What’s New at Cardstack?

We’ve launched Githereum on testnet.

Githereum is live on testnet.

We have launched the first instance of Githereum on the Rinkeby test network (for private testing). Githereum is an implementation of Git on Ethereum. In a nutshell: Various versions of a card (both code and data) are saved in Git repositories. The latest state of each card is recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. This way, users can retrieve the latest state of the card from the blockchain or go back to a specific recorded version that they would like to restore.

Use cases for this combination of Git and Ethereum are manifold. Githereum could be used to create a Dropbox-like file and folder sharing system based on the public-key infrastructure of Ethereum. It could be used to build decentralized registries that allow multiple parties to write entries, while the smart contract controls the evolution to an agreed global state. Another example is a public catalog that could form the basis of the Card Catalog and work like an app store, allowing users to submit, download, and remix cards.

Have you tried out Tally yet?

Tally, our metering and billing system for decentralized software as a service (dSaaS), was launched on the Rinkeby test network in August. Please note: You don’t have to be a developer to play with Tally! So, if you haven’t had a chance to try it out (find all instructions here), we will happily airdrop you some testing tokens. Using those tokens, you can buy prepaid cards and subscribe to services on Tally as a customer, or offer your own services and bill customers as a service provider.

While Tally is a great starting point and a crucial part of the CARD Protocol, our multi-currency payment and billing network, it is not complete without the features and products for which it will be used. That’s why, having evaluated the usage of Tally since its testnet launch, we have decided to prioritize complementary features that will provide a great end-user experience in the coming weeks. Once we have those implementations in place, we will be ready to launch Tally on mainnet together with the end-user facing products we are currently building. Our testnet launch of Githereum is the first step.

Card Schema V2 is in the works.

A card schema defines what a card is as well as its relationships with other cards. This definition is used to build applications that allow these cards to move around.

Learn all about one of the basic building blocks of Cardstack: card schemas. Listen to Chris Tse explain the concepts and design of card schemas in his tech talk or read about them at your own pace in this blog post, which lays out all the details, accompanied by links to the relevant sections of the video. Understanding the principle of card schemas is a crucial aspect of making the decentralized Web a reality — in the same scrumptious UI quality people expect from today’s centralized apps.

The Cardstack team is building, improving, and making plans.

Cardstack’s Senior Blockchain Developer Hassan Abdel-Rahman is working hard on improving the Cardstack Framework, implementing Cardstack data services based on the Card Schema V2 design. Lead Developer Ed Faulkner is busy with architectural reviews. Additionally, he focuses on Boxel — a spatial-physical system for composing 2D box elements (aka Boxel) in a multi-planar (2.5D) environment — assisted by Senior Developer Will Bagby and Design Technologist Burcu Noyan. Our Senior Developer Alex Speller has been working on Githereum. Meanwhile, Software Engineer Jen Weber has immersed herself in the land of hackathons, while she continues her substantive work on the first version of Cardstack’s developer documentation. As soon as our new APIs around data management and user interface interactions are ready, we plan to relaunch our documentation.