Input Output Global (IOG) — the team behind the Cardano ecosystem — will release a software toolkit in late Jan. 2023 that will enable developers to deploy custom-built sidechains on Cardano aimed at improving the ecosystem. The news was announced by IOHK — a blockchain engineering company founded by Charles Hoskinson and now known as IOG — on Jan.12, which also attached the official technical documentation for the sidechain toolkit. ⛓️ The #Cardano sidechain toolkit was previewed at #IOScotFest, and we’re happy to share the first iteration is out now. Here’s the lowdown on this exciting new project! https://t.co/Ny9tQuJh5K — …

Web3 accelerator Beacon has wrapped up its first cohort with 13 graduating companies and has provided a venue for project founders to demo their blockchain-based startups. Beacon’s first 12-week cohort, dubbed Cohort 0, kicked off in October with 15 companies across various cryptocurrency subsectors, including decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming and infrastructure. Beacon held a demo day on Jan. 10 with 13 graduating companies: Arcana, Blinkmoon, ChapterX, Colexion, Community Gaming, Cubist, FastLane, Meta Apes, Mystic Moose, Nillion, Davos Protocol, Timeswap and Ylide. Polygon co-founder and Beacon creator Sandeep Nailwal described the first batch of graduates as the “MVP of Beacon” because …

The blockchain space has long been an attractive medium for creators of all kinds. From digital artists to software developers, blockchain tech has something to offer. However, one big challenge still remains in the space - most blockchains follow the ‘to each their own' concept. Interoperability in web3 is still scarce, which limits creators and makes the entry point for many a bit steeper. One of the main elements that creators of all areas are still seeking is the opportunity to collaborate freely and effortlessly. What needs to improve? As things stand at the moment, blockchain developers scarcely have the …

The Metaverse and Virtual Reality (VR) go hand in hand in the public’s imagination and platforms including Somnium Space, Crypto Voxels, and Meta’s Horizon Worlds already support the technology. But despite describing itself as a “decentralized virtual reality platform” on its website, the browser-based 3D metaverse platform Decentraland still lacks VR. Sean Ong, founder of extended reality specialists XR Dev Studio, sits on a team that has developed an “alpha” version of the VR platform. He explained that while “VR has always been part of Decentraland’s vision,” the Decentraland Foundation has been prioritizing the implementation of core features ahead of …

The developer of a Mutant Ape Yacht Club knock-off collection — Mutant Ape Planet — has been arrested in New York, charged with allegedly “defrauding” investors of $2.9 million in a "rug pull scheme." The arrest took place on Jan. 4 at the John F. International Airport in New York, with homeland security agent Ivan J. Arvelo alleging that French national “Aurelien Michel perpetrated a rug pull scheme” and stole “nearly $3 million from investors for his own personal use," stating: “Purchasers of Mutant Ape Planet NFTs thought they were investing in a trendy new collectible, but they were deceived …

Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform StarkNet has overhauled its in-house Cairo coding language to make Web3 development accessible to developers. An announcement shared with Cointelegraph outlined the upgrades to Cairo 1.0, which is touted to emulate characteristics of the popular programming language Rust. The overhaul intends to allow developers with general coding experience to begin building decentralized applications on StarkNet’s Ethereum layer-2 network. StarkWare co-founder and president Eli Ben-Sasson told Cointelegraph that making layer-2 development more accessible to developers of varying backgrounds was the main reason for Cairo’s revamp: “Primary drivers were safety and ease of use, and conducting the overhaul …

Unique addresses on the Build and Build (BNB) Chain have now surpassed Ethereum, according to a Dec. 22 statement from the developer. BNB Chain has made significant strides in onboarding the next billion users into #Web3 in 2022. We want to thank our incredible community for coming along for the ride as we lay the groundwork for an even bigger year to come. Further details ⤵️https://t.co/9jNFdVeoZ3 pic.twitter.com/QjxL3ey759 — BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) December 22, 2022 The developer claims that this makes BNB Chain “the largest layer 1 blockchain in the world.” However, blockchain data shows that the Bitcoin network is still …

The crypto bear market has also been called a builder’s market by many leading figures and companies in the industry. New data from Nasdaq reveals that investors had this mindset as they continued to sink money into Web3, particularly metaverse-related projects. According to the data over the last year 216 metaverse funding deals were completed, totaling out to nearly US$2 billion in funding. At the top of the funding pool were “support” based services, aka the main components for building. “Digital architects, game designers, AI developers, content creators and custom metaverse services were suddenly needed to build metaverse experiences.." Animoca …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared three “huge" opportunities yet to be realized in crypto, including mass crypto wallet adoption, inflation-resistant stablecoins, and Ethereum-powered website logins. During an interview with Bankless co-owner David Hoffman, Buterin shared his outlook for the crypto industry in 2023, responding to Hoffman’s raised concern that the “adoption wave” for decentralized applications is now over and that there’s “less opportunity” for developers to come in and build new decentralized applications. Buterin instead shrugged off the “limbo period” that Hoffman eluded to, firstly suggesting that more developments need to be made on cryptocurrency wallet infrastructure in order …

Ethereum core developers have opted to prioritize the enabling of staking withdrawals via the Shanghai upgrade first before implementing The Surge-related Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-4884. As reported by Cointelegraph, the next key milestone on Ethereum’s roadmap is the Shanghai upgrade, which will enable withdrawals for ETH stakers/validators from the Beacon Chain — among other things. EIP-4884 is also important and was initially expected to be packaged in with Shanghai, introducing “proto-danksharding” to significantly enhance Layer 2 rollup scalability (The Surge) ahead of the full implementation of the major Sharding upgrade late next year. However, according to Ethereum core developer Tim …

The developers of bridging platform Ren protocol have warned users to unwrap their tokens and bridge them back to their native chains “ASAP,” or risk losing them, according to a Twitter thread from the team. 1) Important notice ⚠️ As announced previously, the Ren 1.0 network is shutting down due to the events surrounding Alameda As compatibility between Ren 1.0 and 2.0 cannot be guaranteed, holders of Ren assets should bridge back to native chains ASAP, or risk losing them! https://t.co/20vpGBc8W0 — Ren (@renprotocol) December 7, 2022 The team stated that mints on Ren will be disabled “shortly,” meaning that …

Web3 investment firm Paradigm has released a Rust implementation of Ethereum, according to a Dec. 7 announcement from the company’s chief technology office, Georgios Konstantopoulos. The new software, called “Reth,” allows Ethereum validators to launch their nodes using Rust instead of Go, Java, or other languages. A previous Rust implementation had been released by Erigon in June, but the Erigon team stopped supporting it in November when they learned that Reth was under development, according to a post by the Erigon team. In the announcement, Konstantopoulos stated that the software has been released in order to “[contribute] to Ethereum’s stability …