Building a resilient, equitable, and transparent future on Cardano
At the Cardano Summit 2023, I quoted former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who noted that the value of money requires not only the belief of the public at a point in time but– critically–the consent of the public at all times. The need to nurture and maintain the consent and trust of the public is at the core of our thinking.
In keeping with our central mission of bridging Cardano and the world by working to progress Cardano as a public digital utility, the Cardano Foundation has focused on scaling the diversity, quality, and quantity of activities on Cardano. To do that, we must tackle a number of hurdles, from the cost and complexity of implementation and ownership to lack of comfort with blockchain.
Fostering Adoption of Cardano and Blockchain
In 2023, the Cardano Foundation delivered on a host of initiatives, advancing and reflecting the maturity of the Cardano infrastructure. Some examples are as follows:
Increasing operational resilience through initiatives
- Enhanced network monitoring through a project to build real-time monitoring capabilities of global block propagation, to be able to evaluate the health of the network and gain insights to help stake pool operators (SPOs) to enhance their operations. The Foundation’s solution has enabled the collection of data across five continents.
- The advent of Voltaire, Cardano’s development phase relating to governance, has included the release of the first draft of CIP-1694. This Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP), co-written by the Foundation, introduced a new, more inclusive and equitable on-chain governance model for Cardano, ensuring every ADA holder can have a voice in Cardano’s governance.
Enabling real-world education to a variety of stakeholders
- Successful new partnerships to advance blockchain adoption and showcase the versatility of the Cardano blockchain, including with Brazilian state-owned energy company Petrobras and full-stack apparel ecosystem Merchandise.
- Providing a spectrum of tools and expert resources at no cost, including the Cardano Academy, a free resource housing the Cardano Blockchain Certified Associate (CBCA) course.
- Having identified a need for high quality educational materials about third generation blockchain that are accessible to all, the Foundation began to develop the Cardano Explorer so that legal stakeholders can verify that Cardano does what it should.
Fostering adoption through novel initiatives
- The launch of Aiken, a new open source programming language, in April 2023. The language provides savings in execution costs of up to 90%, lowering barriers for entry into the ecosystem and supporting new innovations.
- Freely accessible tools developed by the Foundation like the open source Identity Wallet as well as the searchable, data provisioning tool Ledger Sync, both meant to drive adoption and accelerate enterprise onboarding.
- Sustained progress in the Cardano Foundation’s partnership with Switzerland for UNHCR where the Foundation made the initial delegation of 3.5 million ADA and the community delegated 1.7m ADA for our Impact Challenge.
The emergence of new technologies such as AI and synthetic biology make the need for verifiable credentials and infrastructure more important than ever. Trust in our systems must be strengthened, especially when these systems facilitate governance, commerce, global trade, and education.
Achieving this requires transparency and traceability. It also calls for agile yet dependable infrastructure. With the network’s extraordinary up-time, Cardano stands not just as a beacon of innovation but as a paragon of stability and reliability. As we navigate the complexities of this new digital age, I call upon enterprises, regulators and social systems to join us on our blockchain journey. We invite you to partake in a future that is resilient, equitable, and transparent.
Frederik Gregaard
