Welcome to the Cardano Community Digest!
Published by the Cardano Foundation Community Team every two weeks, this Digest will provide you with news, updates and events about the project and ecosystem!
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In this edition of the Community Digest, we highlight Cardano’s Asia Tour, featuring stops in Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore including Token2049 with a recap by Rare Network, Osaka, and Tokyo, focusing on governance, collaboration, and community engagement. We spotlight the Cardano Node Diversity Workshop #2 in Toulouse, including a detailed forum recap and a community YouTube video capturing the excitement, Hydra Node v1.0.0 for high-speed transactions, and Intersect MBO’s Development Report #83 with Committee Elections 2025 updates. Also featured are the Cardano Foundation’s initiatives on digital identity, governance, and humanitarian impact, along with ongoing community events and resources. All this and more in today’s Digest.
Additionally, we’d like to inform you that cardano.org/news serves as a central hub, routing ecosystem information directly to you. Community members can contribute by providing their own updates. For more information on how to contribute, visit cardano.org/docs
Cardano’s Asia Tour: From Ho Chi Minh City to Tokyo
The past weeks have been eventful for the Cardano Community across Asia, with gatherings in Vietnam, Singapore, Osaka, and Tokyo. From the start, each stop focused on purposeful technology, governance, and collaboration, tied together by one message: people first.
While the Asia Tour officially got underway in late September, its first major community stop took place on September 27 in Ho Chi Minh City, a warm, engaging event that felt more like a reunion than a conference. Discussions focused on blockchain’s role in serving people, Vietnam’s strong presence in Catalyst, and opportunities for local builders and innovators. The Cardano Vietnam community captured the atmosphere perfectly: “An indelible memory with the IOG team and the amazing Cardano community in Vietnam.” See scenes from the event on X, and read the full record of sessions and community contributions in the Cardano Forum’s Asia Tour journal.
Token2049, by far the largest global crypto event, ran from September 29 to October 5, 2025, in Singapore. Cardano’s presence was strong through the Unified Global Events Campaign, funded by the Cardano treasury, and backed by a Gold Sponsorship. Sessions covered AI collaborations, cross-chain frameworks, and partnerships, while EMURGO, the Cardano Foundation, IOG and Intersect discussed collaboration and potential Tier-1 stablecoin integration. Projects including Minswap, Rare Network (who also created a fantastic Recap Video), Palmyra, the Snek Community (and many more) showcased innovations, with evenings bringing Catalyst contributors and community builders together to exchange ideas.
Oh and by the way, in case you missed the CF x EMURGO: Fireside Chat with Fred and Phill at Token2049, here’s the YouTube link for you to re-watch it!
In Osaka, on October 4, the tour shifted its focus to community governance and reflection. The workshops explored decentralization and accountability, reinforcing Cardano’s people-led model. IO captured the sentiment in its blog post “Coming Home to Osaka”, describing how the city represents Cardano’s roots in collaboration. On LinkedIn, IO reflected that “every conversation echoed a shared belief: Cardano’s strength lies in its people,” while ongoing forum updates helped connect global community members following along from afar.
The tour concluded on October 7 in Tokyo with the Tech for Impact Summit, a symbolic return to where Cardano’s story began. IO’s Tokyo Diaries described it as “coming home,” blending keynote sessions, RealFi discussions, and Midnight panels around dignity and inclusion in technology. A LinkedIn post from IO shared the excitement on arrival, followed by several closing reflections
Readers can explore recordings, photos, and session recaps through the Cardano Forum’s tour journal and IOHK’s newsroom for ongoing updates.
Cardano Node diversity Workshop #2 - Toulouse
On September 22–23, 2025, the second Node Diversity Workshop took place in Toulouse, France, organized by Amaru. Teams from IOE, Blinklabs, Harmonic Labs, C++ R1 Rationality, the Cardano Foundation, and others gathered to connect, share experiences, and collaborate. Building on the first workshop in Toulouse back in April 2025, this edition gave node implementers and infrastructure engineers a space to exchange ideas and strengthen Cardano’s multi-node ecosystem.
The workshop covered standards, test suites, and hard fork preparedness, with live node demos, layers on top of Amaru, synchronous reward computation, and discussions on data collection. Everyone worked together in a positive and welcoming environment, exchanging knowledge and learning from each other.
For a detailed recap and full attendee list, see the Cardano Forum post by Damien.
And if you would really like to feel the excitement, then check out the Cardano Community YouTube video recap here.
The next workshop is planned in about four months, likely in the U.S. East Coast.
A Call to Action: Participate in the Annual State of the Cardano Developer Ecosystem Survey!
The State of the Cardano Developer Ecosystem Survey is back!
Announced on October 3, it’s an open call for all Cardano developers to share their experiences — the tools you use, the challenges you face, and where things could improve.
Since it first launched in 2022, this survey has helped paint a clearer picture of the developer landscape, highlighting what’s working well and where extra support is needed. Your input helps shape future initiatives and makes a real difference for the broader developer community.
Take a few minutes to complete the survey and help shape the future of Cardano development: https://state-of-the-developer-ecosystem.cardano.org
Hydra Node Version 1.0.0 Announced
Cardano is moving closer to production-ready scaling with the launch of Hydra Node v1.0.0, now live on GitHub. This milestone brings the network another step toward handling high-volume transactions efficiently, securely, and at low cost. Hydra’s architecture uses off-chain Hydra Heads, state channels that let many transactions be processed quickly before committing only the final state to mainnet. In tests, it reportedly handled over 1 million TPS, putting Cardano ahead of most other blockchains.
Community reactions on X show the excitement:
- @LaPetiteADA: “Hydra’s off-chain heads let you batch many transactions before touching mainnet. Over 1M TPS in testing — this is huge.”
- @Tokeo_io: “HYDRA 1.0 IS HERE — CARDANO JUST WENT TURBO.”
- Peter Bui, Cardano Ambassador: “Hydra is one of those scaling solutions we all want to see, now officially at version 1.0.0.”
- @LucasMacchiavelli, also Cardano Ambassador: “Hydra brings lightning-fast, low-cost transactions to Cardano. In tests, it surpassed 1,000,000 TPS.”
- Even Charles Hoskinson could not hold back his excitement: “Hydra is going to have an awesome 2026.”
As per the release, Hydra 1.0.0 moves from experimental to production-ready, enabling high-volume use cases like DeFi, gaming, and complex dApps. The news is also generating discussion on Reddit.
Intersect MBO Development Report #83, October 10
On October 10, Intersect released its weekly development report, highlighting progress across governance, open-source initiatives, and ecosystem growth.
Registration for the Committee Elections 2025 has been extended to October 24 (12 PM UTC) to encourage wider participation, with voting now set for October 27 to November 7. These committees are key to Cardano’s evolving governance and community accountability. Intersect also opened applications and nominations for its Executive Director role, reinforcing its commitment to transparent, member-led operations. Both direct applications and community nominations remain open until October 24.
Lastly, Evolution SDK by No Witness Labs became the first project to enter incubation under Intersect’s open-source program. The SDK offers a modular TypeScript framework for dApp development on Cardano—marking a strong step toward community-driven innovation. These highlights join other updates on governance tooling and upcoming events like the Community Town Square and Intersect Town Hall. Read the full report here.
Updates from the Cardano Foundation
This week, the Cardano Foundation shared a series of updates covering digital identity, governance, and humanitarian impact.
Fostering trust in digital interactions
According to the Cardano Foundation, declining digital trust and the rise of AI-driven impersonation are making verification online increasingly challenging. Programs like the Tadamon Accelerator for Food Security face issues ensuring the legitimacy of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and tracking applications. Traditional verification methods are slow, inconsistent, and prone to errors. As per the Foundation’s report, Tadamon is using Veridian, the Foundation’s digital identity platform and wallet, to build a scalable system for verifiable approvals. This has the potential to help programs safely and transparently support vulnerable populations. Read the full report here.
From messy governance to real-world impact
Alex Maaza, Sustainability & Innovation Lead at the Foundation, shared his thoughts following the CV Summit. According to him, governance structures are still essential for blockchains with on-chain decision-making. He noted that the Cardano Community has already allocated ~$300M from its $1.4B treasury through distributed on-chain voting. As per Maaza, the Foundation is now moving towards multi-year thematic budgeting focused on adoption and attracting external investment, rather than only internal treasury spending. He will be exploring these ideas further at a UNDP convening on SDGs in NYC. Full post here.
Cardano Impact recognized
As per a LinkedIn post from the Cardano Foundation, the Cardano Impact for UNHCR ETP was awarded 1st place at the BEACONS 2025 Innovation Summit. Launched with Switzerland for UNHCR, the initiative channels 100% of staking rewards directly to UNHCR, while investors retain exposure to ADA. $700,000 ADA has already been committed, showing how blockchain can sustainably support humanitarian aid. Full post here.
Cardano Reddit Top 9 Most Engaged Topics
Below are the most engaging topics on Reddit
- Brave Brings Cardano Into the Fold — Browser Becomes Your Cardano Wallet (article)
- Hydra 1.0.0 Pre-release A big release of hydra-node!
- Are other Cardano fans here also using Brave browser? Brave just implemented native Cardano support for Brave’s 100 million users. Charles Hoskinson: “Bringing Cardano natively into Brave Wallet is a win for usability, governance, and growth.”
- Total Number of ADA Wallets
- Cardano’s Hydra Node 1.0.0: Enabling Mainnet Deployment for Enhanced Scalability (article)
- Update on US Market Structure Bill - Charles Hoskinson
- Cardano (ADA) will be included in the new Crypto Market Index with S&P Dow Jones Indices! Join Gianna as she goes over the details and what this means for the Cardano community.
- First Time Participating in Project Catalyst - Some Observations
- Another Cardano (ADA) ETF submission has been filed with the SEC! Join Gianna as she discusses what this means for institutional investors and the Cardano community.
Cardano Forum Top 9 Referred Topics
Topics that have received the most clicks from external sources. (last 10 Days)
- Cardano Node diversity Workshop #2 - Toulouse [22 & 23 September 2025]
- Create, Showcase, Connect: Your Cardano Summit Opportunities
- Developer Community Growth in Catalyst Fund 14
- Frankenwallet: Call for SPO preliminary review
- Thoughts on the 50M Stablecoin DeFi budget proposal
- Frankenwallet: Call for developer review
- Power multi-language micro-services architecture Cardano DApp - SIDAN Lab
- Missed the Snapshot in June for Midnight. Do I have any hope?
- PartnerChains Overview
Upcoming Community Events
- 10-14 Atelier Gouvernance Cardano en Français, by Adam Rusch: Governance workshop where we covered absolutely everything related to Cardano governance, as well as building a node for personal use. - Luma Registration link
- 10-15 Cardano Tech Summit LATAM Rio de Janeiro, by ADA Solar & kehua Yang: Connect, learn, and innovate at Latin America’s most anticipated blockchain event, bringing together top leaders from technology and academia - Luma Registration link
- 10-17 2030 Cardano Vision - Draft review workshop, by Intersect Cardano Product Committee: This remote workshop is to review and discuss the 2030 Cardano Vision draft together with product committee - More Info on Luma
- 10-18 Barcelona: Cardano2030 Workshop, by Clay Nation: In this workshop, we’ll work through the draft vision together—gathering input, feedback, and ideas to refine and adjust - Luma Registration link
- 10-18 NULUNA: Blockchain x Culture, by Clay Nation: Our inaugural edition of Nuluna is where creative culture and technology meet to build something new. Join Clay Haus & Newm for a European blockchain gathering in Barcelona focused on art, music, and gaming enabled by blockchain technology - Luma Registration Link
For more weekly events, visit Cardano Events
Many thanks and greetings from the Community Team!