Explore the stories below for curated news, stories, and inspiration from within the Cardano ecosystem.
The Cardano Summit Awards voting is now open, recognizing excellence across 11 categories within the ecosystem. The Developer Blog Series features an interview with Sricharan Ganta, CEO of Nucast, discussing innovations in digital media ownership on Cardano. The Stake Pool Spotlight highlights GROW, a pool dedicated to charitable initiatives in Africa. Ambassador Stories introduces Jose Iadicicco, a Meetup Organizer advancing blockchain education in Argentina.
Cardano node v.9.1.1 resolved Conway-era replay issues. A snapshot-converter tool addressed UTXO-HD deserialization and memory leaks. Lace enhanced governance for hardware wallets, Plutus finalized functions for the next hard fork, and Hydra improved network resilience. Mithril advanced decentralization, Voltaire emphasized community governance, and Catalyst neared Fund12 onboarding completion. Education prepared for Cardano Days and supported Plutus Core updates.
The consensus team optimized ledger snapshots, bandwidth, and UTXO-HD benchmarks. Plutus updated user documentation and contract blueprints. Hydra v.0.19.0 added Conway ledger support, while Mithril advanced decentralized signature orchestration. Intersect progressed the Chang upgrade, with elections ongoing. Catalyst previewed Fund13 in town hall 175, set to launch next week.
In a Roundtable Talk, Jon Kravetz of CSWAP DEX, Tim Brückmann of IAMX, and Nicola Massella of STORM Partners discussed Real World Assets (RWAs) on Cardano. They explored the definition and types of RWAs, the benefits and legal challenges of tokenization, and fractional ownership models. The conversation also covered the role of tokenized assets and stablecoins within the DeFi ecosystem and the future use cases for bringing real-world value on-chain.
The Project Catalyst Team has announced Fund 13, starting on September 25, 2024, with 50 million ada available for distribution. Proposal submissions open on September 26. The updated 2024 Cardano Summit agenda features keynotes, panels, and masterclasses, offering valuable insights into blockchain's future. Additional updates include the announcement of Summit Community Partners, a recap of the first SPO Table Talk on CIP-1694's impact on SPO operations.
The ledger team introduced a Conway feature restricting reward withdrawals without DRep delegation post-bootstrap, fixed bugs, and improved testing. Performance benchmarks for node v.9.1.1 were released, setting a new baseline. Mithril advanced decentralization and transaction handling. Voltaire's committee applications are open, Catalyst prepped Fund13 categories, and Fund12 onboarding nears completion. Education updated 'Mastering Cardano' and prepared content for Cardano Days events.
Join us for the first edition of the SPO Table Talk with domain experts, where we dive into the latest topics on Cardano stake pools and infrastructure. This session covers a range of topics, from changes in SPO leader logs post-Chang hard fork to the refined VRF tiebreaker rule, block diffusion pipelining, and more. We also explore the evolving role of stake pool operators in Cardano’s governance era, featuring insights from Andrew Westberg, Martin Lang, Samuel Leathers, Alexander Esgen, Markus Gufler and Denicio Bute.
Cardano's core teams released node v.9.1.1 to fix replay issues in the Conway era and introduced a snapshot-converter for UTXO-HD. Governance for hardware wallets improved, Plutus advanced built-in functions, and Hydra enhanced network resilience. Mithril progressed decentralization, Voltaire emphasized community governance, and Catalyst focused on Fund12 onboarding. Education supported Plutus updates and prepared for Cardano Days events.
The Chang #1 Hard Fork on September 1, 204, marks a key milestone for Cardano, initiating a new governance era. The first phase introduces an Interim Constitutional Committee (ICC) to oversee governance with limited powers, while Stake Pool Operators retain approval rights for protocol changes. The second phase, Chang Upgrade #2, expected in 90 days, will fully activate on-chain governance per CIP-1694. As Cardano enters the Conway era, the new Delegated Representatives (DReps) role is vital for governance, allowing ada holders to influence decisions. Early DRep registration requires a 500 ada refundable deposit.
The ledger team focused on conformance tests, improving the ledger test suite, and preparing for the upcoming hard fork by documenting changes affecting DApp developers. The SRE team upgraded the pre-production network to the Conway era and made various infrastructure improvements. The Lace team is set to release version 1.15 with enhanced governance capabilities. The Mithril team is decentralizing signature orchestration and optimizing memory use. The Voltaire team prepared for the Chang #1 hard fork on September 1. Catalyst advanced Fund12 onboarding and achieved progress in the Hermes project, while the education team preps for Cardano Days.
