Crypto Vesting

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

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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

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Payments behemoth Visa has invested in BVNK, a London-based startup focused on stablecoin payment infrastructure, signaling continued interest in digital asset innovation.

According to a May 7 BVNK announcement, the startup “secured a strategic investment from Visa through their Visa Ventures arm.” Furthermore, while the company does not explain fully what it entails, it refers to the investment as “more than capital” and describes it as a partnership. The company’s CEO, Jesse Hemson-Struthers, wrote:

“I’m particularly excited about what it means to partner with Visa—the original payments innovator. Their deep expertise in building global payment networks, combined with our stablecoin infrastructure, creates powerful possibilities for redefining how businesses operate in today’s digital economy.“BVNK-VISA partnership image. Source: BVNK

Rubail Birwadker, head of products and partnerships at Visa, explained that “stablecoins are fast becoming a part of global payment flows.” He said that

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USD1, the US dollar stablecoin launched by the President Donald Trump-backed World Liberty Financial (WLFI), has become the seventh-largest stablecoin worldwide in just two months since its launch.

WLFI’s snapshot vote for a USD1 airdrop proposal is underway, and USD1’s market capitalization has continued to climb.

Launched in early March with a $3.5 million supply, USD1 has expanded into a market cap of $2.2 billion at the time of writing, leaving rival stablecoins First Digital USD (FDUSD), PayPal USD (PYUSD) and Tether Gold (XAUT) behind, according to data from CoinGecko.

Top 10 stablecoins by market capitalization. Source: CoinGecko

Although rising fast, the USD1 market cap is still far from the market value of major stablecoins like Tether’s USDt (USDT)

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Cryptocurrency miner Diversified Energy quietly vacated a natural gas-powered crypto mining site in Elk County, Pennsylvania, reportedly leaving behind unplugged wells and regulatory violations.

The site, known as Longhorn Pad A, was revived in 2022 after sitting dormant for nearly a decade when Diversified began using it to fuel on-site generators powering cryptocurrency mining computers, according to a report by the Erie Times-News.

Per the report, the operation was launched without obtaining an air quality permit from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Though the company was later granted the permit in December 2023, a March 2025 inspection revealed that Diversified had already removed the mining infrastructure.

Empty metallic sheds and missing production equipment led the DEP to issue a formal violation notice for well abandonment. Diversified reportedly denied that the site was abandoned, saying that it may resume gas production.

However, the DEP and environmental advocates say the

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Bitcoin holders are becoming more comfortable borrowing against their crypto as market confidence grows, according to Seamus Rocca, CEO of the Gibraltar-based private bank, Xapo Bank. 

In an interview at the Token2049 event in Dubai, Rocca told Cointelegraph that with Bitcoin (BTC) hovering around $95,000 and institutional adoption starting to catch on, the mood among investors has shifted from short-term speculation to a more long-term outlook. 

“I’m not sure that confidence would have been there three or four years ago,” Rocca told Cointelegraph. “But today, people are more comfortable to borrow against Bitcoin because we’re nowhere near the levels that would trigger liquidation.”

On March 18, Xapo Bank launched a lending product that allows users to borrow US dollars using their Bitcoin as collateral. With the product, qualified clients can access up to $1 million in loans while keeping their BTC.

Xapo Bank CEO

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Several crypto-focused organizations — including Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies — are eyeing a US return, primarily driven by uncertain geopolitical tensions. Still, BTC miner HIVE Digital Technologies is doubling down on the untapped potential of the Latin American market.

In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, HIVE Digital Technologies’ president and CEO, Aydin Kilic, said that Paraguay presents a compelling long-term opportunity equipped with “geopolitical stability, low-cost hydro energy, and a government open to foreign investment”.

Picking up from where Bitfarms left off

HIVE acquired Bitfarms’ 200 MW Yguazú facility for $56 million in January. Phase 1 infrastructure of a 100 MW data center at the site was completed in April, supporting 5 EH/s of Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) mining.

HIVE plans to expand to 300 megawatts (MW) of mining facilities in Paraguay in 2025. It aims to increase the hashrate to 25 exahash per

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Ethereum — the network that unleashed smart contracts on the world — moves on to the next chapter with today’s Pectra upgrade, but what does it really mean?

Pectra is scheduled to go live on Ethereum mainnet at the start of epoch 364032, May 7, 2025, at around 10:00 am UTC. The three main Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) included are EIP-7702, EIP-7251 and EIP-7691.

Ethereum Pectra Consensys announcement. Source: Consensys

EIP-7702 allows externally owned accounts to act as smart contracts and cover gas expenses (transaction fees) and payments in tokens that are not Ether (ETH). EIP-7251 increases the validator staking limit from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, which makes operations for large stakers easier and simpler.

Lastly, EIP-7691 increases the number of data blobs per block, which allows for better layer-2 scalability and potentially significantly reduces transaction fees. Sergej Kunz, co-founder of Ethereum decentralized

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