Tag: Api

Twitter disables actions on tweets with Substack links

by Blockchain News

On April 7, users of Twitter were left feeling upset when they discovered that they were unable to engage with tweets that included links to sites hosted on Substack. When trying to like, retweet, or comment to postings that included Substack links, several users reported getting an error message stating that “some actions on this tweet have been disabled by Twitter.” It was noted by several users that the user interface seemed to record their likes or retweets; but, upon closer examination, it did not appear to be counting or showing the interactions.

At this time, it is not possible to tell if the problem is a defect or a feature that was intended to be there. Since April 6, it seems that Twitter has disabled the ability for users of Substack to embed tweets in their posts, which may be connected to the problem. The Substack representative who was asked about the issue did not specify whether they felt the problem was caused by a change in the Twitter API or a bug.

The issue started happening not long after Substack introduced “Notes,” an application for publishing similar to Twitter that some people feel is intended to compete with the bird app. Substack is often seen as a venue in which bloggers of an advanced level may discuss their ideas with groups of users that have similar interests. Substack has been used to a very significant degree, particularly within the crypto community.

This problem arises as a result of multiple recent, unexplained modifications made to Twitter. The site displayed a picture of Doge in lieu of Twitter’s bird emblem for a number of days, while the nonprofit media group National Public Radio (NPR) was labeled as “state media.” A great number of users are now perplexed and doubting Twitter’s motivations as a result of these developments.

Regarding Substack, it is not apparent what Twitter’s goals or objectives are at this time. It’s possible that an effort was made to suppress competition by making it impossible for Twitter users to engage with tweets that include links to Substack, but it might also just be a glitch that needs to be fixed. In any event, users will be keeping a careful watch on both platforms for any more advancements that may occur.

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Twitter Disables Interactions with Substack Links

by Blockchain News

On April 7, Twitter users on both mobile and web platforms discovered that they were unable to interact with tweets containing links to Substack pages. Many users attempting to like, retweet or reply to posts containing Substack links received an error message indicating that “some actions on this tweet have been disabled by Twitter.” In some cases, users reported that while the interface seemed to register their likes or retweets, these interactions were not being counted or displayed.

At present, it is unclear whether the issue is a bug or an intended feature. However, it is worth noting that on April 6, Twitter appeared to have cut off the ability for Substack users to embed tweets in their posts. According to The Verge, a spokesperson for Substack did not clarify whether they believed the issue involved a change to the Twitter API or a bug. Nonetheless, the inability of Twitter users to interact with tweets containing Substack links seems to have begun around the same time, indicating a likely connection between the two problems.

This development comes in the wake of several recent, mysterious changes to Twitter. For example, the platform recently featured a Doge image in place of Twitter’s bird logo for several days, causing confusion among users. Additionally, the nonprofit media organization National Public Radio (NPR) received a “state media” label, which many people found questionable.

It is also worth noting that Substack announced the launch of “Notes” on April 5, which is a Twitter-like posting application that allows users to share short thoughts and updates. This application can be seen as a potential competitor to Twitter, particularly as Substack is often regarded as a place for expert-level bloggers to share their thoughts with like-minded communities. The crypto community, in particular, has taken advantage of Substack to a relatively large degree.

Given all of these developments, it remains to be seen whether Twitter’s disabling of interactions with Substack links is a temporary bug or a deliberate move to counter competition from Substack. Either way, this issue is likely to be of concern to users who rely on both platforms for networking and community building. As of this writing, there has been no official statement from Twitter or Substack regarding the matter, and it is unclear when a resolution might be forthcoming.

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Coinbase Launches WaaS to Simplify Adoption of Web3 Wallets

by Blockchain News

Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, has unveiled Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS), a new business solution that simplifies the adoption of Web3 wallets. WaaS provides enterprises with a technical infrastructure to create and launch customizable on-chain wallets via a wallet application programming interface (API). The API enables businesses to develop wallets for simple customer onboarding, loyalty programs, and in-game purchases.

Web3 wallets have struggled to gain wider mainstream acceptance due to their complexity, poor user experience, and the challenges of maintaining mnemonic seeds. Coinbase’s WaaS solves these complexities by providing end-to-end product experience control, reducing implementation cost and complexity, and improving security while reducing risks.

Patrick McGregor, the head of product at Coinbase’s Web3 Developer Platforms, explained that WaaS avoids the key loss issues that plague traditional self-custody platforms with its MPC cryptographic functionality. The WaaS toolkit includes MPC, a form of cryptography that allows multiple parties to jointly compute a function without revealing their inputs to each other. MPC enhances private key security within Web3 platforms, as it splits users’ private keys into multiple parts and distributes them among the protocol’s parties involved.

Companies such as Floor, Moonray, thirdweb, and tokenproof are currently using Coinbase’s WaaS infrastructure. The introduction of WaaS by Coinbase comes amid the current crypto winter, as startups, corporations, and investors seek to define the future of the decentralized internet. Although not everyone is convinced that current Web3 modalities advance the principles of decentralization, developments around MPC and decentralized privacy suggest that many in the industry are taking it seriously.

McGregor noted that many companies are “building for Web3 ahead of the next bull market,” a period where cryptocurrency prices generally rise. Coinbase is “seeing strong excitement about token-gated content (for both online opportunities and physical real-world use cases), moving loyalty programs on-chain, deep integrations between games and assets owned by users, and more.” With the introduction of WaaS, Coinbase aims to streamline the adoption of Web3 products and services, paving the way for broader mainstream acceptance of Web3 wallets.

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

ConsenSys Acquires Hal to Improve Alerts

by Blockchain News

ConsenSys, a company that provides services related to blockchain technology, has just completed the purchase of Hal, a platform for no-code blockchain development tools, with the purpose of causing a disruption in Web3’s alerts and notifications at the protocol level.

ConsenSys’ Web3 API provider Infura will be able to include Hal’s configurable webhooks or notification service into its developer stack as a direct consequence of the acquisition. As a direct result of this modification, it will be much simpler for developers to generate warnings and notifications at the protocol level for a wide range of signals.

According to ConsenSys, Infura offers a collection of tools to link apps, which the developer community may use to connect applications to the Ethereum network and other decentralized platforms. These tools were developed by Infura. The collection of these tools is sometimes referred to as a suite.

According to Eleazar Galano, one of the co-founders of Infura, the company wants to fix inadequacies in the present approach of creating apps for the bitcoin ecosystem. This information was provided by Galano. In relation to the acquisition of Hal by ConsenSys, Galano made the following statement: “Enabling developers to have a seamless end-to-end experience is a critical objective, and one of the most important trends is the use of little code / no code solutions.”

In February of 2022, ConsenSys successfully finalized the purchase of Ethereum wallet interface provider MyCrypto with the purpose of improving both the security of MetaMask and the level of the user experience it provides.

ConsenSys purchased Hal in order to expand upon this endeavor, which has been ongoing for an entire year, and to make it possible for MetaMask to provide a dynamic and tailored notification system. Additionally, the acquisition of Hal was made in order to make it possible for ConsenSys to expand upon this endeavor.

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / /

Shopify Launches Blockchain Commerce Tools to Enhance User Experience

by Blockchain News

E-commerce giant Shopify, which is crypto-friendly, has released a suite of blockchain commerce tools with the intention of improving the customer experience of its Web3-focused businesses that are housed on the platform.

Particularly noted are the improved functionality for connecting crypto wallets and the “tokengating” application programming interface (API) tools. The latter was previously exclusively accessible to a limited number of retailers until it entered early access beta access mode in June 2022.

Through the use of tokengating, relevant Shopify merchants now have the ability to build up their businesses in such a way that they may choose which tokenholders have access to exclusive items, nonfungible token (NFT) drops, and advantages and which do not.

The application checks a user’s eligibility by using the associated wallet, and it is being marketed to NFT Merchants as a convenient method to reward certain customers or add an element of exclusivity to certain items.

Shopify has merged with the sign-in with Ethereum (SIWE) protocol, which is led by the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and the Ethereum Foundation. This integration enables Shopify to provide enhanced support for cryptocurrency wallets.

SIWE enables secure user sign-ins and authentication of Ethereum accounts and ENS domains without giving away private identifiers to third parties such as names, phone numbers, and residential addresses. Essentially, SIWE makes it possible for users to securely sign in and authenticate themselves to Ethereum accounts and ENS domains.

In the past, Shopify has had some issues when it comes to protecting the privacy of its customers’ information. Concerning a significant breach of user data that occurred in 2020, a group of dissatisfied customers filed a class-action lawsuit against the company and the vendor of hardware wallets, Ledger, in April of 2022.

“The statementGenerator prop gives you the ability to modify the statement that is shown whenever a Sign-In with Ethereum message is presented. According to the paper, “the function gets the address of the wallet that has linked, which enables you to extend and adapt your message statements so that they are more aligned with your brand.”

At this stage, once a merchant hooks up the SIWE feature on Shopify wallet connect, it appears that users will be able to click a “sign-in with Ethereum” button to connect their addresses via SIWE’s partnered intermediaries such as Coinbase, Fortmatic, WalletConnect, Portis, and Torus. This is something that users will be able to do once the merchant has hooked up the SIWE feature on Shopify wallet connect.

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

FTX Users Lose Millions due to API Exploit

by Blockchain News

On Saturday, several crypto traders suffered massive losses after hackers stole millions of dollars worth of digital assets from their FTX accounts by exploiting an API linked to their trading accounts.

An FTX user was shocked when he realized that his account using the 3Commas API traded the Governance (DMG) token more than 5,000 times, resulting in a loss of about $1.6 million worth of assets, including Bitcoin, Ether, and FTX tokens.

3Commas is a crypto trading platform that allows users to build automated trading bots on FTX and many other exchanges.

The report confirmed that this was not an isolated incident, as there were three other victims who suffered the loss. The second victim of the FTX exploits disclosed that he lost $1.5 million to the incident, which occurred on October 21. While he said malicious players had traded DMG via his account on October 18th and 19th, he questioned why FTX had not put in place risk control measures to guard against illegal trading activities.

An investigation conducted by trading-bot platform 3Commas and crypto exchange FTX showed that API keys linked to 3Commas were used to carry out unauthorized trades for DMG trading pairs on FTX. Both FTX and 3Commas identified that hackers used new 3Commas accounts to perform the DMG trades, as “the API keys were not taken from 3Commas but from outside of the 3Commas platform.”

The investigation showed that fraudulent websites identifying themselves as 3Commas were used to phish API keys as users linked FTX accounts to fraudulent web interfaces. The fake websites’ API keys were then stored and later used to put the unauthorized trades on the DMG trading pairs on FTX.  3Commas further suspected that hackers used third-party browser extensions and malware to steal the API keys from users.

The duo identified suspicious accounts based on user activity and, as a result, suspended the API keys to avoid further losses. FTX users who linked their accounts with 3Commas, therefore, received a message concerning their API as being “invalid” or “requires updating” and now are expected to create new API keys.

3Commas and FTX are currently working with the victims to provide assistance and garner more information about the hacking incident.

Why Crypto Hacks Are Surging

2022 has been identified as the worst year in terms of crypto hacks, according to Chainalysis research firm. October is recognized as the worst-ever month for crypto-related crimes, with more than $718 million in overall losses. Funds were stolen from various DeFi protocols during 11 different attacks.

This year is expected to surpass 2021 as the most prolific year for hacking on record, with 125 hacks that have led to over $3 billion worth of funds stolen so far. $325 million attack on cross-chain service Wormhole, a $625 million attack on Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge, a $200 million attack on the Nomad bridge, a $100 million hack on Binance, and many more took place this year.

Poorly protected protocols and unaudited decentralized apps are easy pickings for hackers who take advantage of their highly vulnerable locks.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Strike Secures $80m in Funding to Propel Instant Bitcoin Payments

by Blockchain News

Strike raised $80 million in funding to revamp BTC payments for top financial institutions, marketplaces, and merchants.

Jack Mallers, the CEO and founder of Strike, pointed out:

“We’re moving full speed ahead not just to integrate Strike’s revolutionary payments with leading merchants, but globally, with a variety of businesses and partners to innovate and deliver on more financial inclusion.” 

As a leading digital payments platform built on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, Strike recently launched its flagship API meant to render instant, cash-final, and global payments by eradicating interchange and other processing fees. 

Some investors taking part in the $80 million funding included the University of Wyoming, Ten31, and Washington University in St. Louis, among others. 

Since Strike is poised to revamp the Landscape’s payments and financial services, Grant Gilliam believes it will offer everyone a more inclusive, innovative, and efficient financial experience.

The co-founder and managing partner of Ten31 added:

“Strike and Ten31 have a shared vision for the positive impact bitcoin can have on the world and are mutually aligned on accelerating its adoption. It was therefore a natural fit to partner with Strike as its lead investor.” 

Strike intends to use the capital to boost growth beyond its commerce API, enhance existing partnerships, and launch new collaborations. For instance, the digital payments platform intends to roll out new product lines that will take the hassle of building in-house solutions for large businesses and financial institutions. 

Mallers added:

“Businesses and institutions want a groundbreaking experience sending payments as well. We can empower businesses to move money in ways networks such as card networks and SWIFT can’t, and we pay these partners in the form of commissions to do so, which makes it an exciting innovation for everyone. We’ve seen a lot of demand here.”

Having clocked more than two million app downloads, it seems the sky’s the limit for Strike, given that it permits users to send dollars instantly and feeless globally.

Meanwhile, Strike enabled Shopify merchants to have the option of receiving BTC off-chain payments, which are readily confirmed, faster, and cheaper than that processed on-chain, Blockchain.News reported. 

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / /

Alchemy Snaps Up ChainShot as its First Acquisition

by Blockchain News

Blockchain infrastructure service provider, Alchemy has announced the acquisition of ChainShot, a crypto education platform to help complement its plethora of crypto-focused offerings.

ALC2.jpg

Positioned to serve as a boost to Alchemy’s Web3.0 University offshoot, ChainShot, which currently offers live and instructor-led Ethereum developer boot camps, will take up a vital role in the broader Alchemy ecosystem.

As an infrastructure service provider, Alchemy has carved out a niche for itself and currently powers platforms like OpenSea, Maker, and Polygon with its Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Alchemy’s APIs offer various functions ranging from node infrastructure, transaction history, and NFT functionality. 

“As for the next steps, our goal is to make the integration of ChainShot’s programs and ours as smooth and seamless for students as possible,” said the statement. “We’re still ironing out how the pieces will come together, but one thing is certain: all of ChainShot’s course content that previously cost upwards of $3,000 will be 100% free.” 

The Alchemy solution can be attributed to two innovators, Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau. The strength and value Alchemy offer have recently helped the startup onboard traditional companies, including Meta Platforms Inc, Shopify, and Adobe, in their Web3.0 pursuits. 

ChainShot is the first acquisition that will be made by Alchemy thus far despite its robust and deep liquidity. In a funding round in April of this year, the company received $200 million from investors that Lightspeed Ventures and Silverlake led. The funding round earned Alchemy over $10 billion in valuation.

Alchemy’s acquisition is yet another show of the impressive use of funds in the digital currency ecosystem. 

The acquisition of ChainShot will further solidify its divestment strategies, which generally complements its push to integrate as many blockchain protocols as possible. As reported earlier by Blockchain.News, Alchemy has been integrating Solana and Polkadot-based protocols, the latest of which is Astar Network.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / /

Circle Delays Launching DeFi API Product, Cites Needs for more Regulatory Guidances

by Blockchain News

Circle, a major crypto payments infrastructure provider and stablecoin issuer, on Friday announced that it postponed the launch of its anticipated decentralized finance (DeFi) application programming interface (API) product, citing the need for more regulatory guidance before its release.

Webp.net-resizeimage - 2022-03-07T103656.470.jpg

The DeFi API product would help businesses access Compound Finance on the Ethereum network. Circle has now delayed the product and instead dedicated resources, which were initially allocated to support the release, to launching the Circle Yield product and making the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin available on new blockchains.

“The timing of the DeFi API product rollout will be guided by developments in, and the availability of, further regulatory guidance, enhanced compliance tools, and blockchain identity protocols,” Circle mentioned in its statement.

“We proceed to concentrate on empowering establishments to ship, spend and safe USDC and unlock new methods of doing enterprise with the suite of companies out there by way of Circle Account,” the firm further elaborated about its move.

In June last year, Jeremy Allaire, Circle CEO, announced that the firm would be launching the DeFi API product. He promised “seamless, safe, secure and regulated infrastructure for accessing and building on DeFi lending markets”.

Enabling Businesses to Access DeFi

Established in 2013, Circle originally wanted to develop a mainstream Bitcoin payment platform. But later the firm pivoted to develop a social payments app. In June last year, Circle announced plans to become a public company through a merger with Concord Acquisition Corp, a SPAC.

Circle is best known as the issuer of USDC, a popular stablecoin. With USDC, transferring funds from one wallet to another becomes quite easy. The firm added various infrastructure products around USDC, like Circle Accounts. Circle has also developed ramps to bridge the gap between crypto-assets and fiat currencies.

Circle plans to launch a new API for firms using Circle accounts to manage crypto assets, especially USDC stablecoins. The new API will enable companies to access DeFi protocols.

The launch aims to enable the easiest way for businesses to access DeFi, enabling firms to easily and confidently access new lending markets powered by DeFi. With the upcoming Circle’s DeFi API, businesses will be able to access leading DeFi protocols, starting with Compound lending pools on the Ethereum blockchain.

The DeFi API is set to enable businesses to automate USDC flows into DeFi lending markets, easily and quickly access to DeFi protocols where they can earn interest, governance tokens, and provide the same access services to their customer platforms.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / /

ELA, API3 and PROM buck the market-wide downtrend by posting a 20%+ gain

by Cointelegraph

Fear and volatility remain the theme of the week as Bitcoin (BTC) continues to face stiff resistance near the $42,000 price level and stock markets were also hard hit on Jan. 18. Investor fear over this year’s proposed rate hikes continue to apply bearish pressure and at the closing bell the DOW was down 530 points, or 1.4%.

Despite the downturn, altcoins managed to overcome the noise and several posted double-digit gains on Tuesday.

Top 7 coins with the highest 24-hour price change. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24-hours were Elsastos (ELA), API3 (API3) and Prometheus (PROM).

Elastos launches a token buyback program

Elastos protocol, a web3-focused project aiming to become the “blockchain-powered version of the internet” broke out with a notable 22% rally.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $2.80 on Jan. 8, the price of Elastos has blasted 120% higher to reach a daily high of $6.16 on Jan. 18 as its 24-hour trading volume spiked 142% to $7.57 million.

ELA/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The surge in price and trading volume for ELA came after the Elastos Foundation announced plans for an upcoming ELA buyback program. The platform’s first decentralized exchange, Glide Finance, also saw an uptick in the total value locked for its protocol.

API3 and “first-party” oracles

API3 is a protocol focused on enhancing the communication capabilities between smart contracts and application programming interfaces (APIs) as a way to facilitate the secure and reliable transfer of up-to-the-minute data.

VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for API3 on Jan. 18, prior to the recent price rise.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. API3 price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for API3 spiked to a high of 77 on Jan. 18 around one hour before its price began to surge 26% over the next two hours.

The surge in interest for API3 comes as the protocol’s first-party oracles are gaining momentum within the crypto community.

Related: Analysts warn that Bitcoin could dip to $38K ‘before an eventual breakout’

Prometheus prepares to launch

The Prometheus protocol offers users a decentralized framework for data monetization designed to facilitate the secure and private exchange of data.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that PROM spiked 30.84% to reach a daily high of $14.68 on Jan. 18 amidst a 300% surge in its 24-hour trading volume.

PROM/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The price turnaround for Prometheus comes as the project prepares for its full mainnet launch. This will include the initial support for seven assets including Binance Coin (BCH), wrapped BTC, PROM, Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC) and Wrapped Ethereum (WETH).

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.973 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 40%.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.