Cardano News

Discover the future of Cardano governance with Lloyd Duhon, covering the Chang upgrade, Delegated Representatives (DReps), and the DRep Pioneer Workshop Leaders Program. Learn how these innovations will empower ada holders in decision-making, from protocol parameters to treasury management. A comprehensive guide to Cardano’s Voltaire era and decentralized blockchain governance.

Community voting for Catalyst Fund 12 is active, with 4,800 wallets casting over 180,000 votes, representing 1.6 billion ada. Voting ends on July 11, 2024, at 11:00 AM UTC. The Cardano Foundation published a beginner’s guide to blockchain on July 3, covering its basics, history, types, applications, and regulatory landscape. The “A Spotlight on Stake Pools” series features C3ETH, a pool focused on community and decentralization in the eastern hemisphere. The latest Developer Blog features an interview with Daniel Friedman, CEO of zenGate Global, discussing their platform Palmyra, which tokenizes commodities for transparency in trading. Other news includes confirmed global Constitution Workshop locations, the tentative agenda for the Cardano Summit 2024 in Dubai, Cardano’s adoption of the IBC Protocol for interoperability, and the latest Catalyst newsletter and Essential Cardano development update.

Last week, core technology teams released Cardano node v.8.12.2, enhancing bootstrap peer networking. The ledger team worked on testing and updates, while Lace v.1.13 improved Trezor Safe 3 compatibility. Mithril advanced transaction certification, fixed bugs, and supported node v.8.12. Conway ledger improvements included credential restrictions and a new pricing model. Town hall 169 reported over 1bn ada in voting power. The education team prepared for the Cardano Developer course in Buenos Aires and updated content for Voltaire and Mastering Cardano.

Blockchain technology, initially linked to cryptocurrencies, now impacts various sectors by offering a decentralized, secure method for data management. A blockchain is a digital ledger of cryptographically linked data blocks, ensuring immutable records across a network of nodes. Unlike cryptocurrencies, blockchain serves broader applications beyond digital currency transactions.

Invented by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta, and popularized by Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin white paper, blockchain addresses double-spending issues. It operates through nodes validating transactions, forming secure, tamper-proof records. Blockchain types include public, private, consortium, and hybrid, each suited for different use cases like supply chains, legal processes, digital assets, intellectual property, and voting systems.

Cardano Foundation and Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI) released MiCA-compliant sustainability indicators for the Cardano network. This ensures compliance with upcoming EU Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. Key findings include Cardano's energy-efficient protocol, annual electricity consumption of 704.91 MWh, carbon footprint of 250.73 tCO2e, and marginal power demand per TPS of 0.192 W. The report, developed using scientific methodologies, aims to enhance transparency and sustainability, setting a benchmark for blockchain networks. Leaders from both organizations emphasized the importance of sustainability and regulatory compliance in the crypto sector.

Lloyd Duhon discusses the recent attack on Cardano. Despite the attack, the network only slowed down slightly, with most services unaffected. The attacker used spam transactions, but Cardano’s structure made it complex and costly. A flaw in the attacker’s contract allowed Phil from Anastasia Labs to counter with a “deregistration attack,” stopping the hacker and retrieving ada. Staked ada was never at risk. Cardano’s design ensures resilience, requiring significant resources to sustain such attacks. The community’s quick response and Cardano’s robust design minimized the impact.

The consensus team optimized db-truncater for speed, supported debugging for bootstrap nodes, and released benchmarks for node v.8.12.0. They also merged a performance fix for node v.8.11, worked on governance action workload, and updated automations for Conway features and the Plutus cost model. The Plutus team overviewed the cost model, designed faster pattern matching, and improved documentation. The Mithril team released a threat modeling explainer, worked on Cardano transaction certification, and improved WASM client documentation. Catalyst released a shortlist of tier-one companies for voting, and the education team updated the Mastering Cardano series and prepared for next month’s developer course.

The Cardano Foundation has integrated the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) to enhance connectivity and join the interchain ecosystem, addressing challenges in scalability, data privacy, and interoperability. This integration allows reliable transactions and data exchanges across distinct blockchain networks, linking Cardano to over 115 interconnected blockchains and enabling Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-based sidechains. The IBC sidechain improves enterprise blockchain deployment by offering flexibility, scalability, cross-platform innovation, operational efficiency, and security. This move aims to broaden blockchain scalability, reach, and connectivity, benefiting enterprises and developers alike.

The Interim Constitution was released on June 21, 2024, serving as a temporary document until the Final Constitution is ratified by ada holders by early 2025. Drafting of the final constitution will involve global workshops and a Constitutional Convention. The Interim Constitutional Committee election ended on June 24, 2024, with results expected on June 26 after an audit. The Aiken team reports surpassing 1 million Mainnet transactions with Aiken smart contracts, contributing to 25% of all smart contract traffic. MinSwap completed its final audit on their new Aiken-based implementation, anticipating increased activity. A new full-time engineer, Riley, joins the team, with new libraries and features like property-based testing and backpassing being showcased in projects like Merkle-Patricia Forestry and Fortuna.

The Mithril project in June saw the release of distribution 2423.0, including critical updates like removing the deprecated snapshot command and improving transaction certification performance. Work on Cardano integration progressed, focusing on decentralizing signature diffusion. The Hydra project made significant strides with incremental decommits, updating the protocol's specification, and fixing a critical bug in the decommit feature. They also made breaking changes to the hydra-node API and enhanced the system's security and efficiency, with a planned release in the near future.