Hello there, beautiful soul!
Hope this message finds you well.
Time is flying and before we’ll all know it - the end of the year is upon us. However, there are plenty of things left to do on this side of the year.
One of the most exciting things is the fact that the community is trialing an amazing iteration of the Catalyst Circle vote. What used to be 1.5 years ago a process merely utilizing zoom town hall and a series of google forms has now finally broken out of its shell into a more mature next iteration.
This version of the Catalyst Circle vote is going to be done entirely on-chain and with community-run tooling. In fact, you’ll also be able to monitor the results in real time. You can read more about it further in the newsletter.
I hope everyone is as excited as me seeing this unfold. It’s a great step and a massive milestone in community empowerment. I am looking forward to more opportunities and instances where we can all collectively continue working together to build the trust that the world at large continues to struggle with.
I am confident in the efforts of this community and its comprehensive combined talent. I can’t wait to see what the future unfolds. And it begins now. With you. So go and make sure to cast your votes.
OH, and did you know there’s also a community-run Catalyst conference this weekend as well? Read on!
Thank you for being here. 
Town Hall
TH Recording: https://bit.ly/3VIhIsn
TH Slides: bit.ly/3uwB0Ff- TH Playlist: link here
Break Out Rooms: https://bit.ly/33i38SB
- Want to open your own room next time? Book it via this form at least 24hrs in advance and get those conversations rolling!
Next: Dec 14 at 5PM UTC. Register now via this recurring link. This will be the last town hall in 2022. Will resume on Jan 11, 2023.
Catalyst Circle Elections
It’s time to cast your vote. Catalyst Circle elections are now officially open.
If you are reading about Catalyst Circle for the first time, I encourage you to read this initial blog post that introduced the idea and also this forum post that outlines key requirements for candidates.
So what is the key information you need to keep in mind?
- Snapshot: Taken on 6th Dec 2022 at 21:44 PM UTC
Voting Start: 22:00 PM UTC on 6th Dec 2022
Voting End: 21:43 PM UTC on 16th Dec 2022- Vote Tracker: https://dripdropz.io/vote/3/results
Who are the Candidates?
The candidates who have stepped up as nominees each have a platform statement available from the Cardano forum. Each candidate was asked to describe their own areas of interest and responsibility. This is a change from the previous Circle representatives, who were asked to represent a specific role within the Cardano ecosystem, such as Stakepool Operators, or Toolmakers.
How do I vote?
Using the DripDropz website, you will connect your light wallet, and send a 2 ADA transaction to receive back a registration token. Once you have the registration token in your wallet, you will be presented with ballot choices. After completing your selections, you will be asked to sign a transaction that will return the registration token, and register your vote on-chain.
After your vote is registered, you will receive back all of your change from the vote. The only cost to participate is the network fees paid directly to Cardano. DripDropz is offering this vote free of charge to support the community in its efforts of self-governance.
There’s also a video segment that walks you through the entire process in greater detail. Catch the TH presentation via this link.
During the vote, please select your five (5) preferred candidates for Catalyst Circle v4. Your first choice will receive the full weight of your voting power and each subsequent choice will receive 20% less voting power. Candidates are listed randomly on each page load to increase fairness and exposure for all candidates.
You can also get all the details above in this medium article here in great detail by Lloyd Duhon.
Community Catalyst Conference 2022
The time has finally come. Weeks and months of preparation by the community spearheaded by WADA members are about to culminate. Welcome to CatalstCon22!
A 2-day, virtual event, showcasing the best of Project Catalyst, since its inception. The community-led event will be hosting speakers, panelists, project demos, hackathons, and more.
If you are interested in greater detail from organizers, you can also rewatch this timestamped segment on the Catalyst town hall that took place earlier this week.
There’s also a special community hackathon that will take place. Make sure to register via QR code on the website or via the image below.
Learn all about it via catalystcon.io page directly. Will you join?
Funding Categorization Analysis
During a recent town hall, George Lovegrove presented via his close-out report/video on Fund Categorization analysis. This has been a long-standing challenge in the minds of many. George has done some phenomenal work over the course of this year, collating feedback and insights from varied community members and formalizing his approach.
Together with other similar tracks and suggested approaches (such as GPS, etc.) have all combined been an invaluable exercise that aims at identifying opportunities how to evolve challenge-setting categorization for future instances.
You can catch his full explainer video via this link and also dive into the close-out report here.
Last week in CIPs
Here’s the recap from my colleague Ryan Williams that writes these fantastic CIP round-ups. I figured you’d like them, too. So here’s the latest to get up to speed. You can catch past and future summaries via this Cardano forum thread here as well.
- CIP-??? Decentralized WebRTC dApp-Wallet Communication [New CIP Proposal]:
- This proposal describes a decentralized communication method between dApps and wallets based on WebTorrent trackers and WebRTC.
- CIP-??? Merkelised Plutus Scripts [New CIP Proposal]:
- This proposal suggests changing how scripts are hashed, from hash of it’s serialisation to a hash of it’s immediate children’s hashes, forming a Merkle Tree from the AST.
- CIP-??? Tune Parameters minPoolCost and K [New CIP Proposal]:
- This proposal suggests altering minPoolCost and K parameters in aims to reduce the amount of minimal pledge required to start earning favourable staking rewards.
- CPS-??? Properly burning NFTs / tokens [New CPS Problem]:
- This problem statement describes how an issue around the ability to burn NFT / tokens and release minUTxO (ADA) backing the NFT / token.
- CPS-??? On chain dApp and script audits [New CPS Problem]:
- This problem statement describes the issue of checking if a particular dApp version (release) or a given script has been audited by a certain auditing company / party from on-chain metadata.
Continued Recommendations:
- CPS-01 Metadata Discoverability and Trust:
- This problem statement aims to illustrate the problem of the discovery and trust for off-chain metadata.
- This has now been officially labeled as the first CPS!
- CIP-1694? A proposal for entering the Voltaire phase
- This proposes a revision of Cardano’s on-chain governance system to support the new requirements for Voltaire.
Next scheduled meeting:
- CIP Editors Meeting #60
- To be announced
- Held on Discord - here.
Conversations are ongoing. Please join.
2023 is going to be a big year for governance in general in the Cardano ecosystem. And your role is going to be fundamental.
There are a lot of great conversations happening and community is at the very heart of it all. I encourage you to regularly browse and read the governance forums and see if there’s a topic that you’d be interested in. Only informed and well-vetted ideas will serve the best outcomes ideally. Here, you can bookmark the latest posts on the Cardano forum directly to start and help engage in those conversations.
- Cardano Forum: Governance - Cardano Forum
Catalyst Project Completions - 320+ and counting!
320+ projects have been completed to date by submitting their self-reported close-out reports and videos. There is so much goodness taking place in this ecosystem. Navigate to the COMPLETED tab to keep track of all their work. Not seeing your favorite project completed yet? You can check their progress on other tabs and also the monthly reporting output documents. Save the links below:
- Monthly Reporting: Catalyst Public Reporting Tracker - Google Sheets
- Monthly Report Output Data: Public Catalyst Monthly Reporting - Google Sheets
- Proposal Journey: Proposal Journey in Catalyst (public) - Google Docs
- Want to do more? Check this call to action about accountability and participation!
- The first meeting already took place with the next one eyeing January 2023.
- You can also reference this town hall slide for the first meeting outcome.
Are spreadsheets a little too much? Leverage community tools like Lido Nation which you can find here.
Get in touch
And that’s a wrap. Let’s talk Catalyst & governance via twitter, or telegram, or reddit, or wherever is your home online and keep conversations engaging on these very important topics.
Enjoy your weekend ahead!
Danny & the Project Catalyst team
Daniel Ribar
Community at Project Catalyst & Governance
