Hello there, beautiful soul!
Hope this message finds you well.
Weekly round up of all things Catalyst (+more) is here. Recently, we saw several teams present their close out projects. First was MLABS with their CTL Blockfrost Backend. Second, DLT360 team came back to wrap up highlights of their six Fund7 proposals catering to onboarding industries into platforms. This week we also learned more from Simon at DirectEd Foundation that is bootstrapping donations in education in Africa. Additionally, dcSpark has done some outstanding job with legislative outreach in the US.
Lastly, we’ve also checked out brilliant work done on creating onboarding playbooks into the ecosystem as well as looking at the wider impact lead generating opportunities. Catch the segments here. Thank you for your great work and we wish you great strides ahead.
A week ago, we also welcomed Catalyst’s Lead Architect - Steven Johnson who gave an end to end presentation on the Catalyst technology stack and road ahead. Very much worth the watch. There are further links below to the Twitter space & after town hall break out room for more on this topic.
But there’s more. What’s the latest? Let’s dive right in.
Town Hall #120
TH Recording: http://bit.ly/3Mks4Nx
TH Slides: Project Catalyst Townhall - Apr 5 - Google Slides
Town Hall #121
- TH Recording: https://bit.ly/3zVDaB5
- TH Slides: Project Catalyst Townhall - Apr 12 - #121 - Google Slides
- TH Playlist: link here
Break Out Rooms: https://bit.ly/33i38SB
Next: TH #122 on Apr 19th at 5PM UTC. Register now via this recurring link.
Project Catalyst is looking ahead
Since Fund9’s end, the Catalyst team has been deep in research, discovery, and design mode. Holding many workshops with the community, a lot of 1:1s, and received additional user-centered feedback from fund surveys, social media, and beyond.
There are a number of proposed changes for Fund10 that are going to be gradually shared over the weeks to come. Two weeks ago, we began with looking at what an alternative path looks like for the assessments stage in Cardano’s Project Catalyst. A week ago, we turned our collective attention to Challenge Setting. Last Wednesday, in its first, we’ve reviewed the Catalyst technology stack and the path ahead.
- Part 1 - Assessments Stage Proposal
- Catch timestamped town hall segment here
- Watch after town hall Q&A here
- Breeze through this twitter thread here
- Listen in to twitter AMA recording
- Part 2 - Challenge Setting Proposal
- Catch timestamped town hall segment here
- Watch after town hall Q&A here
- Review this twitter thread here
- Listen in to twitter AMA recording
- Part 3 - Deployability and Auditability of Tech Stack
- Catch timestamped town hall segment here
- Watch after town hall Q&A here
- Review this twitter thread here
- Listen in to twitter AMA recording
Catalyst funding rounds have been on pause for a little while now. Thank you everyone for your patience and continued support as we’ve navigated these past months. 2023 is shaping up to be an important year for Cardano, and equally so for Catalyst. You’ll be playing a pivotal role.
Register to vote (or check if you still have a valid QR/PIN)
Don’t forget to register to take part in a Catalyst Special Voting Event (SVE) if you haven’t already. If you have cast a vote in the past, you just need to ensure you still have a valid QR and PIN code available. Here’s the guide. Not sure what the SVE is just yet? The Catalyst team also shared a quick update during February’s Cardano360 show, you can catch the timestamped segment here. More information is coming soon.
Voltaire Musings
Conversations around Governance at large continue speeding up. Have you had a chance to participate yet? There are some opportunities for you.
CIP-1694 is a crucial step in Cardano’s journey into the age of Voltaire, defining the future on-chain governance mechanisms of the blockchain, and helping to create a self-sustaining system built on community contribution and consensus. Matthias Benkort (Cardano Foundation) along with Addie Girouard, Jared Corduan, & Kevin Hammond (IOG) recently filmed a useful explainer video with an overview and discussion on CIP-1694.
In it, they discuss community-driven enhancements to the current governance scheme, the future roles and responsibilities of Delegate Representatives, the Constitutional Committee, and Stake Pool Operators, how to define and safeguard Cardano’s guiding principles. And current thinking on the tooling and governance processes needed to get there.
Take a deeper dive here with an explainer video.
Wish to dive even deeper? A great place to start is by diving into the www.1694.io portal, or catch the latest with the community initiative - Voltaire News! - a collaborative community newsletter started by Governance Guild to help the community keep track of the CIP-1694 debate.
If you wish to add your perspectives to CIP 1694, make sure to share them here. Add your voice as the era of Voltaire rolls out!
Summon Testnet
Great minds behind ADAO - The Summon Team - is now accepting applications for Early Access participants to the Summon Platform Mainnet! It’s a great tooling for DAO use cases and beyond. If you are accepted as an Early Access participant for the Summon Platform you will be given FREE creation of a Community and Multisig Treasury for your group.
In order to apply you MUST have some experience with the Summon Platform Testnet.
- Testnet URL: https://testnet.summonplatform.io/
Once you have tried the Testnet you may fill out this form here to request a personal consultation with their team. Contact will be made with you via the Summon Platform Discord Server to ensure identity verification. As always, The Summon Team are also available on Discord for general questions.
References:
Adapted from Summon announcements.
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. If you’re unsure what CIPs are - please check out this link to dive deeper: https://cips.cardano.org/.
RW: What happened in CIPs last week?
- CPS-??? Governance Security [New Problem]:
- This problem statement describes security issues to be considered by protocol governance CIPs.
RW: Continued Recommendations:
- CIP-0057? Plutus Smart-Contract Blueprints:
- This proposal specifies a language for documenting Plutus contracts in a machine-readable manner.
- CIP-0038? Arbitrary Script as Native Script spending conditions:
- This CIP introduces a way to use native scripts as a starting point for more complex interactions which helps unlock use cases such as simple proxy contracts.
- CPS-02? Pointer Address Removal:
- This problem statement proposes the removal of pointer type addresses.
Next Meeting:
- CIP Editors Meeting #64:
- April 18th 8:30am UTC
- Held on Discord - here.
- Agenda TBC
Additional governance and Catalyst community conversations can be followed on the official Cardano forum here. Check out the diversity in the topics and solutions discussed, and don’t be shy to be part of the conversation.
Caught my attention
Mike played with some AI and came up with a very fun tool dubbed as Voltaire assistant. While limited in its functionality - a wonderful exercise in what could be the future of communication in difficult subjects. Check out his tweet here.
Catalyst GitHub Repo - Weekly Round-Up
One of this year’s primary objectives has been to help educate the community on the technical functionality required to run Catalyst. Part of that mission has been to increase transparency in the backend systems. Of course, with this comes the need to continue community collaboration, and we’re hoping to see members champion community co-creation as they help to build and suggest improvements to these systems.
This repo is the starting point and we’re seeking improvements to it throughout the months to come. For now, feel free to bookmark the pages and lurk around as we get it ready:
- GitHub - input-output-hk/catalyst-core: ⚙️ Core Catalyst Governance Engine and utilities.
- Catalyst Core Documentation - Page Redirection (draft/WIP)
Community Events
Many community events are taking place regularly across the ecosystem. In the image above and below you can find a snippet of what is available out there. A great way to uncover what’s happening and see where you’d like to participate even more directly. You can browse more via this link.
Catalyst Project Completions - 460+ and counting!
460+ projects funded by Catalyst have been completed to date by submitting their self-reported close-out reports and videos. 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!
- 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 or via projectcalyst.io website directly.
Get in touch
And that’s a wrap. Let’s continue to talk about Catalyst & governance on twitter, or telegram, or reddit, or wherever your online home is, and keep driving these important conversations forward.
Enjoy your day ahead!
Danny & the Project Catalyst team
Daniel Ribar
Community at Project Catalyst
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.