Sep 4, 2019

11 min read

Cardano: Cryptocurrency market activity on NASDAQ and the upcoming testnet release in the middle of September

Biweekly update 21st August — 4th September

Hello, everyone! Over two weeks, there were a lot of events. First of all, on Friday, Charles dropped a surprise AMA, beating by a day his earlier commitment to announce some dates before the end of August. Amid the pantheon of Charles’ many AMAs since the project kicked off, it will probably go down as one of the most important. Within it, you’ll hear definitive information on the rollout of the network Shelley Rust testnet, as well as the news that real staking will be introduced in Q4 — effectively marking the beginning of the Shelley era. You’ll also hear a powerful appraisal of the Cardano project, dismantling critics with the achievements of the past several years. Second, it is essential to note that recently Nasdaq started displaying several cryptocurrencies on its market-activity website, including ADA. This shows positive signs and developments towards crypto and blockchain adoption. And finally, you can read the Shelley Test net updates in detail. For more about this news and new updates in our post.

Development

Github metrics:

Developer activity (from Coinlib.io):

Overview of Cardano Development Update & AMA with David Esser

Cardano Development Update & AMA with David Esser 15th August 2019

Last week, David Esser, Cardano Product Manager at IOHK, held an AMA as part of the new series of Live Cardano development updates. He started by giving project updates, like sharing the latest on the development progress demo videos, the new version of Daedalus to Cardano achievements on GitHub and on CV VC’s Top 50 report. He then dived into questions from the Cardano community.

Watch the full recording of the AMA with the YouTube link above or check out the list below that has all of the topics and questions that were covered. These are timestamped with the recorded video for easier viewing!

Project Updates

Community questions

Jormungandr was released to version 0.3.3 . This includes a major core rewrite of the internal blockchain data representation making the code safer, faster and to provide better API content. Indeed, with this new release comes a new end point for a stake pool operator to query the events schedules of the current epoch and see the past ones’ status.

Another notable change, though it is only aesthetic, is that Cardano team allow addresses to have any Bech32 prefix. For the node or the protocol, sending Ada to any of the following addresses will credit the same account:

unicorn_1sk6n0x2wygz224ya869jhjexzl05swn62p3gnv9jpq5f435yesr257mvp2e

fairy_1sk6n0x2wygz224ya869jhjexzl05swn62p3gnv9jpq5f435yesr25xze2dh

In this case, the addresses both decompose into (output from jcli address info):

discrimination: testing account: ed25519_pk1k5mejn3zqjj4f8f73v4ukfshmayr57jsv2ympvsg9zdvdpxvq64q3c2pv7

Documentation and content

Alejandro and Dorin have put together the tutorial “How to install the example Faucet App?” 26 with more information on the Javascript SDK that is now available. The SDK is the next piece of the puzzle to make the rust node mainstream. With it, developers can use the javascript tools (node, react, etc.) they have used in the past and create good looking apps that interact with rust node. It’s worth mentioning that the javascript sdk is compiled using webassembly to have a direct link between rust and js.

Support

New issues — 2 (1 documentation, 1 bug)

Backlog — 1

Resolved — 1

Community Content

Gracias a Rodrigo González Lascano, de la comunidad Cardano, por su ayuda traduciendo estos reportes semanales al español 3.

Releases

This week, the DevOps team supported the new Jormungandr build:

Jormungandr-nix 10 upgraded to 0.3.3
Jormungandr snappy packages 4 upgraded to 0.3.3
Jormungandr chocolatey packages 5upgraded to 0.3.3
Jormungandr homebrew tap 5upgraded to 0.3.3
Charles Hoskinson’s Important Shelley Announcements and Surprise AMA Recap

On Friday, Charles dropped a surprise AMA from their new offices in Longmont, Colorado, beating by a day his earlier commitment to announce some dates before the end of August. Amid the pantheon of Charles’ many AMAs since the project kicked off, it will probably go down as one of the most important. Within it, you’ll hear definitive information on the rollout of the network Shelley Rust testnet, as well as the news that real staking will be introduced in Q4 — effectively marking the beginning of the Shelley era. You’ll also hear a powerful appraisal of the Cardano project, dismantling critics with the achievements of the past several years.

Quick Video Breakdown

-The network testnet will launch in the middle of September. (Earliest Sept 15)

-The announcement of the launch of the incentivized testnet will happen on Sept 28.

-Ouroboros Hydra will be complete in September, finalizing Ouroboros research.

-There is an upcoming hackathon at the University of Wyoming on September 20th.

-The next update to Plutus will also happen in September.

-Cardano set out to solve the problems of crypto through first principles thinking.

-We’d like staking to be possible on the Yoroi wallet.

-We hope to see hosting on a small device like a raspberry pi.

-The biggest challenge of the last four years has been believing that doing the impossible was possible.

Updates on Cardano

(2:00) The rust client testnet and the networking testnet are stable after being released to the community and fixing hundreds of bugs. With the launch of Shelley we will be moving to a distributed and incentivized testnet. This will let us start to build up a community of stake pool operators and allow people to make real money through real world rewards. The network testnet will be shipping next month. At the earliest, September 15th.

(4:01) Furthermore, Charles will be traveling to Bulgaria on the 28th to celebrate the second anniversary of the launch of Byron. From there he will announce the launch of the incentivized testnet, which is essentially the roll out of Shelley.

(7:25) The big month of September

In September we are also expecting that Ouroboros Hydra will be complete. This is the final advancement in the research of the Ouroboros protocol. This is important because it is the realization of all previous research around creating a workable proof-of-stake platform. It also allows sharding as well as global scaling. The completion of Ouroboros stands to be a major step forward in solving the proof-of-stake problem in computer science.

On September 20th there will be a major hackathon at the University of Wyoming, it will be attended by 500 developers along with the governor of Wyoming. There, they will unveil the next update to Plutus. This will allow developers to build applications and smart contracts that will work on the Cardano network. The recently released Plutus book and Udemy course will help achieve parity with the Ethereum ecosystem by educating the community on building with Cardano.

Social encounters

EMURGO’s Chief Business Officer Yosuke Yoshida to Speak at World Blockchain Forum Globalization Tokyo Meetup

EMURGO Sharing Its Vision At WBF Tokyo Meetup

EMURGO’s Chief Business Officer Yosuke Yoshida was a keynote speaker at the World Blockchain Forum (WBF) Globalization Tokyo meetup event on September 2nd, along with other figures from the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. WBF is a blockchain conference brand that is hosting an event in Tokyo this year alongside other events in the Asian region.

Yoshida gave a special talk entitled: “Building a Global Cardano.” As the Chief Business Officer at the official commercial arm of Cardano, Yoshida was sharing his vision, experiences, and insights on the Cardano blockchain ecosystem and other relevant topics. Events such as WBF are valuable for the community, since this is where various blockchain and cryptocurrency thought leaders come to network, learn, conduct investment meetings and meet with valuable members from the community.

Recently, EMURGO inked MOUs with two South Korean government-approved trade associations to further drive the adoption of Cardano in the content and gaming industries there. Focused on building the commercialization of Cardano with a rich set of diverse ecosystem players, EMURGO is consistently raising the awareness of Cardano to interested parties and directly engaging with the community at events like this and others.

Episode 43 — Caitlin Long on the Wyohackathon 2019 and Wyoming Blockchain Task Force

With extensive experience, Caitlin Long of the Wyoming Blockchain Task Force provides financial and legislative perspectives on crypto. She joined TCE to discuss pro-blockchain laws, the Wyohackathon, and many other topics.

In this clip, EMURGO’s PR Manager, Albert, and Social Media Manager, Zach, answer this frequently asked question about STOs on Cardano Blockchain.

Upcoming events

19–22 September 2019 — WyoHackathon

Cardano Foundation, as one of its sponsors, is attending the WyoHackathon event next month. Hackathons are a great way for us to share Plutus and Marlowe to the wider community. Join the experts from IOHK in Wyoming!

This group is for anyone interested in the Cardano blockchain, ADA, and other Cardano related technologies. All skill levels are welcome. Cardano team started this group to help individuals increase their understanding of the Cardano blockchain, to assist them adopt the ADA cryptocurrency, and to provide a safe space for the South Florida Cardano community members to meet face to face.

Below are the new Cardano Meetup groups:

See also:

Ambassador Stories, Journal #9 : Shaun & Quentin

Finance

Token holders and the number of transactions dynamics (information from seiza.com)

Recently Nasdaq started displaying several cryptocurrencies on their market-activity website, including ADA. This shows positive signs and developments towards crypto and blockchain adoption.

Roadmap

What’s next?

Shelley decentralization by 2020

>> Cardano will be more decentralized and enjoy greater security and robustness

>> Shelley will see the introduction of a delegation and incentives scheme, a reward system to drive stake pools and community adoption. As a proof-of-stake network, users stake their ada to participate in the network. Painstakingly designed using game theory and the latest research into proof-of-stake networks, the delegation and incentive scheme will allow and encourage users to delegate their stake to stake pools — always-on, community-run network nodes — and be rewarded for honest participation in the network.

>> Cardano is expected to be 50–100 times more decentralized than other large blockchain networks, with the incentives scheme designed to reach equilibrium around 1,000 stake pools. The entire Cardano network runs at a fraction of the power cost of equivalent proof-of-work blockchains, using the electricity equivalent of a single house, rather than a small country.

>> The Shelley era represents the natural maturation of the network, making it more useful, rewarding, and valuable for users new and old. Shelley will set the stage for a fully distributed network, and an entirely new application ecosystem with even greater things to come in the Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire eras.

Partnerships and team members

No updates

Rumours

No updates

Social media metrics

Social media activity:

The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Cardano Facebook likes, Reddit subscribers and Twitter followers. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.