RIF, the utility token for smart contract network RSK, shot up over 30% in price after an appearance by its founder on the Jan. 13 edition of The Pomp Podcast. The gain equates to a $36 million increase in market cap for RIF, most of which has occurred in the last 12 hours. $RIF up 20% now and it's just the beginning. Building infrastructure on top of #bitcoin The most secure network in the world. — TradingToolCrypto (@RealTradingTool) January 14, 2021 RIF, short for “RSK Infrastructure Framework,” is the token used as payment for decentralized infrastructure services which operate under …

Stacks, formerly Blockstack — an open-source network for building decentralized applications — has an ambitious vision to bring smart contracts and decentralized finance to the Bitcoin (BTC) network. On Thursday, the developer community celebrated the launch of Stacks 2.0, a bridging toolkit that allows developers to build on Bitcoin. Stacks 2.0 is described as a layer-one blockchain with a native bridge to Bitcoin. The toolkit is underpinned by the Clarity smart contract language, a joint open-source protocol supported by Blockstack and Algorand. From an industry perspective, the launch of Stacks 2.0 is significant for several reasons. On one hand, it …

A blockchain project says it makes Bitcoin programmable in a way that it hasn’t been before — enabling apps and smart contracts to be brought to the network. Stacks (formerly known as Blockstack) aims to position BTC as the foundation for a better internet that’s owned by users. Those behind this ecosystem argue that the internet is broken, with tech giants dominating the landscape. Stacks is a Layer 1 blockchain that uses Bitcoin’s infrastructure as a secure base layer. Smart contracts and apps can be enabled with little modification, with “minimal transaction load” on the network. Underpinning how scalable Stacks …

The price of Cardano (ADA) rose more than 100% in the past week as it overtook Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to become the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. There are two major factors behind ADA’s strong upsurge throughout the past several weeks. First, most major cryptocurrencies saw large rallies following BTC’s uptrend to $36,400 and Cardano has some important network upgrades lined up in 2021. Excitement builds over Cardano's smart contract deployment Cardano launched the Shelley mainnet in 2020, kickstarting the growth of Cardano as a proof-of-stake blockchain protocol. The release of Shelley was a major milestone for Cardano, which …

A crypto user who lost roughly $50,000 from a smart contract mistake before the holidays is thanking the crypto community for donating $11,000 to help recover the loss. Earlier this month, Github user dawidkabani13 said he had accidentally sent 4,005 Chainlink (LINK) — worth roughly $47,000 at the time — to an immutable Aavegotchi (GHST) smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain. He immediately realized that it did not support operations for the token and reached out to the crypto community asking for any and all help to recover his "life savings." The crypto user offered a 1,000 LINK reward and …

Solidity, a major programming language for writing smart contracts, will soon become compatible with the Cardano blockchain. According to a Thursday announcement on the Cardano developers' website, Cardano devs are now opening up Cardano to the Solidity and Ethereum community through an interoperable platform that uses native Ethereum code. As part of the effort, Cardano developers are planning to restart and accelerate their K Ethereum Virtual Machine, or KEVM, developer network program. The devnet envisions an EVM running within the so-called “K framework” — a system for specifying and creating languages and virtual machines. K intends to enable developers to …

Wolfram Alpha, a major computational knowledge engine providing technology for major services such as Apple’s Siri assistant, is integrating data from the Cardano blockchain. According to a Thursday announcement, Wolfram Blockchain Labs, or WBL — a subsidiary of Wolfram Research — has partnered with Charles Hoskinson-founded tech company IOHK. As part of the partnership, WBL will integrate Cardano’s blockchain data into Wolfram Alpha, allowing developers to integrate external data into Cardano’s smart contracts. The new partnership will specifically address work on the so-called “avant-garde oracles,” which the companies believe are a necessary component to build advanced smart contracts. According to …

According to a Github post made today, user dawidkabani13 claims to have accidentally sent 4,005 Chainlink (LINK) — $53,226 at the time of publication — to an Aavegotchi (GHST) smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, which does not support operations for the token. The user said the contract is immutable — meaning his funds likely can't be recovered. Even so, he is offering a 1,000 LINK reward to anyone willing to help. At time of publication, this reward would be worth approximately $13K. "I'm just recovering from a terrible loss, I'm a father and husband, and a few days ago …

A new crypto plugin will allow WordPress publishers to receive ad earnings directly into their Ether (ETH) wallets, according to a Dec. 10 plugin description posted on the WordPress’ official website. Called “EthereumAds,” the plugin will enable content publishers to auction advertisement space for ETH using smart contracts. “After you inserted our widget your ad space is automatically openly auctioned off using our smart contract every two weeks to the highest bidder,” the official description reads. According to the EthereumAds website, the WordPress plugin plans to compete with Google AdSense, allowing publishers to earn ETH through banner ads. EthereumAds specifically …

Olsztyn, Poland is reportedly the first city in the world to leverage Ethereum’s blockchain to aid the provision of emergency services, offering yet another tangible use case for distributed ledger technology. Olsztyn has completed a successful trial run of SmartKey, a bridging technology that connects blockchain with physical assets, to aid in police, fire and ambulance services. SmartKey will reportedly enable rescue teams to perform their jobs more efficiently by connecting a smart contract to Teltonika smart devices that are used by local rescue teams. This connection enables emergency crews to enter any building in the city without having to …

In yet another attack on a major decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, farming project Pickle Finance has been exploited today to the tune of $20 million. The attack transpired roughly two hours ago, and ETH-savvy Twitter users were quick to notice that pickle’s cDAI jar — Pickle’s term for a yield-bearing vault — had been emptied: I think @picklefinance's cDAI jar just got attacked and drained. https://t.co/Lxwi2dWSSZ pic.twitter.com/nUBE1KjEPh — mattyb (@mattybchats) November 21, 2020 Unlike other recent attacks however, this particular exploit did not feature flashloans — an increasingly maligned DeFi tool that allows would-be exploiters additional liquidity with which to …

Decentralized finance continues to make its impact on the crypto market, and with over $13 billion of total value of assets locked, DeFi projects are clearly resonating with eager crypto investors. Yet while the DeFi space has been progressing over the last year, a number of illegitimate projects have come to fruition, reminding some of the 2017 ICO boom and its subsequent bust. For example, Harvest Finance, a major decentralized protocol, was recently hacked. The attacker made away with $24 million from Harvest Finance pools. Most recently, Value DeFi, the decentralized finance protocol, fell victim to a $6-million flash loan …