Bitchat saw a spike in downloads during protests in Madagascar, Nepal, Indonesia and Iran over the last year, and global unrest could see more cases like it. Decentralized, blockchain-based messaging and social media apps saw a surge of interest over the last year amid civil unrest and communication blackouts in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Search interest in decentralized social media has grown 145% over the last five years, according to Exploding Topics, while decentralized peer-to-peer messaging service Bitchat saw a spike in downloads during protests in Madagascar, Uganda, Nepal, Indonesia and Iran in recent months. “I think people are starting to trust open protocols more than they trust closed companies,” Shane Mac, the CEO of XMTP Labs, told Cointelegraph in a recent interview. Read more
Boyaa Interactive International is the 23rd-largest Bitcoin treasury and the third-largest in Asia, behind Japan’s Metaplanet and China’s Next Technology Holding. Hong Kong-based Web3 gaming firm Boyaa Interactive International said it is seeking shareholder approval to expand its crypto treasury, planning up to $70 million in purchases over the next year. In a statement on Sunday, the Hong Kong-listed company said it is looking to use its “idle cash reserves during periods of weakness in the cryptocurrency market” to increase its existing positions and to support the research and development of Boyaa’s Web3 gaming business. If approved by shareholders, Boyaa said it would invest in crypto tokens with “good market liquidity, large market value, wide recognition on the market and relatively long-term holding value.” Read more
The Meta co-founder is reportedly working on a personal AI agent to bypass management layers as Meta pushes employees to adopt agentic tools. Meta CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly building an AI agent to help handle his work in managing the company amid a company-wide push for employees to adopt agentic tech. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, citing sources close to the matter, Zuckerberg’s AI agent is still in development but already being used to help the CEO speed up information retrieval. Instead of going through multiple layers of people or teams to get the required information, the agent has been retrieving the information directly. Read more