Blockchain news

Two prominent Web3 players Protocol Labs and Consensys announced a partnership to support blockchain ventures.

The collaboration aims to provide assistance to leading blockchain companies through the Consensys Scale, previously known as the Consensys Startup Program. Consensys Scale was launched in 2022 with the primary goal of granting ten leading, funded ventures every quarter an all-access pass to build with MetaMask, Infura, and Linea.

The program also offers critical technical support, access to co-marketing resources, workshops, funding opportunities, and a broad range of ecosystem benefits. The Scale program, which spans over 24 months, is designed for dapps and blockchain companies in the Seed and Series A funding stages. Participants are expected to have a fully operational team, institutional funding, and an initial product-market fit.

In this regard, Partner at Protocol Labs Builders Fund Ruben Amenyogbo said: “Providing founders with expert guidance and access to best-in-class storage and computing will give them key tools to flourish in this ever-evolving industry. Consensys and Protocol Labs’ partnership runs deep: we have not only co-created protocols, but our multiple partnerships have already created leading startups. We look forward to bringing this shared history of success to Scale and continue to improve humanity’s technology set.”

Through their collaboration, Protocol Labs will provide Scale members with their products, technical expertise, potential funding, and exclusive invitations to their Founders community. Teams will have the opportunity to incorporate Filecoin and IPFS, which are the fundamental elements of web3 infrastructure, as well as solutions like NFT.Storage Pro and Web3.Storage Pro, is an integral component of their journey.

Protocol Labs has a commendable track record of incubating and supporting hundreds of founders in raising more than $1B in external capital. Their early investment in Consensys is a testament to their enduring partnership. They have also achieved notable successes in previous accelerator programs in the Ethereum ecosystem, including TachyonX, which they supported as part of ConsenSys Mesh.

Google Cloud’s BigQuery service has added 11 new blockchain networks to its data warehouse.

The newly added networks include Avalanche, Arbitrum, Cronos, Ethereum’s Görli testnet, Fantom, Near, Optimism, Polkadot, Polygon’s mainnet, Polygon’s Mumbai testnet, and Tron. BigQuery is a data warehouse service offered by Google.

Companies can use it to store their data and make queries. It also has public data sets available for querying, such as Google Trends, American Community Service demographic information, and Google Analytics. Google initially launched a Bitcoin data set on the service in 2018, followed by Ethereum later that same year.

“The more robust catalog of chains accessible through BigQuery and new ways to access data will help the Web3 community better answer these and other questions without the overhead of operating nodes or maintaining indexers,” Google Cloud said.

In February 2019, it expanded its blockchain coverage by adding Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Dogecoin, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and Zcash. With the addition of these 11 new blockchain networks, BigQuery now supports a total of 19 blockchain networks. Google has also introduced a new feature to make blockchain queries easier. The team has provided user-defined functions that can handle long-form decimal results commonly found on blockchains.

According to Google’s announcement, these new functions will allow customers to access longer decimal digits for their blockchain data and reduce rounding errors in computation.

Google Cloud has shown increasing interest in blockchain technology in recent years. It partnered with Voltage, a Lightning Network infrastructure provider, on July 7 and with Web3 startup Orderly Network on September 14 to help provide off-chain components for decentralized finance.

NASA, Lonestar, and the Isle of Man have teamed up to develop a new way of storing data on the moon using blockchain technology.

A report by BBC Science Focus on Friday suggests that this could provide a secure and unchangeable record of lunar missions, with information on spacecraft, cargo, and mission goals. This could improve data accuracy and transparency for organizations and space agencies involved in lunar exploration.

The partners plan to launch a test mission from the US in February 2024, with a data cube that will be landed on the moon. Following this, the data will be digitally “franked” on Lonestar’s data center to prove its authenticity on the moon. This will then be sent back to Earth and assembled onto a blockchain to demonstrate that the data has been verified.

In this regard, Head of Innovation at Digital Isle of Man Kurt Roosen told BBC Science Focus: “In history, we’ve seen several circumstances where perceived bodies of knowledge have been lost, or cultures have disappeared. It could sit there forever.”

It is the first time blockchain technology will be utilized on the moon. The project’s collaborators are confident that this new technology will guarantee data safety and prevent any unauthorized alterations. The lunar data cubes are autonomous and don’t require cooling systems, making them environmentally friendly compared to other storage solutions.

Additionally, there is an ongoing effort to extend legal jurisdiction to the moon, taking inspiration from satellite jurisdictions and ship registers. NASA’s satellite has established a legal extension of the Isle of Man on the lunar surface, and this initiative is ongoing.

Bubblemaps recently announced that it has raised $3.2 million in seed funding from Placeholder Ventures, which focuses on creating interactive and dynamic data visualizations for blockchain projects.

The funds will be used to expand the team, develop new features and integrations, and grow the user base of Bubblemaps. Founded by a team of blockchain enthusiasts and data scientists in 2021, Bubblemaps aims to make it easier and more accessible for anyone to explore and analyze blockchain data.

With Bubblemaps, users can create custom data visualizations using a drag-and-drop interface without requiring any coding skills. The platform offers various templates, data sources, filters, and metrics, allowing users to customize their charts’ appearance, layout, and interactivity. Additionally, Bubblemaps supports embedding and sharing of visualizations on websites, social media, and other platforms.

In this regard, Chris Burniske, the partner at Placeholder Ventures and lead investor in Bubblemaps, said: “Bubblemaps is a unique and powerful tool that enables anyone to create beautiful and interactive data visualizations for blockchain projects. We are impressed by the team’s passion and expertise in both blockchain and data science, and we are excited to partner with them as they build the future of blockchain data visualization.”

Alice Lee, the co-founder and CEO of Bubblemaps, expressed her excitement over the support of Placeholder Ventures and other investors who share her vision of making blockchain data visualization accessible to everyone. Lee noted that Bubblemaps aims to empower individuals to explore and understand blockchain data simply and intuitively, which can ultimately drive adoption and innovation in the blockchain ecosystem.

As the demand for data-driven insights and storytelling in blockchain grows, Bubblemaps aims to be the go-to tool for blockchain data visualization. The company has garnered over 10,000 users, including developers, researchers, investors, journalists, educators, and enthusiasts. They have created over 50,000 visualizations for blockchain projects such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, and more.