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
S&P Global Ratings and Chainlink have partnered to provide onchain stablecoin risk profiles for TradFi players looking to enter or expand into the $300 billion market. S&P Global Ratings has partnered with blockchain oracle provider Chainlink to give financial institutions onchain access to its new stablecoin stability assessments, which rate each stablecoin by how well it maintains its peg. The Stablecoin Stability Assessments (SSAs) launched on the Ethereum layer-2 network Base on Tuesday, with potential to expand to other blockchains, subject to market demand and client feedback, S&P Global and Chainlink said in a statement seen by Cointelegraph. “As institutional adoption of digital assets accelerates, the ability to access real-time risk assessments directly within blockchain infrastructure has become crucial for market participants.” Read more
S&P Global’s credit rating of Sky Protocol reflects key concerns over governance centralization, weak capitalization and regulatory uncertainty. S&P Global Ratings assigned a “B-” issuer credit rating to Sky Protocol, formerly known as Maker Protocol, marking the first time a major agency has issued a rating for a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform. The rating is part of S&P’s ongoing assessment of stablecoin issuers, which began in 2023 to evaluate their ability to maintain a stable value relative to fiat currencies. The review covers the creditworthiness of Sky’s liabilities, the USDS (USDS) and DAI (DAI) stablecoins and the sUSDS and sDAI savings tokens. Sky Protocol, evaluated for the first time, received a 4, labeled “constrained,” for the ability of USDS to maintain its peg to the US dollar. The scale runs from 1 for very strong to 5 for weak. Read more