Welcome to the Intersect dev update. This week, Chang #2 candidate node 10.1.1 was released. There is also more from the Cardano summit, the Mexico Amm, Committee elections, Constitution workshops, Budget updates, a governance action report, Dreps, community and governance tooling, and more!
Cardano Node 10.1.1 released for Chang #2
Cardano Node 10.1.1 is here, a mainnet release of the Cardano node capable of crossing the Chang #2 upgrade. It includes many improvements to the governance system, including support for SPO delegation to pre-defined voting options and support for auto-abstain DRep votes supplanting abstaining via rewards address delegation. It also enables new Plutus primitives as defined in CIP-0122, CIP-0123, and CIP-0127. Finally, it includes a number of other improvements to the ledger, CLI, API, and networking code bases, as detailed in the release notes. We are expecting some minor updates early next week, so watch this space.
For further details, please review our latest status report, which includes a full rundown and status of Chang #2 and how to join and participate in the process.
Additionally, here you can watch Intersect’s Open Source Program Manager Terence (Tex) McCutcheon’s interview with Kevin Hammond, Head of Software Development at IOE, in which they discuss the importance of this node release.
Don’t forget - delegate to a DRep
Head to Cardano GovTool and delegate today. Important note: after the upgrade, if you haven't delegated to a DRep, your staking rewards will still accumulate, but you won't be able to withdraw them until you do.
Update from our recent elections
In the spirit of decentralization and in light of their election to the Board, Adam Rusch and Kavinda Kariyapperuma have resigned from their seats on the Cardano Civics Committee and Intersect Steering Committee to enable more community members to support our core committees. We want to announce that Phil Lewis has been elected to the Intersect Steering Committee and Takeshi Ohishi to the Cardano Civics Committee.
The onboarding of elected committee members has commenced, and the excitement is apparent, as you can see from their faces below. We can’t wait to see their plans and pledges come to life!
Work hasn’t stopped within the committees; the latest bi-weekly report can be found here. We welcome your feedback on this report, so please send any feedback to commitees@intersectmbo.org.
Annual members' meeting Mexico
This event signified the launch of Intersect’s Mexico hub as a spoke of the LATAM hub. It was held at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the largest university in Latin America and one of the world's largest campuses, with over 257,747 students enrolled. The event was well attended, with good face-to-face feedback and discussion with regional projects.
Pablo Antonio Bejarano (Founder and CEO of PBG) and Christian Schmitz (CTO) spoke about their work on the pbg.io projects.
Cardano Summit 2024 Community Events
The 2024 Cardano Summit showcases the global reach and spirit of the Cardano community, with more than 20 events organized by community leaders across different countries. This year’s Summit invites everyone to participate locally, sharing insights, learning, and connecting with others passionate about the ecosystem. It’s a time for celebration, growth, and inspiration, highlighting the shared vision and collaborative energy that drive Cardano forward. Intersect is proud to have participated in the Hyderabad and London events!
Abhik Nag, Intersect’s Community Manager, addressed an audience of over 250, highlighting the value of Intersect membership and explaining the essentials of on-chain governance for the Indian web3 community. The community event, hosted by Nucast and led by Charan G and Intersect, was joined by other key players in the Cardano ecosystem, including Cardano Spot—EMURGO, Trivolve Tech, and SyncAI Network.
We successfully onboarded over 130 new members to Intersect and are actively looking to expand our presence in India.
On October 19th, the London Cardano Summit Community Event, hosted by Upstream, took place. Approximately 30 people attended, including SPOs and DReps. Gemma Dakin and Ryan Willians provided a comprehensive update to the Community on Intersect’s 2024 highlights and projections for 2025. We also were lucky to receive SPO project updates, including an update from Climate Neutral Cardano on their recent tree regeneration project in Madagascar.
Gemma Dakin - Head of Community Grants, delivering the Intersect keynote
Ryan Williams (Cardano Technical Lead), Gemma Dakin (Head of Community Grants), Aaron Boyle (IT Analyst), Elena Bardo (Community Grants Analyst)
We need your input - 2025 budget survey!
As we begin designing a budget process, including drafting Cardano's first Annual Budget, we are committed to ensuring this process is as open and inclusive as possible. Your insights and perspectives are invaluable as we build collective input - leading to a budget that reflects the priorities and aspirations of our diverse community and, ultimately, Cardano’s technology.
This survey is designed to gather quantitative and qualitative data on various budget-related topics. By participating, you'll help us understand where you believe resources should be allocated, which initiatives are most important to you, and how we can best support the growth and sustainability of the Cardano ecosystem.
This survey is designed to gather quantitative and qualitative data on various budget-related topics. By participating, you'll help us understand where you believe resources should be allocated, which initiatives are most important to you, and how we can best support the growth and sustainability of the Cardano ecosystem.
On Wednesday, October 30th, Intersect hosted an inspiring and exciting X space. Input | Output CEO Charles Hoskinson and Chief Scientist Aggelos Kiayias, in the recently published article 11 blockchain tenets outline 11 guiding principles for how blockchain systems should operate and engage with their users. We encourage all our members and anyone interested in the future of decentralized governance to listen to the recording
Open source
The open source office prepares documents such as the Project Incubation strategy and a Contribution Ladder and finishes a white paper on the Paid Open Source Concept. These documents assist in the preparation of setting goals and metrics to achieve in 2025 while also supporting our Project Support Services to be rolled out next week.
The open source committee welcomed its new Members this week and is in the process of selecting a chair. Moving forward, the committee will seek to better understand the open source journey in 2024 and provide feedback through a new charter to enhance the development of Cardano’s open source ecosystem.
Lastly, Terence “Tex” McCutcheon took some time to spotlight the latest release of Cardano Node, Node 10.1.1. Check out the important and meaningful updates as we approach the next hard fork Chang #2!
Delegated Representatives (DReps) strengthen Cardano's governance model, enhancing decentralized decision-making across the platform. With voting power granted proportionate to delegated ada, DReps take on critical roles in ensuring the community’s views are reflected in Cardano’s evolving governance framework. Intersect provides resources and structure for these representatives, helping uphold transparency and accountability as they engage with the community - Read more in this blog.
Becoming a DRep
Any ada holder can register as a DRep through platforms like Cardano GovTool, and they are responsible for reviewing and voting on governance actions. DReps will engage with the community, build support, and maintain transparency to uphold delegators' trust. This system ensures that Cardano’s governance decisions reflect the voice of its community. DRep working group This is an exciting update for members! We've launched the DRep working group, where we’ll hold weekly sessions to empower DReps with the tools, guidance, and support needed for informed budget decisions. If you're a member, don't miss out – your insights are key! Head over to the #Wg-dreps-budget-approval channel on Discord.
Open sourceOpen source
In the open source world this week, Intersect’s Head of Open Source, Christian Taylor, has been nominated for the TODO Group Steering Committee for 2025, marking a significant personal achievement. Under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, the TODO Group is instrumental in shaping the direction and best practices of Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) across industries. This nomination is a testament to Intersect’s and Cardano’s growing influence and showcases our commitment to elevating open-source standards and fostering collaboration across global technology ecosystems.
Christian’s nomination reflects his dedication to advancing Cardano’s open-source development at Intersect, where his leadership has been pivotal in driving forward governance and sustainability initiatives. It signifies a milestone in our open-source maturity, highlighting our organization’s strategic efforts to contribute to global standards and sustainable development. This recognition affirms our position as leaders in open-source, ready to shape the future of collaborative software development.
Also, be sure to check out the latest two Cardano project spotlights:
Watch Intersect’s Terence (Tex) McCutcheon as he interviews Ronald Span from DQuadrant Project Spotlight DQuadrant (youtube.com). Ronald started as a stake pool operator and has begun the DQuadrant enterprise, whose mission is to help Cardano become a successful blockchain many people use.
Secondly, Tex interviews Rich Manderino, operator of the Cardano stake pool Earn Coin PoolStake Pool Spotlight - Earn Coin Pool (youtube.com). Earn Coin Pool is a mission-driven pool that supports Angel Tracks, a charity that provides financial assistance to families whose pets have cancer.
With the workshops all wrapped up, the delegates and the Cardano civics committee are working hard to collate all the input and feedback. We look forward to the convention, where delegates will gather to ratify the final version of the constitution before it is enacted on-chain.
Gratitude and congratulations
A huge thank you to everyone who made these workshops possible. To the hosts who facilitated the sessions, the participants who shared their invaluable feedback, and everyone who contributed to the draft constitution, as well as the interim constitution committee, which upheld the interim constitution during this vital transitional phase—your efforts have been instrumental in shaping the future of Cardano’s governance.
Congratulations to the 128 delegates selected to represent the community at the constitutional convention. Your role is crucial in ensuring that the feedback and ideas from the workshops are represented during the convention.This blog explains more, including the selected delegates attending the Constitutional Convention in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The journey to this point results from community engagement, trust, and a shared vision for a sustainable and inclusive governance framework for Cardano. Excitement is building as we race towards the constitutional convention, and there’s no sign of slowing down. Look out for more information over the coming weeks!
This blog explains more, including the selected delegates attending the Constitutional Convention in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Community hubs
Last week, our Sri Lanka hub (led by Coin Ceylon) held its October Town Hall with 48 attendees. The Town Hall provided a comprehensive update on recent key activities at the Sri Lanka Hub. Topics covered included the successful Annual Members Meeting (AMM) held in Sri Lanka, which saw high engagement from community members, the recent University Workshop focused on blockchain education, and highlights from the Cardano Summit, where Sri Lankan hub members had the opportunity to engage with global leaders in blockchain. You can watch the recording of the Town Hall here. LINE Live Talk on November 1. The link to attend is here (open ‘Intersect Japan Hub’); however, access is only available in Japan.
This week, our community hubs are hosting the following events:
Japan hub
LINE Live Talk on November 1. The link to attend is here (open ‘Intersect Japan Hub’); however, access is only available in Japan.
Governance tooling
We expect GovTool to be released this week. The most notable update allows DReps to be searched for by name. All updates are detailed in the release notes for 1.0.23 and 1.0.24. You can also track the community backlog here.
Cardano GovTool is in its bootstrapping phase, with a second hard fork planned in the coming weeks to enable full governance. All teams are working to ensure this transition supports full governance while maintaining system stability. Updates can be followed on SanchoNet and in thecore-gov-tool-announcement Discord channel.
A new CC-Portal release is coming out today, including several new features and navigation improvements. User status can now be changed, invitations can be resent, and users can be removed entirely from the system. This release also fixes issues with displaying rationale.
CC-Portal aims to offer easy access to the interim Cardano constitution and provide constitutional committee members with a streamlined interface for creating metadata as part of their on-chain voting rationale. Additionally, it serves as a platform for the Cardano community to better understand committee members' voting actions.
These improvements will make it easier for the constitutional committee and the wider Cardano community to engage with governance actions. The updates are expected to elevate both usability and transparency for all users.
Governance tools working group
The governance tools working group held another meeting this week, focusing on community backlog assessment and how we can incentivize its work and make it more transparent and compelling to the community and the whole ecosystem. You can track the community backlog here.
The working group continues to invite community members to participate in discussions and feature development for the Cardano GovTool. All feedback is welcome (see guide on feedback), and ongoing conversations are held in thewg-governance-tools Discord channel, where new feature ideas are regularly triaged and implemented.
Governance in numbers
As we press ahead following Chang upgrade #1, follow the progress of governance actions on-chain here every week. Since last Friday, October 25, 2024:
We've advanced from epoch 517 to epoch 519
Unique delegators increased by 3,067 (13,835 -> 16,902)
Total number of vote delegations increased by 3,306 (15,060 -> 18,366)
Total DRep votes increased by 25 (371 -> 396)
Total number of DRep registrations increased by 21 (603 -> 624)
DReps who have attached metadata increased by 92 (301 -> 393)
To learn how to start using Cardano GovTool, explore GovTool documentation. Here, you'll find everything from step-by-step guides to detailed explanations of its features.
On the Intersect Discord server, you can connect to the core maintainers of governance tools via the new request and new help & support channels under Core Governance Tools in Discord.
Delivery Assurance The delivery assurance team at Intersect ensures that projects undertaking Cardano core protocol development and maintenance work stay on track and meet high standards, ensuring we deliver on time and with quality. Watch out for next week's update, where we will publish the October milestone progress report in the Milestone completion reports section on the Intersect knowledge base.
Here are the latest stats from the Delivery assurance team:
Intersect town hall and after-town hall event
The recent Intersect Town Hall (ITH) highlighted a variety of updates from members and committees across Intersect, providing a valuable opportunity to discuss ongoing initiatives and developments. The video recording is availablehere.
In this weeks Town Hall we cover:
Open Source Office/Committee team has made substantial progress on the Contribution Ladder and Project Incubation documentation, advancing our open-source support and structure.
Intersect staff Insights from local annual members' Meetings and crucial statistics from the recent Committee Elections were shared.
We look at Cardano's core infrastructure. James Parker from Galois presented an update on Recursive Zero-Knowledge Proofs, underscoring technical advancements within the infrastructure.
Strategies for building and sustaining a skilled blockchain workforce, emphasizing the need for a vital onboarding process and building trust through interactive tools and collaborative practices.
At the after-town hall event, we explored innovative approaches to decentralized project management, highlighted the value of inclusivity in decision-making, and examined the potential of AI tools. Key takeaways underscored the importance of community events, effective planning frameworks, and thorough documentation of collective experiences. The full After Town Hall Summary offers more insights into these discussions and collective takeaways.
Looking ahead, next month’s ITH will shift focus toward developing the 2025 Proposal and analyzing recent survey feedback to align with community needs and priorities.
Interested in contributing to the upcoming ITH? Join us for planning and discussion on Zoomhere.
Important member resources
Intersect knowledge base - frequently updated, our knowledge base provides granular detail on our internal governance structure, committees and working groups, and funding opportunities, among many other items.
Support - Please always use your membership email address and contact Intersect for support with any application errors, login issues, or questions without answers.
GovTool - take part in testing governance actions on the SanchoNet testnet.
Discord / Telegram - join our lively community and interact with committees, working groups, and other members.
Intersect events calendar - keep up-to-date with all events Intersect hosts, such as working group and committee meetings, X spaces, and more.
Social - we are continually active on Twitter (X) andLinkedIn, so follow us there to stay updated on our latest news and insights.
Well, that’s it for this week's update. Thanks for reading!
And finally, we’re interested in hearing more from you about subjects important to you, such as Cardano’s governance. Your ideas and suggestions are crucial to us. If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, please get in touch via email, X, or LinkedIn.
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