The HackerNoon Newsletter: When Wallets Lie - Measuring Real Users in a Bot-Driven Web3 (12/31/2025)

How are you, hacker?

🪐 What’s happening in tech today, December 31, 2025?

The HackerNoon Newsletter brings the HackerNoon homepage straight to your inbox. On this day, General Motors made $1 billion by selling 5 million vehicles in 1955, Edison's light bulb is first demonstrated in 1879, Tupolev Tu-144 Took First Flight in 1968, and we present you with these top quality stories. From Symfony 7.4’s Request Cleanup Closes a Classic Parameter Pollution Trap to How Heart Rate Data in Sim Racing Reveales the Ultimate Immersion, let’s dive right in.

Proof of Usefulness Hackathon by HackerNoon: Become an Official Ecosystem Partner

By @proofofusefulness [ 5 Min read ] Calling universities, research labs, dev communities, VC firms, and influencers! Partner with us to support developer talent and the startup ecosystem. Read More.

The 1980s Code Powering Modern Reliability—and the Mistakes It Still Makes

By @akiradoko [ 26 Min read ] We audit Erlang/OTP’s decades-old C and NIF code with PVS-Studio, surfacing logic bugs, buffer risks, undefined behavior, and leaks in battle-tested systems. Read More.

Symfony 7.4’s Request Cleanup Closes a Classic Parameter Pollution Trap

By @mattleads [ 10 Min read ] Symfony 7.4 deprecates Request::get() to remove ambiguous input precedence and reduce HTTP parameter pollution risks ahead of Symfony 8. Read More.

How Heart Rate Data in Sim Racing Reveales the Ultimate Immersion

By @wicked-racing [ 6 Min read ] Adding Subtle layers of immersion to your sim racing rig can enhance your racing experience. Read More.

When Wallets Lie - Measuring Real Users in a Bot-Driven Web3

By @diadkov [ 5 Min read ] The silent crisis of on-chain bots - why most Web3 ‘users’ aren’t real. That’s a bigger problem than you think Read More.

🧑‍💻 What happened in your world this week?

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We hope you enjoy this worth of free reading material. Feel free to forward this email to a nerdy friend who'll love you for it.See you on Planet Internet! With love, The HackerNoon Team ✌️