Cardano News

Over the past few weeks, the ledger team added new features, improved transaction fee estimation, and fixed various bugs. The Marlowe team benchmarked contract lifecycles, added Merkleized contract examples, and updated the Marlowe Run web application. The Hydra team improved workflows, addressed schema consistency, and enhanced log schema tests. Mithril enabled direct certificate verification, supported Conway era, and upgraded infrastructure. Voltaire continued Conway era development and updated SanchoNet documentation. Project Catalyst concluded the moderation period for community review, with voting starting January 25. The education team planned activities and updated the Haskell Bootcamp course.

The Catalyst Team proposes Catalyst Working Groups to involve the Cardano community in shaping future funding rounds through data-driven analysis. This initiative emphasizes collaboration with the global community to foster innovation and decentralize the decision-making process for funding priorities. Fund11 voting will determine the community's interest in dedicating resources to this program, aiming to enhance Cardano's innovation funding by incorporating diverse insights and accelerating startup innovation. Successful proposals will kick off with Fund12 and include community-hosted events, with support and compensation provided to ensure active community participation in determining Cardano's funding objectives.

This week, the core technology teams released node v.8.7.3, fixing an outbound-governor issue and enhancing query versioning. The Lace team released v.1.8 with bug fixes and new features. Plutus tools improved synchronization and memory usage for Marconi and added new primitives for Plutus v3. Hydra completed Conway support and enhanced off-chain code. Mithril enabled direct certificate verification and improved node communications. Voltaire development continued with governance and constitution preparations. Project Catalyst held its first town hall and progressed Fund11 through the community review stage. The education team planned yearly activities and Mastering Cardano publication options.

The Cardano Foundation extends heartfelt New Year wishes to the entire Cardano Community, anticipating another successful year in furthering Cardano’s development. On December 24th, 2023, IAGON launched its decentralized shared storage platform on the Cardano mainnet, revolutionizing data processing and storage solutions. The Cardano Builder Fest, a 2-day event for tech-savvy Cardano builders, will be held in Toulouse, France, on April 23-24, 2024, focusing on demos, open source, project presentations, and live coding. The Rosen Bridge team announced the live bridge between the Ergo and Cardano blockchains, enabling users to send and receive ADA and supported tokens without deploying smart contracts on the destination chain. dcSpark updated their JS/Rust SDK, fixing memory leaks and adding new features. The Cardano Foundation partnered with Petrobras to provide blockchain education for employees. Intersect will now oversee the administration of core Cardano infrastructure. CNCLI v6.0.0 was released, supporting node version 8.7.3. Genius Yield launched their order book DEX on Cardano.

In 2023, Cardano's ecosystem thrived with major innovations, protocol launches, and significant events, marking a year of substantial growth and development. Highlights include the launch of Liqwid Finance, the Valentine Hardfork, VyFinance DEX, and groundbreaking NFT initiatives, enhancing DeFi and NFT market presence. Additionally, Marlowe's release democratized smart contract creation, while Spectrum Finance introduced a decentralized DEX. Events like Rare Evo and NFTxLV 2023 showcased the community's vibrancy, with ADAmail and OrcFax Oracle further expanding Cardano's Web3 and oracle capabilities. The year concluded with Rosenbridge, facilitating Cardano-Ergo interoperability, setting a strong foundation for future innovation.

The concept of a technical-focused Cardano event, Cardano Buidler Fest, was born from discussions among developers working on Hydra in 2023. Recognizing a gap in existing Cardano events, which cater to a broader audience, this fest aims to bridge the divide between developers on the Cardano platform and those building applications on it. It seeks to provide a technology-centric space for in-depth discussions, sharing, and learning, addressing the complex and evolving nature of Cardano's technology and ecosystem. The event encourages participation from the community to shape its content, fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange among Cardano technologists and beyond.

Hello, we’re pleased to announce the launch of the Cardano Academy. The first certified course, Cardano Blockchain Certified Associate (CBCA) Course, is now available. Enhance your blockchain knowledge with educational materials and gamified learning. Start for free with flexible, on-the-go access.

Since October 2023, the Hydra project has seen significant developments. The release of version 0.14.0 is imminent, focusing on stateless chain observation and internal refactoring. The roadmap was updated to clarify support for the upcoming Conway hard fork and drop Babbage support, while substantial progress was made on the design of the incremental decommit feature. Collaboration with the MeshJS team led to the integration of Hydra-specific features in their SDK. The Hydra specification is being migrated to Markdown for easier accessibility. Community contributions include SundaeLabs' offline mode PR and TxPipe's Cardaminal wallet, aiming for Hydra compatibility.

In today's interview, Lloyd Duhon, Chief Operations Officer at Mainstreet, provides a deep dive into the platform's unique use case, development outlook for the next 12 months, and tantalizing glimpses of their exciting roadmap. As the COO, Lloyd plays a pivotal role in establishing and optimizing Mainstreet's operational foundations, thereby contributing significantly to the platform's growth and advancement in the rapidly evolving peer-to-peer commerce landscape.

Mainstreet strategically positions itself among industry leaders like Paypal and Stripe, showcasing an innovative and competitive edge. The platform sets itself apart by delivering a swifter and more user-friendly interface, effectively tackling the challenges associated with cryptocurrencies. This commitment ensures a seamless experience for both consumers and business owners. As we explore further into Mainstreet's narrative, it becomes evident that they are not just keeping pace with industry standards but actively redefining them. Let's dive right into the exciting world of Mainstreet!

Since September 2023, the Hydra project has achieved several milestones, including the release of version 0.13.0, which focused on security fixes, inline datums support, improved stability, and state persistence. The project roadmap was updated for version 0.14.0. Key developments include enhancing network resilience, creating a Hydra Poll DApp for the Cardano Summit, and upgrading the toolchain to GHC 9.6 and Brick 1.10. Community contributions were highlighted, such as the Hypix project integrating CIP-68 NFTs, Kupo's integration with Hydra, and progress on offline mode for Hydra nodes. The Hydra-for-voting project was revived to improve on-chain voting processes.