Key takeaways:

XRP price is up 2% on May 7, buoyed by US-China trade talk optimism, with key support at $2.08 critical for sustained recovery.

Whale accumulation signals XRP price strength.

XRP price must hold above $1.83–$2.00 support to continue upside, analysts say.

XRP (XRP) price displayed strength on May 7, rising 2% over the last 24 hours after news of possible US-China trade talks flipped investor sentiment. 

XRP price remains above $2.00 at the time of writing, as several analysts highlight the key support levels the asset should hold for a sustainable recovery to new all-time highs.

Whale accumulation supports bullish XRP view

Certain indicators show that XRP’s ongoing price rise may not be just a short-term reaction to the positive macroeconomic news. 

For instance, Santiment’s Supply Distribution metric shows a steady rise in the supply held by entities with a 1 million –10 million token balance. These addresses now own 9.44% of the total XRP supply, a 1.2% increase since Jan. 1. 

Percentage of addresses holding between 1M and 100M XRP. Source: Santiment

This suggests that whales did not sell on the recent drop to $1.60 but accumulated XRP, suggesting most are positioning themselves for further gains.

By purchasing during downturns, these large entities can reduce selling pressure and create a floor for the price, encouraging smaller retail investors to follow suit. 

Meanwhile, XRP open interest (OI) has seen a modest 0.32% rise to $3.65 billion over the last day, signaling a slight increase in trader confidence and liquidity. However, the 17% drop in trading volume to $3.9 billion is a cause for concern, suggesting low conviction as traders wait for the XRP price to establish a clear directional bias.

XRP derivatives data. Source: CoinGlass

XRP price to $4 all-time highs?

Traders believe XRP can revisit its seven-year highs above $3.40 and beyond, but its potential to continue its gains depends on holding above key support levels. 

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that XRP price bounced off the 200-day SMA at $2.08 on May 6, rising as much as 4.5% to today’s intraday high of $2.17, which is also the 50-day SMA.

Related: Why is XRP price down today?

The 200-day SMA coincides with the election volume-weighted average price (VWAP) and the monthly rVWAP, as shown in the chart below.

“This is an area that we want to see continue to get defended,” said trader and analyst Dom in a May 6 post on X, adding that failure to hold above this level could see XRP drop toward $1.90.

“To see an immediate trend reversal, we need to see the price regain $2.12.”XRP/USD daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Fellow analyst Egrag Crypto said XRP price “should not and cannot close below $1.83.”

Meanwhile, pseudonymous analyst XForceGlobal believes “XRP is still well within bullish territory” as long as it stays above the multimonth low at $1.60 reached on April 7.

“New all-time highs look imminent.”XRP/USD four-hour chart. Source: XForceGlobal

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Safeheron, a digital asset infrastructure provider based in Singapore, has introduced an open-source Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) framework. This solution could bolster security and privacy for Web3 in sectors like decentralized finance (DeFi), payment services, and decentralized autonomous organizations.

The TEE framework is the first built upon the native Intel SGX SDK and developed using modern C++, a general-purpose object-oriented programming language often used for operating systems, game development, and high-powered computing.

Safeheron decided to open-source the framework because the company had seen growing concerns across the industry about closed, opaque systems, especially as security incidents have become more widespread.

Related: Fully onchain AI agents can be the key to a more open AI future — Here’s why

“We’re not threatened by competitors,” Safeheron CEO Wade Wang told Cointelegraph. “What worries us is slow innovation due to closed systems.”

A critical technology for protecting code and data, Trusted Execution Environments create secure, isolated spaces within CPUs. These spaces are traditionally called “enclaves.” In these spaces, programs can run while protected from external attacks, including those coming from within the hardware.

Some sectors of Web3 that employ TEEs include privacy-focused blockchains, oracles, DeFi, payments services, and exchanges. Oasis Network, Secret Network, and Phala Network are known for using TEEs. Other companies, such as Chainlink, are suspected of using TEEs.

Safeheron’s new TEE framework allows clients to use cloud services to create enclaves. Any cloud service, including those that are public, that supports Intel SGX servers will do.

Safeheron has provided services over 100 clients, primarily payment providers, OTC desks, trading firms, and wallet service providers. Its clients include MetaMask, Doo Group, and Amber Group. According to the company, its cumulative transfer volume recently surpassed $100 billion.

In August 2022, Safeheron raised $7 million in pre-Series A funding. The capital was allocated to research, development, and expanding the company’s business team.

Related: Here’s how ‘confidential AI’ with blockchain and TEEs protects data privacy

Buterin proposes TEE for Ethereum privacy

In an April 11 roadmap, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed adding a TEE to the Ethereum ecosystem to enhance user privacy. The TEE would be a short-term solution allowing “users to interact with RPC nodes while getting stronger assurances that their private data is not being collected.” 

He also called for the addition of privacy-protecting tools to Ether (ETH) wallets. TEEs could help here as well by protecting private wallet keys. Announced at the time of its fundraise, Safeheron secured MetaMask as a client in August 2022.

Another area in crypto where TEEs can help is Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge, or SNARKs. An August 2024 study by Imperial College London found that vulnerabilities in the circuit layer pose significant threats to these systems. TEEs could guard against any attacks coming from within the system.

Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the competition in the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race

Opinion by: Anurag Arjun, co-founder of Avail 

On paper, SocialFi is a no-brainer. It promises to shift the balance of power in social media — giving people control over how their content and personal data are used and monetized. It even offers users a stake in the $200+ billion social media advertising market, a pie currently devoured almost entirely by giants like Meta.

And yet, SocialFi platforms today feel more like digital ghost towns than the bustling hubs of Web2. Friend.tech, hailed as a breakout star in 2023, peaked at just 80,000 daily active users before falling below 10,000. What’s holding SocialFi back? Why does it seem to be following Friend.tech’s fade into obscurity rather than rising to rival Facebook’s dominance?

The harsh reality is that decentralized social networks have largely failed to attract and retain mainstream users despite genuine enthusiasm from Web3 communities. The fundamental promise of user ownership, data portability, and monetization remains compelling — but deep structural issues bottleneck adoption.

The technical hurdles

Blockchain infrastructure was never designed for the high-throughput, low-latency demands of social networking. Social media users expect instant results when posting pictures, liking comments, or following new accounts — actions that generate hundreds of millions of transactions daily across platforms like Instagram, TikTok and X.

Consider this: Ethereum handles just 15-20 transactions per second (TPS). Even Solana — often touted as a high-performance chain — with ~5,000 TPS falls short. Compare that to TikTok’s 25 million daily video uploads or X’s 500 million daily posts. Adoption becomes impossible when users face 30-second confirmation delays to comment on a post or volatile gas fees ranging from 10 US cents to $50 during network congestion.

Web2’s hard-won lessons 

Meta spends $35 billion annually on research and development to refine its platforms’ addictive simplicity. TikTok’s algorithm, honed through 1 billion hours of daily user engagement, delivers content so frictionless that 47% of users open the app immediately upon waking. The result? Interfaces where the tech disappears behind the experience.

By contrast, most SocialFi platforms confront new users with wallet popups, crypto slang, and variable fees. For mainstream users, it’s confusing and intimidating. A 2023 DappRadar study found that 92% of SocialFi users abandon platforms within 30 days. Until SocialFi applications can match the frictionless experience of their Web2 counterparts while delivering unique advantages, adoption will remain limited to crypto natives.

The fragmentation problem

Web3’s multichain world has splintered SocialFi into silos. Lens Protocol’s social graph doesn’t integrate with Farcaster. Friend.tech’s monetization tools don’t port over to DeSo. The result? A fractured experience with no network effects.

Recent: Avara’s Lens secures $31M for SocialFi-focused L2 blockchain

Consider if Gmail users had to pay to email someone on Outlook — and couldn’t bring their contacts or messages with them. That’s today’s SocialFi reality.

To solve this, decentralized identity systems like ENS and emerging standards like EAS must power portable, composable social graphs. A user’s content, followers, and reputation should travel with them — benefiting the broader ecosystem, not just one app.

Purpose-built infrastructure

The solution to SocialFi’s adoption challenges isn’t incremental improvements to existing models but purpose-built infrastructure explicitly designed for social applications. Just as horizontal scaling revolutionized Web2 infrastructure, modular blockchain architecture that separates concerns like data availability, execution, and settlement creates the foundation for social applications that can scale to billions of users.

The shift is already underway. Farcaster moved from Ethereum mainnet to Optimism’s layer 2 stack, prioritizing low-cost social interactions. Lens Protocol is migrating to ZKsync, using zero-knowledge proofs to scale while preserving user privacy. CyberConnect launched Cyber, its own L1 chain optimized for social applications, which now supports faster, cheaper interactions with an embedded social graph.

These purpose-built stacks mirror how Web2 scaled — separating data, execution, and storage to handle exponential growth. Web3’s version is modular architecture: rollups for performance, decentralized storage for media, and identity layers like ENS or Lit Protocol.

User-centric social networking

When built on the proper foundation, SocialFi can finally deliver on its core promise: putting users back at the center of the social networking experience. This means true ownership of identity and content, portable social graphs that work across applications, and fair value distribution to the people who create and curate content.

The opportunity extends well beyond fixing what’s broken in Web2 social media. True ownership enables creators to retain control and port audiences across platforms. Programmable money allows TikTok-esque viral trends to include instant revenue splits — imagine a dance challenge where 10% of ad revenue auto-splits among creators.

Combining programmable money with social connections, new interaction models become possible — from seamless tipping for quality content to automated revenue sharing for collaborative creation.

SocialFi’s early iterations have failed to gain meaningful traction beyond crypto enthusiasts. If we finally address the fundamental technical and user experience barriers, Web3 Social can deliver a disproportionate advantage over established platforms only Web3 can offer.

Opinion by: Anurag Arjun, co-founder of Avail.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.