With the Cardano ecosystem steadily growing, a great number of DApps are being built and readied for launch on Cardano. Either in final testing, deployment, or active development, Cardano will soon host a variety of DApps covering DeFi offerings, NFT markets, wallets, exchanges, games, and more.

Cardano is entering the Basho phase with a focus on optimization, scaling, and network growth. We anticipate a significant increase in transactional traffic over the months ahead, and here’s where we start the process of flexing to meet this. Improvements to the core node are part of this and we have packed node v1.33.0 full of new features and improvements to existing elements, upping Cardano’s expressiveness and the chain’s ability to do more.

The Cardano project has always been committed to addressing the classic blockchain trilemma; scalability, security, and (importantly) decentralization. As the organization tasked with creating the core platform, we have always pursued a defined, clearly staged roadmap to deliver on Cardano’s capability and fulfill its long-term potential.

The number of ada users and software developers building on the Cardano blockchain continues to grow. With projects now in final testing and starting to deploy, sites like Cardano Cube, Built on Cardano, Building On Cardano, and Essential Cardano are busy mapping an exciting ecosystem. Cardano has been created as a secure, robust platform to build blockchain-based products, services, and systems. With a clear roadmap to steadily develop, we now see it scaling to serve on a global scale.

Designed for global reach and enhanced functionality, Cardano is now moving from its core capabilities to a living and breathing smart contract platform. Gradual optimization and scientifically verified system improvements lead the way for Cardano's growth and maturity.

Incredibly, given the state of our Covid-shocked world back in January, 2021 has had its fair share of fun. And if 2020 was a big year for Cardano with the upgrade from Byron to Shelley, this year was bigger still. Decentralized block production arrived, tokens went native, contracts turned smart – and there were some world firsts. But, our review of the year is getting ahead of itself, so let’s think back to January....

2021 saw the launch of our Plutus Pioneer and Atala Pioneer programs. These interactive training courses aim to widen the reach of our education materials and have been completed by thousands of people.

When American scholar Clement Clarke Moore wrote A visit from St. Nicholas, cryptocurrencies were certainly not in his mind. According to historians, Clarke wrote the piece as a Christmas treat for his daughters, and read it aloud as the family gathered together on Christmas Eve, 1822.

Distributed applications (DApps) are coming to Cardano. The excitement is palpable. Yet, as the ecosystem steps up a gear, the excitement about this new stage in our journey needs to be tempered with some caution.

Cardano continues to build momentum with more features and capabilities being steadily added to the blockchain. As we recently reported, we are optimizing the network to increase throughput so more transactions can be processed faster, and decentralized applications (DApps) and smart contracts created and used more efficiently.

SingularityNET is our first partner in this initiative. And the converter is a significant step in our shared journey towards a much deeper collaboration with the SingularityNET community.

The current system is simple and fair: every transaction is treated the same and it is not possible for users to alter their priority by paying higher fees. As long as the throughput capacity is comparable to the demand, this approach works well.

When it comes to the story of blockchain’s recent evolution, it is decentralized finance (DeFi) that has taken center stage. DeFi uses ‘smart contracts’ on a blockchain to give anyone access to banking using a public, decentralized, ledger.

From its conception, Cardano has been architected as a platform to best balance the perennial trade-offs of security, scalability and decentralization. Therefore we have architected and built a solid and secure network layer, yet with the flexibility to grow and scale to support a global base of millions of users.

Cardano’s EUTXO model is a solid basis for decentralized finance (DeFi) and decentralized applications (DApp) development as it facilitates parallel transaction processing, which enables greater scalability than compared to account-based models, as well as providing enhanced security settings.

We are excited to be able to announce the first Catalyst Natives pilot, as part of Project Catalyst, Cardano’s community-driven innovation engine. Catalyst Natives enables any organization the ability to leverage the power of the crowd to solve business problems and outsource the implementation of solutions. This project opens up the potential of blockchain technology to new use cases for everyday businesses, both large and small.

As a proof-of-stake blockchain, Cardano is built to be highly secure and resilient to network failures. Driven by the Ouroboros consensus algorithm, built-in Haskell that uses formal methods, and peer-reviewed academic research, Cardano is designed to provide a rock-solid environment to process millions of transactions globally, in a decentralized and highly scalable manner.

We live in an age of rapid change and technological advancements where blockchain is the technology that streamlines transparency, trust, and enhanced security. The UTXO alliance has been created to encourage those at the forefront of this technology to engage in shared efforts and initiatives. Together we can drive further development of critical infrastructure needed to foster broader adoption of blockchain.

At the Cardano Summit 2021, IOHK researchers Pyrros Chaidos and Roman Oliynykov presented the design and goals of Mithril – new research and engineering effort carried out by IOHK. Mithril will provide a stake-based threshold signature scheme that can be implemented as the protocol to solve chain synchronization, state bootstrapping, and trust issues in blockchain applications.

You want to demonstrate a unique combination of blockchain functions, bringing real-world elements together with collectibles and smart contracts. Of course you’d like to have a massive cohort of willing creative participants just ready and waiting to develop it.

The Alonzo protocol upgrade introduced Plutus – a platform that provides a native smart contract language along with the necessary infrastructure and tools to support smart contracts on Cardano. The Plutus platform enables developers to write decentralized applications (DApps) with scripting capabilities that interact with distributed ledgers.

From ensuring up-to-date information between all participants, maintaining accurate transaction processing and block creation, time synchronization is especially important in terms of smart contract deployment.

The 100 Cardano stake pools to benefit from the third IOG delegation have been announced. They were chosen from 520 nominations made by stake pool operators, based on contributions to the Cardano community.

This month, members of the team are in Africa, meeting entrepreneurs and politicians across the continent. Here are some edited parts of a speech by IOG chief Charles Hoskinson at a recent event in Cape Town.

At September’s Cardano Summit 2021, we laid out our plans on the introduction of new levels of certification for decentralized applications (DApps) running on Cardano. This certification program will provide levels of quality for DApps and their internal smart contacts.

Imagine buying a bottle of super premium spirits. Scan it with an app on your phone, and you know for certain that it is a genuine product, never opened or tampered with, and every ingredient can be traced to its source. All this without needing to trust the retailer or anyone in the supply chain.

Cardano is designed to serve millions of users in a globally distributed way. As with any other decentralized blockchain, this means that we need to produce a predictable and consistent supply of new blocks that collectively grow the chain and transparently record transactions between users.

At first glance, the deal between Cardano and Oasis Pro Markets announced at the Cardano Summit may sound like a specialist application of blockchain technology to the rarefied world of finance – of interest to bankers, perhaps, but not to the person on the street. But it could turn out to be a game changer for millions of people throughout the world.

At the Cardano Summit, IOHK announced a collaboration with Ergo, Nervos, and Topl to create the UTXO alliance. Today, we’re delighted to welcome a new alliance partner – Komodo.

The recent two-day Cardano Summit offered the perfect opportunity to interact with the global developer community. This landmark event became the stage where Cardano, its partners, and developers came together to form a synergistic whole of creativity and interaction. This collaboration yielded some impressive results.

How do you close out an event like the Cardano 2021 Summit? With dozens of speakers, the announcement of a host of new deals, and the whole thing taking place live in six locations worldwide and watched online at more than 40 community hubs and in tens of thousands of homes, it’s certainly a tall order.

I have been observing this across all of my wallets for months on end now. Staking rewards have dropped significantly. None of my wallets are saturated and there is quite a spread on the amount of ADA and saturation levels etc. All of my wallets are showing an average of about 1% less return than they used to.

During the Cardano Summit, we announced a new strategic partnership between IOG and Acuant, an identity verification, document authentication, and fraud prevention technology services provider. Its goal? To create a safer decentralized finance (DeFi) environment with Atala PRISM, IOG's decentralized identity platform.

Dish Network and Input Output Global (IOG) have formed a strategic collaboration to explore using the Cardano blockchain across the Nasdaq-listed US satellite television and cellular network group.

Partnership aims to break dominance banks have on low-risk investment from primary bond markets.

At the Cardano Summit stage in Laramie, Wyoming, on Sunday, Charles Hoskinson and Shahaf Bar-Geffen announced that the COTI platform would be the official issuer of Djed, a new stablecoin for Cardano.

AI is coming to the Cardano blockchain in the form of Grace, the AI robot developed by Awakening Health, a joint venture between Hanson Robotics and SingularityNET. They have chosen Cardano to ensure that Grace meets the stringent guidelines set out by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) framework.

A new fund in Africa is investing $6m to finance the most innovative blockchain projects on the continent. The fund was created in recognition of the unique opportunities for innovation in Africa, which has the highest percentage of entrepreneurs of any continent.

At the heart of the potential of DeFi and RealFi is the use of blockchain-based peer-to-peer technology to build reliable and transparent financial products using oracles and smart contracts.

Strait Brands, an Australian luxury spirits company, is embracing a blockchain-first approach to managing its alcohol supply chain. Set to deliver four million bottles before the end of 2022, the business will build its production process around the Cardano platform.

Want to buy with cryptocurrency in any store? You can– type of. All you need is a crypto debit card; we have actually picked out the best options.

The Alonzo upgrade has enabled the deployment of smart contracts, decentralized applications (DApps), and other applications on top of Cardano. All this is hugely significant for Cardano, as it will open Cardano to a whole new developer community whose creative drive will boost Cardano's utility and adoption.

NFTb, the Complete Multi-chain NFT and DeFi Platform for Communities, today announced the launch of its ​​Cross-Chain NFT Marketplace for Gamers NFTb Gaming, to empower gamers to unlock the value of owning gaming collectibles.

Taurus, the Swiss leader in digital assets infrastructure, is pleased to announce that it successfully integrated the Cardano blockchain, including staking capabilities, into its institutional-grade platform.

A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency pegged to a basket of fiat currencies or a single currency (eg, USD or EUR); commodities like gold or silver; stocks; or other cryptocurrencies.

Looking for a green alternative to Bitcoin? Check out these environmentally friendly coins.

As Cardano becomes a growing hub for DeFi and DApps, ADA-USD could reach new highs

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The economic model established by Cardano’s Proof of Stake (POS) protocol, requires that there be systems with specific security and performance configurations, running the different levels of protocol software, connected and synchronized with the global Cardano network, 24 hours a day 365 days a year, keeping continuous updates.

The story of Cryptocurrencies is one of decentralization, we all know and praise decentralization as the ultimate force coming to change the fabric of society forever. But what is decentralization? Why is it important ? And how do we measure it ?