Crypto-social platform Rally has earmarked $12 million for external developers to improve the functionality of the ecosystem, potentially setting the stage for new innovations that would benefit creators. The grants program will be distributed through RLY tokens, the native cryptocurrency of the Rally ecosystem, the company announced Friday. A community-elected developer council controls $5 million worth of RLY, giving it considerable sway over which types of bounties and rewards get distributed. Prior to establishing the new program, Rally awarded third-party developer grants to Bonfire, MintGate and David Young, the creator of the PLAY coin, which is built on Rally. Rally …

The Chinese government-backed blockchain project, the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), continues expanding its global presence by setting up two new portals in Turkey and Uzbekistan. Red Date Technology, the architect behind the BSN project, has signed an agreement with a Turkish consultancy firm, Turkish Chinese Business Matching Center (TUCEM), to launch two international BSN portals in Turkey and Uzbekistan in late December 2021. Established in 2006, TUSEM became a major economic cooperation hub between Turkey and China. The company will be the exclusive operator of the two new BSN portals offering blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) in Turkey and Uzbekistan. The new portals …

Switzerland-based technology company Velas has allocated $100 million to startups building on top of the Velas blockchain, marking a sizable increase from its initial pledge of $5 million earlier this year. The grants program is designed to support the growth of the Velas ecosystem and expand its capabilities within Web 3.0, a broad umbrella term that describes the next stage in the internet’s evolution. Like the initial $5 million grants program announced in August, the new funding initiative will allocate up to $100,000 per project. While Velas intends to fund a wide range of projects, developers who are creating solutions …

Ripple Labs is launching a fund for creators, marketplaces and brands to explore new use cases for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, on its ledger. In a Wednesday announcement, Ripple said the $250 million fund would be focused on accelerating adoption in the crypto space by working with nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. The platform said it wanted to address concerns with the minting of the tokenized artwork, including “clunky” user experiences, high transaction fees and the possible effects on the environment. “We believe NFTs embody the promise of tokenization and represent a tipping point for its embrace by the mainstream,” said …

Dfinity Foundation’s Internet Computer blockchain is bringing smart-contract capabilities to the Bitcoin (BTC) network, potentially opening the door to new use cases for the premier cryptocurrency. Internet Computer will utilize its so-called chain key cryptography to integrate with Bitcoin, paving the way for smart contracts with native BTC addresses that are hosted directly on Internet Computer, Dfinity Foundation announced Tuesday. “Internet Computer smart contracts will gain access to bitcoin liquidity, and Bitcoin will gain powerful new smart contract functionality, without the need for insecure and cumbersome trusted bridging services,” explained Dominic Williams, the founder and chief scientist of Dfinity Foundation. …

Search engine giant Google is joining forces with Canadian blockchain studio Dapper Labs to help support the development of new Web 3 products and services, including the wildly popular nonfungible token, or NFT, marketplace. As part of the deal, Google Cloud will serve as a network operator for Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain, the scalable infrastructure that powers an entire ecosystem of NFTs, games and apps, according to Forbes. Janet Kennedy, the vice president of Google Cloud North America, said the multi-year partnership will help Dapper expand its operations through “scalable, secure infrastructure” provided by Google. Google has also made it …

Protocol and community development initiatives have become the latest trend in the cryptocurrency market after a number of projects have launched multi-million dollar funds aimed at enticing builders and investors to make the cross-chain migration into the layer-two ecosystem. The latest project to capitalize on this trend is Harmony (ONE), a blockchain protocol that boasts a two-second transaction finality and offers cross-chain bridges to a handful of layer-one protocols, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Polkadot (DOT) and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that, since hitting a low of $0.095 on Aug. 31, …

A major consensus bug has affected more than half the Ethereum network’s nodes, causing those running older versions of Geth to split from the main network. According to Ethereum software developer Marius van der Wijden, an unknown individual or group exploited a vulnerability affecting earlier versions of Geth, one of Ethereum's software clients. According to the developer, Geth clients and Ethereum nodes running software v1.10.7 or earlier are at risk of splitting from the network. “Users that run validators need to update their nodes quickly (in the next 10h I think) as they would otherwise vote on invalid committees," said …

American tech giant Microsoft has won a blockchain-related patent for techniques for implementing a cross-chain token management system. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted the patent to Microsoft’s subsidiary, Microsoft Technology Licensing, on Tuesday. Filed in February 2019, the patent describes a “ledger-independent token service,” or a software service enabling individuals and organizations to create and manage tokens across multiple distributed ledger networks and platforms. Examples of such platforms in the patent filing included major blockchain platform Ethereum, IBM-backed Hyperledger Fabric, JPMorgan’s enterprise blockchain platform Quorum, R3 Corda and Chain Core. The described computer system aims to …

Monero (XMR), the largest privacy-focused cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has posted a 20% price surge following the launch of the Atomic Swap implementation program last week. On Friday, the Monero Project officially announced a rollout of the Atomic Swap implementation developed by the cross-blockchain protocol COMIT Network, aiming to simplify trades between XMR and Bitcoin (BTC). Following the launch of Monero Atomic Swaps, XMR has seen a notable surge, with its price rising from around $265 on the launch day to an intra-week high of $331. At the time of writing, the privacy-centric cryptocurrency is trading at $318, down around …

Bison Trails, an enterprise infrastructure provider for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, has extended support to developers of Binance Smart Chain — a move the company says will contribute to the health and security of the rapidly growing DeFi sector. Through Bison Trails, developers on Binance Smart Chain, also known as BSC, will have access to validor node infrastructure, which allows them to run nodes and contribute to the security of the network. Specifically, Bison Trails is providing BSC with Query & Transact infrastructure, which allows developers to build applications more easily. The partnership with BSC centers around the growth …

Jay Graber, a former software engineer for Zcash and blockchain firm Skuchain, will be leading the anticipated decentralized social media initiative first announced by Twitter in 2019. In a Twitter announcement on Monday, Graber said that they would be in charge of the Bluesky project after working closely with “a group of thinkers and builders” from the decentralized social ecosystem. They plan on hiring for the Bluesky team and “partnering closely with Twitter and other companies” as part of the next steps towards fulfilling the decentralized social media plan. I’m excited to announce that I’ll be leading @bluesky, an initiative …