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Cardano Developer Reveals Progress On Scaling Protocol Hydra

Cardano announced its Hydra protocol last year and has continued to develop on it ever since. The project which finally gained smart contract capability in 2021 has been making strides in proving that it is a force to be reckoned with in the space. Its decentralized finance (DeFi) space has begun to take off. Now, it offers insight into the Hydra protocol and how much progress the team has made with scaling it.

Hydra Has Evolved

In a recently published report on its official website, the developer behind Cardano known as IOG has provided more information on what the project Hydra is up to. It explains where the protocol is now if far from where it is coming from. Hydra which was created by the Ouborous team to increase throughput, minimize latency, and provide cost-efficient solutions without sacrificing storage resources continues to evolve.

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Hydra has now matured into a proof of concept protocol, something that was not in the initial roadmap. This has pushed the project towards “a more defined implementation for the testate MVP.”

There are different Hydra Heads, which involve a robust network layer between Cardano and other blockchains, as well as other smart contracts that will drive the lifecycle of a Hydra Head. Acting as a mini-ledger, it works similarly to the on-chain main ledger of the Cardano network, but on a smaller scale, as well as off-chain.

ADA trending around $1 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

With the consensus algorithm provided on this protocol, all parties involved in a transaction need to agree before it is allowed to go through. This provides a very high level of security for those using the protocol.

“A consequence of this is that, as a participant, I cannot lose money I haven’t explicitly agreed to lose. Why? Because any valid transaction requires my explicit approval,” the report reads.

Cardano Heading To A Million TPS

One of the selling points of the Cardano network is how many transactions per second it can process. The proof of stake network is significantly faster than ethereum, its leading competitor. The project is committed to improving the TPS. However, that is not all Hydra is about.

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Although TPS can sound like an important metric, the report establishes that it is the least meaningful metric to use when carrying out a comparison since transactions can come in different shapes and sizes. Yes, the blockchain is working towards more scalability but “scalability isn’t about a million TPS.”

Instead of looking at TPS, the report asks to look at throughput, finality, and concurrency, since these metrics rank as more important in the grand scheme of things. These three metrics represent volume, speed, and amount of work done, the report says.

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Cardano Increases Block Size By 12.5%, What This Means

Cardano has been making important changes to its blockchain since the launch of smart contracts capability. This had brought with it an increased usage and thus needed to be more scalable to accommodate this increase. Since the launch in September, there have been a number of improvements to the network and the latest is the increase in the block size.

Increased Block Size In Cardano

Cardano, in a recent blog post, announced that they were increasing block size by 12.5% to make room for the increased traffic that is expected on the network. The 8KB increase will see the total block size now at 72KB and will allow more transactions to be fitted in a single block. This will allow more transactions to be processed per second, greater data throughput, in turn providing greater capacity for its users.

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Keep in mind that a year ago, Cardano only averaged 10,000 transactions per day. Now, a year later, this number has risen significantly to more than 200,000 and climbing. A 12.5% increase in block size may not seem large by the average margin but is important to accommodate for this increased usage.

ADA drops to $1.77 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

Another factor that warrants the increase in block size is the anticipation of DApps that are expected to launch on the blockchain soon. Since Cardano already has smart contracts capability, it is only a matter of time until developers begin deploying their apps. This anticipated rise in traffic has made increasing block size important for the network.

Plutus Script Memory Gets A Boost

Block size was not the only thing that got a boost. Cardano also increased Plutus script memory units by transaction. In another 12.5% expansion, the Plutus script memory units per transaction is now 11.25 million.

In the blog post, John Woods, Director of Cardano Architecture, explained that this change was brought about due to growing demand from developers. It will help developers in their journey as they test and deploy their DApps on Cardano.

“An increase in Plutus memory limits means that they can develop more sophisticated Plutus scripts, or that existing scripts will be able to process more data items, increase concurrency, or otherwise expand their capabilities.”

Woods notes that this is only a first in a series of changes that will take place to expand the real-world capabilities of Plutus scripts.

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The changes in block size and Plutus script memory units by transactions will be implemented slowly. Cardano has adopted a ‘slow and steady’ mechanism going forward with the changes. Although this may look to be moving too slow for some, a 12.5% increase shows that the developer is not rushing to make changes that would adversely affect the network.

“It’s not just about creating more complex scripts. It’s also about putting more data through,” the blog post read.

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What Went On In The Secret Meetings Between Cardano Developer IOHK And Zanzibar Officials?

The Cardano Africa tour had been in full gear for a couple of weeks now, ending when Hoskinson had returned back to the States. Founder Charles Hoskinson had announced the tour after the successful launch of smart contracts capability on the blockchain and last month, the tour had kicked off.

Hoskinson and the Cardano Foundation plan to meet and liaise with developers of Cardano-based projects and officials of various countries to discuss the acceleration of blockchain adoption on the continent.

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Judging by Hoskinson’s Twitter feed, the tour has been going as planned as he has met with a number of project leads and officials in various countries so far. One thing that remains a mystery is the secret meetings. Cardano developer IOHK has met with Zanzibar Officials but these meetings have been kept private from the general public. Here’s what we know.

Mapping The Future For Zanzibar

Finding ways to grow interconnectedness around the continent had been one of the goals of the Cardano Africa tour. The foundation had gone into this full-swing once Hoskinson had touched down in Zanzibar. Talks of technological advancement in the region have dominated this leg of the tour.

ADA price trading at $2.126 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

Charles Hoskinson himself had personally inspected solar battery modules and telecom station installations in the country. This was in an effort to bolster social advancement and help businesses succeed.

IOHK and Zanzibarian officials had discussed how to bring to fruition a more connected future for the citizens in a meeting hosted by World Mobile Team. The meeting which was held on November 8 saw both the Zanzibarian government and IOHK align values for the future, pointing out that empowerment efforts being carried out by officials to give fishermen their own boats was the kind of work the developer was interested in.

Cardano Pushing Growth In Africa

The Cardano Africa tour is only another in the series of steps that the developer has taken to help promote innovation on the continent. Crypto enthusiasts have always looked to Africa as being a hotbed for blockchain adoption and Cardano has made sure to help foster the growth in the region. Particularly the growth of Cardano-based projects.

This is why millions of dollars have been spent by the foundation to fund African projects. While there, Hoskinson had made strides for Cardano to lead blockchain development in African countries and one of the ways had been education.

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Cardano Foundation provides financial and educational support when needed for startups in Africa. Furthermore, a deal had been struck with the Ethiopian government to launch digital IDs that would help track the academic performance of students in the region on the Cardano blockchain. The idea is that if students’ performances can be tracked, then the quality of education can be improved based on the needs of the students.

Hoskinson has lauded the potential which the African continent holds for blockchain development and plans to expand the operations of Cardano on the continent in the coming years.

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Volume Of ADA Staked On Cardano Network Reaches Record High

Cardano holds bragging rights for the network with the highest proportion of its circulating supply staked and it has not let go of this title. Cardano’s community is home to investors who are investing for the long term rather than trying to take short-term profits from the market. This means that most investors have their coins staked on the platform to serve as validators on its proof of stake mechanism.

The blockchain has grown in popularity since it announced smart contracts capability in September. Since then, various partnerships and initiatives focused on increasing usability on the network have been announced. This move seems to have paid off as Cardano saw a record number of total circulating supply hit an all-time high this week.

Total ADA Staked Hits 73% Of Supply

Cardano saw the total ADA staked on its network hit a high of 73.15% on Thursday, an impressive number compared to the number of coins staked on its direct competitors. At this point, the network had a total of 23.9 billion ADA staked across 921,323 delegators. The total circulating supply of ADA is only 33.26 billion coins, meaning that only less than 10 billion are not staked.

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This represents the growing confidence in the future of the project, which some in the space have claimed to be the blockchain of the future. An interesting fact behind Cardano’s staking network is that the coins are not locked in place. Unlike Ethereum, ADA holders are still able to transfer out their staked coins if they wish to sell. However, a large proportion of its community has chosen to stake, speaking volumes to the faith of its holders in the project.

Cardano Performance In The Market

Despite its impressive new partnerships and projects, Cardano has not fared too well in the crypto market. The altcoin has not followed the rising trend of bitcoin in the past weeks, which has left ADA struggling to maintain its value above the $2 level. Short-term forecasts for ADA are also generally bearish given the lagging momentum of the digital asset.

ADA price struggles to hold $2.02 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

ADA has greatly fluctuated in recent times and Wednesday saw the altcoin crash below $2 for the first time in over a month. The price of the digital asset had promptly recovered after the crash. However, the damage had already been done. ADA’s loss of steam over the past few weeks became even more evident as the price struggled to hold above $2.01.

Related Reading | Cardano, Solana Lead Altcoins As Market Sees Record Inflows

Forecasts remain bleak for the asset, especially now. Since it has so far not rallied with the rest of the market alongside bitcoin, Cardano’s price could very well see a retest of $1.7 before this cycle is over.

At the time of writing, the price of the digital asset is trading at $2.02 after posting a small recovery from its dip below $2. Cardano sits at 5th place on the crypto top 10 with a market of $67 billion.

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New Ethereum-to-Cardano Bridge Will Provide NFT Creators Eco-friendly Options

Bondly has announced a new functionality on the Cardano blockchain that is aimed at creators. Energy consumption has been a major problem on the Ethereum network, especially given the increased usage of the blockchain over the past couple of months. Developers behind the project have been working towards moving the network to proof of stake but that is still another year away.

In the meantime, Ethereum blockchain still uses a proof of work mechanism which requires a large amount of energy for transactions to be confirmed on the network. Thus, Bondly has introduced a new solution for NFT creators who may be looking for more sustainable and eco-friendly options for their creations. But at the same time, do not want to lose the NFTs they have already minted on the Ethereum blockchain.

Related Reading |

Bridging Two Worlds

In its announcement, Bondly says its official Ethereum to Cardano bridge will enable creators to choose a more eco-friendly blockchain for their NFTs. Creators are able to move their NFT creations from the Ethereum blockchain to the Cardano blockchain using this bridge.

In terms of energy-efficiently, the Cardano blockchain is four million times more efficient than Bitcoin. Ethereum is said to use the energy equivalent of Columbia, while Cardano’s energy usage comes out to be equivalent to that of a family home. Thereby providing a greener and eco-friendly network for creators who are worried about the environmental impact of blockchain use.

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Bondly announced that through this partnership with IOG, it will be able to provide NFT creators a way to simply transfer NFTs minted on the Ethereum blockchain over to Cardano without the risk of losing a transaction or paying high fees for transfers.

Cheaper On Cardano

In addition to having their work on an eco-friendly blockchain, creators do not have to worry about the high fees that the Ethereum network has come to be known for. With the majority of NFT minting happening on Ethereum, the network fees have shot through the roof, leaving smaller creators who cannot afford these high fees out to dry. This is, however, not the case with Cardano.

ADA price struggles at $2.13 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

The network boasts of low fees for any transaction carried out on the blockchain. Additionally, the network also offers NFT creators price predictability and stable transaction costs, which will eliminate increasingly high fees and the fear of lost transactions due to not having enough gas fees to cover a transaction.

The bridge is set to launch in 2022 and in celebration of its launch, Bondly will release a special series of eco-friendly NFT on the network. Harry Liu, CEO of Bondly, said; “The creation of a cross-chain NFT bridge between Ethereum and Cardano marks a pivotal moment in the transition from legacy blockchain technology to one of the most hotly anticipated ‘third generation’ networks. As one of the pioneers of the NFT movement, we continue to play a key role in building the infrastructure that will herald the next phase of NFT evolution.”

Related Reading | Cardano Set To Enter The Babbage Era After Alonzo HFC Milestone

Liu is not the only one excited about the bridge. Founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, expressed support for the project. “We built Cardano with energy efficiency in mind, which is why this partnership with Bondly is so crucial,” said Hoskinson. “We believe that blockchain will only achieve mass adoption when end users have a seamless experience, regardless of which blockchain they are using, which is what bridges like this will achieve.”

The founder has always believed that interoperability will be the future of the blockchain industry and this stance is reiterated with the new partnership with Bondly.

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Cardano Set To Enter The Babbage Era After Alonzo HFC Milestone

Cardano successfully deployed the Alonzo Hard Fork Combinator over a month ago, which has no doubt been one of the most important upgrades to happen on the network Alonzo HFC brought with it smart contracts capability on the network and with this came decentralized finance (DeFi) services to the ecosystem. Developers could now develop and deploy decentralized applications (DApps) on the Cardano blockchain.

This provided a boost for the network and Cardano continues to work with developers to get their DApps deployed on the blockchain. After this milestone, a question on the minds of supporters has been, ‘What’s next?’ With the Alonzo HFC operating as intended, the developers behind the blockchain can now move to the next phase. This phase is referred to as the Babbage era.

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The Next Big Step

Kevin Hammond, software engineer at Input Output gave an update on what the developer was working on next. Hammond revealed that IOHK was moving into what they referred to as the Babbage era. This phase which is named after Charles Babbage, the mathematician credited as “the father of the computer”, is meant to smooth out any wrinkles that may be leftover after Alonzo.

ADA price at $2.32 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

IOHK will roll out various performance improvements on the blockchain in this phase. These, Hammond said, are improvements which the developer had been working on for some time but had not yet launched.

The developer intends to improve the sinking speed, and in addition, will address performance issues that operators have pointed out since the Alonzo HFC has been in operation. This part is important in ensuring that users of the network have a smooth experience when carrying out activities on Cardano.

Realizing The Best Of Cardano

The Plutus Language on the Cardano network is also getting an upgrade. Hammond revealed that the developer was planning on improving the language by introducing a new Plutus Language version on the blockchain. The Plutus script-specific aspects of the network will be improved to allow for a faster and increased volume of transactions in each block.

This new Plutus version will feature additional features which were created due to demand from the user base. Since the network has seen increased activity from the developer-side, it has also come with various requests on the things that they would like to see the network do.

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On the decentralization side, Hammond talks about the network’s plans to further decentralize the blockchain. The software engineer didn’t give many details on this, but this will likely be a situation where Cardano puts the community more in control of what happens on the network. The revelations from Hammond are evidence of the fact that IOHK is continuing its work to make the blockchain the best it can be.

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Cardano Loses 3rd Spot On Crypto Top 10, Why It May Drop Even More

Cardano has now lost its spot at the 3rd place on the crypto top 10 as its price had refused to move in accordance with the broader crypto market. While other altcoins had rallied alongside bitcoin, ADA had remained mostly stagnant.

Despite the hype created around the project when smart contracts capability was launched last month, support has dwindled for the asset. Its race above $3 had seen it overtake Binance native token BNB to clench the top 3 spot. But ADA has once again surrendered this position as it dropped to 4th place while BNB surged past, beating ADA by $9 billion in market cap.

ADA May Still Suffer Losses

The Cardano project has not had any market-moving news in recent times. There has been news regarding the project investing in smaller Cardano-focused startups. However, nothing has created hype around the project.

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Its foray into the decentralized finance (DeFi) space has been delayed because although the blockchain is now capable of supporting smart contracts, building the protocols required to provide decentralized finance services to users takes time to build. Developers have been working hard on deploying their decentralized applications (DApps) on the network and the Cardano Foundation has provided support to these projects, but it will take a while before there are enough working DeFi protocols on the blockchain to draw in users to carry out DeFi activities on the network.

ADA price trading at $2.13 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

If the digital asset does not see any significant improvement in support and momentum, then ADA may run the risk of falling below $2. Its community boasts some of the strongest hold sentiment with over 70% of its total supply currently staked. However, without significant amounts of money coming into the asset, it is likely to continue a downtrend that may see the price retest the $1.7 range.

Cardano Founder Begins Africa Tour

Bitcoinist reported last week that Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson was getting ready to begin a tour through Africa. Hoskinson confirmed that the tour had kicked off on October 15th when he posted a tweet that showed him appearing on a panel in South Africa, where the tour was scheduled to begin.

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Hoskinson, in conjunction with the Cardano Foundation, plans to visit various startups on the continent that are building on the blockchain. They will provide funding and education, as needed, to this project and help to guide them through deploying on the Cardano network.

This has although not been the kind of needle-moving news that the digital asset needed because, despite the kick-off of the tour, ADA’s price has not recorded much upward movement. Momentum remains down as the price continues to struggle around the $2.1 price range.

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SpaceBudZ Marks First NFT Sale Above $1 Million On Cardano Network

NFTs have been live on the Cardano network for a while. Before smart contracts capability had debuted on the network, users were able to mint and sell NFTs without needing a smart contract address. This has been one of the pulls towards the network and users have taken full advantage of this capability to trade their NFTs on the blockchain.

However, compared to leading NFTs blockchain Ethereum, Cardano NFT sales have been minute. Where the Ethereum network has seen NFTs sold for as high as $69.3 million in the case of Beeple, Cardano had yet to see its first million-dollar sale. This is mostly due to the network rolling out NFT capability later than Ethereum and having less interest from buyers.

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SpaceBudz Sells First Million-Dollar NFT

The NFT market on Cardano has boomed ever since smart contracts capability was introduced on the blockchain. Although these smart contracts are not required for minting NFTs, they brought more users to the network, which, in turn, brought more interest into NFTs minted on the platform. Various artists have released and sold their NFTs on the blockchain, and now, SpaceBudz has successfully recorded the first Cardano NFT sale above $1 million.

ADA price trading at $2.11 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

SpaceBudz is an NFT platform that is built on the Cardano blockchain. The SpaceBudz consists of 10,000 unique NFTs which users can personally own after they purchase it. The project broadcasts its sale on Twitter via a bot that reports every listing and sale of a SpaceBudz NFT.

On Tuesday, the SpaceBudzBot account reported that SpaceBud #9936 had been sold for 510,000 ADA. Going by ADA’s current price of $2.11 at the time of this writing, the NFT sold for $1,076,100. A record sale on the Cardano network.

SOLD – SpaceBud #9936 was bought for 510000 $ADA https://t.co/E3605AnMs0 #spacebudzsold pic.twitter.com/W6Jml5mbHt

— SpaceBudzBot (@spacebudzbot) October 12, 2021

Cardano Celebrates Ada Lovelace

Cardano’s native token ADA is named after one of the earliest programmers on record. Ada Lovelace is one of the women who pioneered software programming after the first computers were used in the 1940s. Members of the community refer to themselves as Lovelaces, an ode to the mathematician.

IOHK joined the scientific community in celebrating Ada Lovelace Day, which commemorates the contributions and achievements of women in STEM fields.

Today is Ada Lovelace Day – celebrating one of the earliest tech pioneers & programmers!

It is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering & math, to increase the profile of women in STEM #Cardano https://t.co/bp1X6rC79z pic.twitter.com/tCgcvaoZHZ

— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) October 12, 2021

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Cardano Foundation has been making marked contributions to innovation and growth in the science and technology sector, and founder Charles Hoskinson is set to tour the continent of Africa as the foundation invests in startups building on the blockchain in the region. The Africa tour is scheduled to start in South Africa but a departure time has not been announced yet.

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Grayscale Report Shows The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of The Cardano Network

Cardano featured in the latest release of the Grayscale Building Blocks, a monthly publication from one of the leading crypto funds in the world. The report focused solely on the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. An exposé of sorts. The report went through various aspects of Cardano, including its creation, leadership, community, and so forth.

Cardano is the third-largest holding of Grayscale in its GDLC Fund (Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund). This is why the asset manager has taken a vested interest in the asset and is educating its investors on one of its largest crypto holdings. In the report, the pros and cons of the network are outlined. Along with the upgrades which are being carried out on the network to put it in a favorable position to compete with other large cryptocurrencies in the market.

Competing With The Market

As time went on, the way the Cardano network was structured had unveiled a flaw in its design. Once decentralized finance gained popularity, it became obvious that the blockchain would not be able to compete on the same level as Ethereum due to its lack of smart contracts capability. Developers had then begun to work on launching smart contracts capability on the network, which became a reality on September 12th, 2021. But it came years behind other leading smart contracts networks.

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With smart contracts capability present in the Cardano ecosystem, the question becomes if users will adopt it. There already exist blockchains with booming decentralized finance markets. So they would need a compelling reason to move over to Cardano.

“The trade-off of Cardano’s approach has also resulted in its biggest weaknesses, which include: a historical lack of smart contract capabilities, an unproven track-record for how well dApps will function, a still maturing third-party developer ecosystem, lack of widespread mainnet dApps, ad lower transaction fee revenue.”

ADA price maintains position above $2 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

Since the network is yet to be tested, there is still skepticism in the community as to how well decentralized applications will work on the blockchain. Developers obviously have their work cut out for them.

Cardano Competitive Advantages

The Grayscale report also outlines the advantages of the blockchain over others. Its leadership remains one of the strongest components of the project. The Cardano community has always remained loyal to founder Charles Hoskinson, who has continued to share his vision for the project with the community at every turn. As such, inspires continued support for the asset no matter how the price may be doing.

Decentralization is also an important feature of the Cardano blockchain. A fully open-source project, the Shelly upgrade had spread the core network consensus amongst thousands of participants. Its native token, ADA, is held by millions of people around the world and can easily be bought and sold on exchanges both big and small.

Related Reading | FinTech Behind Cardano’s First Stablecoin Launches Bank Accounts And Visa Debit Cards

Last but not least, the blockchain has strong funding sources. Its treasury balances currently sit at $1.6 billion, giving the network a competitive advantage when it comes to growing and upgrading its ecosystem as technology in the crypto space changes.

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Charles Hoskinson To Launch Three-Time Grammy Nominee Paul Oakenfold’s Album On Cardano

The release of smart contracts capability on Cardano has brought with it some interesting projects. Cardano had revealed multiple partnerships over the course of its two-day Cardano Summit. These projects aimed at increasing utilizing the capability of the blockchain to its fullest potential. But before smart contracts had debuted on the platform, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) had been supported.

Cardano network has seen thousands of NFTs being minted. This had been actively encouraged by the developers in order to entice the community into using the blockchain as its default for minting NFTs as opposed to well-established networks like Ethereum and Solana. The latest iteration of the network promoting NFTs on the network has come in the form of founder Charles Hoskinson releasing dance artiste Paul Oakenfold’s album as an NFT on Cardano.

Hoskinson Teams Up With Paul Oakenfold

Celebrities have taken to NFTs like fish to water. From athletes to musicians, NFTs have presented as a new way for public figures to stay connected with their fan base, while also monetizing their image. Now, founder Charles Hoskinson is taking it one step further as he partners with Paul Oakenfiled to release the DJ’s album as an NFT on Cardano.

One of @ethereum's original co-founders, @IOHK_Charles, is working on a collaborative album with dance music legend @pauloakenfold.https://t.co/WUgw3AV2XF

— EDM.com (@TheEDMNetwork) September 29, 2021

Related Reading | Cardano Summit Sees Launch Of Exciting New Partnerships

The announcement was made at the just-concluded Cardano Summit and will cover everything from Oakenfield’s album, down to its cover art and notes. The dance and trance DJ who is of British descent has been nominated for three Grammy Awards over the course of his career and is regarded as a legend in the EDM scene.

Hoskinson has been working closely with the artiste to bring the project to life on the blockchain. The founder believes that blockchain technology is important for the future of the music industry and is interested in how this will work. “Getting to learn about the electronic music industry and how the blockchain can support it has been a revelation,” Hoskinson said.

Bringing Music To Cardano

Oakenfield’s album will not be the first, nor the last, to bring music to the blockchain as NFTs. For Cardano alone, multiple music and music-related acts have brought their talent to the world through the network.

Related Reading | EMURGO To Invest $100 Million In Cardano To Bolster DeFi Adoption

Most notable of these had been the launch of ZZ Top frontman Bill Gibbons’ music NFT collection on the blockchain. Auction for Gibbons’ collection had run in the same time frame as the Cardano Summit, and it included 30-second original jam sessions digital music by Billy Gibbons and one Golden Ticket which conferred a 20-minute one-on-one session with the artiste.

Earlier this month, the blockchain had seen the launch of the first-ever music label to be launched on the blockchain. $GREED is a crypto music label that was launched on the ecosystem as a smart contract.

ADA price trading at $2.097 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com
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Cardano Summit Begins Tomorrow, Here’s What You Should Know

The Cardano summit is scheduled to begin tomorrow, Saturday, September 25th. The summit is scheduled to run for two days, the 25th to the 26th, and promises to be a one-of-a-kind event. Meetups are available in six locations around the world. But the summit will feature both live and virtual events where anyone from around the world can attend. Local groups are also available with community-led events.

Events at the Cardano summit are split by the worlds they fall into. Currently, the summit features seven different worlds in which individuals can choose to participate in. These worlds include Cardano World, Utility, Impact, Governance, Adoption, Catalyst, and Community.

Related Reading | Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Says The Term Smart Contracts Needs To Be Changed

The Cardano community is still giddy with the recent launch of smart contracts capability on the network, and with good reason. This summit promises some bigger announcements following this incredible feat. Details of what might be expected from the team are still sparse. So right now, it really is a waiting game as the opening of the summit draws closer.

The partly virtual event features avatars for participants to communicate with one another. While also featuring notable keynote speakers from the crypto space that will speak throughout the two-day summit. In addition to these will be the availability of limited edition NFTs minted on the blockchain to be collected throughout the summit. Founder Charles Hoskinson will provide the live opening keynote across all seven worlds to mark the beginning of the summit.

Hydra 2, DeFi, And The Cardano Network

Cardano recently announced the launch of the Hydra Layer 2 solution that will enable developers to build and deploy their decentralized apps (DApps) in a safe and secure environment. With the launch of Hydra, Hoskinson tweeted that more information will be available about the solution at the summit.

More information about decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols launching on the network, with updates expected from decentralized protocols like Minswap and SundaeSwap, which are both built on the blockchain.

Related Reading | Why Cardano Bull Trend Isn’t Over And 91% Increase Is Imminent, deVere CEO Nigel Green

Founder Charles Hoskinson celebrates how far the blockchain has come up until this point. “The Cardano summit 2021 follows the launch of smart contract capabilities on Cardano, and a remarkable six years of intensive development and perf-reviewed academic research to create a third-generation blockchain platform which is not only eco-friendly but provably secure,” the founder said.

ADA price trending above $2.1 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

Future exploits by the developer are expected to be announced at the summit. Alongside how the project plans to bridge the gap when it comes to decentralized finance. The summit is open to participants from all around the world and sign-up is free at https://summit.cardano.org/.

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Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Says The Term Smart Contracts Needs To Be Changed

Smart contracts have been in the crypto space for quite a while now, most recently debuting on Cardano. With the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi), smart contracts have become even more important to the entire industry. This is because they are required to build the protocols on which these decentralized applications (DApps) run on. As they have grown in popularity, smart contracts platforms like Ethereum and Solana have recorded great success with them.

Cardano has been working on bringing smart contracts to its network for a while and on September 12th, that dream became a reality with the final launch of the Alonzo Hard Fork Combinator (HFC). The arrival of smart contracts capability on the network was widely celebrated in the industry. But now, Founder Charles Hoskinson does not believe the term does justice to what Cardano actually does.

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The disagreement with the term smart contracts comes after a user pointed out that what Cardano does is actually very different from smart contracts. The user, @_KtorZ_, pointed out that the network deviates from what established smart contracts platforms do, referring to the network as “atypical.”

Compared to most existing smart-contract platforms, Cardano takes a much different road. Recently, we've seen a lot of discussions going on about "concurrency issues" and "EUTXO vs accounts". While equally expressive, Cardano programmability is different and atypical.

— KtorZ (@_KtorZ_) September 18, 2021

Cardano Does Not Have Smart Contracts

Hoskinson posted a tweet wherein he agreed with the user pointing out that the term smart contracts do not do justice to what the platform does. Instead agreeing that a new term is needed instead of smart contracts to describe the network’s capabilities. This new term which the founder had agreed with is programmable validators. Agreeing with the user who pointed it out, this term better describes Cardano’s programmability.

Related Reading | Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Says He Wants To Eliminate The Need For CEOs And Presidents

Matthias gets it absolutely right. Programmable validators instead of smart contracts https://t.co/8VVESJ8MYU

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) September 19, 2021

ADA price falls to $2.1 range | Source: ADUSD on TradingView.com

Explaining further, the user pointed out that unlike existing platforms like Ethereum and Solana, one could not just deploy a smart contract on Cardano. “Instead, validators are implicitly referred to by hashes prior to their use, and they are disclosed upon activation,” the user said. Meaning that the validators do not produce anything on the network. All they actually do is “just validate.”

In closing, KtorZ explained that the term “smart contracts” felt like an imprecise term. “I’d prefer more specific terms such as ‘on-chain validators’ and ‘off-chain code.’ If anything, ‘smart-validators’ sounds already much better to me,” they added.

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Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Says He Wants To Eliminate The Need For CEOs And Presidents

Cardano has recently been in the news for all of the right reasons recently. The project just successfully launched the Alonzo Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) on Sunday and with it comes smart contracts capability for the network. Enabling a whole new world of decentralized finance to be built on the network. This has been founder Charles Hoskinson’s dream for the four years it has taken to get here.

The founder took to Twitter to celebrate this monumental feat, which he referred to as the new era of Cardano. “Tomorrow is the big day! We are entering a new Era of Cardano,” the tweet read. The community engaged with Hoskinson on Twitter following his tweet. The replies sported both support and questions from inquiring community.

Related Reading | Cardano Network Upgrade And Hard Fork Gets Support From Binance

Removing The Need For CEOs And Presidents

Responding to an overly optimistic reply from a supporter, Hoskinson made a surprising revelation. The tweet had congratulated the founder for the Cardano upgrade, but referred to Hoskinson as “future POTUS 2032.” Hoskinson then responded saying that he had no desire to be president since he had no taste for politics. Going on to add that the point of his career was actually to remove the need for presidents and CEOs.

This is wishful thinking. I have no desire or taste for politics. The entire point of my career is to remove the need for CEOs and presidents. Then I can retire and ranch bison

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) September 12, 2021

Related Reading | Cardano Successfully Deploys Alonzo HFC, But Why Is Price Down?

It’s not exactly clear how Hoskinson plans to completely eliminate the need for presidents and CEOs but the statement has been well-received by community-backers, who have gone on to hail the founder as a true leader.

Cardano Ready For The Future

Smart contracts are now finally a reality on the Cardano network. Developers who have worked tirelessly for the past four years on the project have finally gotten to the finish line. As the entire team celebrates the finish line of one project, it ushers in the start of another. With smart contracts functioning as intended and developers getting ready to launch their decentralized applications (DApps) on the network, the team behind Cardano prepares to take on an even bigger project.

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The topmost priority now is to maintain security for the project with all of the new development happening on the network. This includes making sure that the ecosystem is safe enough for users to trade on. While also maintaining a developer-friendly environment for devs to build upon.

Cardano also boasts a robust NFT ecosystem, with over 780,000 tokens already minted to date and more than 19,000 policies. The HFC launch readies Cardano to go head to head with other leading decentralized finance platforms.

ADA price trending in the $2.3 range | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com
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Cardano Offers Up To $10,000 For Network Vulnerabilities In Bug Bounty

Cardano is getting ready for the release of smart contracts capability on September 12th. To this end, the Cardano Foundation is taking steps to make sure that there are no vulnerabilities in the network ahead of launch. A new partnership will help to facilitate this, while also engaging the broader community to take part in making sure that the beloved ecosystem is as safe as possible.

Cardano Foundation, in conjunction with HackerOne, recently released a bug bounty program. This program aims to reward hackers for any vulnerabilities that they may find in the network. Bug bounty programs incentivize hackers to find and report vulnerabilities in a network instead of exploiting them for personal gain.

Related Reading | Cardano (ADA) Getting Ready For A $3 Retest?

Why A Bug Bounty Program Is Important

There is no doubt that for an ecosystem as vast as Cardano, its team alone cannot find out all of the vulnerabilities in the network. This is where bug bounty programs come in. It draws in the wider hacker community to help find as many vulnerabilities as possible.  The partnership with HackerOne will draw in its large base of hackers, with over 250,000 vulnerabilities already found and reported by its hackers.

Related Reading | Cardano (ADA) Founder Responds To Criticism Over New Crypto Partnership

Ahead of its biggest project launch yet, the foundation is committed to making sure that the entire network is secure for use once it starts onboarding the general public to the mainnet with smart contracts capability.

“Cardano is a leading blockchain ecosystem that aims to enable integrated blockchain solutions globally. It is our duty to maintain the highest standards and commitment to code transparency and reliability to ensure that the protocol remains viable for mission-critical applications delivered around the world from individuals, start-ups, enterprises, financial institutions, and governments alike.” – Jeremy First, Project Manager, Cardano Foundation.

Keeping Cardano Blockchain Safe

Finding bugs through ethical hackers is one of the most efficient ways for any organization to fish out vulnerabilities in its network. Projects like Cardano will usually use automated scanners to check for vulnerabilities in the networks. But bugs that are ‘chained’ together cannot be detected by these automated scanners. This is where human hackers come in.

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Ethical hackers use creative thinking to identify places where these ‘chained’ bugs may reside and then report them to be fixed. So something an automated scanner would not catch, an ethical hacker, through the HackerOne bug bounty program, would find and then report. Increasing the safety of the network.

Rewards for the bug bounty are separated into four different levels; low, medium, high, and critical. The bug bounty is also separated into two groups. Bugs can either be reported in the Cardano Wallet or the Cardano Node. The rewards range from $300 for low priority bugs in the Wallet to as high as $10,000 for the critical level bugs in the Node, which will be paid in its native token ADA.

ADA price continues to trail $2.8 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com
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