Hello, dear community! Paradigm is with you again, and we want to share the news that has happened with Cardano in the past two weeks.
It is worth starting with the news of the recent POSA (The Proof of Stake Alliance) and SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) meeting. The alliance looks to provide regulatory clarity around how securities laws at the SEC apply to certain blockchains. The founder of POSA spoke at Consensus Distributed about their goals with the SEC as well as a white paper that was published, and also how they hope to provide standards as well. Originally reported in CoinDesk, the group’s founder, Evan Weiss stated the idea the group wants to convince the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that entities using stake networks should be seen as service or infrastructure, rather than financial product providers. We attached a link to the original article in the body of the report, but you can also familiarize yourself with our section “Сrypto Regulation”, which summarizes the latest changes in regulatory policy in all countries of the world!
Cardano is all about development. You can follow the full list of updates in the Weekly Development Reports provided by the team. Аccording to Сointelegraph, Cardano is working on a crypto-native microchip that would enable crypto transitions without internet access, potentially delivering fiat-like experience to the hundreds of millions around the world.
The Shelley Incentivized testnet is going strong! Each week they publish all an update on the progress of the Shelley Haskell testnet on the forum. Also, the team released the first of brand new video updates, with Cardano head of delivery Christopher Greenwood. You can check it out if you’d like a deeper dive into what has been happening during our last development sprint. The development team had a very productive week. Block production is now fully underway. Key Evolving Signatures (KES) are now part of the testnet and the hardfork combinator 5 is merged. The wallet is also being integrated with Shelley node.3rd ZKProof Workshop — Home Edition finished on May 22. Listeners joined Charles Hoskinson for a special panel focused on “Industry, Deployment, & Adoption” and IOHK Researcher, Markulf Kohlweiss, for an exciting talk on ZKPs enriching ledgers with private smart contracts.
Binance US has added ADA to the Buy Crypto experience, bringing the total to 14 tokens. ELLIPAL has also added ADA to its Buy Crypto function! You can now buy ADA using bank cards and Apple pay right on the ELLIPAL App.
Stay updated with Paradigm!
Development
Github metrics:
Developer activity (from Coinlib.io):
Shelley Haskell Testnet update w/e 22 May. Each week, the team gives you all an update on the progress of the Shelley Haskell testnet. They’re about ten days in now and things are very positive. This week was all about blocks. More specifically, implementing and refining the block production process. To support this key element, as of the end of 22 May, they’ll have shared 5 foundational exercises. These have all been designed to iteratively take pioneers through the process of setting up a stake pool on the Haskell network, step by step. Think of these a little like an instruction manual, that coaches on the core components as you assemble everything.
According to WEEKLY DEVELOPMENT REPORT (15th May — 22th May) Cardano team has been doing the following operations:
DAEDALUS
Wallet
Last week the team continued to work on hardware wallet integration, as well as finishing an overhaul of Japanese translations across the entire Daedalus user interface.
In the scope of regular maintenance tasks, the team has been working on improving the structure of the general dialog component and updating ReactJS dependencies.
The team has also finished the implementation of the wallet recovery phrase verification feature for Incentivized Testnet wallets, which will be released in the next version of Daedalus for the Incentivized Testnet.
ADRESTIA
Last week the Adrestia team has been working on the initial integration of the Cardano node in Shelley mode. New functionality includes the partial wiring of the underlying engine to the API, an adjustment to the networking layer to deserialize Shelley-specific data-types, and a test bench for running a self-node with faucets when running integration scenarios.
The team has also been working on implementing transaction support, although the binary formats and other specifics of the implementation are still being finalized on the node.
Work was done this week to reduce code duplication by re-using some addresses within Cardano-wallet. However, it is not possible to re-use all of the addresses due to some refinements required to create a more efficient platform.
More progress was made on the API this week, particularly the fee estimation rework. The API now returns a lower and upper bound for fees, backed by a statistical approach to get more reliable results, especially on bigger UTXOs.
The team also significantly reduced both the time and space required to store sequential addresses and reduced the space needed to store random addresses without adding any significant time to the operation. Normal wallets will not notice much difference, but these reductions will have a significant impact on larger wallets.
Finally, the latest Docker tag now references the latest code on the master branch, rather than the latest ‘stable’ release.
NETWORKING
Last week the networking team has been fixing an issue that caused high CPU usage on macOS systems, which turned out to be the result of a bug in the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC).
The team also made progress towards a bidirectional multiplexer this week, as well as calculating the bounds of header sizes ahead of the upcoming Shelley release. This allowed the team to verify that the existing ingress queue limits will work with the current set of cryptographic primitives in use for Shelley.
Elsewhere, the team has been working on a server-side termination message for the transaction submission protocol, which allows requests to be made to the consensus layer to cooperatively shut down all mini-protocols.
Finally, the team worked on refactoring the instantiation of the Ouroboros network protocol during consensus. Consensus protocol applications can now make decisions on the negotiated version during the handshake protocol.
DEVOPS
The DevOps team supported the deployment of a new explorer version this week, as well as helping the Friends and Family testnet development team with IOHK stake pool registration.
The team worked on the systemd service socket activation integration for Cardano node with NixOS this week. Work has also been done on the initial faucet integration for the Shelley wallet, and the team has been building Rust code with Naersk for Jörmungandr and other Rust libraries. They’ve also been integrating Rust libraries with haskell.nix.
CARDANO DECENTRALIZATION
Last week the team made improvements based on feedback from the Friends and Family phase of the Shelley Haskell testnet, including updates designed to improve the user experience and interface.
The team also worked on debugging transaction generation, reconstructing the timeline of block creation and diffusion using benchmarking data, and improving the automation of the benchmarking pipeline using Nix.
GOGUEN
Last week the Plutus team made it easier to update the benchmarks by adding a PLC source file, together with the serialized version. In addition, they upgraded the Nix packages on the deployment machine and made improvements to tidy up line endings within the code. Finally, they made updates to the state transfer during static analysis. The Marlowe team moved static analysis into the Marlowe project and added warnings for empty choice lists in the Marlowe Playground. They also worked on updates to the Isabelle build task for Nix/Hydra.
NEWS
- Cardano Community Newsletter — 27th May, 2020. Published by the Cardano community team every two weeks, this newsletter will provide you with news, updates and events about the project!
- The Cardano Foundation team breaks down the ambassador phase 2 program with the CardanoEffect team. Watch the latest episode with Hinrich Pfeifer and Tiago Serôdio here
- EMURGO Webinar Presents “Beyond the Block:A Deep Dive Into How Blockchain Can Improve Supply Chains”. This webinar is for blockchain novices and experts alike. Blockchain technology is increasingly an area of interest for enterprises of all sizes and this webinar will be especially informative to people working in the following industries: supply chain, transportation, logistics, inventory management, as well as entrepreneurs, and blockchain enthusiasts.
- On 11 May, working with a small group of community stake pool pioneers, the team kicked off the first Haskell testnet. Here’s IOHK’s Christopher Greenwood’s first video update on how things are going.
- Have you seen the latest CardanoEffect episode? It’s a must watch if you want to know more about the impacts of pool pledge, rewards and Cardano network security, including using a Haskell pledge model for demonstration!
Awareness and social encounters
Coinbase, Polychain And Tezos Meet With SEC On Blockchain by Jason Brett. This story has been updated to include companies supporting the Proof Of Stake Alliance advocating the SEC, including correcting to Cardano Foundation, Coinbase Custody, and Binance.US. The Proof of Stake Alliance (POSA) is a very niche trade association on Capitol Hill in the blockchain space. The alliance of Coinbase Custody, Cardano Foundation, Polychain and Tezos, and others such as Bison Trails, AVA, Binance.US, and the Web3 Foundation, among others, looks to provide regulatory clarity around how securities laws at the SEC apply to certain blockchains.
Charles Hoskinson at “BEYOND COVID-19” VIRTUAL GROWTH SUMMIT MAY 19–22, 2020. About the conference: Growth management systems have been developing the last 10 years to codify how companies are scaling up and growing 10x, 100x, 1,000x or more. Our goal is to share this knowledge. We combine global and local expertise to provide practical insights and tools to help local communities catch up with global trends and changes. We believe in inclusive growth and sustainable / fair trade practices. We are also not specifically technology or industry driven. Growth Summit Global is where investors, business owners and company executives come together to network, hear market analysis, compare investment opportunities, share knowledge, discuss, debate and most importantly do business.
Cardano is Working on a Microchip That Would Give Crypto a Cash-like Experience by Michael Kapilkov, Cointelegraph. Cardano is working on a crypto-native microchip that would enable crypto transitions without the internet access, potentially delivering fiat-like experience to the hundreds of millions around the world.
3rd ZKProof Workshop — Home Edition finished on May 22. Listeners joined Charles Hoskinson for a special panel focused on “Industry, Deployment, & Adoption” and IOHK Researcher, Markulf Kohlweiss, for an exciting talk on ZKPs enriching ledgers with private.
Some interesting article worth reading:
- Building new standards for privacy and scalability by Brian Mckenna. IOHK joins the conversation around zero-knowledge proofs at the ZKP Workshop. In the age of information capitalism, data is a commodity which needs to be protected on an individual and global level. Every time someone makes a purchase, logs into an account, or accesses a website, metadata is connected to their individual IP address. Mass amounts of information move around the world every second but if it is not secured through encryption it can be exploited. The downstream effects of this can be benign, such as receiving targeted marketing. Or they can be dangerous like spreading political propaganda.
Upcoming Events:
There are currently no offline meetups planned and/or supported due to the global ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In the meantime, the Cardano team has gathered feedback from the community for possible solutions and recommendations to hold e-meetups and some already held have been quite successful! You can check this out on forum post
Online CARDANO — AVANCES A LA FECHA. Online meetup in the Dominican Republic, by Pamel Matos
Cardano Shelley Upcoming Release with Matthew Consolo and Hassan Michael
Details: Cardano South Florida Meetup members will discuss the benefits and analysis of Cardano’s upcoming decentralization.
The discussion will include:
1. Benefits of decentralization
2. What is Shelley
3. How Shelley uses stake pools to decentralize Cardano
4. The release of Shelley
5. Shelley Q&A
Cardano UnConference Online June 2020 hosted Robert C.
Description: How many times have you found the most valuable part of a conference was chatting with other people during the coffee break? Often it’s where the most interesting ideas and interactions come from.
Cardano UnConferences Online aims to be the best virtual coffee breaks ever!
Join them to discuss a variety of Cardano topics, each with it’s own virtual table hosting a small-group conversation you can participate in, and you can easily move to other tables at any time to talk about other topics.
TOPICS: Please suggest the discussion topics in the comments section.
HOW TO JOIN IN: Team is using Remo to host this meetup, the event link will be emailed to you (and posted on the webpage) closer to the date.
The event starts Sunday 21:00 BST. Convert to your local time here
Roadmap
Work scope
PLUTUS
Plutus is a purpose-built development and execution platform using the functional programming language Haskell. Designed to enable the creation of smart contracts on Cardano, Plutus brings the inherent benefits of functional programming — such as reduced ambiguity and easier testing — to smart contracts.
All the work on Plutus is visible in the Plutus GitHub repository, and the Plutus Playground testbed is available for users to try creating their own smart contracts in Plutus.
PLUTUS CORE
While Plutus is a high-level language for developers, Plutus Core is a low-level scripting language that runs on both Cardano’s settlement layer and computation layer, controlling interactions between scripts and the blockchain itself. All on-chain functionality of smart contracts written in Plutus compiles to Plutus Core, which retains all the benefits of functional programming while remaining simple and concise. Where Plutus Core is implemented in the settlement layer, it is done so in the simplest way possible, improving security by minimizing potential attack vectors.
MARLOWE
Marlowe is a domain-specific language (DSL) for creating financial smart contracts, designed to be accessible to non-technical individuals such as business engineers, subject experts, and financial analysts. Using Marlowe, even someone without any programming experience can create executable smart contracts that interact with real-world data and deploy them on its built-in Cardano emulator, and eventually the Cardano network itself. Whilst Marlowe is necessarily a high-level language, it is built on Plutus and Haskell and continues to benefit from all the assurances that functional programming provides, without affecting ease of use.
All the work on Marlowe is visible in the Marlowe GitHub repository, and the Marlowe Playground emulator is available for users to try creating their own financial smart contracts using a simple web-based interface.
PLUTUSFEST
PlutusFest was held at the University of Edinburgh in December 2018 to announce and promote the Plutus and Marlowe programming languages. Interested members of the public and academia gathered for two days of talks and presentations by IOHK engineers, most of which were recorded and can be watched on the IOHK YouTube channel.
PLUTUS AND MARLOWE UDEMY COURSES
Two free Mooc courses have been released on Udemy covering the Plutus and Marlowe programming languages. Created and managed by IOHK’s in-house education team, the courses provide an introductory resource for anyone interested in learning how to experiment with smart contracts using Plutus and Marlowe.
MULTI-CURRENCY LEDGER
The introduction of a multi-currency ledger model into Cardano will allow the network to support additional cryptocurrencies in an ERC20-like way, but cheaply, more securely, and without the need for a complex scripting system thanks to native support in the settlement layer. Not only will users be able to create their own fungible tokens on the Cardano network, but a multi-currency ledger will also allow for tokenization with the creation of non-fungible tokens, plus easier integration with smart contracts involving multiple cryptocurrencies.
KEVM
KEVM is a high-quality, formally-verified smart contract virtual machine compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM). Formally specified in the K framework, the KEVM uses formal semantics for elements such as the configuration and transition rules of EVM, resulting in a more secure virtual machine for smart contracts. IOHK paused its collaboration in the K framework project in order to focus on other priorities, but is enthusiastic about the vision and may participate again in the future.
PLUTUS EBOOK
The IOHK education team have worked in conjunction with Plutus language architects to create an introductory Plutus ebook. The ebook is designed to educate beginner Haskell developers on the fundamentals of the new Plutus smart contract language and uses real-world examples to illustrate the potential applications of Plutus.
Finance
- Binance US has added ADA to the Buy Crypto experience, bringing the total to 14 tokens! Here the link!
- From vote results ELLIPAL has now added ADA to their Buy Crypto function! You can now buy ADA using bank cards and Apple pay right on the ELLIPAL App and get it sent directly to your wallet!
Shelley Incentivized Testnet: 21 May 2020
The Shelley Incentivized testnet is still going strong! Here are the latest stats from the Shelley Incentivized testnet.
Partnerships and team members
No updates.
Other
22.05.2020 CardanoAmbassador, Antonio Sanchez was holding another Online Meetup in Spain. Please check out the details of this event here!
Sharing knowledge and experiences about Cardano with the global community is the most exciting part of the ambassadorship for Lukáš from Czechia. Watch his full video!
Social media metrics
Social media activity:
The charts above illustrate a decline in the number of Telegram followers. In general, the Cardano experiences an average level of social activity.
The graph below shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Cardano Facebook likes, Reddit subscribers and Twitter followers.
