Web3 developers don’t appear to be fazed by the crypto bear market, with one Web3 platform suggesting they’re “more active than ever” — particularly on the Ethereum (ETH) network. In a new Q3 2022 report on Oct. 13 by Web3 development platform Alchemy, the company said that 2022 could be the “biggest year yet” for development on Ethereum. Around 36% of all smart contracts ever deployed and verified on the blockchain have been in 2022, a count of nearly 118,000 compared to the over 323,700 ever deployed, according to the report. This is despite the price of ETH falling by …

Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the non-profit organization supporting the development of the Stellar network, has launched a new funding initiative to encourage developers to build on the Soroban smart contract platform, which officially went live on Futurenet Tuesday. Soroban brings Turing-complete smart contracts to the Stellar blockchain, enabling developers to build new financial services rails on the network, SDF said. Tomer Weller, SDF’s vice president of technology strategy, said Soroban was developed to overcome the “friction” of other blockchain networks. In an emailed response to Cointelegraph, Weller further explained: "When we looked at what was out there in the market …

The Ethereum network brought smart contracts into the blockchain space, making concepts like decentralized finance (DeFi) possible. Smart contracts can automatically execute processes once certain conditions have been met. Along with this new technology, a new coding language was developed called Solidity. As the blockchain industry continues to grow and new blockchain networks emerge, additional programming languages are being brought into the space, notably Vyper and Scrypto. Programming languages are a set of rules that convert strings of text and numbers into machine-readable code. In simple terms, programming languages enable computers to understand instructions that are input by human beings. …

Ethereum (ETH) blockchain-based Metaverse projects Decentraland (MANA) and Sandbox (SAND) have hit back at reports suggesting low daily user activity on platforms, arguing a “misinformed” metric was used to measure each of the platforms' Daily Active Users (DAU). The controversy appears to have come from data originating from DappRadar, with observers suggesting the Decentraland metaverse sees 30 Daily Active Users despite having over $1.2 billion in market cap. Decentraland ( $MANA ) has 30 Daily Active Users and a $1.2 Billion Market Cap pic.twitter.com/u4MBNsWvwk — SHAKE (@0x_shake) October 6, 2022 However, Decentraland said in an Oct. 8 tweet that “some …

Followers of the Ethereum Classic Twitter account may have found themselves the unintended fans of an entirely new crypto project after Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson turned the account into the new community page for the Ergo community. The Ethereum Classic account had built up over 600,000 followers since its inception in July 2016, and up until Sept. 15, has been used to post about Ethereum Classic. However, as of Oct. 6, the Twitter page now reflects the Ergo Platform, a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain capable of facilitating smart contracts, similar to Ethereum, with links to Cardano. In a lengthy thread pinned …

Traders who use the Ethereum network are familiar with the ERC-20 technical standard and have most likely traded and invested in tokens that utilize it. After all, its practicality, transparency and flexibility have made it the industry norm for Ethereum-based projects. As such, many decentralized applications (DApps), crypto wallets and exchanges natively support ERC-20 tokens. However, there’s one problem: Ether (ETH) and ERC-20 do not exactly follow the same rules, as Ether was created way before ERC-20 was implemented as a technical standard. So, why does wrapped ETH matter? Briefly put, ERC-20 tokens can only be traded with other ERC-20 …

There’s more to crypto than just assets, Bank of England deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe reminded the Association for Financial Markets in Europe conference in London on Sept. 28. The distributed ledger technology (DLT) behind crypto assets has far-reaching implications for traditional markets and interoperability. DLT will touch on trading, clearing, settlement, and custody as it is integrated into capital markets, Cunliffe said. One of the biggest differences Cunliffe identified in DLT was its speed. Instantaneous settlement can reduce risk by removing the chance of drastic market movements while a transaction is being processed, but: “The development of instantaneous settlement …

Blockchain security firm BlockSec has debunked a conspiracy theory alleging the $160 million Wintermute hack was an inside job, noting that the evidence used for allegations is “not convincing enough." Earlier this week cyber sleuth James Edwards published a report alleging that the Wintermute smart contract exploit was likely conducted by someone with inside knowledge of the firm, questioning activity relating to the compromised smart contract and two stablecoin transactions in particular. BlockSec has since gone over the claims in a Wednesday post on Medium, suggesting that the “accusation of the Wintermute project is not as solid as the author …

Cross-chain messaging ensures blockchains can talk to one another, reducing fragmentation in this fast-moving industry. Zhaojun, co-founder of Multichain, tells us why it matters — and what could happen to networks that fail to embrace this "revolutionary headwind." 1. Hello! Why is cross-chain messaging so necessary? As we can all see, a multi-chain ecosystem is beginning to take shape in Web3 — and the necessity for communication between blockchains is growing. After going through various stages of evolution, Web3 DApps have now reached the point where they can execute on a single chain while being deployed on multiple chains. The …

A fresh new crypto conspiracy theory is afoot — this time in relation to last week's $160 million hack on algorithmic market maker Wintermute — which one crypto sleuth alleges was an "inside job." Cointelegraph reported on Sept. 20 that a hacker had exploited a bug in a Wintermute smart contract which enabled them to swipe over 70 different tokens including $61.4 million in USD Coin (USDC), $29.5 million in Tether (USDT) and 671 Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), worth roughly $13 million at the time. In an analysis of the hack posted via Medium on Sept. 26, the author known as …

MEV gain, an Ethereum (ETH) arbitrage trading bot built by MEVbots, which claims to provide stress-free passive income, has been actively draining its users’ funds via a fund-stealing backdoor. Arbitrage bots are programs that automate trading for profits based on historical market information. An investigation of MEVbots’ contract revealed a backdoor that allows the creators to drain Ether from its users' wallets. Our analysis confirms what the @mevbots promotes for the so-called "MEV gain" has a fund-stealing backdoor. Do *NOT* fall prey to it https://t.co/z2eDqMF36b. And thanks @monkwithchaos for the heads-up https://t.co/dhSNGljoH0 pic.twitter.com/HWfCAwbae4 — PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) September 23, 2022 …

Jimmy McNelis, the founder of Web3 tech firm nameless, says there are too many NFT projects rushing to market without proper smart contract testing — potentially leading to millions lost. Speaking with Cointelegraph, McNelis suggested that a lot of NFT projects often rush to market without fully simulating how its smart contracts will work, even skipping extensive audits in some cases. McNelis said an example of this was observed during the sale of the Akutars NFT collection in February 2021 — featuring 15,000 tokens that went up for sale on Winklevoss-owned NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway. McNelis said while the NFT …