Probably Nothing 146: DevNTell & Small Grants

This week, we have a new episode of DevNTell for you. If you're into Bitcoin, check it out!

Also, the voting for the Rootstock Grants has ended, so we can now announce the five winners!

And a D_D member had a win last week:

Congratulations to @k4y1s on making it into the top 3 projects of the Permahacks 2024 with his project Junction

This week's episode of DevNTell will feature Kenny Rogers, Lead DevRel at Stacks. Stacks is a Bitcoin L2 designed to activate the Bitcoin economy through smart contracts and a trust-minimized two-way bridge.

​Viewers of this DevNTell will see Kenny introduce the fundamentals of how Stacks works through a demo of a basic borrowing and lending app using sBTC (the 2-way Bitcoin peg on Stacks) and Clarity.

Register here to get notified when the show starts.

Voting for our Rootstock small grants has ended, and five projects have been selected to receive a 1k USD grant to build their projects. 

The Community voted for the following projects:

• Crowd Funding Application Backed by Bitcoin: 110.5k votes

• HNDL: 107.1k votes

• Meeting Value Protocol (MVP): 95.3k votes

• BitCollateral: 93.1k votes

• Monetizado: 81.7k votes

Thank you to all the Developer DAO members who cast their votes. We will be looking at the submissions and contacting the winners about the next steps in the coming days. Congratulations!!

Last week, on DevNtell, Idris Olubisi, Co-Founder of Web3 Afrika and a Developer Advocate at Axelar presented Wb3 Afrika. Web3 Afrika exists to accelerate the education and opportunities of a new wave of builders and bring diversity into web3 conversations globally by fostering communities in Africa, Africans in the diaspora, and persons of African descent from across the world.

Watch the episode to get a comprehensive overview of Web3 Afrika. 

• Are you working in the privacy and security space and seeking a new role? A defense tech startup is hiring for the role of SWES. Contact @ladybug on D_D discord for a referral for the position. 

• @4gnle on D_D discord is looking for a Senior Engineer-backend focused on joining a quality team building in DEFI with hundreds of users. The person should have experience in DEFI space and skills in leading/building architecture. Send a DM or an email to angel@pearprotocol.io if you meet the criteria or know someone who does. 

• Are you looking for a job or a job board to post an available job? Check out interested.fyi built by D_D member @Hone1er and team.

• @wolovim will give a workshop on the topic Prize-Worthy: An Ethereum Python Hackathon Guide at Devcon on November 13. If you are attending Devcon, show some love by attending the session. Mark your schedule for the event. 

• The waitlist is open for rip.fun to open Pokemon cards and trade them instantly. Join the waitlist and get notified when it launches. 

• Version 2 of Jiffyscan has been shipped. Get detailed insights into your transactions using Jiffyscan.  

• Introducing Serac; a garbage-collectable persistent key-value database for TypeScript, by @hazae41

• @DAppaDanDev “in my bed” explaining @WalletConnect Network whitepapers. Learn all about @WalletConnect in this “in my bed” video.

Ether Blows Past $3K, Builds Bullish Momentum After Trump's Election Win and Fed Rate Cut.

Ethereum's native token, Ether (ETH), surged past $3,000 following Donald Trump’s pro-crypto presidential win and a Fed rate cut. With hopes for regulatory relief and lower borrowing costs, demand for ETH intensified, marking its largest weekly gain since May. It outperformed Bitcoin with a 23.4% rise.

Polygon TVL Drops 20% as Polymarket Fever Cools.

Following the conclusion of U.S. election markets, over $340 million exited Polymarket, leading to a 20% drop in Polygon's total value locked (TVL) from $1.35 billion to $1.1 billion, with Polymarket’s TVL plummeting by 64% to $185 million. Despite these outflows, Polygon's daily transactions have stabilized at around 3 million, and Polymarket maintains a top ranking in the Apple App Store.

Detroit to Become Largest U.S. City Accepting Crypto for Taxes

Detroit will soon allow residents to pay taxes and municipal fees with cryptocurrency, making it the largest U.S. city to accept crypto for such payments. Set to launch by mid-2025 through PayPal’s platform, the initiative supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and PayPal's USD stablecoin; this is part of a broader plan to attract blockchain companies and foster tech innovation in the city.

Jack Dorsey and Block abandon Web5 to mine Bitcoin

Block, the company behind Cash App and led by Jack Dorsey, is ending its "Web5" initiative, which aimed to create a new internet identity layer to focus on bitcoin mining and its Bitkey wallet. The shift reallocates resources to Block's bitcoin mining project, which recently completed its mining chip and anticipates supplying 15 exahashes/second of hashing power to Core Scientific.

The D_D Academy is a sub-section of Developer DAO tasked with creating educational content for public goods. Are you interested in contributing educational content or development work to the Academy and being rewarded for it?

Join the Academy sync and find out how you can contribute. Reach out to @piablo.eth or @wolovim to learn how you can contribute as the Academy syncs are back and better. 

Delegate your AR.IO testnet IO tokens (tIO) to our Arweave gateway, as we will share 10% of the rewards with you.

You can delegate your tIO tokens here.

If you don’t have tIO tokens yet, visit the ar.io website to learn how to obtain them.