Cardano News

Today, June 10, 2024, is the final day to register for the Interim Constitutional Committee, which will uphold the interim Constitution during the Chang upgrade. The committee includes representatives from IOG, the Cardano Foundation, EMURGO, Intersect, and three community seats. Charles Hoskinson confirmed Cardano Node v9’s release this month, preceding the Chang Hard Fork. The “Spotlight on Stake Pools” series features Dmytro Stashenko of STAT stake pool. Other Cardano news includes updates from Vietnam Blockchain Week, MAV growth, and the Crypto Valley Conference.

The ledger team enhanced the CDDL specification and improved safety by restricting certain protocol parameter types, introduced tools for controlling test case distribution, worked on UTXO predicate failure tests, enabled retrying of flaky tests in nightly CI, and made further improvements. The Lace team released v1.12, adding a fiat on-ramp with Banxa and enabling multi-delegation for supported hardware wallets. The Plutus team released version 1.29.0.0 of the Plutus libraries, which includes CIP-69 and CIP-117 implementations. The Mithril team improved the throughput of the prover route, transitioned to a chain point-based beacon for faster transaction signing, and prepared a threat modeling explainer for the documentation website. The ledger team continued testing the Conway era and fixed several bugs related to DRep expiry and committee voting thresholds. Intersect updates included interim constitutional committee elections and joining Hyperledger and the Linux Foundation. In Catalyst, town hall 165 shared updates, including the end of the community review period for LV0s and LV1s, and the start of LV2 moderation on June 13. The alternative voting mechanism achieved milestone 1 and was presented during town hall 165. The education team continued working on Mastering Cardano, supporting the DRep Pioneer Program, and preparing for the next Cardano Developer course.

The consensus team advanced the UTXO-HD project using simple diffs, improving mempool benchmarks. They released quickcheck-state-machine library v0.10.0 and rebased UTXO-HD on node v8.11. Technical working groups under Intersect were established, with Plutus and consensus meetings set for early June. Updates on UTXO-HD and Ouroboros Peras were provided. The Hydra team released node v0.17.0, featuring new commit transaction mechanisms and networking upgrades. The Mithril team released a protocol insights dashboard, updated the explorer page, and improved transaction certification. SanchoNet invites community testing for on-chain governance as per CIP-1694, with updated documentation. Project Catalyst hosted town hall 164, with the community review stage ongoing and Fund12 voting registration open. The education team is preparing lectures for the Cardano Developer Course, supporting the DRep Pioneer program, and writing content for Mastering Cardano.

In May, the Mithril project released distribution 2418.1, which included critical updates like changes to the certificate chain structure and memory optimizations. Significant progress was made in Cardano transaction certification, achieving a 100x improvement in throughput and reducing storage requirements. The Hydra project released version 0.17.0 with breaking changes to the /commit endpoint, new HTTP endpoints, and focused on incremental decommits. Testing and optimization efforts continued, and several Hydra-related Catalyst proposals were discussed, exploring diverse use cases and alternative scaling approaches.

Cardano’s minimum viable on-chain governance framework outlines the transition towards on-chain governance, starting with an interim period for bootstrapping via formal rules. Key dates for community involvement include May 28 for registration opening, June 10 for closing, and June 13-23 for voting. An interim Constitutional Committee of seven members, including three elected community members, will oversee the initial phase. Community members passionate about governance are encouraged to apply.

On May 23, 2024, Cardano’s SanchoNet achieved a historic milestone by initiating its first hard fork using CIP-1694 governance. Intersect seeks community input for drafting the Cardano Constitution with workshops worldwide. The Cardano Foundation introduced the MACS algorithm for efficient coin selection on UTxO blockchains at the IEEE conference. Other news includes updates from Dr. Lars Brünjes, CNTools, RealFi, leaderlogs, Catalyst Working Group, and SanchoNet.

This week, the ledger team focused on conformance testing, completing tests for CERT and RATIFY rules and improving the constraint-generators framework. They also fixed the stake pool operator stake distribution calculation for voting. The Plutus team developed guardrail scripts for Conway governance actions, fine-tuned the PlutusV3 cost model, and collaborated with MLabs on new bitwise primitives. The Mithril team worked on Cardano transaction certification, scaling proof generation, low-latency certification, and a new explorer page for SPOs. They upgraded the testing network and removed deprecated commands. Work continued on SanchoNet documentation and the DRep Pioneer program with Intersect. Fund12 reached the proposal finalization stage, and development on Hermes and Catalyst voices progressed well. The education team is planning the next Cardano Developer course, advancing the Mastering Cardano series, and preparing an educational video about the constitutional committee.

The Cardano Foundation emphasizes innovation and research in blockchain technology. Their research paper, “MACS: A Multi-Asset Coin Selection Algorithm for UTxO-based Blockchains,” presented at the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain, highlights the benefits of the MACS algorithm. MACS optimizes transaction fees, UTxO pool size, and user privacy, improving UTxO-based blockchains. Though tested in simulations, it shows promise for enhancing cost, speed, and privacy in blockchain transactions, with further real-world testing needed.

Blockchain education is evolving with increased mainstream interest and diverse learner backgrounds. Here are five trends:

1. Government Engagement: Governments are integrating blockchain services and creating educational programs for public sector employees.
2. University Courses: Universities are expanding blockchain education to undergraduate and non-technical programs.
3. Corporate Training: Companies are embracing blockchain, offering employee education through corporate programs.
4. Non-Technical Learning: Blockchain courses for non-technical people are growing, focusing on user security and industry practices.
5. Open Education Resources (OER): Universities are issuing blockchain-backed credentials and creating OER, attracting UNESCO’s attention.

Video of the Governance Workshop held in San Diego, focusing on best practices and strategies for effective governance in organizations. Key topics include the importance of transparency, stakeholder engagement, and the implementation of robust governance frameworks. The workshop also covers case studies and real-world examples to illustrate successful governance practices. The session aims to provide actionable insights for enhancing governance in various organizational contexts.