June 13: The Manta Foundation, supporting the Manta Network family of zero-knowledge-cryptography-focused blockchains, has launched a $50 million EcoFund and Ecosystem Grant Program to support early-stage blockchain projects globally, according to the team: “Manta aims to foster a rich and dynamic ecosystem where projects can contribute to and benefit from the Manta Network. This fund will target high-potential areas like AI, ZK and DePINs to maximize the impact on the ecosystem, driving growth and technological advancements in these key areas and more. Manta is extremely committed to nurturing emerging projects and this approach will help to ensure Manta remains at the forefront of dApps.”
June 13: Movement Labs announced the launch of “Battle of Olympus,” an innovative hackathon designed to “drive the growth and adoption of Movement, the first modular network of Move-based blockchains,” according to the team: “The hackathon will run from July 17 to Sept. 17. The Battle of Olympus is a key component of Movement Labs’ broader Road to Parthenon initiative, a community program aimed at fostering the development of a robust and thriving ecosystem on Movement Labs’ eventual mainnet. The hackathon features a gamified structure, with participants earning points and rewards as they progress.”
June 13: Minima, describing itself as the only blockchain lightweight enough to run entirely on mobile and device chips, says it’s working with Influx Technology to integrate a data tracker into a McLaren GT4 – a capability that could improve racing performance as well as prevent cheating. According to a press release: “Data points on over 20 parameters including vehicle ignition timing, braking, oil pressure, engine temperature, steering angle and rotation, as well as gear switching, are collected by the ‘DePIN Data Logger’ in real time…. Minima’s innovative blockchain design secures the hash of the data, proving its history and integrity, while the actual data is stored on the device or in cloud storage, independent of validators’ permissions. Due to the low requirements to validate the data on the blockchain, any IoT device can operate a full node and collect its data. This allows data to be verified by other nodes on the network while being stored on the device itself.”
June 13: Polygon Labs, primary developer behind Ethereum scaling project Polygon, has completed its spinout of its ID solution as “Privado ID,” according to a press release. The “protocol-agnostic design, from the team behind the Iden3 Protocol and Polygon ID, is posed for expansion beyond the Polygon networks…. Privado ID is actively establishing strategic partnerships with onchain and institutional organizations alike. These include notable proof-of-concepts (PoC) with several multinational banking and financial service companies, aimed at establishing the technical groundwork for interoperable and compliant identity frameworks…. The PoCs also explore leveraging Privado ID’s verifiable credentials (VCs) as the access control point for permissioned financial transactions.” (MATIC)
June 13: Graph Foundation, stewarding core devs of blockchain-indexing project The Graph Network, completed its Sunrise initiative, “fully decentralizing Web3’s data layer,” according to a message from the team: “This milestone marks the protocol’s maturity, eliminating the limitations of a centralized hosted service ‘training wheels.'” According to the project documentation, “The goal is to enable subgraph developers to seamlessly upgrade to The Graph’s decentralized network…. Hosted service endpoints will no longer be available after June 12.” A Sunrise Upgrade program is available until June 20.”
June 13: Livepeer AI, an AI-focused affiliate of decentralized video-streaming network Livepeer, has launched grants for generative video innovation, according to the team: “The three-month program offers hands-on development support to bring generative AI projects to market. Accepted projects receive a $20,000 grant, plus $20,000 infrastructure budget for AI processing, which often becomes a top expense as AI projects attempt to scale. Applications are open now and accepted on a rolling basis…. Existing projects looking to integrate generative video into their products are encouraged to apply.
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