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.
According to a tweet thread published on January 27 by the Aave team, the third edition of the cryptocurrency lending app Aave has now been deployed to Ethereum for the very first time. ” Aave V3 ” was first made available to the public in March 2022, and immediately after its launch, it was installed on a number of blockchains that were compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Users of Ethereum could only utilise the more outdated “V2” version of the application up until now.
Aave V3 has a number of features that are designed to assist users in reducing the amount of money spent on fees and increasing the effectiveness of their capital.
For instance, the High Efficiency option gives the borrower the opportunity to sidestep some of the app’s more severe risk requirements. This is possible in the event that the borrower’s collateral has a strong correlation with the asset that is being borrowed.
The developers believe that borrowers of stablecoins or holders of liquid staking derivatives may find this feature valuable.
In addition, the “isolation” feature enables some risky assets to be used as collateral, provided that they have their own debt cap and are only used to borrow stablecoins. This is possible since certain assets can only be used to borrow stablecoins.
In the prior iteration, there was no provision for putting restrictions on the kinds of assets that may be used as collateral for a loan of a certain kind.
Because of this, coins with a lesser market capitalization and less liquidity were often unable to be utilised as security.
The creators claim that the gas optimization algorithm that is included in V3 will result in a 20–25% reduction in the cost of gas.
In November of 2021, the code for V3 was made publically available.
In March of 2022, the Aave DAO gave its blessing to move forward with the deployment of the new version after an initial vote.
The V3 system was rolled out to Avalanche (AVAX), Arbitrum (ARB), Optimism (OP), and Polygon over the course of the subsequent few months (MATIC).
Despite this, the Ethereum implementation of Aave has traditionally been the most liquid, but V3 was not available on this implementation until recently.
The official proposal states that there will be a total of seven coins available during the launch phase.
The vote to launch was held beginning on January 23 and continuing for a total of two days.
Following the success of the proponents in the vote, the implementation of the idea was finally able to get off the ground on January 27.
The percentage of DAO members that cast a negative vote on the proposal was less than 0.01%.
Aave was subjected to a $60 million short attempt in November 2022, which was eventually unsuccessful. In response, the company modified its governance practises.
ssv.network, a provider of validator infrastructure, has announced the introduction of a new ecosystem fund to assist Ethereum proof-of-stake decentralisation. The business said that this step will foster innovation around Ether (ETH) staking technology. The business made the announcement on January 19 about the ecosystem fund, which has a value of fifty million dollars and would help companies creating apps employing distributed validator technology, or DVT.
The primary purpose of the fund is to provide financial support for DVT use cases that contribute to Ethereum’s efforts to decentralise the platform over the long run.
DVT is a protocol that is open-source and has the capability of distributing the tasks of a validator over a number of different nodes.
Because more DVT implementation results in increased decentralisation, the protocol was an essential part of the roadmap that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin developed for Eth2.
SSV made notice of the fact that a number of venture capital investors, including as Digital Currency Group, HashKey, NGC, Everstake, GSR, and SevenX, have advocated for Ethereum’s use of DVT.
SSV said that it had already contributed $3 million toward developer awards and that $1.2 million had been distributed to over 20 proof-of-stake projects. Some of these projects include Blockscape, ANKR, and Moonstake.
“Ethereum is now protected by a tiny set of corporations,” claims Alon Muroch, the core development lead at SSV. “When you bring all of these companies together, they control the whole blockchain.”
According to what he stated, the objective of the DVT technology is “to share Ethereum’s security by enabling rapid and simple access to an open-source, public good that will totally revolutionise the way that staking is done today.”
The switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake on Ethereum will take place in stages, and each one will be intended to improve the scalability, security, and decentralisation of the network.
The change led to the implementation of ETH staking, in which users take an active role in the validation of transactions.
On Ethereum, the minimum amount of ETH that must be staked in order to qualify as a validator is 32.
According to recent reports, the demand for liquid ETH staking was reportedly on the increase as of the beginning of December.
Staked ETH was characterised to as the “first yield-bearing instrument to attain considerable size in DeFi” by the blockchain analytics company Nansen.
ssv.network, a provider of validator infrastructure, has announced the introduction of a new ecosystem fund to assist Ethereum proof-of-stake decentralisation. The business said that this step will foster innovation around Ether (ETH) staking technology. The business made the announcement on January 19 about the ecosystem fund, which has a value of fifty million dollars and would help companies creating apps employing distributed validator technology, or DVT.
The primary purpose of the fund is to provide financial support for DVT use cases that contribute to Ethereum’s efforts to decentralise the platform over the long run.
DVT is a protocol that is open-source and has the capability of distributing the tasks of a validator over a number of different nodes.
Because more DVT implementation results in increased decentralisation, the protocol was an essential part of the roadmap that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin developed for Eth2.
SSV made notice of the fact that a number of venture capital investors, including as Digital Currency Group, HashKey, NGC, Everstake, GSR, and SevenX, have advocated for Ethereum’s use of DVT.
SSV said that it had already contributed $3 million toward developer awards and that $1.2 million had been distributed to over 20 proof-of-stake projects. Some of these projects include Blockscape, ANKR, and Moonstake.
“Ethereum is now protected by a tiny set of corporations,” claims Alon Muroch, the core development lead at SSV. “When you bring all of these companies together, they control the whole blockchain.”
According to what he stated, the objective of the DVT technology is “to share Ethereum’s security by enabling rapid and simple access to an open-source, public good that will totally revolutionise the way that staking is done today.”
The switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake on Ethereum will take place in stages, and each one will be intended to improve the scalability, security, and decentralisation of the network.
The change led to the implementation of ETH staking, in which users take an active role in the validation of transactions.
On Ethereum, the minimum amount of ETH that must be staked in order to qualify as a validator is 32.
According to recent reports, the demand for liquid ETH staking was reportedly on the increase as of the beginning of December.
Staked ETH was characterised to as the “first yield-bearing instrument to attain considerable size in DeFi” by the blockchain analytics company Nansen.
Compared to Ethereum’s Solidity language when developing play-to-earn (P2E) games, the ease of use of Solana’s building language- Rust will give Solana a competitive edge, according to AmioTalio- the founder of UK-based animation and game development platform Paradox Studios.
With blockchain gaming continuously accelerating the metaverse narrative, AmioTalio believes that the huge funding that Solana is offering developers is intended to woo them from the Ethereum network, and it is starting to take shape. He pointed out:
“Solana will leave Ethereum in the dust this year when it comes to gaming. They now have a huge list of games looking to launch this year on Solana, which will take them into the lead position in this area, in my opinion.”
Solana has already rolled out $400 million to enhance Web3 gaming in the last six months.
AmioTalio noted that he made these observations after meeting various specialists who disclosed the simplicity of Rust. He added:
“When you realize every product or service is made by or provided by a business, you must realize the main goal of a business is to make money and maximize profit, so with low costs and high transaction speed and massive funding for gaming developers; the growth is going parabolic.”
The blockchain gaming sector continues to gain steam, given that it attracted investments worth $1.1 billion in January, according to a recent Blockchain Game Alliance and DappRadar report. Virtual worlds, decentralized applications (dapps), and play-to-earn platforms attracted the lion’s share of these investments.
Additionally, the gaming transparency rendered by blockchain technology is also making them tick.
Meanwhile, two-time Indonesian football league champion Persib Bandung partnered with blockchain gaming platform Liberty Gaming Guild (LGG) to offer its fans an ecosystem to learn and thrive in the new gaming era.
Compared to Ethereum’s Solidity language when developing play-to-earn (P2E) games, the ease of use of Solana’s building language- Rust will give Solana a competitive edge, according to AmioTalio- the founder of UK-based animation and game development platform Paradox Studios.
With blockchain gaming continuously accelerating the metaverse narrative, AmioTalio believes that the huge funding that Solana is offering developers is intended to woo them from the Ethereum network, and it is starting to take shape. He pointed out:
“Solana will leave Ethereum in the dust this year when it comes to gaming. They now have a huge list of games looking to launch this year on Solana, which will take them into the lead position in this area, in my opinion.”
Solana has already rolled out $400 million to enhance Web3 gaming in the last six months.
AmioTalio noted that he made these observations after meeting various specialists who disclosed the simplicity of Rust. He added:
“When you realize every product or service is made by or provided by a business, you must realize the main goal of a business is to make money and maximize profit, so with low costs and high transaction speed and massive funding for gaming developers; the growth is going parabolic.”
The blockchain gaming sector continues to gain steam, given that it attracted investments worth $1.1 billion in January, according to a recent Blockchain Game Alliance and DappRadar report. Virtual worlds, decentralized applications (dapps), and play-to-earn platforms attracted the lion’s share of these investments.
Additionally, the gaming transparency rendered by blockchain technology is also making them tick.
Meanwhile, two-time Indonesian football league champion Persib Bandung partnered with blockchain gaming platform Liberty Gaming Guild (LGG) to offer its fans an ecosystem to learn and thrive in the new gaming era.
“Web3” may be one of the biggest buzzwords of 2022, but the idea of creating an entirely decentralized platform to host decentralized applications has long been a vision of the crypto community. While it’s notable that some blockchain companies began building out Web3 applications four or five years ago, the Web3 space has only started gaining traction recently.
The recent growth of Web3 was highlighted in a new report from Electric Capital, a venture capital firm that has been investing in Web3 companies since 2018. The “Electric Capital 2021 Developer Report” analyzed data from nearly 500,000 code repositories and 160 million code commits across Web3, finding that over 34,000 new developers committed code to Web3 projects in 2021 — the highest number of developers in history according to the document.
Moreover, the report pointed out that 65% of active developers and 45% of full-time developers started working on Web3 last year. The document also found that over 18,000 monthly active developers commit code to open-source crypto and Web3 projects today, primarily building on the Ethereum network.
Web2 developers flood the Web3 space
Maria Shen, a partner at Electric Capital, told Cointelegraph that 2021 was a year of historic growth for Web3 development, as it brought in the highest number of monthly active developers the crypto space has ever seen. She elaborated that this number refers only to open-source developers:
“While there are a large number of closed-source developers working in crypto, Web3 is highly open-source. This is the main difference between how companies function in Web3 from Web2. In Web2, everyone is developing privately before the final product is shipped. In Web3, developers are shipping and building in the open.”
Even with these differences, Shen remarked that an increasingly high number of Web2 developers have been migrating into the Web3 space recently. She believes this is the case partly because Web3 allows for a more flexible point of entry.
For instance, Shen explained that part-time developers can easily come in and build out Web3 projects. “In Web2, you either work for Google, or you don’t. There really isn’t an option in-between. But Web3 allows for hobbyists to join,” she said. And due to its open nature, Shen explained, the Web3 space contains more of a variety for developers, letting individuals work either full-time, part-time or even on occasion. She said:
“Full-time developers may commit 10 or more days a month to a project, while a part-time developer may only work nights and weekends. We are seeing Web2 developers come in because Web3 uniquely allows this to happen.”
Another reason Web2 developers have taken a recent interest in Web3 is mainstream adoption. For instance, Shen remarked that the rise of nonfungible tokens (NFT) has helped usher in a new group of developers who are focused on art, design and supporting creators. Echoing this sentiment, Tegan Kline, co-founder of Edge and Node — the development team behind open-source indexing protocol The Graph — told Cointelegraph that developers everywhere are dipping their toes into Web3 due to the rise of decentralized finance and NFTs. “NFTs have made it easy for traditional companies to enter Web3,” she said.
Kline added that The Graph has seen a 300% year-over-year developer growth, noting that Edge and Node has recently hired engineers from Google, Amazon Web Services and Airbnb, along with individuals from traditional financial organizations. “The mass exodus into Web3 is here, and I think we will continue to see more tech companies move into the space,” said Kline.
Solutions are maturing to help Web3 developers build
In addition to a more flexible point of entry and mainstream adoption, it’s important to point out that solutions are maturing, making it much easier for developers to build products for decentralized, Web3 ecosystems.
For example, taking centralized points of data and incorporating that within decentralized protocols is an important feature of Web3.
Heikki Vänttinen, co-founder of blockchain oracle API3, told Cointelegraph that API3 aims to bring off-chain data sources — such as real-world weather data — to blockchain networks at scale. “We bring the API economy to the blockchain to enable decentralized applications and smart contracts to do things based on real-world data and events,” he said. Vänttinen explained that the oracle’s “Beacon” features are continuously updated data feeds, each powered by a single first-party oracle, which makes it easier for Web3 projects to build on API3’s technology.
Vänttinen further mentioned that Beacons eliminate the need for third-party oracles, like Chainlink for instance. “Instead of having a third-party entity that exists between a smart contract on-chain, Beacons enable APIs to be directly connected to a smart contract instead of having a middleman oraclize the data source off-chain.” In turn, Vänttinen explained that data querying for Web3 development has become more cost-efficient, faster and better regulated.
To put this in perspective, Shawn Douglass, CEO of Amberdata — a digital asset data provider — told Cointelegraph that Amberdata is using API3’s Beacons to offer its APIs on-chain in the form of first-party oracles. “This provides a more secure and cost-efficient approach than alternative solutions that employ middlemen,” he remarked.
In regard to how this may help Web3 developers, Douglass said that Ameberdata Beacons will be used at ETHDenver 2022’s “Buidlathon,” where over 3,000 Web3 developers will have the opportunity to build their own API3-powered data feeds. While Douglass commented that he is curious to see what use cases will be built, he explained that Beacons are not about helping developers build faster. “This solution is more about enabling developers to build with data directly from proven, reputable data providers, without having to rely on third-party oracles,” he said.
Data aside, another challenge facing Web3 developers today is integrating new products into crypto wallets. Erik Marks, an engineer at MetaMask — a software cryptocurrency wallet for the Ethereum blockchain — told Cointelegraph that integrating with wallets is often the fastest and, sometimes, the only way to grow a product’s user base in Web3:
“This is especially true for those building completely novel things — for example, networks and protocols, exotic assets, scaling solutions, etc. Any application can only build and maintain so many features at a time, and some integrations inevitably become de-prioritized.”
In order to ensure that developers can easily build out Web3 applications, Marks explained that MetaMask has released a new feature called “Snaps.” Marks added that Snaps was recently released through MetaMask Flask, which is the company’s developer-focused distribution channel.
According to Marks, Snaps was designed to allow developers to expand the functionality of MetaMask at runtime without the organization’s involvement:
“Developers can add their own features and make them available to users by themselves. Any wallet developer will tell you that providing first-class support for just Ethereum and its various layer-2 networks is challenging enough, to say nothing of the up-and-coming layer-1 networks out there. The only way to keep up is to invite the Web3 developer community into the wallet itself and allow anyone to extend its capabilities with as little involvement from us as possible.”
Adding to this, Jacobc.eth, lead of operations at MetaMask, told Cointelegraph that when Snaps matures, getting MetaMask to support hardware wallets, layer-2 networks or new asset types will no longer involve asking MetaMask. “You’ll just build a Snap and then tell your users about it,” he said.
Web3 developers will continue to increase over time
Given the maturing Web3 ecosystem, industry experts believe that the Web3 developer space will continue to grow over time. Shen thinks this is the case by looking back at how the crypto space has matured previously. She mentioned that during the 2017 and 2018 bull run, crypto prices peaked in January 2018, but developers didn’t start flooding the space until about a year later. “If we think this market is like the last one, developers will still be coming in through 2023.”
Kline further commented that the Web3 space is already going mainstream, yet she predicts that the next six to 12 months will focus on finalizing the sector. “We’ve reached the limits of what we can do in a centralized world. Web3 is allowing us to scale further.” While this may be, Shen pointed out that many challenges remain for Web3 developers. “In Web2, there are a lot of off-the-shelf tools developers can use to ship products fast, but you don’t have that in Web3,” she said. As such, Shen mentioned that creating the underlying infrastructure for Web3 will continue to pose challenges, remarking that although the space is maturing, it still lacks much-needed accessibility.
For example, interoperability is a major component still required of Web3, which would enable different ecosystems to communicate with one another. Maly Ly, co-founder and CEO of the Laconic Network — an upcoming blockchain project for aggregating data in Web3 — told Cointelegraph that different blockchains need to be able to communicate with each other in order to enable interoperability and expand utility.
Ly mentioned that the necessity for cross-chain communication has led to the proliferation of bridges, which require faster and more flexible access to verifiable blockchain data, or proofs. With this, Ly believes that a number of solutions will arise this year to meet these challenges:
“The promise of Web3 is aligned with network, builder and user incentives reliant on trustless systems where data availability and verifiability is essential. Solving these fundamental data querying and verification problems will help address core decentralized application development and adoption challenges.”
Illia Polosukhin, the co-founder of NEAR protocol, thinks Ethereum development has a focus problem. He says engineers should be fixing crucial issues that will enable Web 3 to scale to billions of users.
“We need simplicity of usage. We need easy programmability. We need composability that is natural to the applications. I don’t see the current Ethereum evolutions targeting any of those goals.”, Polosukhin said in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph.
Polosukhin envisions a new version of the internet, or Web 3, in which the user will retain full ownership of their own data and assets. He believes this new iteration of the internet won’t be based on a single “killer app” but instead a combination of different apps.
“Our goal is that users in control of their data, they’re in control of their money and assets. They are able to govern these platforms, which means there is no need to build an everything-fulfilling platform.”, he said.
Thus, improving both blockchain technology’s scalability and interoperability is key in order to build the foundations of Web 3. According to Polosukhin, while Ethereum remains the dominant smart-contract platform, it lacks NEAR’s focus on achieving those goals.
Specifically, he thinks Ethereum’s reliance on Layer 2 solutions or rollups to solve its scalability problem could lead to tradeoffs in terms of composability.
“Rollups naturally will kind of create less compatibility and create more sub-spaces in which things are happening.”, he said.
As a Layer-1 solution alternative to Ethereum, NEAR aims to solve the scalability issue by leveraging sharding technology, a process that splits the protocol’s infrastructure into several segments, without sacrificing composibility.
“By actually scaling up the composable structure, we allow to have a lot more applications running closely with each other with the same financial models”, explains Polosukhin.
A core component of NEAR’s composibility feature is the Rainbow Bridge, a protocol that allows a free transfer of assets from the Ethereum blockchain and vice-versa.
“That allows not just to send tokens around, but it actually allows to read the state of each chain from the other chain so you can actually pass any generic messages between them and execute contracts.” he explained.
NEAR was one of the fastest-growing development communities in 2021. According to Polosukhin, one of the protocol’s main attractivity consists in offering popular and easy-to-use programming languages such as Java and Rust. Another factor was the $800 million fund announced last year for developers to build on the NEAR protocol.
“Buiding development of core components and then other people can build on their own companies and projects have been very powerful”, he said.
Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel and don’t forget to subscribe!
Bitcoin price is still a ways from its $69,000 all-time high but this isn’t stopping altcoins from moving toward new highs.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since hitting a low of $0.13 on Dec. 4, the price of Harmony (ONE) has risen 163% to establish a new all-time high of $0.38 on Jan. 14
ONE/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the growing strength of Harmony include an expanding ecosystem, the launch of multiple cross-chain bridges and developers interest in finding Ethereum network alternatives.
ONE benefits from Harmony’s $300 million ecosystem development fund
One of the biggest boosts to the overall health of the Harmony ecosystem began back in September when the project launched a $300 million developer incentive program designed to help fund bug bounties, grants and the creation of 100 decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) on Harmony.
Since the launch of the program, 23 DAOs have been funded and launched on the Harmony network with more currently in development.
The incentive program has also helped attract multiple protocols to the Harmony blockchain in some of the most popular sectors of the ecosystem, including DeFi, payment platforms and nonfungible token (NFT) projects.
1/ @harmonyprotocol approves 21 more proposals for its $300M Ecosystem Fund
Cross-chain bridges help raise Harmony’s prospects
Another reason for Harmony ‘s recent strength is the launch of several cross-chain bridges that connect the Harmony network with other Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible networks like Celer and Polygon.
1/ We are excited to announce that @CelerNetwork has extended support to @harmonyprotocol.
ONE users can now use the multi-chain ‘cBridge’ to transfer $USDC and $WETH instantly and at a low-cost.
More ⬇️
— Harmony (@harmonyprotocol) January 12, 2022
On top of the most recent integration with the Celer c-bridge, which enabled the cross-chain transfer of USD Coin (USDC) and Wrapped Ether (wETH), Harmony launched a cross-chain NFT bridge as part of the Horizon bridge back in November of 2021.
Most recently, the project revealed a collaboration with the L1 protocol Cosmos to create a bridge between the two rapidly growing ecosystems in an effort to further expand its interoperability and help scale cross-chain finance.
1/ We are glad to announce that we have approved a grant for @datachain_en to build a bridge between Harmony & @cosmos.
Datachain’s experience in building interoperability solutions using trustless intermediaries is peerless.
ONE step closer towards scaling cross-chain finance pic.twitter.com/27ueWWUkT0
— Harmony (@harmonyprotocol) January 12, 2022
Harmony is also in the final stages of creating a native bridge to the Bitcoin network which is expected to be released before the end of Q1 2022.
Related:ICON commits $200M to interoperability incentive fund
New users and ecosystem growth back record high TVL
Another bullish metric backing Harmony’s growth is its rising TVL, which is now at an all-time high of $1.25 billion according to data from Defi Llama.
Total value locked on Harmony. Source: Defi Llama
Several DeFi protocols are thriving on the Harmony network, including DeFi Kingdoms (JEWEL), which accounts for $747 million of the TVL, Tranquil Finance with $201.85 million and Viperswap with a $54.4 million TVL.
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for ONE on Jan. 8, 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. ONE price. Source:Cointelegraph Markets Pro
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for ONE spiked into the green zone on Jan. 8 and hit a high of 75 around 48 hours before the price proceeded to increase 50% over the next four days.
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.
