Protocol Village: Cubist Adds Key Managment Support for Bitcoin, Stork Launches 'Open Data Market'

Thursday, Aug. 8

Cubist, Blockchain Key Manager, Adds Comprehensive Support for Bitcoin Transaction Signing

Cubist , led by co-founder and Carnegie Mellon University engineering Assistant Professor Riad Wahby , announced that its key management platform, CubeSigner, has released a full-featured Bitcoin API. According to the team: "With this release, CubeSigner now offers comprehensive key management support for Bitcoin, including policy-protected SegWit and Taproot keys and a native API for Partially Signed Bitcoin Transaction (PSBT) signing. The release makes CubeSigner a one-stop shop for Bitcoin key management and signing: key generation, safety policies, authentication, access control and a full-featured transaction API."

Stork Network Launches 'Open Data Market' as Rival to Incumbent Price Oracles

Stork Network has launched the Open Data Market, "a new way of provisioning data and pricing information to decentralized protocols that is faster, cheaper, and more customizable than incumbent pricing oracle solutions," according to the team : "Stork supports more than 2,000 assets and counting, and launched this product in direct response to consumer demand. The Open Data Market enables data publishers, data consumers, and composite oracle services to consume or publish data in a marketplace built to enable anyone, anywhere to access and/or build on-chain."

Vessel Finance, Evolving Into 'Layer3 Network for DeFi,' Secures $10M in Seed Funding

Vessel Finance , a zero-knowledge(ZK) powered decentralized exchange that says it's "evolving into a comprehensive layer-3 network for DeFi, has raised $10 million in a seed round," according to the team : "The round included key investments from Sequoia, Scroll, Avalanche Foundation, Algorand Foundation, IMO Ventures, Folius Ventures and @Incuba_Alpha. The funding is strategically planned for: building and optimizing ZK Infrastructures, expanding strategic collaborations and a reward program.

Sei, Parallelized EVM Blockchain, to Integrate Modular DA Layer Covalent's GoldRush.dev Stack

Covalent , a modular data infrastructure layer, announced a strategic collaboration with Sei, a parallelized EVM blockchain. According to the team : "By integrating Covalent's GoldRush.dev stack with Sei's high-speed environment, this collaboration empowers more blockchain innovations while providing an efficient and seamless developer experience. Sei will become part of Covalent's diverse ecosystem spanning over 230 blockchains. Additionally, this further strengthens Covalent's commitment to creating a robust data infrastructure and making Long-Term Data Availability more accessible." {{SEI}}

NEAR Pushes 'Signatures' on Mainnet, in Growing Trend of Chain Abstraction

NEAR Foundation , the non-profit behind the NEAR blockchain, announced on Thursday that a new feature designed to make it easier to seamlessly transact between networks is live on mainnet – adding to a growing trend of projects working on a design concept known as "chain abstraction." The feature, Chain Signatures, was introduced in testnet in March , and allows users with a NEAR account to sign transactions on blockchains it supports, without the need for cross-chain bridges. The move is supposed to eliminate some of the steps when it comes to transacting on different chains, making it faster and easier to use. {{NEAR}}

Coinbase-Backed Vega Gets Into Prediction-Market Race, Chasing Polymarket

Coinbase Ventures -backed Vega network is joining the competitive fray of prediction markets with its own betting-focused upgrade. Vega, a blockchain and decentralized exchange (DEX) that uses the Cosmos network infrastructure , is one of a number of crypto platforms focused on perpetual futures – a tool for speculating on future asset prices. Vega's new update expands its DEX app to accommodate prediction markets , allowing users to bet on the outcomes of future events just as they can currently bet on future token prices.

BasedVC, Decentralized Proprietary Investment Platform, Raises $2M in Seed Round

BasedVC , describing itself as a "token-powered, decentralized proprietary investment platform," has raised $2 million in a seed round as official investment partners to Neo Tokyo, Kongz Capital and more, according to the team: "In the past year, BasedVC saw over $65 million in platform revenue, deploying investments into 50+ cryptocurrency projects. The firm raised $2 million at a $15 million post-money valuation with participation from angel investors like Mario Nawfal, Crypto Banter, Ashcrypto and Kmanu. As a decentralized investment portal, we let communities and retail users join pre-seed and private rounds, avoiding high risks of public rounds and raising funds from strategic communities like Neo Tokyo."

Nillion, Ritual Team Up to Develop 'Decentralized Blind AI Inference Technology'

Nillion , a blind computation network, announced a partnership with Ritual, a decentralized AI infrastructure network, "to develop decentralized blind AI inference technology that democratizes access to AI." According to the team: "This collaboration enables traditional and Web3 applications to use Ritual for trustless, verifiable inference of sensitive data through Nillion's blind computation technology, which ensures data privacy throughout the computation process. The partnership facilitates secure AI model sharing and promises innovations in healthcare, IoT, chatbot systems, and more."

Validation Cloud's Node API to Support Stellar Horizon, Offering Access to Full Archive Nodes

Validation Cloud , a Web3 infrastructure company, announced support for Stellar Horizon, an HTTP API to data on the Stellar network. According to a press release : "Horizon allows applications such as wallets, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and asset issuers to more easily consume data produced by the Stellar network.... Validation Cloud’s archive nodes for Stellar maintain a complete history of the network, allowing developers to query historical ledger data, transaction details, and account states. This is crucial for applications requiring deep historical analysis of Stellar network operations." {{XLM}}

Non-EVM Blockchain MultiversX Launches Snap on MetaMask, Adding 2FA

MultiversX , a non-EVM blockchain (it executes smart contracts that can be compiled to WASM bytecode ), has launched the MultiversX Snap on MetaMask, providing users access to its ecosystem with added security via 2FA, according to the team : "MetaMask Snaps are third-party audited add-ons for extended wallet functionality. This integration embeds 2FA logic into the sharded protocol, making it compatible with all ecosystem apps and wallets, now accessible to MetaMask users. MultiversX's on-chain 2FA, known as Guardians, offers enhanced security without complicating user experience, leveraging tools like Google Authenticator."

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