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Polkadot Parachain Astar Turns to Alchemy's Crypto API in New Tie-Up
Astar Network is now the first project within the Polkadot ecosystem to let developers build apps using Alchemy Supernode crypto API.
Astar Network, a crypto bridge connecting layer-1 blockchains like Ethereum and Cosmos with the Polkadot ecosystem, today announced a partnership with blockchain development platform Alchemy.
The tie-up will let developers use Alchemy's so-called Supernode—a crypto API for Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, and the recently added Solana, making it easier to create decentralized applications (dApps). As Alchemy Supernode allows nodes to load large amounts of information, it enables better data analytics and—consequently—better scaling of the networks.
Developers can also leverage features previously unavailable on Polkadot, the Astar team said in an announcement shared with Decrypt.
“Supporting the developer ecosystem is one of Astar’s core values and our collaboration with Alchemy will help bring even more incentives and innovation to the community,” Sota Watanabe founder and CEO of Astar Network said in a statement. “Our collaboration will provide the resources needed to grow the builder community in Web3 on Astar, Polkadot, and beyond.” Read More
Slope wallets blamed for Solana-based wallet attack
Web3 wallet provider Slope has been connected to the recent hack of Solana-based wallets.
As the dust settles from yesterday’s Solana ecosystem mayhem, data is surfacing that wallet provider Slope is largely responsible for the security exploit that stole crypto from thousands of Solana users.
Slope is a Web3 wallet provider for the Solana layer-1 (L1) blockchain. Through the Solana Status Twitter account on Wednesday, the Solana Foundation pointed the finger at Slope, stating that “it appears affected addresses were at one point created, imported, or used in Slope mobile wallet applications.”
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko also linked Slope wallets to the hack in his own personal Twitter account. He advised users to regenerate a seed phrase from a service other than Slope as soon as they can. He also told an affected user to “Start practising the cold/hot wallet separation.”
The Solana-based wallet exploits first surfaced on Tuesday after the community began reporting that their crypto wallets were being drained of their Solana (SOL) and other tokens. It is estimated that roughly $8 million in crypto was stolen from nearly 8,000 wallets.
Through its investigation, the Solana Foundation determined that the private keys for each of the wallets compromised in the exploit were “inadvertently transmitted to an application monitoring service” such as Slope. Read More
Canadian taco franchise uses NFTs for customer loyalty program
A Canadian restaurant franchise is putting its customer loyalty program on the blockchain through a new Tenacious Tacos NFT collection.
With 19 locations across Canada and a plan for expansion into the United States, this $6 million taco franchise wants to capitalize on its growing customer base.
The collection, Tenacious Tacos, allows holders to receive both Web3 and real benefits. Moreover, for those who wish, they can stake their nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to earn additional digital rewards.
According to the official statement, staked Tenacious Tacos can be redeemed for rewards such as the chance to win a lifetime of free food or monthly payouts in ETH/WETH.
Previously Landry’s restaurant group, which includes Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory and Rainforest Cafe, introduced a Bitcoin loyalty program. However, in that instance, customers were able to earn rewards in Bitcoin (BTC), such as $25 worth of Bitcoin for every $250 spent at one of many restaurants in the brand.
StrEAT’s method simultaneously adds additional value to traditional loyalty programs and utility to NFTs.
A Canadian-based restaurant franchise is adding more utility to the growing number of NFT use cases. The StrEATS franchise plans to utilize NFTs in their new customer loyalty program. Read More
Starbucks Teases Web3 Updates to Its Popular Rewards Program
The global coffee company looks to digital collectables and to better engage customers.
Web3 will play a part in the future of Starbucks' popular rewards program, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said.
"We have been working on a very exciting new digital initiative that builds on our existing industry-leading digital platform in innovative new ways, all centered around coffee and—most importantly—loyalty," Schultz said during the company’s Q3 2022 earnings call on Tuesday.
According to Schultz, the company will unveil the new digital initiative on Sept. 13, during its annual Investor Day event in Seattle.
The initiative will allow Starbucks to build on its current rewards engagement model while also introducing new methods of emotionally engaging customers, Schultz said, expanding its "digital third place community" approach and offering a broader set of rewards.
'Third place’ is a sociological term describing a community space between home and work.
The CEO says these rewards include one-of-a-kind experiences and Starbucks-branded digital collectables as both a reward and a community-building element.
"This will create an entirely new set of digital network effects that will attract new customers and be accretive to existing customers in our core retail stores," he said. Read More
HVC is poised to triumph in the crypto economy.
Markethive is a monolithic blockchain project currently operating as a social network, an entire inbound marketing platform with email, blogging, and digital media capabilities that broadcast to the vast internet. It’s a complete Market Network and the first of its kind.
Markethive is predominantly a free system where users can access a platform that can cost more than $2,500 offered by other marketing platforms. There are, of course, upgrades that open up more tools and monetization opportunities, the first being the Entrepreneur One Loyalty Program, and coming soon is the Premium Upgrade.
The many domains Markethive has and its autonomous cloud systems that ensure its sovereignty and longevity make it untouchable and immune from the tech giants’ rule and biased agenda. But can still remotely infiltrate the social media platforms and reach the multitudes either locked in or looking for an alternative meritocratic medium.
In other words, wherever you go, Markethive is there, anywhere and everywhere, delivering its message via its community of entrepreneurs to a far-reaching audience. This next-generation social market media is poised in the wings, and when the time is right, it will emerge as a shining light to lift people up and bring financial sovereignty and hope in this gloomy and uncertain world.
The video platform, conference rooms, the unique four specific news feeds currently in development, and many other projects and incentives add to the credibility and need for an ecosystem in the social media and digital marketing space. Read More
How Solana Vigilantes Battled Back Against the Wallet Hacker
Amid the early chaos and confusion of the Solana wallet hack, white-hat hackers took matters into their own hands to slow down the attack.
Thousands of Solana wallets were drained in a widespread hack that’s now being blamed on an exploit with the Slope mobile wallet.
White hat hackers spammed “malformed” transactions to slow the Solana attackers, but it knocked out RPC servers in the process.
We’re starting to get answers about the large-scale Solana wallet hack that saw nearly $4.5 million worth of crypto being swiped from several thousand total users. But on Tuesday night, there was another interesting situation in the mix—one that saw some users try to fight back against attackers through brute force.
During the initial hours of the hack—which is now being blamed on an exploit tied to the Slope mobile wallet—developers and security auditors congregated to try and figure out what was happening and how they might mitigate it. One unidentified developer apparently suggested a solution that could impede the attackers.
According to SolBlaze, the pseudonymous founder of a Solana staking pool of the same name, the developer proposed using a previously-created script that “would try and write-lock the attacker's accounts, slowing their transactions down.” Read More
Is SocialFi Internet’s Next Big Thing?
Social media has revolutionized the way we communicate and interact. It has permanently sent the erstwhile telegram service into the coffers.
On average, we spend two hours on social media every day. Social media platforms have perpetually rewired our brains and made us accept a radically different world we live in – for better or worse.
Undeniably, it’s now a key part of each of our lives. So much so that a person without social presence is sometimes labelled as a misfit.
However, the current market is dominated by Web 2.0 platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. These centralized players have monopolized the space, giving them the authority to not always operate in the user’s best interest.
SocialFi is the latest offering from Web 3.0’s stable that intends to infiltrate the present status quo. In simple terms, SocialFi – short for ‘social finance’ – is an amalgamation of social media and decentralized finance (DeFi).
Forged under the ethos of Web 3.0, SocialFi presents the opportunity to create, manage and own the content generated on a social media platform. As a result, participants have more control over their privacy and multiple ways to monetize their content and followers. Read More
From Ceramic Tiles to Generative NFTs: Art Blocks Founder’s Origin Story
Erick Calderon a.k.a. “Snowfro” tells Decrypt about his journey into crypto, and what’s next for Art Blocks.
Erick Calderon, aka “Snowfro,” shot to prominence one year ago as the creator of NFT generative art platform Art Blocks. But his journey into crypto was a roundabout one.
After almost a decade working at the ceramic tile company he founded with his father, Calderon first heard about Bitcoin from his brother in 2013. “He mentioned something about mining Bitcoin with thumb drives, but that it was getting too late to mine with a thumb drive,” Calderon said on the latest episode of Decrypt’s gm podcast. “And I'm like, ‘That sounds like it would have been really cool to know that a year ago.’”
Fast forward a few years, and Calderon read an article about Bitcoin that struck a chord—and at a pivotal moment: “I've felt the world is on fire for a really long time, and I'm starting to trust less and less,” Calderon said. Consumed with a “crazy desire” to own exactly one full Bitcoin by the end of 2016, he fulfilled his goal “right at midnight” on New Year’s Eve—after having had “a few drinks.”
But it was when he discovered Ethereum and its smart contracts that, “My brain literally exploded,” he told Decrypt. Read More
$2B in crypto stolen from cross-chain bridges this year: Chainalysis
The $190 million Nomad Bridge exploit is just the latest out of 13 separate bridge attacks in 2022 so far.
Cross-chain bridge hacks have accounted for 69% of the total crypto stolen in 2022, amounting to $2 billion in losses, according to a new report.
The report comes from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis on Tuesday, noting there has been 13 separate token bridge hacks this year — the most recent being the $190 million Nomad Bridge exploit.
Q1 2022 was by far the quarter that saw the most amount of crypto stolen since 2021, due mainly to the Ronin Bridge Attack in late March, which saw $624 million in Ether (ETH) and USD Coin (USDC) stolen.
Cross-chain bridges, also known as blockchain bridges, are designed to transfer cryptocurrencies from one blockchain network to another.
Chainalysis explains that while bridge designs vary, users typically deposit their tokens from one chain to the bridge protocol, which are then locked into a contract. The user is then issued the equivalent of a parallel token in another chain. Read More
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
