Since November 2022, the Hydra project has made notable progress. The team completed the validation of the coordinated head protocol against a formal model and detailed a follow-up task on model-based testing. They focused on closing gaps in the specification to support an audit, scoped down version 0.9.0 to script updates, and moved the "Commit from external wallet" feature to the next version. Development highlights include fixing errors in the internal wallet, reducing commit costs using reference scripts, and improving CI with nix-based builds. The Hydra V1 specification is being formalized in LaTeX, and the community projects "Hydra for Payments" and "Hydra for Voting" have advanced, with the former completing its first phase. The Cardano Foundation also published a retrospective blog post on Hydra's progress in 2022.

For the January edition of the Spotlight Article, we interviewed James Dunseith, Co-Founder of Gimbalabs.

The Hydra Head Protocol, is a layer-2 scalability solution for Cardano, enabling the creation of off-chain ledgers for more efficient blockchain use. Developed as a joint effort by the Cardano Foundation and IOG, Hydra facilitates fast, private transactions within small networks (Hydra Heads) that later settle results on the Cardano mainchain. It's designed to be isomorphic, meaning transactions within Hydra Heads have the same capabilities as those on Cardano, but without the need for stake pools, ensuring full consensus among participants. Hydra aims to improve Cardano's scalability and efficiency, supporting a variety of use cases like payments, games, and marketplaces, with a focus on adoption and integration by developers.

Since October 2022, the Hydra team released versions 0.8.0 and 0.8.1, introducing persistence and improving user experience. The roadmap now focuses on finalizing the Hydra V1 specification and preparing for an audit. Key projects include Hydra for Payments and Hydra for Voting, with progress in formal verification and product demonstrations. The team rebranded the repository to reflect its maturity and held a workshop to set new goals for 2023.

For the September Spotlight Article, we interviewed people from ADAO. Their mission is to build open-source tools, educational and supportive resources to empower robust, decentralized systems of collaboration and governance, starting with Cardano

In this Spotlight Article, we interviewed Ashish Prajapati, one of the co-founders of strica.io, a Cardano blockchain-focused development company, with products like Cardanoscan and Typhon Wallet.

For this Spotlight Article, we interviewed the Cardano Guild-operators, creators of tools like CNTools, gLiveView, the short 1-epoch community-owned Guild Network and Topology Updater.

For the May Spotlight Article, we interviewed Nicolas Arqueros. He is one of the co-founders of dcSpark and also a core contributor to the Milkomeda Protocol.

For the April Spotlight Article, we interviewed Long Nguyen, the co-founder of Minswap, a community-centric decentralized exchange on Cardano.

For the March Spotlight Article, we interviewed Shweta, the co-founder and Cheif Operating Officer at Lovelace Academy. Lovelace Academy is a blockchain education platform to streamline your development journey with Cardano and Web3.