Developers
Layer-1 EVM oracle platform Flare launches to boost interoperable DApps
Flare, a new layer-1 Ethereum Virtual Machine blockchain platform, has gone live with the launch of two core protocols aimed at powering decentralized interoperability applications. The platform serves as an oracle network that allows developers to build applications that are aimed at being interoperable with different blockchains and internet platforms and services. Flare features two protocols that power its application-building suite. Its State Connector protocol enables information and data to be used securely and at scale from various blockchains and internet sources with the use of smart contracts. The functionality is touted to offer powerful data to the network and facilitate the development of cross-chain solutions. Meanwhile, the Flare Time Series Oracle (FTSO) sources and provid...
Animoca creates billion-dollar metaverse fund for developers
The GameFi champion and metaverse developer Animoca Brands has a billion-dollar fund in its plans, according to a report from Nikkei Asia on Nov. 30. Animoca Brands’ co-founder Yat Siu said in an interview that the fund could potentially have up to $2 billion dollars to allot to mid to late-stage startups with a metaverse focus. The fund and the exact amount available to developers have yet to be finalized. Cointelegraph reached out to Animoca Brands for a comment, to which the company confirmed that the fund is “in the works.” According to the interview with Siu there will be no geographical restrictions for those to receive funding and the primary focus will be “everything on digital property rights.” He also said the funds are intended to speak to a more mature developmental atmos...
THORChain network resumes following 20-hour chain halt
Cross-chain exchange and proof-of-bond network THORChain announced it was once again “fully operational” after an outage of more than 20 hours In an Oct. 28 tweet, the THORChain team said the network was “back online and producing blocks” and had reenabled trading. The network was halted on Oct. 27 after the team said a bug had caused “non-determinism between individual nodes.” “Turns out to be string manipulation: code was pushing a cosmos.Uint (instead of a uint64) into a string, which causes the string to get the point of the big int instead of the actual value, causing the memo string to be different on different nodes,” said the THORChain team following the chain halt. “Didn’t see this in stagenet because the bad memo never gets written to disk/block, because it gets swapped immediate...
ConsenSys commits $2.4M annually to launch MetaMask Grants DAO
Blockchain technology firm ConsenSys will spend $2.4 million annually to fund its newly launched MetaMask Grants DAO aimed at driving further development of the Web3 ecosystem. The fund will be led by MetaMask employees who will manage the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The DAO will be responsible for issuing grants to developers working outside of ConsenSys that are building products and services within MetaMask’s ecosystem and the wider Web3 space. The project will initially run for 12 months to assess its viability and success, with the DAO processing votes and proposals publicly through SnapShot on the Codefi Activate platform. ConsenSys is committing $600,000 per quarter in an effort to drive decentralization and adoption of Web3 mechanisms and business models. MetaMask’...
a16z leads $40M raise for decentralized knowledge protocol
Decentralized knowledge protocol Golden has closed a $40 million funding round led by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, with additional participation from Protocol Labs, OpenSea Ventures and the founders of Solana, Dropbox, Postmates and Twitch, among others. In addition to leading the Series B funding round, Andreessen Horowitz’s general partner Ali Yahya will join Golden’s board alongside a16z cofounder Marc Andreessen. The funding gives Golden additional resources to continue building its protocol, which is designed to standardize the discovery and verification of knowledge in the era of Web3. Specifically, Golden is developing a decentralized interface that incentivizes collecting and verifying canonical data. The company claims that over 35,000 users participated in ear...
GitHub unbans Tornado Cash repositories following OFAC guidance
Crypto mixer Tornado Cash has returned to the software development platform GitHub after several weeks of being banned on the website. Ethereum developer Preston Van Loon took to Twitter on Thursday to report that GitHub has partly unbanned the Tornado Cash organization and contributors on their platform. The developer suggested that Tornado Cash’s code repositories are now in read-only mode, which means that GitHub is yet to restore full functionality. “But that is progress from an outright ban. I still encourage GitHub to reverse all actions and return the repositories to their former status,” Van Loon stated. According to GitHub data, the latest Tornado Cash repositories updates were made on Aug. 22, or shortly after Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Semenov reported that his account w...
Coinbase Cloud debuts Web3 developer platform
Blockchain infrastructure platform Coinbase Cloud has officially rolled out its Web3 developer platform, allowing users to build new decentralized applications free of charge. The new developer platform, dubbed Node, allows users to create and monitor Web3 applications while accessing the Ethereum blockchain and indexers, the company disclosed Wednesday. While Node offers a tiered subscription model, the free plan includes access to advanced APIs that allow for the creation of decentralized applications and nonfungible token (NFT) applications. Coinbase Cloud claims that Node enables faster creation of Web3 applications while reducing both complexity and cost. This feeds into the platform’s broader service offerings, which include all-in-one access to payments, identity, trading and ...
Linux to launch Foundation to support digital wallet development
The Linux Foundation, a global nonprofit organization that enables innovation within the blockchain ecosystem through access to open source technology, has announced plans to launch the OpenWallet Foundation (OWF). The OWF is a collaborative effort between companies in the technology and public sector, as well as stakeholders within the blockchain ecosystem, to develop open-source software to support the interoperability of digital wallets; software designed to send, receive, store and monitor digital assets. According to a press release issued on Sept. 13, the primary goal of the OWF is to build a multi-purpose open source engine that anyone with the technical understanding can use to build safe, secure, and privacy-protected interoperable wallets. The foundation also said it seeks ...
Collapse of Terra blockchain ecosystem forces talent migration
At the height of the 2022 bull market, the Terra ecosystem was booming with talent and innovation. The native token of the Terra blockchain had made its way to the top-10 cryptocurrencies by total market capitalization. Protocols were building the next iteration of a super cycle that seemed like it would never end. Terraform Labs created Terra amid the crypto market crash of 2018 and built it all through the bear market. The Terra ecosystem’s main appeal and claim for glory came from their offer of the best yields in decentralized finance (DeFi), with up to 20% yield on its stablecoin through the Anchor protocol. As of March 2022, Terra had a total of 73 projects built in the ecosystem. The ambition of the team was to onboard at least 87 more projects by the end of the year. Terra wa...
Ethereum ready for The Merge as last shadow fork completes successfully
Ethereum (ETH) developers confirmed the successful completion of the prerequisites — shadow forks — required for the highly anticipated blockchain upgrade, The Merge. Shadow forks help developers stress test synchronization assumptions to ensure network safety during permanent upgrades. In light of The Merge, Ethereum developers implemented the first shadow fork on Apr. 11, 2022. Nearly six months in, Ethereum research and engineering company Nethermind confirmed that the transition in Mainnet-Shadowfork-13 — the last shadow fork — was successful, signaling the readiness of the network for migrating to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Transition in Mainnet-Shadowfork-13 (the last shadowfork before The Merge) was successful for all Nethermind nodes!#TheMerge #Ethereum #Neth...
Ethereum advances with standards for smart contract security audits
The Ethereum ecosystem continues to witness a flurry of activity that has individuals and organizations deploying token contracts, adding liquidity to pools and deploying smart contracts to support a wide range of business models. While notable, this growth has also been riddled with security exploits, leaving decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols vulnerable to hacks and scams. For instance, recent findings from crypto intelligence firm Chainalysis show that crypto-related hacks have increased by 58.3% from the beginning of the year through July 2022. The report further notes that $1.9 billion has been lost to hacks during this timeframe — a figure that doesn’t include the $190 million Nomad bridge hack that occurred on August 1, 2022. Although open source code may be beneficial for...
Velodrome recovers $350K stolen funds from team member Gabagool
Velodrome Finance, a trading and liquidity marketplace, announced the recovery of $350,000 stolen on Aug. 4. However, the occasion turned bittersweet when internal investigations pointed out the involvement of a prominent team member, who goes by the pseudo name Gabagool. On Aug. 4, one of Velodrome’s high-worth wallets — dedicated for operating funds such as salaries — was drained off $350,000 before it could be transferred to the company’s treasury multisig wallet. A subsequent internal investigation revealed the attacker’s identification, which allowed the company to recover the entire loot. Velodrome’s official statement revealed: “Much to our disappointment, we learned the attacker was a fellow team member Gabagool.” While many community members came in support of the prominent coder,...
