Intersect, a member-based organization for the Cardano ecosystem, has announced the planned migration of the core Cardano codebase to its stewardship. From Dec. 16, administration of all 26 Cardano code repositories will transfer to Intersect and its members, further enabling and empowering its distributed development, with the community driving the future direction of the blockchain. This migration forms an essential part of Cardano’s ongoing “Voltaire” era. (ADA)
Privacy-Focused Namada Blockchain Incentivizes Testnet With ‘ROID’ Points
Dec. 15: Namada, a multi-chain privacy Layer 1, introduced an incentivized testnet offering 3% of its total supply as rewards. The testnet includes an “asteroid mining race” where participants accumulate ROIDs to win part of 30 million NAM tokens. A blog post is here.
Metagood, Behind OnChainMonkey NFTs, Raises $5M Seed Round
Dec. 14 (PROTOCOL VILLAGE EXCLUSIVE): Metagood, “the blockchain technology and digital assets company that launched the innovative OnChainMonkey NFTs and Osura marketplace, announced today the completion of a $5 million series seed funding round. The round was led by Sora Ventures, with participation from ACTAI Ventures, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Bitcoin Magazine Fund, London Real Ventures and Peach.xyz. The new funding will finance new technology and product developments and marketing on Osura and catalyze partnerships with artists.”
Provenance Blockchain Foundation Launches ‘Hold Module’ to Cut Risks of Smart-Contract Bottlenecks
Dec. 14: Provenance Blockchain Foundation announced the launch of Hold Module, “which can be seen as a major change to how financial transactions and smart contracts function in regard to counterparties, and will serve to reduce costs, steps and counterparty risks for those entering into a transaction. It will eliminate a number of risks and bottlenecks typically associated with smart contracts,” according to the team.
LayerZero, Cross-Chain Messaging Protocol, Launches ‘V2’ on Testnet
Dec. 14: LayerZero Labs, a blockchain developer, launched its “V2” upgrade of LayerZero, a protocol to send messages between blockchains, on testnet. Enhancements include “modular security,” “lazy nonce-order enforcement” for higher throughput, a permissionless “executor” to replace the V1 “relayer,” and “unified semantics” that “enables developers to build applications that work the same across every blockchain LayerZero has an endpoint on