Over the last 3 months, HighTower has onboarded 3 new networks to our venture platform and received official mainnet delegations from: @CantonNetwork @NEARProtocol @pharos_network Across each ecosystem, we contribute at different levels, from infrastructure and validator operations to ecosystem growth and builder support. HighTower also provides: - infrastructure services - RPC & node solutions - media and marketing support - structural solutions for developers and teams - ecosystem growth support through our platform Any builder, startup, or company building products within these ecosystems and looking for infra or media support can apply through the form on our website.

If your project needs infrastructure, cost optimization, and hands-on support — it’s all here at @SupanodeXYZ

Weekly Ecosystem Recap [Aug 30 - Sept 06] Infrastructure and Protocol Updates 1️⃣ BOB Gateway Expands BTC Wrappers and Stablecoin Routes @build_on_bob has integrated more BTC wrappers and stablecoin routes, including SolvBTC, LBTC, RLUSD, and DAI. This update enhances refund efficiency for incomplete orders and strengthens security measures. 2️⃣ Rootstock Enhances Security with Parallel Transaction Execution @RootstockLabs is testing Parallel Transaction Execution on their testnet, leveraging Bitcoin’s hashrate through merged mining. This is slated for inclusion in Cardamom 10.0.0, extending Bitcoin’s security to Rootstock. 3️⃣ Core Mainnet Hardfork v1.0.26 Launched @CoreEcosystem has successfully launched a hardfork on their mainnet, addressing reward issuance issues, closing vulnerabilities, and burning over 150M CORE from the supply. 4️⃣ Alpend Protocol Upgrade @alpend integrates multiparty hosting from Canton Loop and a Decentralization Manager from BitSafe Finance, all secured by a Halborn Security-audited codebase. 5️⃣ GOATNetwork Advances Post-Quantum Migration @GOATNetwork continues its post-quantum migration with Ziren, the proof system under the GOAT BitVM3 bridge. They also published an explainer on SHRINCS, a draft signature scheme for Bitcoin’s post-quantum migration. Product Launches and Partnerships 1️⃣ Avalon Labs Launches On-Chain Capital Markets @Avalon_Labs is making Bitcoin holdings productive with the launch of on-chain capital markets, focusing on value movement and settlement infrastructure. 2️⃣ Zest Protocol’s Levered Bitcoin Staking Vault Goes Live @ZestProtocol has launched a Levered Bitcoin Staking Vault, increasing its capacity to 20 BTC due to high demand, automating Bitcoin staking yield processes. 3️⃣ Stacks Bitcoin Staking Launch and Partnership Extension @Stacks has launched Bitcoin Staking with the Genesis Bond and extended its partnership with @HashKeyCloud as a Bitcoin Staking launch partner. STX is now live on Bullish, expanding institutional access. 4️⃣ Hemi Introduces New Liquidity Farming Opportunities @HemiFinance offers new farming opportunities across HEMI, VUSD, hemiBTC, WBTC, ETH, and USDC.e, with incentives in USDC. 5️⃣ FunctionBTC Partners with Bybit @FunctionBTC collaborates with @Bybit_Official to provide BTC holders with secure and competitive yields. Ecosystem Growth and Metrics 1️⃣ Stacks Ecosystem Overview @tenero_io reports significant growth in the Stacks ecosystem with a DEX volume of $20.41M (+369% MoM), 1,284 active traders (+8% MoM), and 174,380 trades (+51% MoM). 2️⃣ Surge’s Taproot Vault Metrics @SurgeProtocol reports that 21.14 BTC have moved through their non-custodial Taproot vaults, with 14.94 BTC locked, earning a 4.7% average supply APY for USDC Yield. 3️⃣ MapProtocol August Monthly Report @MapProtocol highlights upgrades to their Radar service, improvements in cross-chain crediting flow, and a $100.9M cross-chain volume over the last 30 days. Stay informed and strategic. Keep an eye on infrastructure updates and leverage these new opportunities across the Bitcoin ecosystem. See you next week 🫡

Avici attacker spent just $190 to drain $670K+. The wallet was created today, funded with $190 USDC for gas, and started draining funds a few hours later. The exploit was an authorization bug, not a stolen upgrade key: → attacker became admin through a crafted signature bundle → gained control over 1,100+ collateral accounts → withdrew funds one account at a time → 8,857+ transactions and counting The biggest takeaway? The contract didn’t need to be upgraded to be exploited. The attacker only needed to convince it that they were allowed to act. This wasn’t a treasury drain. It was 1,100+ individual user accounts being emptied one by one. Did you keep funds on @avici ?

Cosmos EVM Under Attack Due to a security incident, the Cosmos Labs team is asking validators of chains connected to Cosmos EVM to temporarily halt their blockchains. Users of Cosmos EVM have been affected by the attack. A full report will be released once the situation is resolved. Tough times for validators.

Say you need every wallet that bought a token within five minutes of its creation. Once swaps and creation events are decoded into tables, the core of the query becomes a join and a time condition: 𝚜.𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚔_𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝙱𝙴𝚃𝚆𝙴𝙴𝙽 𝚌.𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚔_𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝚌.𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚔_𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 + 𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚅𝙰𝙻 𝟻 𝙼𝙸𝙽𝚄𝚃𝙴 RPC gives you the source transactions. Indexing turns them into tables. Before this query works, the records still have to be backfilled, decoded, normalized, stored, and reprocessed when decoder logic changes. That’s the indexing work. 👉 From raw Solana transactions to queryable data: supanode.xyz/blog/solana-ind…

𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚜𝚂𝚞𝚋𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚋𝚎 has a scaling detail that matters for wallet monitoring: its 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 filter accepts exactly one 𝙿𝚞𝚋𝚔𝚎𝚢. Add a second, and the request fails with 𝙸𝚗𝚟𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚍 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚖𝚜. So an address list becomes many subscriptions, not one wider subscription. Monitoring 2,000 wallets means 2,000 subscription IDs to track, recreate after every reconnect, and check for missed events. WebSocket may still carry the data just fine. But at that point, the simple option has become a subscription management system. 👉 Full breakdown of Solana streaming options: supanode.xyz/blog/solana-dat…

We recently listened to a fascinating conversation between Nadia from @WrappedBTC and Alexei from @build_on_bob about Bitcoin, WBTC, and the changing nature of DeFi. Discussion raises a number of questions worth exploring: what happens when the principles of trust minimization meet the practical needs of institutions, liquidity, regulation, and users? And what does the continued role of WBTC tell us about the direction in which decentralized finance is evolving? The discussion also touches on BOB and the role that deep Bitcoin liquidity plays in building usable Bitcoin DeFi infrastructure. We believe this is an important dialogue for anyone trying to understand not just what DeFi was designed to be, but what it has actually become — and how the ecosystem is adapting to the realities of capital, users, and infrastructure. We unpack some of the most interesting points from the conversation in our latest article. Full article - btcboard.io/news/why-the-mar…

Why move stablecoins without a CEX? You keep custody. No withdrawal fee. No queue. Read why the CEX hop costs more than it looks (and why you should just use BOB Gateway instead 🙃): gobob.xyz/en/blog/cex-hop-is…

We are partnering with @MidnightNtwrk to bring decentralized storage to the Midnight ecosystem. Privacy-first applications need more than private execution. They need storage that lasts. Here is why this partnership matters 👇 lumeraprotocol.medium.com/lu…

Building on Solana right now? Try free RPC, gRPC and data for 3 months.

Read the review and reflections from @htwtech_ on the newly released whitepaper by @arc A useful breakdown of what private EVM execution can unlock for on-chain finance, confidential applications, and institutional blockchain infrastructure. Private EVMs may become one of the most important infrastructure shifts for on-chain finance. @arc Privacy Sector shows how confidential execution, public finality, and familiar Solidity tooling can work together: opening the door for private payroll, credit markets, asset issuance, and institutional settlement without exposing sensitive data on-chain. htw.tech/blog/arc-privacy-se…

Building on Solana? Your dApp performance depends more on RPC architecture than on “theoretical TPS”. Key best practices from a recent Solana RPC infra guide: Avoid relying on public RPC for production (rate limits, unstable latency, no SLA). Separate infra for read vs write, and scale RPC horizontally as load grows. Optimize requests: batch where possible, cache aggressively, and avoid redundant calls. Monitor latency, error rates, and slot lag as first‑class product metrics, not just infra metrics. Treat RPC as core product infrastructure, not a commodity endpoint — that’s where real UX and reliability come from. You can find the full breakdown on our website in the Blog section. htw.tech/blog/solana-rpc-inf…

Why You Double-Check Every Crypto Transaction You don't triple-check your Venmo. So why does sending USDT make you break into a cold sweat? The answer says everything about what crypto got wrong — and what needs to change. Think about the last time you sent money through Venmo or PayPal. You typed a name, entered an amount, hit send. Maybe you glanced at the screen for half a second. Then you moved on with your day. Now think about the last time you sent crypto. Did you check the address once? Twice? Did you send a tiny test amount first — just to make sure — before sending the real thing? Did you feel a small knot in your stomach until the confirmation came through? That knot is not irrational. It's a rational response to a genuinely stressful system. — Why crypto feels so different When you send money through a bank app or Venmo, there are safety nets built in. If you type the wrong name, the app often catches it. If something goes wrong, there's a customer support team. In many cases, transfers can be reversed. Crypto has none of those. A wallet address — the thing you paste when sending USDT — is a long string of random letters and numbers. It looks like this: A typical USDT wallet address: TQn9Y2khHMQx4agPKjPxjsLn8sR5S4kWzNe Note: Two characters (h and k) are implicitly highlighted in the original. If either of those were wrong, the money would go to a completely different wallet — or disappear entirely. There is no undo. If you send to the wrong address, it's gone. No support team to call. No reversal. No "are you sure?" prompt that actually checks anything. The system is designed to be unstoppable — which is great for privacy and censorship resistance, but deeply uncomfortable when you're just trying to pay a friend back for dinner. — The same task, two very different experiences Sending $50 on Venmo: • Search friend's name • Enter $50 • Tap Pay Sending $50 in USDT (Typical crypto wallet): • Ask friend for address • Which network? TRC-20? ERC-20? • Paste 42-character address • Check it. Check again. • Send $1 test first • Wait. Refresh. Confirm. • Send the real amount • Check again. Breathe. The double-check isn't a personality quirk. It's the only rational response when mistakes are permanent and there's no way to recover from them. — This isn't how it has to be The anxiety isn't built into the idea of digital money — it's built into the current design of crypto wallets. And design can change. When you send money to a name or a phone number instead of a 42-character address, the chance of a catastrophic error drops dramatically. When the app confirms who's receiving the money — not just that the address format is correct — you can breathe. When the network is handled automatically so you can't accidentally send on the wrong one, a whole category of mistakes disappears. — The goal isn't to make crypto less powerful. It's to make the scary parts invisible — the same way your bank app hides routing numbers and SWIFT codes behind a simple "send to contact" button. — The design philosophy behind VAULT wallet — Until then, here's the honest advice: Always double-check the first and last four characters of an address before sending. Send a small test amount first when trying a new address. And if the app asks you which network to use and you're not sure — find out before you send, not after. — The short version: You double-check every crypto transaction because the system punishes mistakes permanently. That's not your fault — it's a design flaw. The best wallets are working to make this anxiety unnecessary. Until they do, caution is the right instinct. — Key ideas: • Crypto transactions are irreversible — a wrong address means the money is gone, permanently. • The anxiety you feel is a rational response to a poorly designed system, not an overreaction. • Good wallet design removes the need for that anxiety by replacing addresses with names, and handling the technical details automatically. • Until then: always verify the first and last four characters, and send a test amount when in doubt. #VAULTwallet #EverydayMoney #CryptoSafety #WalletDesign #USDT

Lumera x Injective IBC integration is live on mainnet. Cascade — Lumera's permanent storage module — is now accessible to Injective dApp developers. Data is chunked and distributed across SuperNodes, continuously audited by random peer quorums. Fail an audit → get slashed. Economic enforcement, not trust. What it actually solves: — NFT metadata stored permanently, no IPFS pinning risk — DeFi orderbook snapshots and trade history off-chain with on-chain references — Verifiable audit trails with cryptographic proof of storage Most "decentralized" apps still rely on AWS or centralized object storage for persistent data. Cascade removes that dependency. Payments in INJ or LUME, cross-chain mechanics abstracted away. Next integrations planned: Sense (content verification) and Inference (AI compute). SDK docs are still coming — worth watching once they're out. HighTower has been validating the Lumera network since early days and will keep supporting the protocol as it expands. @lumera @injective

▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯▯▯ Plug into the ₿itcoin ecosystem sBTC: APR 1.69% type: Lending chain: Stacks Explore yield opportunities in the Bitcoin ecosystem with @Stacks Here's a promising option to consider: @ZestProtocol BTC lending platform on Stacks offering an estimated APR of 1.69%. Yield is generated from borrowing demand and utilizing protocol yield. This approach allows users to earn returns while maintaining BTC exposure through a secure and decentralized framework. Stay informed on how Bitcoin can work for you with innovative DeFi solutions. ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯▯▯ Bitcoin Board - your Gateway to Bitcoin ecosystem ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯ #bitboard_yield - hashtag for aggregate last yield opportunity. NFA #bitboard #sbtc #stacks #DeFi #YieldFarming

Stablecoins are no longer a niche experiment, they’ve already surpassed traditional giants like @Visa and @Mastercard in total payment volume. And what’s even more telling is where this activity is happening. It’s not evenly distributed. In fact, the growth is being driven far beyond the “native” regions of traditional finance. Nearly two-thirds of all stablecoin transaction volume comes from Asia — with key hubs like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan leading the charge. This isn’t accident. It reflects real demand: – faster cross-border settlement – access to dollar-denominated liquidity – reduced dependency on legacy banking infrastructure The implication is simple: Stablecoins aren’t just competing with traditional payment rails — in many parts of the world, they’ve already replaced them. Shot out to @a16zcrypto for highlighting