Cardano News

Intersect announced its Q1 2025 committee election results on May 12, 2025. In these elections, 522 members, representing 27% of eligible voters, cast 11,839 ballots. A total of 119 candidates competed for 36 seats across eight committees, with the results independently audited by DQuadrant. This marks a significant step in the progress of Cardano's governance.

In this session of the Cardano Developer Office Hours, the team presents PoP (Proof of Provenance), a project to decentralize open-source development on Cardano. They cover risks of centralized infrastructure, using Cardano for verifiable software metadata, Merkle trees, and on-chain tracking. A live demo shows PoP in action. Use cases include secure versioning, on-chain test management, SPOs as decentralized oracles, and decentralized package tools.

Input Output Global (IOG) published a blog post, detailing native tokens within Cardano's Extended UTXO (EUTXO) model. The post explains how these tokens function without requiring smart contracts for creation or transfer, unlike account-based systems like Ethereum. This design offers enhanced security and reduced transaction fees for users. The article contrasts Cardano's approach with traditional ERC-20 tokens, emphasizing the inherent advantages of its native token implementation.

The report information, largely reflected in Intersect's update, highlights significant progress in governance processes. This includes the upcoming submission of a budget info action with 39 proposals for DRep voting in epoch 557, and the opening of candidate registration for the Constitutional Committee, running until May 31st. The report also noted a strong voter turnout for Q1 committee elections and an increase in DRep statistics. Additionally, community contributions such as the Lucid Evolution off-chain framework and the Midgard Protocol L2 solution were mentioned.

The report highlights the pre-release of Node v.10.4.1 with a production-ready UTXO-HD backend and consensus team advancements in testing models. Lace wallet v.1.22 launched, introducing Firefox browser support and Bitcoin integration (beta). Smart contract updates included strictness analysis for UPLC and PIR. The ecosystem saw continued growth in projects and DRep participation, with TapTools launching the Cardano Builder DAO and Metera mainnet going live.

The Cardano Foundation's blog post "Blockchain for Sustainability" explores how blockchain technology can enhance ecological and humanitarian efforts. It details applications in improving supply chain transparency, such as verifying ethically sourced products like fair-trade coffee. The post also covers promoting circular economy models by tracking product lifecycles and recycled content, exemplified by projects like Plastiks on Cardano. Furthermore, it discusses blockchain's role in the renewable energy sector through peer-to-peer energy trading and supporting microgrids, fostering verifiable and transparent sustainable practices.

The Community Digest highlights an explanation of how Bitcoin can interact with Cardano using zero-knowledge cryptography without custodians. It recaps BuilderFest #2 in Vietnam and covers recent Roundtable Talks discussing Interim Constitutional Committee learnings, development priorities, and stablecoin liquidity. Updates include LidoNation's blog on decentralized storage, EMURGO's guidance on budget voting, and Intersect's news on governance developments and upcoming committee elections.

The report highlights core technology updates, including ledger team work preparing for future eras and the pre-release of node v.10.3.1 focusing on performance improvements and lightweight checkpointing support. Ecosystem growth continued, and key updates include DRep delegation going live on Yoroi Wallet, Kinka minting its first XNK tokens on Cardano, a new EMURGO partnership announcement, and the launch of ChadSwap.

EMURGO has published a guide to help ada holders navigate the process of voting on Cardano budget proposals. This resource explains the mechanism for community participation in allocating treasury funds, a key aspect of Cardano's decentralized governance. The guide aims to clarify the steps involved, empowering users to make informed decisions and contribute to shaping the ecosystem's future development and project funding through the established budget process.

The report highlights core technology advancements, including consensus team progress on Genesis testing and collaboration with the Ouroboros Phalanx team. Networking focused on transaction submission features, while performance benchmarked node v.10.3.1. The Plutus team delivered several improvements to Plinth, enhancing the smart contract compiler and libraries. Work also continued across scaling solutions, wallet development, and governance features.