Hello beautiful soul,
The holiday season is here, and it’s time for us to slow down, reflect, and recharge.
Before the Catalyst Team signs off to sharpen our tools for 2026, we want to celebrate a landmark year. When you tune out the noise and focus on what truly matters - human connection and high-value collaboration - it’s clear that 2025 was a defining chapter for our ecosystem.
We aren’t just growing; we’re evolving. This year, we prioritized institutional integrity and “best-in-class” workflows, resulting in:
- Core Upgrades: Major enhancements to the Catalyst App, Community Review, and Milestone modules.
- Industry Recognition: Catalyst was officially recognized as a leader in compliance, risk, and trust.
- A Confident Mandate: This integrity has earned us your trust to pave the path forward through Funds 14, 15, and 16.
I believe a “seat at the table” should be open to anyone with a vision - but the best ideas need a clear path to the surface. By elevating our requirements and structured expectations, we’ve dramatically improved our signal-to-noise ratio. This trend is expected to continue.
Whether a project hits its target or provides a “successful failure” full of lessons, every completion adds to our shared wealth of knowledge. This commitment to accountability is why we recently hit a monumental milestone: 1,500 project completions.
On top of it all, our collective skill set has been sharpened by world-class partnerships. Collaborating with CV Labs, Draper University, UNDP AltFinLab, and Techstars has given our builders access to global expertise, creating a ripple effect that strengthens us all.
It has been inspiring to see the community “fly the flag” for this ecosystem with a sense of unity that’s heartwarming to observe. I hope you take this holiday season to find your own peace and perspective.
Wishing you a restful break and a powerful start to the year ahead. See you in 2026.
Kindly,
Danny Ribar
Head of Community Operations (let’s connect on X; LinkedIn)
Moderation Now, Snapshot Next!
We have officially transitioned into the Community Moderation phase. Now that the Community Review window has closed, our focus shifts to ensuring the integrity of the feedback received.
From now until January 5, 2026, Community Moderators (Level 2) are working behind the scenes to:
- Filter & Flag: Reviewing feedback for fairness, depth, and adherence to rules.
- Validate Submissions: Continuing the credential verification for Tier 1 partner track proposals; Ongoing general moderation for adherence to Fund Rules and Category Briefs across other categories.
- Finalize Data: Ensuring only high-quality, constructive reviews and compliant proposals make it to the final ballot. All proposals whose entries won’t proceed will be notified in the second week of January.
The Big One: Don’t Miss the Snapshot
While the moderators handle the data, the most critical task for the rest of the community is preparing for the Registration Snapshot. If you want your voice (and your ADA) to count in the upcoming vote, you must be ready.
- Deadline: January 4, 2026 @ 9:45 PM UTC.
- The Golden Rule: Ensure your ADA is in a supported, registered wallet before this time. We strongly recommend completing your registration at least 24 hours early to account for any sync delays in the voting app.
- Already Registered? If you registered and voted successfully in a recent funds, your registration typically carries over. However, you must still hold the minimum requirement of 25 ADA (excluding rewards) at the time of the snapshot to be eligible.
Pro Tip: Open your Catalyst Voting App today. If it shows your previous registration, you’re likely good to go, but double-check that you still have your QR code and PIN safe. Without them, you cannot access your voting power once the window opens!
What’s Next?
Once the moderation phase wraps up on Jan 5, we will release the final list of proposals. The voting window is currently scheduled to open on January 13, 2026.
Stay tuned for the final ballot announcement and get those voting fingers ready.
Catalyst Achieves “Sentinel” Status for Global Compliance
At Catalyst, we believe that trust isn’t just a value - it’s a practice. We are proud to announce that we have been officially recognized as a "Risk Intolerant Sentinel", the highest tier of recognition for compliance and integrity.
This distinction is awarded to organizations that go beyond basic risk management to set a global standard for safety. For our users and partners, this means:
- Enhanced Security: Utilizing industry-leading tools to fight fraud and deepfakes.
- Seamless Onboarding: Maintaining a “limitless” approach to document recognition and user verification.
- Proactive Protection: Building an ecosystem where transparency and safety are baked into every interaction.
Building this foundation from the ground up has been a major priority for our team this year. This recognition reinforces our commitment to providing a secure, reliable environment for our community to grow. Especially understanding that compliance is an ever evolving journey - this is about pioneering the trust and leading from the front.
Town Hall With Fay
This week with Fay Adams, marked Town Hall #220, a milestone moment for Project Catalyst. Program celebrates reaching an incredible milestone: 1,500 completed Catalyst projects. This achievement highlights the collective impact of builders, reviewers, and community members across the globe. You can read more about this journey and what it represents in our latest blog post.
Town Hall Highlights
We were joined by the Trivolve team, who showcased their work addressing a critical real-world challenge. Every day, in one of India’s busiest states, evidence from over a million cases passes through the hands of police officers, forensic labs, and court officials. With each transfer comes a crucial question: can we prove nothing was changed? Trivolve is building solutions that replace fragile, paper-based trust systems with cryptographic certainty. Ensuring integrity, transparency, and accountability throughout the chain of custody. How you may ask? Check it out here.
We also welcomed the Reclaim Protocol team, who demonstrated zkFetch, a powerful zero-knowledge solution that securely brings real-world information on-chain. By enabling data verification without exposing sensitive details, zkFetch acts as a trusted bridge between off-chain data and on-chain applications, making dApps smarter, safer, and more private by design.
Check out the deck here or re-watch the video here
Holiday Operations & Key Dates
To allow our team to recharge, the Catalyst team will reduce regular operations from December 22, 2025, through January 7, 2026. Please keep the following in mind:
- Funding Distributions: The final 2025 distribution was completed the week of Dec 15. Regular distributions resume the week of Jan 12, with a secondary run the week of Jan 26.
- PoA & Closeout Reports: Any reports submitted after Dec 5 will be reviewed in the order received starting in January.
- Fund14 Onboarding & General Queries: If you are awaiting a Milestone Reviewer or Due Diligence support, please anticipate delays until our team returns to full capacity on January 7. This applies to all helpdesk queries over the holiday period.
Beyond the Newsletter
That’s all for now. To get a behind-the-scenes look and catch all the latest news as it happens, follow us on our social channels below.
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Note: References in this newsletter to the 3rd party projects, products, and services are provided for information purposes only and are not endorsements. Everyone should carry out their own investigations before relying on the information provided in this newsletter.