie 5.0”, is expected to bring major improvements in multimodal capabilities, allowing it to process and generate text, video, images, and audio seamlessly.

Baidu’s plan to roll out its Artificial intelligence model comes following the launch of Chinese startup DeepSeek, which made headlines earlier this year, shaking the AI ecosystem. Recall that the Launch of DeepSeek’s latest AI model on 20 January, shook the Artificial intelligence universe.

The Hangzhou-based company released DeepSeek-R1, a partly open-source ‘reasoning’ model that can solve some scientific problems at a similar standard to o1, OpenAI’s most advanced LLM. DeepSeek’s AI Assistant, powered by DeepSeek-V3, reportedly overtook rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application available on Apple’s App Store in the United States. This raised doubts about the reasoning behind some U.S. tech companies’ decision to pledge billions of dollars in AI investment and shares of several big tech players, including Nvidia, were seriously hit.

DeepSeek claims to have spent around $5.5 million to train its V3 model, a considerably frugal approach to delivering the same results, that took the likes of Google, OpenAI, Meta, and others, hundreds of millions of dollars in investments to achieve. The startup’s innovative techniques, cost-efficient solutions, and optimization strategies have no doubt had an undeniable effect on the AI landscape, primarily because it challenges the high-cost barrier associated with building large language models (LLMs).

Notably, it has indirectly put pressure on AI Giants to justify high costs. Companies like OpenA1, Google, and Meta have justified their huge funding rounds by emphasizing the enormous compute costs required to train frontier models. If DeepSeek proves that cutting-edge Al can be built on a small budget, investors may push for more efficiency rather than just throwing money at bigger GPU clusters.

Speaking at the recent World Governments Summit in Dubai, Baidu CEO Robin Li highlighted rapid cost reductions in Al development, stating that the inference cost of foundation models has dropped by more than 90% in the past year. “If you can reduce the cost by a certain percentage, then that means your productivity increases by that kind of percentage. That’s the nature of innovation,” Li said.

It is worth noting that Baidu’s proposed roll-out of the AI model is coming after China’s e-commerce giant company Alibaba, last month, released a new version of its Qwen 2.5 artificial intelligence model that it claimed surpassed the highly-acclaimed DeepSeek-V3.

“Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms almost across the board GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Llama-3.1-405B,” Alibaba’s cloud unit said in an announcement posted on its official WeChat account, referring to OpenAI and Meta’s most advanced open-source AI models.

Amidst the roll-out of generative AI models in China, the country’s Al ecosystem is rapidly strengthening as Baidu, DeepSeek, and Alibaba, ramp up their Al capabilities to compete with U.S. models like OpenAl’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini. With DeepSeek’s cost-efficient model training making waves, Chinese tech giants are pushing the boundaries of large language models (LLMs), multimodal Al, and generative Al.

This surge in Al development signals a growing China-U.S. Al rivalry, with Chinese companies aiming to close the innovation gap and expand global Al influence.

Ghanaian Fintech Affinity Africa Secures $8M Seed Funding to Expand Financial Services to Underbanked Communities

By
Ojukwu Emmanuel
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0
Fund, money cash dollar

Affinity Africa, a digital banking platform headquartered in Ghana, dedicated to providing affordable and accessible financial services to underserved and underbanked individuals, has secured $8 million in an oversubscribed round.

The round was led by Grazia Equity and BACKED VC to accelerate its mission of delivering affordable and accessible financial services to underserved and unbanked communities.

Speaking on the funding round, Founder and Group CEO of Affinity Africa, Tarek Mouganie said,

“The strong, sustained growth we have seen since the launch of our mobile app shows how much local customers needed a better banking experience, without absurd fees and endless queues. As a customer-centric, technology-driven, fully fledged financial institution, we offer affordable, easy-to-use products, backed by a unique business, model that attracts a growing base of deposits while offering the cheapest instant loans in the region. This oversubscribed funding round is a testament to the belief in our vision and the opportunity to create real and lasting change, starting in Ghana.”

Also speaking, Andre de Haes, founder and managing partner at Backed said,

“At BACKED we are founder first, and we could not think of a better person to build Africa’s local bank than Tarek. He started his career investing in banks through the, 2008 crisis, becoming an expert in regulation and strategy, and has built a world-class banking software stack for Affinity from the ground up. He has a unique ability to connect with and understand customers, which has materialized into extremely impressive early user numbers”.

Founded by entrepreneur Tarek Mouganie in 2022, Affinity Africa operates a branchless banking model powered by a mobile and web app, an extensive agent network, and a proprietary technology platform. This model enhances efficiency, allowing the company to offer banking services with no monthly fees or transaction charges, positioning it among the most affordable players in the industry.

Affinity Africa offers a comprehensive suite of products which include personal and SME accounts, savings, payments, transfers to banks and mobile money wallets, investments, and loans. The fintech has made a profound impact in the region it operates, empowering a large underserved population with easy-to-use affordable banking services. Also, it has financially included thousands of Africans who had been previously neglected by traditional banks.

The digital banking platform, which caters to individuals and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), officially launched in Ghana in October 2024. Since then, it has onboarded over 50,000 customers, with 65% having no prior access to formal banking services and more than 60% being women engaged in the informal sector. The fresh funding will support the company’s expansion efforts and its goal of driving financial inclusion across Africa.

Since its launch, Affinity’s growth rates have surpassed expectations. The customer base grew over 3x year-over-year (YoY) with savings growing over 35% month-on-month since the launch of the mobile app in 2024. Using their proprietary scoring engine, Instant loans have also accelerated, growing 30% month-on-month with an NPL of 3%. Affinity Africa prides itself on establishing digital forward and branch-light financial institutions, leveraging Fintech and innovative design-led solutions to improve financial access and affordability.

With this recent funding, the company plans to expand its reach in Ghana ahead of its international expansion to continue driving financial incision across Africa.

Discover How Avocados Can Boost Nigeria’s Economic Future

By
Mutiu Iyanda
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0

Similar to other tropical fruits, the global avocado market has been estimated and predicted multiple times over the last three years by market analysts. One such analysis indicates that the market was valued at $15.8 billion in 2023 and is expected to exceed $26 billion by 2030. According to our analyst, this equates to an annual growth of over $3.7 billion. In Nigeria, experts suggest that the country has the potential to generate over N12 billion annually if stakeholders actively explore the fruit for industrial use and exportation. An expert also notes that its profitability surpasses that of many other tropical fruits.

Considering the market’s growth, our analyst examines Nigerian public search interest over the past five years. Our analysis indicates significant search activity from the southern and north-central regions, likely influenced by cultural, economic, or agricultural factors. Further examination highlights Cross River, Plateau, Abi, Akwa Ibom, and Edo as the dominant states.

Additionally, our analysis reveals that the majority of users searching for avocado-related information during this period were interested in topics such as avocado oil, the health benefits of avocado, avocado oil for lips, how to use avocado for hair growth, the best oil for hair growth, olive oil versus avocado oil, the uses of avocado oil, and avocado oil for skin care.

Growing Avocado in Nigeria

Avocado farming presents an incredible opportunity for Nigerian farmers, both in terms of health benefits and economic prosperity. With increasing global demand, particularly for Hass avocados and avocado oil, Nigeria stands to gain significantly from expanding its avocado production. Farmers who adopt the best agronomic practices and capitalize on the various avocado by-products can secure a profitable and sustainable future in the industry. Whether for consumption, cosmetics, or export, the avocado truly lives up to its reputation as the “green gold.

Nigeria’s tropical climate provides the perfect conditions for growing Hass avocados, a highly sought-after variety with strong export potential. With abundant underground water sources, farmers in Nigeria can produce avocados year-round. Many are now embracing avocado farming as a lucrative venture, and grafted Hass avocado trees are available to help farmers kick-start their journey. Under good agronomic practices, these trees begin fruiting within 2-3 years, ensuring a quicker return on investment.

Avocado By-Products 

Avocado oil, extracted from pulp, is highly valued in the culinary world for its high smoke point and neutral flavour, making it an excellent choice for cooking. Beyond the kitchen, it plays a crucial role in cosmetics, widely incorporated into skincare and haircare products for its moisturizing and nourishing properties. Avocado seeds, or pits, also offer a range of applications. In the pharmaceutical industry, they are processed into powders or extracts, commonly used in dietary supplements. Additionally, seed extracts are a key ingredient in beauty products, prized for their bioactive properties.

The often-overlooked avocado peel is a rich source of bioactive compounds, including antioxidants and phenolic compounds, which can be harnessed for functional foods or cosmetic formulations. Avocado-based food products have also gained popularity. The fruit is processed into purees, powders, and even avocado-infused honey, expanding its culinary versatility. Moreover, avocado oil is becoming a preferred alternative to traditional shortening in baking, offering a healthier option for baked goods.

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