2026-02-24 06:35:34
Most Web3 projects don't have a community problem. They have a trust problem. And the fastest way to destroy trust is to treat the community like a growth tactic.
\ In crypto, it's easy to confuse noise for health. A Discord full of messages. A Telegram that never sleeps. A timeline full of engagement. But anyone who's been entrenched in communities long enough knows the truth. A crowd can look like a community right up until the moment things get real.
\ The market turns. Incentives dry up. A rumor spreads. Someone posts a screenshot with no context. Sentiment flips in hours. And suddenly your "community" becomes a stress test. That's when you find out what you actually built.
If the only reason people show up is points, rewards, and price, then what you have is not a community. It's a rewards program. The moment the rewards stop, the participation stops. The moment the chart turns, the room turns. You cannot retrofit trust into a crowd that assembled around speculation.
\ A real community has something underneath the incentives. Something slower. Something sturdier. Trust. Clarity. Contribution. Shared direction.
An audience consumes. A community contributes. That distinction sounds simple, but it changes everything. It changes what you build. It changes what you measure. It changes how you communicate. Engagement can be bought. Participation has to be earned.
\ In Web3, participation is what turns a product into an ecosystem. It turns a token into a network. It turns users into builders. And it doesn't happen by accident.
Mood is shaped by narratives, rumors, screenshots, and fear. It moves faster than facts. And when a project isn't actively building clarity, someone else will fill the vacuum. Usually the loudest person. Usually, the least informed person. Usually, the person who benefits from chaos.
\ This is why community leadership isn't just posting updates. It's maintaining shared reality. When a piece of misinformation about your protocol goes viral at 2 am, your community is either a fire department or a fire accelerant.
\ Clarity is not a nice-to-have. It's infrastructure. Tone is not aesthetics. Tone is policy. If your communication is vague, inconsistent, or defensive, your community will feel it immediately. And once people lose trust, you don't win it back with a campaign. You win it back with behavior over time.
Most Web3 onboarding is terrible. A newcomer joins a Discord and gets hit with a wall of channels, a wall of jargon, a Notion doc with 20 links, and a culture where everyone acts as if you should already know everything. Then teams wonder why nobody sticks.
\ Onboarding isn't a pinned message. It's the moment where someone decides: do I belong here? A good onboarding experience makes people feel smart quickly. It gives them context, a first step, and an understanding of what the project actually is and what kind of person it is for. Most importantly, it gives them a path to contribute that is not purely financial. Because the moment you reduce participation to rewards, you train people to behave like mercenaries.
One of the biggest myths in Web3 is that community just happens. It doesn't. Healthy communities are designed, not in a controlling way, but in a human way. They create a structure that makes it easier for good behavior to happen and harder for bad behavior to dominate.
\ In practice, that means clear roles for different types of members, visible paths from curiosity to contribution, repeatable programs that create rhythm, recognition that feels earned, not bought, and norms that protect the room from turning into noise. The best communities don't rely on constant excitement. They rely on consistency. They make it easy for the right people to find each other and start building.
This is the part most teams don't want to hear. Communities expose everything. They expose whether your product has real pull, whether your messaging is honest, whether your incentives are aligned, whether your leadership is steady or reactive, and whether you have real contributors or just spectators. And once trust is broken, it doesn't come back through better marketing. It comes back through discipline.
\ Hype attracts. Trust retains. They are not the same thing, and they are not friends. A project flush with hype can feel like community, especially from the inside. New people every day, energy in every thread, speculation about what's next. But hype creates expectations it cannot fulfill, and when it doesn't fulfill them, the people it attracted leave, loudly.
\ Trust does the opposite. It accumulates quietly, through small moments of honesty and consistency, until the day something goes wrong and it turns out you have people in your corner who weren't just there for the upside.
\ That is the difference between a crowd and a network. A crowd shares a moment. A network shares a direction.
\ Build the network.
2026-02-24 06:09:23
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## Microsoft’s AutoDev: The AI That Builds, Tests, and Fixes Code on Its Own 
By @microsoft [ 27 Min read ]
Microsoft’s AutoDev uses AI agents to write, test, and fix code autonomously, hitting 91.5% on HumanEval in Docker. Read More.
By @khamisihamisi [ 4 Min read ] Western tech is built in environments of abundance. In emerging markets, these assumptions often fail quickly. Read More.
By @lomitpatel [ 5 Min read ] How CMOs win CFO buy-in using incrementality, trust, AI, and capital allocation to drive margin expansion and revenue durability. Read More.
By @Go [ 7 Min read ] The audit produced a single low-severity finding, in the legacy and unsupported Go+BoringCrypto integration, and a handful of informational findings. Read More.
By @opensourcetheworld [ 7 Min read ] I replaced $1,200/year in cloud subscriptions with one home server. Here's the setup, costs, apps, Bitcoin node, local AI, and what I'd do differently. Read More.
By @playerzero [ 17 Min read ] AI writes code, but lacks production context. Context graphs capture decision traces to build real world models. Read More.
By @confluent [ 5 Min read ] Learn how Python developers build real-time AI agents using MCP, Kafka, and Flink—modern agentic workflows explained on HackerNoon. Read More.
By @playerzero [ 11 Min read ] How 2025 transformed AI from a developer tool into engineering infrastructure—and why operating it safely is now the real challenge. Read More.
By @scylladb [ 4 Min read ] Discover how Yieldmo migrated from DynamoDB to ScyllaDB to cut database costs, achieve multicloud flexibility, and deliver ads in single-digit millisecond laten Read More.
By @thomascherickal [ 51 Min read ] Google Antigravity is not just for coding. It is for your entire computer. Stop scrolling - everything you do on a computer has just been automated. Read More.
By @scylladb [ 6 Min read ] ZEE5 cut database costs 5X and achieved single-digit millisecond latency by migrating to ScyllaDB, redesigning APIs, and optimizing data models. Read More.
By @mexcmedia [ 2 Min read ] MEXC’s February report shows 267% BTC coverage, rising ETH reserves, and monthly audited Proof of Reserves verified with Merkle Tree tech. Read More.
By @melissaindia [ 4 Min read ] Learn 6 proven strategies to secure executive buy-in for Master Data Management by aligning MDM with ROI, risk reduction, and business goals. Read More.
By @saumyatyagi [ 15 Min read ] Most teams plateau at "AI writes code, a human reviews it." This article presents the Dark Factory Pattern — a four-phase architecture using holdout scenarios a Read More.
By @tirtha [ 11 Min read ] Skipping source code for AI-made binaries isn’t the future—it’s a rollback. Here’s why compilers exist, and why “stochastic compilation” doesn’t ship. Read More.
By @thomascherickal [ 18 Min read ] Google Antigravity is a game-changer. Things are never going to be the same again for technology work. The age of AI agents is here. Read to know more! Read More.
By @vinitabansal [ 13 Min read ] The more you adopt self-sabotage behaviors to deal with your feelings of self-doubt, the stronger those connections get. Read More.
By @thomascherickal [ 14 Min read ] Clawdbot's viral rise to 10K GitHub stars exploded into trademark fights, crypto scams & security nightmares—renamed to Moltbot, then OpenClaw. The full story! Read More.
By @unusualwriter [ 4 Min read ] Brazil has tokenized $1B in real-world assets, with XDC, XRP Ledger, and Polygon capturing 93% of the market. Read More.
By @kilocode [ 4 Min read ]
Real-world strategies for adopting agentic engineering on production teams. Learn parallel execution, context management, and review practices from working engi Read More.
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2026-02-24 05:22:02
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has created an unprecedented surge in the demand for energy. Training and running large-scale models require massive computational resources housed in power-intensive data centers. Today, hyperscale AI facilities demand gigawatts of power, equivalent to the needs of an entire city. This demand strains grids and increases emissions from fossil fuel reliance, not to mention exacerbating water scarcity due to cooling needs. While there have been improvements in efficiency in hardware and algorithms, the exponential scaling of AI models means infrastructure on Earth faces real limits in energy availability, land, regulatory hurdles, environmental impact, and cooling ability. This is where space comes into the picture.
\ In the very near future, AI servers and data centers may be launched into space, which is deemed a viable location for such sizeable and energy-hungry technologies. In orbit, solar panels receive constant, uninterrupted sunlight – energy – without the need for human-generated electricity, removing the ability to overextend the existing energy grid limit on Earth. In space, it’s near-limitless, clean energy capture. Equally important, the vacuum of space provides superior radiative cooling, dissipating heat efficiently without the massive air- and water-based systems required on Earth, where cooling can use massive amounts of energy.
\ SpaceX and Google have already announced plans to deploy orbital servers for trial. At the recent Davos conference, Elon Musk said that space-based computing could become the cheapest option for AI training within the next two or three years. “The lowest cost place to put AI will be space, and that'll be true within two years, maybe three at the latest,” Musk said.
\ The advantages of space-based AI servers are compelling. They offer abundant, always-on solar power that can support gigawatt-scale operations sustainably, eliminate land and water issues, reduce emissions, and enable modular constellations for massive scalability. The natural vacuum cooling of space eliminates not only the need for heavy cooling infrastructure but also protection from Earth-based disasters or regulations, providing operational stability and resilience.
\ However, while the dream of space-based AI data centers is likely to become a reality mainly due to necessity, there are significant hurdles that must first be overcome. Launch costs may be dropping with reusable rockets like Starship, but they are still limited and too high to sustain frequent deployments. Hardware needs to be upgraded as it will face intense radiation that will degrade its components, and heat management will require careful design to avoid overheating in the sunlight. Latency for data transmission to Earth, while low in low-Earth orbit, introduces significant delays compared to terrestrial systems.
\ Maintenance will be close to impossible without advanced autonomous robotics, as it will be difficult and costly to send astronauts into space every time there is a server issue. The overall economics of such an endeavor are unknown, so it remains a long-term solution for now and not an immediate fix. In the near term, though, we will need to rely on Earth-based systems to generate the energy and cooling needs of AI data centers. Once the technical and economic hurdles are overcome, orbital data centers, with their many advantages, will no doubt become a reality.
2026-02-24 02:58:46
\
“Stories change lives and, therefore, change the world.” - Limarc Ambalina
\
I’m Limarc Ambalina, former VP of Editorial at HackerNoon. Currently, I’m the Director of Content & Marketing at ISNation and Co-Founder and CEO of PriceCam. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade crafting stories that connect brands to audiences in ways that are human, meaningful, and rooted in authenticity. My background spans journalism, SEO, gaming, AI, tech, and storytelling.
At ISNation, I lead a team that’s building content that touches the hearts of athletes across the nation. Outside of work, I’m still that kid who stays up way too late playing JRPGs, but only with much less time on my hands since my beautiful daughter, Riko, was born!
\
I believe stories change lives and, therefore, change the world. Writers are more important than we think!
Interestingly, my writing journey started with plagiarism.
I was just six, our teacher asked us to write a story, and instead of coming up with my own, I innocently thought, “Hey, I can just tell everyone my favorite story.” So, I copied a children’s book word for word. Back then, I’d never even heard the work plagiarism or knew what it meant. I read my plagiarized story aloud, the class clapped, and my teacher said, “Wow, we might have a future writer here.” The guilt hit me like a truck. I was too young to understand why what I did was wrong, but I felt it innately.
From that day on, I promised myself I’d earn any praise that came my way — with stories that were mine. I fell in love with writing not because it was easy, but because it made me feel seen. Whether it was through video game narratives, anime, or literature, storytelling showed me that words have power. And I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.
\
Technology, gaming, anime, and entrepreneurship are my core playgrounds. I’m passionate about telling stories that sit at the intersection of humanity and innovation.
I love diving into how people interact with emerging tech — from haptic VR peripherals to AI-generated art — and what that means for creators, consumers, and society. VR and AR are growing slowly but surely. The experiences you can have in VR are unparalleled and I’m so excited about the storytelling possibilities that VR holds even in its current infant state.
Writing about these topics gives me the chance to blend personal passion with professional expertise. It’s not just about informing people; it’s about helping them feel excited, empowered, and maybe even inspired to try something new.
\
Yeah the biggest moment was when I got laid off from a large corporation. I detailed the story on LinkedIn, you can read about what happened here:
\
The biggest issue that faces us is AI. In the next 2 years, AI will:
I am very excited about AI’s ability to help us write, but terrified about its potential to stop us from writing. Right now companies are prioritizing cost and speed, and quality will always suffer when those 2 things are the priority.
In terms of the creative arts, the anime Carole and Tuesday perfectly showed what will happen once AI takes the forefront. Human-created works of art will become few and far between, but soon there will be a gravitation towards those works once they become the minority.
\
I love HackerNoon and all that it stands for! It is still the best place for new bloggers to get their start. As the father of the blogging fellowship, I want to see it continue and affect more writers and improve more lives!
\
Master your craft so well that your writing speaks for itself.
At the same time, master the use of LLM-based content creation. Learn how to prompt. Learn how to make your own custom GPTs so that you have these skills when the roles you apply for require them!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SavySvQzJM&embedable=true
\
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/limarc-ambalina-11604371/
ISNation: https://www.isnation.com/download
PriceCam: https://pricecamapp.com/
2026-02-24 02:00:09
We are back with another Company of the Week feature! Every week, we share an awesome tech brand from our tech company database, making their evergreen mark on the internet. This unique HackerNoon database ranks S&P 500 companies and top startups of the year alike.
This week, we are proud to present ZexPRWire, a powerhouse in the PR distribution space and a vital member of the HackerNoon ecosystem as a Certified Business Blogging Partner.
\
:::
\
ZexPRWire is a premium, end-to-end press release distribution platform designed to bridge the gap between ambitious tech startups and global media visibility. Emerging from the tech-heavy hubs of Dubai and reaching across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, they provide the "megaphones" that founders need to break through the noise.
Whether it’s a product launch, a funding announcement, or a strategic partnership, ZexPRWire specializes in syndicating content to Tier 1 and Tier 2 news outlets, ensuring that brands’ stories thrive.
\
\
\
\
You may have noticed the Certified Partner badge on many high-quality stories across HackerNoon. This isn't just a label; it’s a mark of trust and a key pillar of our collaborative ecosystem.
As a Certified Business Blogging Partner, ZexPRWire acts as a verified conduit for brands to reach our 4 million+ monthly readers. They understand the "HackerNoon Way" - stories that are deeply technical, insightful, and free of the corporate jargon that usually plagues press releases.
\
Are you a PR, content marketing, or distribution agency that helps tech brands tell better stories? The HackerNoon Certified Business Blogging Program is an elite tier for agencies that want to offer their clients more than just "exposure."
ZexPRWire has set a high bar for what a partnership looks like, but they aren't alone in this mission. Brands like Chainwire, BTCWire, InboundJunction, PRNEWS.IO, and many more have already joined the program to bridge the gap between their clients and the global tech community.
By becoming a Certified Partner, you don't just post content; you become an integral part of the HackerNoon distribution engine. When you apply to become a partner, you gain access to:
If your agency is ready to stop "shouting into the void" and start delivering verified results on a platform with a DA of 85+, it’s time to get certified.
\
:::tip Ready to scale your agency's impact? Apply to become a HackerNoon Certified Business Blogging Partner today.
:::
\
2026-02-24 00:59:29
\
What does it look like when a blockchain starts processing more payment volume than mid-sized banks?
\ While most of the crypto conversation in early 2026 has centered on Bitcoin ETF flows, meme coin cycles, and AI agent tokens, Polygon just posted numbers that no other blockchain matched. The network moved $29.8 billion in stablecoin volume across 282.1 million transfers, up 28% from December and marking a fourth consecutive monthly all-time high. USDC carried the bulk at $20.8 billion. USDT added $6 billion. DAI contributed $3 billion.
\ At the same time, USDC supply on Polygon hit $1.49 billion, another all-time high. Tazapay, a B2B cross-border payments platform operating across 173 countries, processed $687 million in monthly volume on Polygon in January 2026. Polymarket, the prediction market platform now valued at $9 billion, pushed $1.7 billion in volume on Polygon infrastructure during the same week. And $195 million in international stablecoins moved through the network, with Australian dollar-backed stablecoins leading at $76 million.
\
\ These are not vanity metrics from a testnet launch. This is settlement volume from production infrastructure used by Stripe, Revolut, Mastercard, and Flutterwave.
\
Then February pushed the numbers further. On February 17, 2026, Polygon set an all-time high for daily USDC transactions at 12 million. Base, Arbitrum, and Ethereum mainnet each registered below 3 million. The gap was not marginal, it was a 4x lead over the nearest competitor.
\ The same week, Polygon reached 28 million weekly USDC transactions, surpassing Solana's 22 million to become the most active USDC chain across the entire ecosystem. USDC transfers also hit a weekly record of 103 million. These numbers came from AlliumLabs data cited by growthepie co-founder Matthias Seidl, who confirmed the surge was driven primarily by Polymarket activity and stablecoin payments.
\
\ For context, more USDC moved on Polygon in a single day than on Ethereum, Base, and Arbitrum combined. That is not a theoretical benchmark. It is settlement data from a live network processing payments, prediction market trades, and cross-border transfers at the same time. When a single chain handles four times the USDC volume of every competitor, the question shifts from "is blockchain ready for payments" to "which chain is already doing it."
\
On February 14, 2026, Polygon collected $407,100 in daily transaction fees. Ethereum collected $211,700. That was the first time Polygon surpassed Ethereum on this metric.
\ The driver was Polymarket. The prediction market platform, now valued at $9 billion after a $2 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange, generated over $1 million in Polygon network fees in seven days. Over $15 million in bets were placed on a single Oscars category alone. Polygon's cost structure made this volume possible. Transactions on the network average $0.0026. On Ethereum, the average is $1.68. That is a 646x cost difference. For a prediction market processing millions of micro-bets, or a remittance platform routing thousands of small transfers, that gap determines which chain gets the traffic.
\ Sandeep Nailwal, Founder of Polygon and CEO of the Polygon Foundation, explains,
\
"We aspire Polygon to be the biggest stablecoin money movement avenue in the world. Our mission is to move all money onchain and rebuild how money works, so it is instant, reliable, programmable, and open."
\ The technical upgrades that enabled this throughput were delivered throughout 2025 under the Gigagas roadmap. The Bhilai hard fork pushed throughput to 1,000 TPS. Heimdall V2 introduced five-second finality. The Rio upgrade eliminated chain reorganizations. By December, the Madhugiri hard fork added another 33% capacity. These are not roadmap items. They shipped.
\
The enterprise names on Polygon's payment rails separate it from competitors making theoretical claims. Revolut moved $810 million in total volume through Polygon in 2025. Tazapay, a B2B cross-border payments platform operating in 173 countries, processed $687 million on Polygon in January 2026 alone. Stripe processed over $75 million in payments on the network. Flutterwave extended stablecoin payments across 30 countries in Africa. Mastercard partnered with Polygon for username-based transfers on self-custody wallets.
\
\ Polygon also leads in non-USD stablecoin activity. The network has processed over $11.1 billion in lifetime volume for local-currency stablecoins, more than 43% of all such transfers across chains. This includes Mexican peso stablecoins in remittance corridors and Australian dollar-backed stablecoins, which led the $195 million in international stablecoin movement recorded last week.
\
\
In January 2026, Polygon Labs signed definitive agreements to acquire Coinme and Sequence for over $250 million. This is the infrastructure play behind the Open Money Stack, Polygon's vertically integrated payments framework announced the same month.
\ Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, explains,
\
"Stablecoins are increasingly being used as a settlement layer for global payments, but the infrastructure around them remains fragmented. These acquisitions give us regulated access to U.S. payment rails, wallet infrastructure, and cross-chain intents capabilities to build an open payments business on top of onchain settlement."
\ Coinme holds money-transmitter licenses in 48 U.S. states and operates fiat on/off-ramps across 50,000 retail locations. Sequence brings enterprise smart wallets and cross-chain transaction routing.
The numbers here tell a specific story. 94 million stablecoin transfers in one week. 12 million daily USDC transactions, four times more than any other chain. $29.8 billion in stablecoin volume in January. Stripe, Revolut, Mastercard, and Flutterwave running live production workloads on Polygon shows the future of payments we are heading too.
\ The open question remains whether Polygon, network's token, will capture value from this usage. Price has lagged network growth. But at the infrastructure level, what Polygon has assembled, throughput, cost structure, enterprise adoption, regulatory positioning, and a 43% share of non-USD stablecoin transfers, is something the payments industry will have to reckon with.
\ Don’t forget to like and share the story!
\
