The post XRP Trading on WhatsApp Goes Viral After Solana Labs Co-Founder Responds appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

A user on X posted what appears to be a demonstration of buying XRP directly inside WhatsApp using a Solana-based AI agent, and the post has turned heads, including a reaction from Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko.

The user, posting under the handle nxxn, shared what they described as a swap of 0.1 SOL for 5.99 wXRP executed entirely within the WhatsApp messaging app. The instruction given to the bot was straightforward: “buy 0.1 SOL worth of wXRP.”

“I just bought XRP on Solana through WhatsApp,” the user wrote. “Solana is officially ready for boomers.”

The swap was reportedly carried out through @solanaclawagent, an AI-powered trading agent that appears to have integrated with WhatsApp as a conversational interface for on-chain activity.

Also Read : Charles Hoskinson Says XRP Holders Get Nothing When Ripple Succeeds, Here’s Why

Why the Solana Co-Founder’s Reaction Mattered

Yakovenko’s response to the post gave it visibility well beyond what a typical product experiment would receive. When one of the architects of the Solana blockchain publicly acknowledges a use case, the community treats it as a signal of legitimacy rather than a novelty.

https://t.co/yrJew8MYVD

— toly (@toly) April 20, 2026

For the unversed, Hex Trust and LayerZero launched wrapped XRP on the Solana blockchain in December 2025 with over $100 million in liquidity. Adoption since then has been more measured than some expected, with the majority of wrapped XRP supply still sitting on Ethereum rather than migrating to Solana’s higher-throughput ecosystem.

The demo touches on something the crypto industry has discussed for years without delivering: making on-chain transactions accessible through interfaces that mainstream users already use daily. A WhatsApp interface for executing swaps could change that dynamic by reaching users who would never navigate a traditional DeFi front end.

Community reaction ranged from genuine excitement to playful scepticism. Whether the integration scales beyond a demo or remains a proof of concept is unclear. 

The post Ripple CTO Says RLUSD Evaluation Exposed the Same Risk That Drained $292M From Kelp DAO appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

David Schwartz, CTO Emeritus at Ripple, had a pointed observation this week after the Kelp DAO rsETH bridge was exploited for approximately $292 million.

He had seen this coming. Not this specific attack, but the conditions that made it possible.

“I evaluated a lot of DeFi bridging systems for use by RLUSD,” Schwartz wrote on X. “I was almost exclusively focused on the security and risk aspect. One thing I noticed is that most schemes were very well designed and had really strong mechanisms available to protect against exactly the type of attack the KelpDAO situation seems to have been caused by.”

The Sales Pitch That Buried the Security Features

What Schwartz described is a pattern he encountered repeatedly during his evaluation process. Bridge providers would pitch their most advanced security features prominently, then almost immediately suggest that those features were optional and that most customers chose not to use them.

“They generally in effect recommended not bothering to use the most important security mechanisms because they have convenience and operational complexity costs,” he wrote. “We were frequently pitched the simplicity and ease of adding more chains with the implicit assumption we wouldn’t bother using the best security features they had.”

“Their sales pitch was that they have the best security features but they’re easy to use and scale, assuming you don’t use the security features,” he said.

What Actually Happened to Kelp DAO

On April 19, Kelp DAO identified suspicious cross-chain activity involving rsETH and paused contracts across mainnet and multiple Layer 2 networks. Approximately 116,500 rsETH was drained through LayerZero-related contract calls, worth around $292 million at current prices.

On-chain analysis from D2 Finance traced the root cause to a private key leak on the source chain, creating a trust issue with OApp nodes that the attacker exploited to manipulate the bridge.

Schwartz offered his own hypothesis about what likely went wrong at the protocol level. “I have a funny feeling part of the problem is going to be something like KelpDAO choosing not to use key LayerZero security features out of convenience,” he wrote.

LayerZero itself offers robust security mechanisms including decentralised verification networks. The question investigators are now examining is whether Kelp DAO configured its implementation using a minimal security setup, specifically a single point of failure with LayerZero Labs as the sole verifier, rather than the more complex but significantly more secure options available.

The post XRP Price Prediction: Analyst Sees Bullish Structure Intact appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

XRP slipped below $1.46 over the weekend, a level that analysts had flagged as the most critical line for the token heading into the final stretch of April. The move was not entirely unexpected on the charts, but the catalyst that pushed it through was geopolitical rather than technical.

The important support to watch now is $1.41. As long as XRP holds that level, the analyst believes a broader bullish structure remains intact. Below that, $1.37 represents the 30-day rolling VWAP, a level that could come into play if genuinely bad news hits. A move all the way back to $1.31 is considered unlikely under current conditions.

To the upside, reclaiming $1.46 is the prerequisite for any meaningful rally. A clean break above that level would open the path toward $1.55 to $1.57. 

The Short-Term Expectation

The honest near-term outlook is one of range-bound consolidation. The analyst described the most likely scenario as XRP drifting lower within the $1.35 to $1.46 range, finding support somewhere in that band, stabilising and then potentially mounting another attempt at the upper boundary.

A breakout above $1.46 remains possible but would require a continuation of the bullish fundamentals seen last week, including strong XRP ETF inflows and improving sentiment. Negative Bitcoin funding rates and the current uncertainty environment make that combination less likely in the immediate term.

What Is Working in XRP’s Favour

Despite the short-term weakness, several factors are pointing in the right direction. XRP ETF flows came in strongly last week. The XRP to Bitcoin ratio appears to have bottomed, which the analyst described as a meaningful signal for the token’s relative strength going into May.

The fundamentals, he said, are uncertain rather than negative. That distinction matters. Uncertain conditions can resolve either way. The bias for later in April and into May remains cautiously bullish if the macro environment cooperates.

The post Aave Hit With $5.4 Billion in ETH Withdrawals After Kelp DAO rsETH Exploit appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

A nearly $300 million exploit targeting Kelp DAO’s rsETH cross-chain bridge has triggered a mass withdrawal event at Aave, with over $5.4 billion in ETH leaving the protocol as users rushed to pull funds following concerns about bad debt accumulating on the platform.

The attacker deposited rsETH into Aave to drain ETH, leaving the protocol holding exposure it cannot easily unwind. The consequence was immediate. Aave’s ETH utilization rate climbed to 100%, meaning every available ETH in the lending pool is now borrowed and the protocol has no liquidity buffer remaining.

The Whale Exodus

The scale of the withdrawal was driven by large holders acting quickly. Justin Sun alone removed 65,584 ETH worth approximately $154 million from Aave in a single move, a transaction that on its own would have been headline news on any other day.

According to on-chain tracking by Lookonchain, the broader exodus of $5.4 billion reflects a wider panic among sophisticated users who understood what bad debt at Aave means for depositors unable to withdraw at will.

What Actually Happened

Kelp DAO paused rsETH contracts across mainnet and multiple Layer 2 networks shortly after identifying suspicious cross-chain activity. The team said it was working with LayerZero, Unichain, auditors and security experts to determine the root cause.

On-chain analysis from D2 Finance pointed to a private key leak on the source chain as the root cause, creating a trust issue with OApp nodes that allowed the attacker to manipulate the bridge.

A further nuance was added by investigators following the forensics. Two possible failure paths exist. If a legitimate source transaction exists for the relevant nonce, the compromise originated from the source-side OApp key. If no source transaction surfaces, the failure is on the DVN side, compounded by Kelp’s configuration of a single point of failure using LayerZero Labs as the sole verifier.

What Comes Next

Kelp DAO’s contracts remain paused while the investigation continues. Aave’s ETH utilization at 100% creates a situation where depositors cannot withdraw until borrowed ETH is repaid or new liquidity enters the pool.

The bad debt question is the more pressing concern. If the exploited rsETH positions cannot be recovered, Aave will need to determine how losses are distributed across the protocol, a process that has historically been contentious and slow.

Full forensics and an attacker cluster map are still being compiled. Official updates are expected through Kelp DAO’s verified channels as the investigation progresses.

The post Charles Hoskinson Says XRP Holders Get Nothing When Ripple Succeeds, Here’s Why appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Charles Hoskinson was asked a straightforward question during a recent discussion: even if Ripple keeps all the business value for itself, does it not still benefit XRP holders when the headlines drive the price up during a bull market?

His answer was pointed and detailed. “You got to understand that they gave themselves somewhere between 70 to 80% of the supply,” Hoskinson said. “The game is make the headlines, make the price go up, sell the XRP to other people, and then use the cash to buy assets.”

Hoskinson’s position is that XRP holders do not have legal ownership of anything Ripple builds with the money it raises from selling XRP. The prime broker, the custody business, the treasury management platform, the acquisitions, all of that belongs to Ripple as a private company with independent investors and shareholders.

“XRP holders have no legal ownership of those assets,” he said. “They go to a centralised company. The XRP token doesn’t really have much to say or do with that. There are no staking rewards or other things connected to it.”

“It’s basically like Tether from that perspective. One company gets all the value and the holders get some instrument and some network, but they don’t actually get any price appreciation from that,” he said.

The Circular Economy Problem

Hoskinson contrasted this with what he described as a properly structured tokenomic model. Using Midnight and Hyperliquid as examples, he argued that in a well-designed system, network activity creates direct buy demand for the underlying token. The more the network is used, the more demand there is for the token. Value flows back to holders.

“There is nothing in the Ripple network that creates buy demand for the XRP token. Nothing,” he said. “Whereas you can do that with Hyperliquid and absolutely can do it in the app chain model.”

He pointed to the EOS situation as the historical precedent. Block One raised $4 billion building the EOS network, declared it had no fiduciary obligation to the ecosystem, retained the capital, and EOS holders were left with a token that went nowhere while the company’s treasury compounded.

The Bull Market Counterargument

The question put to Hoskinson acknowledged the obvious: in a bull market, headlines drive prices. XRP holders profit when price goes up regardless of the underlying structure.

Hoskinson did not deny that. His argument is about the longer-term structure rather than short-term price action. Ripple has been selling hundreds of millions to billions of dollars worth of XRP every year, as documented in SEC filings that formed the basis of the lawsuit. That selling is ongoing. The cash goes into Ripple the company, not back into XRP.

“When they do make revenue and profit, there is no buyback. The Ripple company is not going and buying back XRP. They sell the XRP,” he said.

The post RaveDAO Price Crashes 95% as Binance and Bitget Launch Investigations After Manipulation Allegations appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

RaveDAO has collapsed. A token that reached an all-time high of $27.94 just days ago is now trading around $1.50, down 95% from its peak, after on-chain investigator ZachXBT publicly accused insiders of orchestrating a pump-and-dump scheme and both Binance and Bitget confirmed they had opened formal investigations.

Approximately $43.68 million in leveraged positions were liquidated in 24 hours as the allegations triggered panic selling and a cascade of forced closures across derivatives markets.

What ZachXBT Alleged

ZachXBT claimed that over 90% of RAVE’s token liquidity was controlled by a small group of insiders, a concentration that would give them the ability to manufacture price increases and sell into retail demand. He had previously attempted to contact the RaveDAO co-founder for comment and was left on read.

When Binance and Bitget confirmed investigations were underway, whatever confidence remained in the token evaporated.

On-chain data supported the concern. RAVE had approximately 12,139 holders at a point when it briefly carried a multi-billion dollar market cap, with an estimated 98% of supply concentrated in insider and early wallets. That structure made violent downside moves inevitable once selling pressure arrived.

RaveDAO Responds

The team published a six-part statement, denying involvement in the price action and framing the situation as industry noise directed at a legitimate project.

“RaveDAO team is not engaged in, nor responsible for, recent price action,” the team wrote. “We take transparency seriously and remain humbled by the attention, but our focus is on the mission: bringing mass adoption to Web3 through live events.”

The statement acknowledged plans to sell tokens to fund operations, described as being done according to a Token Release Schedule. It also announced the team is exploring performance-triggered or price-triggered lock mechanisms to align team incentives with ecosystem growth going forward.

The team closed by saying it was returning to building and would not engage further with what it called rumours.

Where RAVE Trades Now

RAVE is currently around $1.50, with the next support identified at $0.80. A recovery would require reclaiming $2.50 as support, a level that now represents significant overhead resistance.

The investigations at Binance and Bitget are ongoing. Until those conclude, analysts expect bearish pressure to continue, particularly given the overhang of insider supply that has not yet been distributed.

The token went from $0.14 to $27.94 in four months. It gave most of it back in less than 24 hours.

The post Ripple Will Be the Amazon of Payments and Banking Infrastructure by 2040, Analyst Says appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Jake Claver has an interesting answer to the question of where Ripple ends up on the global financial stage by 2040 to 2050.

“I think they will be the Goliath, the Amazon of payments and banking infrastructure,” he said. “Potentially even sooner with the acquisitions they made in 2025 and into 2026.”

The acquisitions he is referring to tell a story on their own. GTreasury for cash management. Ripple Prime, formerly Hidden Road, for clearing and prime brokerage. Rail for stablecoin issuance and managementRipple Custody, formerly Metaco and Standard Custody, which carries a trust-chartered bank and BitLicense in New York. 

Put together, Claver describes Ripple as already functioning as a global infrastructure provider for backend payments and settlement. But he argues the endgame is something bigger.

Will XRP Holders Actually Hold to $10 and Beyond?

Claver was asked directly what percentage of retail XRP holders would sell before the token reached $10. His estimate was pointed.

“Probably 30 to 50% of people holding a significant amount of XRP will likely liquidate at least a portion,” he said.

His reasoning reflects the reality of who holds the asset. Globally, approximately 250,000 people hold more than 3,000 XRP. For many of them, a $10 price would represent a life-changing sum. Taking profits at 5x or 10x is rational behaviour, not weakness.

The holders Claver works with directly understand the longer thesis and are less likely to sell early. He has also built products allowing holders to collateralise their XRP and generate returns without liquidating, removing the need to choose between holding long-term and accessing liquidity.

Ripple’s trajectory, in Claver’s telling, is not primarily a crypto story. It is an infrastructure story. The company is building the backend that every major financial institution will eventually run on, whether they acknowledge it or not.

The Amazon comparison is not accidental. Amazon built warehouses and logistics before most people understood why. Ripple is building settlement rails, custody infrastructure and liquidity direction before most banks are ready to admit they will need it.