

Here are some of the key highlights from this month’s newsletter:

The first smart contract KEVM testnet for Cardano was successfully launched on May 28.

Cardano Roadmap updates for June include instant display of Daedalus wallet balances when a wallet is restored; faster network synchronisation; more efficient blockchain storage; and a second version of paper wallets. In addition, ADA will be added to South Korea’s largest mobile payment platform around Q3 of 2018.

Cardano Foundation successfully hosted community meet ups in London, Munich and Zurich this week.

IOHK released a blog post which talks more about their vision for blockchain in Africa.

IOHK released a blog post which talks more about their vision for blockchain in Africa. Community Question: Is having a Paper Wallet the best way to securely store Ada?

KEVM testnet is successfully launched

We are excited to announce that IOHK has successfully launched the KEVM testnet, the first smart contracts testnet for Cardano. Check out our summary forum post on the KEVM testnet launch video, where Duncan Coutts explains:

The two different kinds of testnets - (i) those developed for a new feature and, (ii) those developed to demonstrate what follows in the next version; and

The importance of distinguishing between the two different types of testnets - as they serve different purposes and last for different periods of time

Read the forum post

Cardano Roadmap Update

Summary of the new items added to the Cardano Roadmap:

Faster Wallet Restoration - In the Cardano 1.2.0 release, wallet restoration is improved. The balance will display immediately, while the wallet’s transaction history will be restored in the background.

Faster Network Synchronisation - There is ongoing work to make the block syncing process faster.

More Efficient Blockchain Storage - Similarly, there will be improved download speed of blocks, making it faster for the Daedalus wallet to synchronise with the blockchain.

Paper Wallet Version 2 - The second iteration in the development of paper wallets will improve security and usability.

Emurgo partners with Metaps Plus - This strategic partnership entails integrating Ada token into Metaps Plus’s mobile marketing and mobile payment platforms.

Go to Cardano Roadmap

Cardano Meetups in London, Zurich, Munich and Seattle

On 12th and 13th June, Cardano Foundation hosted the Inaugural Cardano Meetups in Munich and Zurich. In Munich there were presentations which looked at potential use cases for Cardano, while in Zurich Michael Parsons, Cardano Foundation Chairman spoke. There was also another London meetup on the 11th of June where Prof Aggelos Kiayias, Chief Scientist at IOHK presented on the academic research the project is undertaking.

While in Seattle two community members came together to host the first meetup in the city. Hosted by Sebastien and Less, many interesting and engaging topics were covered in their discussion. Read the recap summary post by Less and watch the recorded livestream posted by Sebastien.

Read Summary Forum Post on Seattle Meetup

Cardano’s Vision For Africa Becoming A Reality

Last month, IOHK signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Agreement with the Ethiopian government. In the MoU, IOHK stated there intent to train and hire Haskell developers from a new office in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian government stated its intent to help IOHK to deploy Cardano in Ethiopian agriculture.

You can read more about Cardano’s vision for Africa and how it is now becoming a reality in this blog post written by John O’Connor, IOHK’s Director of African Operations.

Read Blog post on Cardano’s Vision for Africa

Community Questions

The recent launch of Paper Wallet roused great interest in our community. On this month’s newsletter, we would like to share a community question about paper wallets raised on the Cardano Forum by our community member Alex @alex_hill:

“Is having a Paper Wallet the best way to securely store Ada? Is it much more secure than just having it stored in Daedalus?”

Thank you Alex for raising a great question!

Answer: First, we’ll start by explaining what paper wallets are and how to use the Daedalus paper wallet. Paper wallets allow users to store their funds securely offline on a physical medium. With the latest Daedalus update, it is now possible to generate paper wallet certificates for your Ada.

The paper wallet certificate contains a 27-word recovery phrase, of which the first 18 words are printed automatically on the certificate. The remaining 9 words must be written by hand by the user. This process is to improve security as the printed certificate, which could be cached by the printer or compromised in other ways, will not have all the information needed to restore the wallet.

The wallet from the certificate is initially empty when it is created. Users can send funds to it using the wallet address printed on the certificate. Paper wallets can be restored at any time and brought back online using Daedalus.

Now, back to the question on whether it is the best way or most secure way to store Ada. The introduction of paper wallets in Cardano provides users with a protected offline cold storage option for Ada, but whether you use this option is up to you. It is considered secure because of the ability to keep your wallet and private key offline, but as always, users will still need to be able to keep this certificate in a safe and secure place!

It should also be noted that the Daedalus team at IOHK have already begun early development of version 2 of paper wallets. The second iteration in the development of paper wallets will look to improve security and usability.

To learn more about paper wallet, read the Daedalus 0.10.0 release notes here or head to the forum to engage in discussion around paper wallet.

Read about the launch of paper wallets on our forum