Social encounters

IOHK has released an introductory ebook on Plutus, their general-purpose functional programming environment for Cardano, to help you learn about the language as well as to work through real code examples. It is available to download on Amazon Kindle and, for free on LeanPub. Find links to the ebook and IOHK’s blog post about this Plutus ebook with the link.

The Cardano Foundation has earned a spot in the Crypto Valley Top 50 report for the third time. This report is released by the Zug-based investment company Crypto Valley Venture Capital (CV VC) in collaboration with PwC’s Strategy and IT partner inacta. The first report was released in 2018 and is published quarterly to list and study the largest and most important companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein involved in the blockchain space.

With more than 50% (over 400) of all registered companies and all six Unicorns, including the Cardano Foundation, Zug is the heart of Crypto Valley.

The latest report has included the Cardano Foundation as one of the six ‘unicorns’ (an entity valued at more than US$1bn) based in Switzerland and also listed the Foundation in the Top 50 blockchain organizations. Figures also indicate that optimism in Crypto Valley have returned following the so-called crypto winter of last year. These Top 50 companies listed by the CV VC report have doubled their valuations in the first half of 2019, and the ecosystem has grown in both the number of companies active in distributed ledger technology and in the number of professionals employed in this crypto-friendly nation.

Nathan Kaiser, Chairperson of the Cardano Foundation, says:

“This positive development indicates maturity and growth, and we are proud to be a part of it. What we need next is to continue collaborating and working together with others in the industry towards a favorable regulatory and business environment.”

In support and participation of fostering the adoption and beneficial regulation of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, the Cardano Foundation is an active member of:

Read the full CV VC Top 50 report here.

ABOUT CV VC: CV VC was founded by Lakeside Partners, an experienced startup investor and advisor with its own well-established ecosystem, including a co-working space, startup competitions, industry summits and strong ties to Swiss politicians and institutions. Find out more: https://cvvc.com/index.php

About the Cardano Foundation: The Cardano Foundation is an independent body based in Zug, Switzerland, with core responsibilities to help oversee and supervise the development of Cardano, the world’s first third-generation blockchain, and its ecosystem. The Foundation is committed to protecting and promoting Cardano, the first blockchain platform developed for smart contracts using a scientific philosophy, and to advocate on behalf of the users and community of the protocol. The Foundation works alongside Input Output HK (IOHK), who are contracted to design and build Cardano, and EMURGO, the for-profit arm working to boost the Cardano ecosystem through commercial ventures. The three entities are wholly separate in governance, ownership and leadership. Find out more: www.CardanoFoundation.org

Cardano released a new Jormungandr build, v0.3.2. This third testnet release has closed a number of issues, fixed some bugs and housekeeping issues. It also brought some enhancements including some early code to start bringing in network capabilities.

For the full details, visit the repo here.

Documentation and guides

They’ve recently filmed a series of bitesize explainer videos with Duncan Coutts, Chief Technical Architect at IOHK to help explain some of the key protocols and principles that support Cardano Shelley. They’ll be releasing more of these over the coming weeks to help support the program. From staking to delegation, monitoring to validation, Duncan will tackle the topics we all want to learn more about. The first video can be found here.

Community Content

Cardano Ambassador Tommy from ADAtainment creates great videos, covering key Cardano topics in a super accessible way. You can visit his channel and take a look at this video 6 on Shelley address types.

Releases

This past week, DevOps has created 0.3.2 jormungandr-nix, snappy packages, and updated the homebrew packages. They have also published the 0.3.2 chocolatey package. Please see Shelley Testnet Infrastructure for instructions on how to use these packages.

The Cardano Foundation and its ecosystem partners further strengthen their support to a number of educational initiatives worldwide. The Switzerland-based Foundation together with Input Output HK (IOHK) and EMURGO proudly support academic programs in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe that study blockchain technology.

The Cardano Foundation, one of the world’s leading not-for-profit blockchain organizations, will support various initiatives designed to drive the development of digital currency and blockchain technology.

Specifically, the Foundation’s support will help boost the research about the security and the vulnerabilities of the blockchain industry.

The efforts that the Cardano Foundation is supporting include projects undertaken by IOHK and EMURGO. In addition, another one of the Foundation’s donees is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT Digital Currency Initiative that studies the blockchain technology.

Cardano is a ground-breaking blockchain network and the first proof-of-stake platform developed for smart contracts using fundamental research from world-leading academics, most of which is subject to academic peer review, with papers presented at top-tier international conferences. IOHK Research has published 30 academic papers to date.

As the industry continues to professionalize and see engagement from more traditional business sectors, the demand for academic research on blockchain is expected to increase significantly. Greater academic rigor and research will blaze a trail for the blockchain industry’s mass adoption and help educational institutions to design blockchain-related academic disciplines.

As such, EMURGO Academy will train developers and create blockchain experts in India to meet the rising demand for blockchain developers and provide economic empowerment. The Bangalore-based Academy with branches set to expand to Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune will train students and career professionals and offer blockchain-related curriculums to local universities and enterprises.

IOHK regularly conducts Haskell training and workshops around the world, with the latest courses taking place in Barbados, Ethiopia and Greece. In July, the company published an ebook on the smart contract language, Plutus, with further educational materials in the planning.

The MIT Digital Currency Initiative is an interdisciplinary initiative launched by the MIT Media Lab that is designed to drive the development of digital currency and blockchain technology.

SINGAPORE, AUGUST 20 2019 / EMURGO — Official Cardano partner and commercial arm EMURGO, announces today the formal signing of MOUs with Korea Blockchain Contents Association (KBCCA) & Korea Mobile Game Association (KMGA) to mutually identify and explore potentially aligned synergies with integrating Cardano’s blockchain-based solutions into the Korean digital content & mobile gaming industries. These agreements support EMURGO’s mission to drive the adoption of a global Cardano and bring value to ADA holders.

KBCCA & KMGA are both approved by South Korea’s Ministry of Science & ICT to seek healthy, innovative growth of the local digital content and gaming industries through forging partnerships and resource sharing between stakeholders.

“EMURGO is pleased to collaborate with KBCCA & KMGA to foster the continued development of blockchain-based content & mobile gaming industries. With digital content & mobile gaming rising in popularity year after year, there is a huge untapped potential to implement blockchain-based solutions into these lucrative industries,” said EMURGO CEO Ken Kodama.

With a deeply ingrained digital gaming culture and advanced Internet infrastructure, South Korea is the fourth-largest mobile gaming market in the world. According to reports, South Korea also has the highest smartphone penetration rate in the world with 9 out of 10 South Koreans owning a smartphone and the largest mobile gaming user demographic adults aged 21–35, aligning with the average tech-savvy young adults interested in blockchain technology. [1] [2]

Reflecting the overall worldwide trend, South Korean consumers are also increasingly resorting to online content platforms for media consumption fueled by the high domestic smartphone penetration rate and wide offering of content-rich platforms. Korean adult consumers spend more than half of their time online on these digital content platforms. [3]

The combination of an extremely high rate of smartphone ownership along with a developed gaming culture and technological infrastructure in Korea, serves as a strong foundation to potentially implement Cardano’s third-generation blockchain-based solutions into leading game development and content creation enterprises. KBCCA & KMGA both enjoy hundreds of members consisting of these local enterprises.

About EMURGO

EMURGO is the official commercial and venture arm of the Cardano project, headquartered in Singapore, with a presence in Japan, the USA, India, and Indonesia. EMURGO works closely with IOHK and The Cardano Foundation to grow Cardano’s ecosystem globally, and promote its adoption. Learn more about the project at https://emurgo.io

For further information from EMURGO

Florian Bohnert

Chief Marketing Officer

+81 3–6712–7275

florian@emurgo.io

About Korea Blockchain Contents Association (KBCCA)

Korea Block Chain Contents Association provides integrated blockchain contents services through mobile and other various content projects with over 150 member companies. To learn more, visit http://k-bcca.or.kr/

About Korea Mobile Game Association (KMGA)

Korea Mobile Game Association seeks the mutual growth of game developer companies and their employees through practical, on-site support with currently over 800 member companies. To learn more, visit http://www.k-mga.or.kr/

Upcoming events

Cardano Foundation, as one of its sponsors, is attending the WyoHackathon event next month. Hackathons are a great way for us to share Plutus and Marlowe to the wider community. Join the experts from IOHK in Wyoming!

Below are the new Cardano Meetup groups:

See also: