Jan. 3: KuCoin, a Seychelles-based crypto exchange, said its KuCoin Labs investment and incubation program has invested in ISSP, to support the development of its "ground-breaking inscription protocol, which operates on the cutting-edge Sui network, known for its high throughput and scalability," according to a press release. "ISSP is the first cross-chain inscription protocol system that integrates an inscription marketplace and inscription swap, leveraging the unique Objects model of Sui network to naturally benefit inscription systems. ISSP has initially launched the SUI-20 inscription standard protocol on the Sui network, utilizing the network node's built-in indexer to index inscription data."

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Jan. 2: Particle Network, describing itself as the "intent-centric modular access layer of Web3," unveiled "BTC Connect," claiming it's "the first-ever account abstraction protocol for Bitcoin." According to the team: "BTC Connect harnesses ERC-4337 design and L2 EVM-compatible chains to introduce a Smart Account, Paymaster, Bundler and a unique Bitcoin-specific Modal. This protocol enables developers to offer gasless trades, account programmability and other features of account abstraction to their users, streamlining the development process in the fast-paced world of Ordinals and inscriptions."

Jan. 2: Waterfall Network, a layer 1 blockchain based on "Directed Acyclic Graphs" or DAG technology for fast-finality proof-of-stake consensus, launched Testnet 8, "representing the latest version of the protocol with optimizations and fixed bugs allowing the network to achieve loads of 10,000+ transactions per second.' Other optimizations and improvements include faster synchronizations in parallel, improved search for new peers, automatically unlocked validators, improved reliability in optimistic consensus, randomness creation, new transaction gas estimates and storage optimization," according to the team.

Jan. 2: DOTins, In collaboration with the Moonbeam Network, has officially launched its inscriptions minting platform ahead of the deployment of its full inscriptions marketplace, according to the team. "DOTins enables users to create, transfer and manage inscriptions throughout the Polkadot ecosystem. DOTins aims to leverage Moonbeam’s cross-chain capabilities to create omni-chain inscriptions where use-cases make sense." (DOT)

Dec. 21: Fountain, a podcast app powered by the Bitcoin Lightning Network, has "launched its biggest design and user experience upgrade to date," co-founder Nick Malster told Protocol Village. "It's now easier than ever before to support your favorite podcasts, discover new ones through social features like clips and playlists, as well as earn bitcoin (BTC) for listening and sharing the best content. Strike users can also now connect their Strike account with their Fountain wallet and top up with their preferred currency without ever leaving the Fountain app. Fountain 1.0 is available on iOS and Android now."

Dec. 21: Amboss, a data analytics provider for the Bitcoin Lightning Network, launched "Ghost Addresses, which empower users to seamlessly receive payments into self-custody without reliance on the centralized wallet intermediaries that have dominated usage to-date," according to the team.

Dec. 21: Tenderly has released its "2023 EVM Network Landscape Report, looking into the most widely used Ethereum scaling solutions, and revealing increased on-chain activity on Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, BNB Chain, Avalanche and Base for chain-specific use cases," according to the team: "The availability of tooling and infrastructure on these chains also points to their developing ecosystems. Overall, the report posits that a multichain system of independent networks and appchains benefits Ethereum’s scalability, ecosystem resilience, growth and innovation and blockchain adoption generally."

Dec. 21: WalletConnect announced an "ambitious new roadmap to build an open, permissionless and decentralized network that will both improve performance of the WalletConnect Protocol and achieve functionality that better aligns with the tenets of Web3," according to the team. "Milestones on the roadmap will be tested, audited and executed over the next year, concluding with a proposed formal launch of an open, permissionless WalletConnect Network in 2025."

Dec. 21: Bitfinex Securities Ltd, which offers listing and trading services for security tokens, announced the successful raise of 5.2M USDT in a tokenized bond issuance, according to the team: "The tokenized security offering is a result of collaboration with microfinancing firm Mikro Kapital that manages a securitization fund named Alternative. The tokenized bond, denominated in USDT, uses the ticker ALT2612 and has a 36-month tenor with a 10% coupon."