Hedera News - Week of Dec 22

Happy Holidays Hedera world! As the year winds down, I hope you all have a chance to rest, refresh, and reconnect with loved ones over the holidays. No newsletter next week. See you in 2024!

The Hedera ecosystem has been busy indeed, and this week the WalletConnect Working Group - HashPack, Kabila App, Calaxy, Dropp, Blade Labs, WallaWallet, Hgraph, Doerksen & Davenport Inc., Swirlds Labs, and HIP-820 contributors - unveiled WalletConnect on Hedera, bringing enhanced compatibility and interoperability to the growing ecosystem of apps and users on Hedera.

Learn more ?? https://hedera.com/blog/wallets-on-hedera-collaborate-to-launch-walletconnect-integrations

And a request for the community - Calling all Hedera developers and projects!

We invite you to participate in the Electric Capital Developer Report - an annual analysis showcasing activity within open source web3 ecosystems. This report is used as a key resource for both developers and industry observers to gauge the health and momentum of decentralized networks, so your participation is crucial for representing the Hedera ecosystem accurately.

Follow the steps here and help us highlight the strength of our network. By including your project, you not only gain visibility for it, but also contribute to demonstrating the strength and diversity of our builder community. This, in turn, attracts more developers and users to the Hedera ecosystem, fueling further growth and diversity.

Job Alert! Are you (or is anyone you know) interested in working on complex policy issues shaping Web3? Hedera is looking for a Spring 2024 Global Policy Intern, who will have a unique opportunity to work on novel, complex, and exciting global policy projects that touch topics such as blockchain/digital ledger technology, cryptocurrency, cybersecurity, banking, financial inclusion, human rights, innovation, international trade, national security, privacy, property rights, technology development, and Web3.

For more information on the role, visit: https://hedera.com/future?gh_jid=4316078006

This week's news from around the Hedera ecosystem showcases the significant growth of activity on the Hedera network, as summarized by a year end wrap up from the HBAR Foundation. Additionally, the Bank of Ghana successfully concluded its first CBDC hackathon with the support of EMTECH, a Hedera-powered dApp promoting financial inclusion. The Hedera ecosystem also launched WalletConnect integrations, enhancing interoperability and ease of use in the Web3 ecosystem. Furthermore, HYPHEN joined the Hedera Guardian Ecosystem, partnering with the HBAR Foundation to offer high-quality carbon credits in the Indonesian market, aiming to enhance the validation process and contribute to global carbon market mainstreaming efforts.

• ETH News - Hedera’s 2023 Odyssey: A Year of Unstoppable Growth

This article highlights Hedera’s substantial growth over the last year, despite the broader market slowdown in the first half of 2023. In 2023, the HBAR Foundation’s (THF) grants centered around four main funds: crypto economy; fintech and payments; consumer engagement; and sustainable impact. Each fund catered to specific segments of the Web3 market, driving initiatives such as onchain finance, ecosystem-as-a-service, and sustainability and climate markets. 2023 saw a strategic reduction in the number of grants awarded, as the HBAR Foundation shifted its focus to nurturing existing high-potential projects. As highlighted in ETH News, this approach allowed the Foundation to ensure a balanced distribution of resources across the various sectors. To demonstrate the Foundation’s impact on the Hedera ecosystem, the THF has developed ‘Project Insight’, a comprehensive analytics tool that quantifies the consequent value of its funding efforts.

• Ledger Insights - EMTECH completes Ghana CBDC hackathon on public DLT

This week saw the conclusion of the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) first central bank digital currency (CBDC) hackathon, supported by EMTECH, a Hedera-powered decentralized app (dApp) promoting financial inclusion. The event involved 10 teams, made up of developers, banks, and fintechs, developing solutions for the Ghanian Cedi currency using Emtech’s simulated token ‘Beyond Cash (BYDC)’. This token leverages Hedera’s distributed ledger technology (DLT). The solution was designed as a Web3-enabled digital cash infrastructure that can interoperate with payment rails and support the building of innovative financial products. As part of the hackathon, all participants were given access to BYDC-eCedi APIs to ease integration and all transactions used the ERC-20 token standard. KPMG participated as a service provider in the hackathon, establishing the competition criteria and supervising the event. The 10 finalists launched apps covering agriculture, government payments, business payments, taxation, securities, crowdfunding, interoperability, and credit scoring.?

• ETH News - Hedera’s Wallets Get a Connectivity Boost with WalletConnect Integration

Hedera has launched a number of WalletConnect integrations, signaling a new era of interoperability and ease of use in the Web3 ecosystem. This integration, which is the result of a community-led initiative, facilitates seamless interaction between wallets and dApps on Hedera. Some of the wallet providers involved in the initiative include HashPack, Kabila, Calaxy, BladeWallet, and WallaWallet. dApp creators and wallet providers will now be able to use their preferred wallets to trade HBAR and leverage Hedera’s suite of tools and services, without encountering compatibility concerns.?

• HBAR Foundation Twitter? HYPHEN Joins Hedera Guardian Ecosystem To Develop New dMRV Methodologies

HYPHEN, a climate tech company dedicated to institutionalizing and de-risking natural capital, has partnered with the HBAR Foundation to offer high-quality carbon credits to the Indonesian market. HYPHEN will integrate its infrastructure with the Hedera Guardian, an open-source solution that provides full discoverability and traceability of ESG assets on the Hedera network, to enhance the process of validating their value through improved digital measurement, reporting, and verification (dMRV). The new dMRV methods will monitor the exchange of greenhouse gases (GHGs) between the terrestrial surface and the atmosphere using scientific instrumentation that measures changing concentrations of atmospheric GHGs on a continuous, ongoing basis. This will enable the generation of higher quality and transparent carbon credits that, once scaled, will empower institutions to reach net zero emissions. HYPHEN hopes that these initial Indonesian pilots will lay the foundation for further mainstreaming throughout Southern Asia, Africa, Latin America, and beyond, and restore global trust in carbon markets.

See you in 2024!