Cardano Spotlight: Catalyst Fund 12, Chang Hardfork and Scaling With ZK

Author

Utsav Sheth
April 19, 2024

Hi,

What's Spotlight? Every week, we highlight the most interesting events happening around Cardano. We want to help you cut the noise and find the signal.

This week, we discuss governance. We discuss Fund 12 and how it is decentralizing, then move to Chang HardFork’s governance and scaling features.

Catalyst Fund 12


Catalyst is the backbone of the Cardano ecosystem. Over 11 funding rounds, It has distributed $79M across 1600+ proposals, enabling developers to build critical infrastructure and innovative products. 

Fund 12 is approaching, with an expected 50M Ada in funding! Fund 12 will launch on 26th April with an in-person event in Barcelona, Spain. It's a great opportunity to network with like-minded professionals, gain insights from industry leaders, or contribute to impactful projects. This event promises to be an enriching experience. You can register for the event here.

Fund 12 expands on and provides funding for Catalyst Working Groups, increasing the community's role in Catalyst's inner workings. Over 26 in-person or online events will be hosted across the globe. You can register for all the events using the links here. 

The three main focus areas for the Working Groups will be:

  1. Catalyst Strategic Funding Priorities Working Group: The priority here is to identify key focus areas for funding based on data-driven analysis of past initiatives and future needs.

  2. Catalyst Budget and Fund Parameters Working Group: Evaluate and propose adjustments to operating parameters like Budget and allocation to align with strategic objectives.

  3. Funded Project Incubation and Acceleration Working Group: The aim is to go one step beyond by incubating and accelerating high-potential projects, connecting them with a global network of investors and resources.

These workshops will allow the community to take control of Catalyst and move it in the right direction. If you cannot attend the event in person, you can watch the livestream on Cardano Spot!

Chang Hardfork

Cardano is in the 5th Stage of its roadmap—the age of Voltaire. The Chang Hardfork is a two-part upgrade focusing on bringing Cardano on-chain governance.

Chang Hardfork #1 will focus on implementing Minimal Viable Governance as outlined in CIP-1694. This will be followed by Chang Hard Fork #2, expected in December this year. The second hardfork will mark the end of the bootstrapping phase and finalize features for onchain governance.

CIP-1694 divides the Cardano community into three key stakeholders:

  1. DReps: ADA holders will delegate their voting power to delegated representatives of their choice. Anybody can become a delegated representative.

  2. Constitutional Committee: The committee will be chosen by DReps to ensure the Cardano Constitution is respected. It is tasked to intervene when actions conflict with the Constitution. They will be able to veto any votes in the bootstrapping phase.

  3. SPOs: The network's validators hold the final power to implement any changes to the network.

With this, the Cardano community will have direct control over treasury and protocol development.

Learn more: Chang Hard Fork.

Scaling with ZK

While Chang Hardfork is focused on governance, it also brings major scalability benefits. This will be enabled through new cryptographic primitives introduced in Plutus V3. The expected features include:

  1. Sum of Products: This improves the script efficiency at the compiler level. This allows programs to run 30% faster compared to Plutus V2.

  2. BLS12-381—This will allow ZK proofs to be verified on the L1 and building contracts that can be computed on an L2 while the transactions are verified on the L1. This brings ZK rollups and ZK contracts to Cardano!

    This introduces 17 primitives that open doors to seamless interop with sidechains.

  3. Other Crypto primitives: This will be focused on improving interoperability with other chains like Ethereum.

  4. Bitwise Operations: Allows for low-level manipulation of code, which enables further optimization of script performance.

The most exciting part of the upgrade is allowing ZK contracts/rollups. With ZK contracts, developers do not need to be constrained by the chain’s rules. Projects can run big scripts arbitrarily and roll up an arbitrary number of transactions together, massively improving throughput and computational power!

Learn More: Scaling With ZK

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