Hello there, beautiful soul!
Hope this message finds you well.
We have another week behind us and that means your weekly round up of the latest is here. This week, we held 122nd Town Hall and plenty of great presentations to come along. First, there was Seeding Cardano DeFi Challenge team presentation holding a brief retrospective on the outcomes of the Fund7 challenge. Then we dived into several close out reports of recently completed projects. Started with Voteaire Escrow Smart Contract, then tuned into social mobile game powered by CNFTs, Opportunity summit in Africa, and finally Cardano community podcasts and YT in Polish.
Great work everyone! If you wish to catch what other projects are completing these days - make sure to visit links at the bottom of this newsletter in the section ‘Project Completions’. However, there’s even more happening around the ecosystem beyond town hall.
What’s the latest? Let’s dive right in.
Town Hall # 122
TH Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPlagmnxJRs
TH Slides: Project Catalyst Townhall - Apr 19 - #122 - Google Slides- TH Playlist: link here
Break Out Rooms: https://bit.ly/33i38SB
Next: TH #123 on Apr 26th at 5PM UTC. Register now via this recurring link.
Cardano Foundation Annual Report
Project Catalyst is featured in the latest Cardano Foundation Annual Report published this past week. Thank you to everyone who has been part of the program and has helped shape Catalyst to what it is today. If you want to dive into the full length of the report - feel free to download the copy directly from CF pages here.
Updates from Catalyst Circle
This is the latest update directly from the Catalyst Circle - shared in their words:
"The Code of Conduct is the result of an extensive review process. We gathered valuable insights from previous Circle members and community input to create this document.
The insights we gathered served as a guide in formulating high-level expectations of ourselves and future Circle members. The Code of Conduct reflects the values and principles essential for Project Catalyst’s success.
We recognize that our community consists of individuals with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. Therefore, the Code of Conduct creates a safe and inclusive environment where all members can thrive, contribute, and grow.
We encourage everyone to read and understand the Code of Conduct, as our collective responsibility is to maintain a positive and respectful community. The Code of Conduct will also serve as a reference for anyone who wants to join the Circle in the future.
However, our work is far from over. We had our first official working session to outline our Bylaws, where you will see much more of the input gathered from previous Circle cohorts and the community. The Bylaws are much more in-depth than the Code Of Conduct. Our goal is to build the framework of expectations and responsibilities of Catalyst Circle members so that when our time concludes, we can smoothly transition to CCv5 and give the newly elected members a solid foundation to start from.
We understand that building a solid foundation for the future of Project Catalyst is essential, and we take this responsibility very seriously. We aim to ensure that the Catalyst Circle will continue to serve the Cardano community to the best of its abilities, inspiring and supporting projects that will advance the Cardano ecosystem.
Thank you for your continued support and dedication to Project Catalyst."
First draft version of the Code of Conduct can be found here.
Additional supporting documentation about Circle activities can be found here.
Voltaire Musings - Workshop Maybe?
CIP-1694 marks the first iteration of Cardano’s on-chain governance. Given its importance, achieving broad consensus is vital as Cardano looks to the future. To make that happen, it’s equally important the community conducts its own governance discussions and events.
The recent Cardano governance workshop in Colorado in early March, and a recap online event on 30th of March, are good examples of this collaboration. Led by key contributors and thought leaders in the community, both workshops sparked deep engagement and insight gathering, capturing inputs from a broad spectrum of community interests and experiences. Participants engaged in a range of collaborative activities and discussions to refine and debate the on-chain governance system proposed in CIP-1694. The workshops were productive, established a model for future community events, and highlighted the importance of collaboration and inclusivity in governance frameworks.
The conversations on CIP-1694 thus far are only the start. Today, a grant program is opening up to support community workshops across May, June, and July 2023. The global community events will be punctuated by two workshops held in Tokyo, Japan, and Edinburgh, Scotland during June and July co-hosted by EMURGO and IOG. Edinburgh’s event in July will wrap up the year’s workshops and bookend the feedback loop on CIP-1694 design. Dates for each co-hosted event will be announced in early May.
Continue reading here on how to get involved.
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 are unsure what CIPs are about - please check out this link to dive deeper: https://cips.cardano.org/.
RW: What happened in CIPs last weeks?
- CIP-??? Cardano FUDS (Financial Updates & Disclosure Specification) [New Proposal]:
- This proposal outlines a framework for what projects building in Cardano should disclose about their financials.
- CIP-??? SPO On-chain Polls [New Proposal]:
- This proposal from the Cardano foundation suggests an mechanism for polling SPOs on-chain.
- CPS-??? Plutus Script Usability [New Problem]:
- This problem statement aims to pull together a number of Plutus usability issues which have motivated a few CIPS.
- CIP-??? On-chain dApp Certification Metadata [New Proposal]:
- This proposal offers a mechanism for linking certification metadata to on-chain entities.
- CIP-??? Automated Stake Pool Node Version Reporting [New Draft Problem]:
- This draft proposal outlines a mechanism to automatically report the node version of stake pools in the Cardano network.
- CIP-0001 Add extended taxonomy [Update]:
- This update proposes additional taxonomy to CIPs, including a new grouping through “types”.
- CIP-0068 Add SFT Semi-fungible token support [Update]:
- This update proposes extending CIP-68 to include support for SFTs such as fractional NFTs.
- CIP-0060 Update to v2 [Update]:
- This update to CIP-60 provides a version 2 of the specification.
RW: Continued Recommendations:
- CIP-0072? DApp Registration & Discovery
- This proposal outlines a mechanism for linking off-chain metadata to on-chain entities.
- This has seen some recent updates and discussions!
- CIP-0092? First class errors
- This proposal suggests making error a first-class value within Plutus.
- CIP-0089? Beacon Tokens & Distributed Dapps
- This proposal introduces a standard to create distributed L1 Dapps where users maintain full delegation control of their assets and also maintain full custody of their assets at all times.
- This is an interesting design.
Next Meeting:
- CIP Editors Meeting #65:
- May 2nd 4:00pm UTC.
- Held on Discord - here.
- Agenda TBC
Caught my attention
Holymacaroni, who is a long standing member of the community, has published a series of educational content around cyber security and related issues. This effort has also been supported as a funded project in the Catalyst ecosystem. You can check out his original proposal here. Thank you for all the great work in educating the ecosystem and helping us all learn how to be a little safer every day. Follow Holymacaroni’s journey and the pictured tweet above here.
Project Catalyst is looking ahead - Recap
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. Couple weeks ago, we began with looking at what an alternative path looks like for the assessments stage in Cardano’s Project Catalyst. Then, we turned our collective attention to Challenge Setting. Recently, in its first, we 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.
Weekly GitHub Repo Round Up
One of the primary objectives this year is to make it easier for Community members to understand how Catalyst works on the technical side and to access the Catalyst technical backend to increase transparency in systems.
The major side effect later this year is expected to be around the ability of the community to come along and start co-creating/helping build/suggest improvements to these foundations.
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:
- https://github.com/input-output-hk/catalyst-core
https://input-output-hk.github.io/catalyst-core/ (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 lurk around and over time participate even more directly. You can browse more via this link.
Catalyst Project Completions - 470+ and counting!
470+ 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: https://bit.ly/FundedProjectsReporting
- Monthly Report Output Data: https://bit.ly/Funded-Projects-Reports
- Proposal Journey: https://bit.ly/Catalyst-Proposal-Journey
- 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 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 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.
