Intersect, a member-based organization for the Cardano ecosystem, invites the community to join and help shape Cardano's future. Founding Members can co-design Intersect and participate in governance tooling initiatives, with grants up to 1.68 million ada. Intersect, vital to the "age of Voltaire," focuses on Cardano's maintenance and development, uniting companies, developers, and individuals. Membership enables proactive involvement in Cardano's evolution, including applying for grants and participating in committees. Nigel Hemsley emphasizes Cardano's secure, transparent, and decentralized growth, supported by its large community and numerous contributors.

Since March 2023, the Hydra project made significant progress, focusing on preparing for the 0.10.0 release, which will be the first mainnet-compatible version. Key developments include updates to the configurable API, enhancements to the Hydra specification, and fixing script continuity issues. The team also addressed a rollback bug that affected the opening of Hydra heads on the mainnet. Community projects like Hydra for Voting and Hydra for Auctions are advancing, driving API discussions and exploring new use cases like ballot voting and NFT auctions on both L1 and L2.

Since March 2023, the Hydra project made significant progress, focusing on preparing for the 0.10.0 release, which will be the first mainnet-compatible version. Key developments include updates to the configurable API, enhancements to the Hydra specification, and fixing script continuity issues. The team also addressed a rollback bug that affected the opening of Hydra heads on the mainnet. Community projects like Hydra for Voting and Hydra for Auctions are advancing, driving API discussions and exploring new use cases like ballot voting and NFT auctions on both L1 and L2.

Since February 2023, the Hydra project released version 0.9.0, which brought significant on-chain and off-chain updates, including cost reductions in Plutus scripts, improved mutation testing, and the addition of a new tutorial. The focus now shifts to making Hydra mainnet compatible, with version 0.10.0 being the first mainnet-ready release. The roadmap was updated, prioritizing API configurability and marking less-demanded features as ideas for discussion. The team also optimized on-chain scripts and improved Hydra's UX. A key milestone was opening a Hydra head on the Cardano mainnet during a team workshop in Austria.

In this interview, Jingles, one of the co-founders of Mesh, talks about the project and how it aims to improve the developer experience within the Cardano ecosystem. Mesh is an open-source software developer kit that provides developers with the necessary resources and support to build innovative and impactful applications on the Cardano blockchain. Jingles discusses Mesh's features, the reasons for choosing Cardano, and the project's plans, such as a bounty program and improving the serialization library.

Dynamic P2P networking is an important evolution for Cardano and a further boost to the network's performance, resilience, and decentralization. It comes as a built-in functionality with node v.1.35.6 release today. The SPO community is now encouraged to test P2P functionality by updating one of their relays to use the P2P topology mode.

Since January 2023, the Hydra project has made significant progress. Version 0.9.0 was released, incorporating on-chain and off-chain updates, with a focus now on achieving mainnet compatibility for version 0.10.0. The roadmap was updated to align with 2023 objectives, including new items like creating a use case-centric roadmap and opening the specification with a change process. Key development work included aligning the implementation with the HeadV1 specification, improving Hydra transaction profiling, and addressing off-chain protocol logic. Community efforts included audit guidelines, a new tutorial, and ongoing collaborations like Hydra for Payments and Hydra for Voting. The Hydra project also expanded its presence on Discord to engage more with the community.

A set of frequently asked questions about the recent Valentine upgrade. It introduces built-in functions for ECDSA and Schnorr signatures alongside Cardano's native signature system, facilitating efficient cross-chain applications. This upgrade, requiring a focused hard fork, maintains the ledger era while expanding developer tools for secure and versatile DApp creation. It leverages popular cryptographic standards to enhance Cardano's usability and interoperability with other blockchains, ensuring high security through expert audits.

Since December 2022, the Hydra project has made progress on several fronts. The team focused on aligning the implementation with the HeadV1 protocol specification, addressing gaps in the on-chain scripts, and improving the mutation test framework. The roadmap was slightly updated, with new items like creating a use case-centric roadmap. Community efforts include the Hydra for Voting project and a lite paper on Hydra for auctions. The team also outlined key themes for 2023, including achieving mainnet maturity, increasing adoption, and promoting sustainable open-source development. The goal is to position Hydra as a maintainable, community-driven project.

We interviewed the NEWM team, a blockchain-based project aiming to create a music ecosystem that allows musicians to own their creative content and monetize their art from conception to retirement. Including a streaming platform, music rights marketplace, micropayments, ticketing, and fractionalization of IP rights, focusing on user-friendly design and technology using the Cardano blockchain.