Cardano Shares Latest Updates on Conway, Smart Contract, Scaling, Catalyst, and Others 

Input Output Global (IOG), the development and research arm of the Cardano network, has published a new blog post, highlighting key developments that occurred within the ecosystem this week. 

The weekly #Cardano development update is now live.

Check out the key highlights from this week and get the latest on development progress in core technology, scaling, governance and education.👇https://t.co/EDnnnzSAbK

— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) May 10, 2024

Conway Era Upgrades 

According to the report, the development team responsible for performance and tracing scrutinized benchmarks for the Conway era. This led to the incorporation of Delegate Representatives (DReps), tracing DRep data, and enhancing the mechanism for reporting errors within the tx-generator.  

Additionally, the tracing and performance team worked on the expansion of the node metrics by adding new functionality such as block producer and build information. The team also completed the analysis of the benchmarks that focus on UTXO scaling scenarios. 

The IOG pointed out that the Ledger team has been actively involved in development activities over the past two weeks, focusing mainly on the Conway era. Some key features implemented in the Conway era include implementing the bootstrap phase and the governance action transition.  

Furthermore, the team introduced additional features for testing purposes and also made notable enhancements to the continuous integration (CI) setup. 

Smart Contracts, Scaling, Catalyst, & Education Updates 

Notably, Cardano’s smart contract functionality also received new updates this week. Particularly, the Plutus team improved the efficiency of the UPCL programs by enhancing the implementation of the fixed point operator. 

The Hydra team also swung into action this week. Per the report, the team identified and refactored discrepancies in the network protocol versions and integrated the relevant changes into the /commit endpoint. It also executed some minor workflow fixes to the protocol.

The report provided an update on Cardano’s Catalyst Fund 12, noting that the project is currently underway. Interested participants have been submitting their proposals from various parts of the world. This is to ensure that they beat the deadline for submission, slated for May 13 at 11 AM (UTC).

Lastly, this week, the education team also prepared content for the launch of the DRep Pioneer Program. So far, the team has released the 19th lesson for the Haskell Bootcamp. The team overseeing the education unit is also preparing the content for Mastering Cardano.

Cardano Latest Metrics

Meanwhile, the IOG also provided an update on the latest metrics on Cardano. The number of projects launched on the Cardano network has surged to 170. It bears mentioning that the figure was around 157 in January. This suggests that 13 new projects have joined the Cardano network in less than four months.

Also, the number of projects building on Cardano has soared 2.95%, from 1,319 to 1,358 in the same time frame. Similarly, the network’s native tokens have seen an increase of 5.5% since January till date. The number of native tokens on Cardano rose from 9.45 million to 9.95 million within this period.

The total transactions processed on Cardano also recorded a significant uptick, rising from 83.4 million to 90.3 million.