Activity Report 2023

Who we areContents

The Cardano Foundation isan independent, Swiss-based
not-for-profit organization tasked
with advancing Cardano as apublic digital infrastructure acrossa wide range of industries.

Introduction

1

What we do

22023 highlights

3

A message from our CEO

4

Operational resilience

6

Education

10

Adoption

13

The Cardano Summit 2023

19

Our mission: bridging Cardano and the world
The Cardano Foundation works to progress Cardano asa public digital utility.

01

working with institutions, businesses, regulators andpolicymakers to solve societal and enterprise challenges
in new ways

In order to achieve economic escape velocity for Cardano,
on-chain activities must include a balanced mix of legacy andblockchain-native use cases. Scaling the diversity, quality,and quantity of activities on Cardano is therefore core to theFoundation’s mission.
This goal faces a number of hurdles, from the cost and complexityof implementation and ownership to lack of comfort with blockchain.
The Cardano Foundation addresses such gaps with targeted
initiatives on operational resilience, education, and adoption.

Cardano Foundation

95+ colleagues

02

65+ countries
propagating Cardano blocks

Activity Report 2023

1

What we do

Our work centres on three mutually reinforcing focus areas:
Op ResEdu

Adoption

Operational resilience

Education

Adoption

Encompasses all efforts to improve Cardano’s suitability
and recognition as an infrastructure component ofinstitutional-grade use cases. The Foundation bolsters
the resilience, reliability, and durability of the Cardano
infrastructure, plus works towards a broader understandingof blockchain and its associated opportunities and risks.
We also collaborate with the community towards achieving
functionally sound and representative governance.

Contributes to information on and legal certainty for third
generation blockchains. The Foundation promotes discussion
and debate, supports research, and explains blockchain
concepts to diverse stakeholders.

Drives use of Cardano by businesses, organizations, andother institutions by creating the conditions for increased utility
while also reducing the adoption and running costs throughimproved tooling. The Foundation contributes to the longevityof the Cardano development ecosystem, including by fostering
open source.

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Cardano Foundation

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Activity Report 2023

2

2023 highlights

2023 saw the Cardano Foundation deliver on a host of initiatives, advancing
and reflecting the maturity of the Cardano infrastructure. Highlights include:
Op ResEdu

Adoption

Operational resilience

Education

Adoption• Implemented network monitoring to assess
and optimize the health of the network.

• Established and opened registrations to the
Cardano Academy.

• Tested decentralized governance mechanismwith a stake pool operator (SPO) poll.

• Leveraged the Cardano Explorer to engage
with regulators.

• Developed compelling use cases todemonstrate the diverse applicationsof Cardano, including the Global Impact
Challenge with Switzerland for UNHCR.

• Supported the Valentine hard fork that brought
improved interoperability.

• Launched ‘Let’s talk Cardano’ webinar series.
• Hosted the Cardano Summit 2023.

• Launched own block producer to enhance
technical and operational insights.

• Created services and APIs to support
enterprise-grade Cardano applications.
• Launched the new open source
programming language Aiken to simplify
the developer experience around smart
contract development.
• Started implementation of auditablecalculation of consensus rewards.

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Cardano Foundation

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Activity Report 2023

3

A message from our CEO

As we look back at 2023,
we can be enormously
proud of what wehave achieved.
At the Cardano Summit 2023 I quoted former Bank ofEngland Governor Mark Carney, who noted that thevalue 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 maintainthe consent and trust of the public is at the core of
our thinking.
As we continue to work at pace to advance the
Cardano infrastructure, this report provides anopportunity to take stock of the scope and scale ofwhat we achieved during the year. The team hasdelivered exceptional work, especially considering
the nimble size of the Cardano Foundation. The
contributions of the Cardano community have also
been inspiring, and so I want to highlight someexamples to illustrate their impact, as well as theirinterconnectedness.

Cardano Foundation

Op ResOperational resilience
The fabric of society is interwoven with the criticalinfrastructure upon which we rely. For this reason
operational resilience forms the bedrock of theFoundation’s work.
The real-time, continuous network monitoring
capabilities the Foundation developed during2023 have added immensely to our insights. The
ability to identify unusual activity allowed us topinpoint issues with two exchanges and work
alongside their respective technical teams toresolve these issues, resulting in improvements
to the overall health of the network. This clearly
demonstrates the value of knowledge sharing
harnessing multidisciplinary teams to identify andaddress issues.
Capabilities such as these are also an area ofkeen interest in our discussions with some of themost sophisticated regulators in the world. We
were met with strong interest in the Foundation’s
perspectives on business continuity and disasterrecovery, as well as with the concept of running
enterprise applications on a decentralized anddistributed system.
Our operational resilience activities also resulted
in contributions by the Cardano Foundation to the
Cardano node visible via GitHub. Notwithstanding
the Cardano community’s ability to innovate andmake changes to the network while it operates –Activity Report 2023

4

A message from our CEO continued
akin to flying a plane while working on the engine– the infrastructure has run continuously for morethan 2,000 days.
Establishing representative governance is anothercore element of ensuring the sustainability of the
Cardano infrastructure. As part of our ongoingcollaboration with the University of Zurich we ran
a simulation to assess the impact on business
continuity of introducing voting. We evaluated the
proposed revision of Cardano’s on-chain governancesystem, CIP-1694, using a digital twin of what exists
today as well as what could exist in the future. That
process gave us valuable insights into the impact
of changes in governance, and we concluded that
incremental rather than wholesale changes prove
more effective. In this vein, our SPO poll experiment
saw an incredible level of participation – 50% ofactive stake – and generated valuable governanceand operational learnings.

blockchain and Cardano. We also offer a large
and growing repository of tutorials and materials
to onboard new developers. Likewise, the Cardano
Developer Portal remains an important and growing
resource to encourage diversity of the developer
community by sharing solutions and features.
Our flagship event, the Cardano Summit 2023,
was a resounding success. The main stage
event in Dubai included attendees both fromlong established industries and from multiple
blockchain ecosystems, as well as regulatorsand policymakers. In addition to an inspiring
program of presentations and panel discussions,the two-day event provided a valuable opportunity
for networking, collaboration, and celebrationof achievements.
Adoption

Edu

Adoption
Education
Having identified a need for high quality educational
materials about third generation blockchain that areaccessible to all, the Foundation began to develop
the Cardano Explorer so that legal stakeholders
can verify that Cardano does what it should.
Later on, December 2023 saw the launch of the
Cardano Academy to allow anyone to learn about

Cardano Foundation

We are keen to disprove the persistent misconceptionthat associates blockchain solely with capital
markets or digital applications. Our work with
the Georgian wine industry and Merchadise
exemplifies precisely these wider uses andadvantages. It showcases the benefits of assigning
digital identities to individual physical items andmaking them verifiably authentic. In fact, theGeorgian wine organization registered sales incountries they had never marketed to, from buyers

keen to authenticate their purchases in a way
not currently possible through established
online marketplaces.
In order to be able to anchor these physicalproducts onto the Cardano blockchain without
users needing technical knowledge, theFoundation developed a web application to sit on
top of the blockchain. Additional examples of freely
accessible, off-blockchain tools developed by
the Foundation to drive adoption and accelerateenterprise onboarding include the open source
Identity Wallet as well as the searchable, data
provisioning tool Ledger Sync.
These efforts to bring more open source into the
Cardano ecosystem stood as a key goal for 2023.
The Foundation therefore asked the community tothink about the biggest problem they could solve
using a widely adopted programming language,
and they identified an opportunity to simplify andenhance the development of smart contracts
on Cardano. We gave them the freedom to see
if their solution could work, and the outcome
was Aiken. In every situation we observed so far,
Aiken led to lower execution costs, sometimes
saving up to 90%. It has lowered the barrier toentry so significantly that some of the largest
projects on Cardano have switched to Aiken. This
demonstrates the power of open source
and that the best solutions need not requirelarge investment.

Looking ahead
The emergence of exponential technologies
such as AI and synthetic biology makethe need for verifiable credentials andinfrastructure 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, a testament to the reliability andtrustworthiness paramount to any criticalinfrastructure, Cardano stands not just as
a beacon of innovation but as a paragonof stability.
As we navigate the complexities ofthis brave new digital age, I call uponenterprises and social systems to join us
on our blockchain journey. We invite you topartake in a future that is resilient, equitable,
and transparent.
Frederik Gregaard
CEO, Cardano Foundation

Activity Report 2023

5

Op Res

Operational
resilience
Cardano Foundation

Activity Report 2023

6

Operational resilience

Ensuring a robust and reliable Cardano blockchain.
An operationally resilient blockchain ensures thesafety, availability, and trustworthiness of the network.
It meets business standards and regulatory needs.
It can endure disruptions, maintaining integrity andconsistency even in the face of unforeseen events.
Resilience strategies such as redundancy
and monitoring improve network stability anduser confidence.
A core element of the Cardano Foundation’s
work to support operational resilience focuses on
decentralization because as a public, permissionless
blockchain that utilizes proof of stake (PoS), Cardano’s
network security increases as on-chain participation
grows. We also need to achieve economic escapevelocity for the Cardano infrastructure through thegeneration of transaction fees that are then distributed
back to those ensuring the operations and consequent
security of the network.

03

4.4+ million
stake credentials registered

Cardano Foundation

Mechanisms to support this include the Cardano
Improvement Proposal (CIP) program, which allows
the community to propose new features, align on
standards, and receive feedback. The Developer
Portal helps all those building on the network as wellas technical newcomers, bringing more people into
Cardano’s technical ecosystem. At the same time, theFoundation’s Integrations Team provides technicalsupport to third parties during infrastructure upgrades,
contributing to seamless transitions.
A vital element of the Cardano blockchain’s long-termsustainability as a decentralized, self-sustaining
network relates to establishing representative
governance policies where those operating andmaintaining the infrastructure, as well as thoseparticipating on-chain through delegation andadditional ecosystem stakeholders, must playa role in decision-making.

04

Improving interoperability
The implementation of the Valentine – orStandards for Efficient Cryptography protocol(SECP) – upgrade on 14 February 2023 allowed
the expansion of Cardano’s capabilities forcross-chain interoperability.
Traditionally, when Cardano developers needed toengage with other blockchains, the process was
arduous, time-consuming as well as expensive,and exposed potential security vulnerabilities.
The Valentine upgrade streamlined the process,making it fast, straightforward, cost-effective,
and better able to withstand security threats. As
a result, Cardano now supports interoperability,
ensuring developers more familiar with alternative
ecosystems can easily build on the infrastructure.

9.3+ million
native tokens minted

Activity Report 2023

7

Operational resilience continued
Monitoring the Cardano network

Enhancing stake pool insights andrevisiting delegation strategy

2023 began with a project to build real-timemonitoring capabilities of global block propagation
to be able to evaluate the health of the network, gain
insights to help SPOs enhance their operations, andadapt where needed. The Foundation’s solution
has enabled the collection of data across fivecontinents. This wealth of information increases
the quality of our contributions, enhances theFoundation’s research, and provides valuable
insights to the Parameter Committee.
The new capabilities allowed the identification of
anomalies relating to two important stake pools.
The Foundation contacted the affected parties
and worked with their respective technical teams
to resolve the issues, resulting in changes to how
the nodes were configured that, in turn, led to
improvements to the overall network health.

Block propagation
issue identified fortwo exchanges.

97%

average block production health(chain density)

Cardano Foundation

Issues fixed. Results
show significant
improvement in overall
network health.

03
02
Network monitoring
tools in place.
Continuous monitoring
initiated.

Exchange 1

05

Exchanges
contacted
and situation
explained.

01

04

Network
monitoring

Exchange 2

05

Return to normal
business operations
and monitoring.

The Cardano Foundation regularly revisits andupdates its delegation methodology to bettersupport the Cardano community. Changes toimprove the quality and effectiveness of theapproach included reducing the number of pools
the Foundation delegates to, which will increase
the size of the packages. This, combined withextended delegation duration, will help enhancethe overall quality of selections, plus allow pools toflourish and establish themselves more effectively.
In addition, the Cardano Foundation launched its
own stake pool. Maintaining and running a stake
pool for a fraction of the Foundation’s own assets
will allow a greater understanding of topologies,
building from source, pre-releases, hard fork
preparations, server-resources and network
bandwidth. This first-hand knowledge is essential
for refining our decisions and offering morenuanced support to the community.

06

3,100+
stake pools

Activity Report 2023

8

Operational resilience continued
Establishing sound andrepresentative governance
The advent of Voltaire, Cardano’s development
phase relating to governance, has included therelease of the first draft of CIP-1694. This Cardano
Improvement Proposal (CIP), co-written by theFoundation, introduced a new, more inclusive
and equitable on-chain governance model for
Cardano, ensuring every ada holder can havea voice in Cardano’s governance.

CIP-1694, the subject of extensive discussion
and community feedback since its release, wasmerged into the main branch of the CIP repository
on GitHub in June 2023, marking its transition to‘Proposed’ status. The next important step for
CIP-1694 is public ratification.
The Foundation’s work to support the developmentof decentralized governance included extensive
feedback on proposal, convening of CIP-1694
workshops and upgrades to the Cardano Ballot(details on page 18).

Cardano Foundation

As a first step to testing potential governancemechanisms, all SPOs were invited to participate
in an on-chain poll experiment. The on-chain
poll asked SPOs for their stake-weighted opinion
on potential changes to parameters, providing
the Foundation with valuable insights into thecommunity’s needs and preferences.
As part of the project’s key goals, the Foundation
wanted to ensure that stake delegators could
respond to a vote from their current pool if they
disagreed with it. For this reason, the initial two
response epochs of the pools were followedby two more epochs at which delegates could
choose to remove their support and redelegate toanother pool more aligned with their views, withthe reallocation of stakes serving to influence theoutcome of future voting rounds.
When the complete implementation of Voltaire
takes place, polls could be used to assess thecommunity sentiment regarding specific topics.
Delegated representatives (DReps), with an
influence proportional to the amount of support
they receive through delegation, would vote on
the polls. These binding votes would allow the
Cardano community to make important decisions
on various proposals. The Foundation’s on-chain
poll for SPOs is an important step in this direction,
to test the system and ensure it is calibrated forforming robust proposals.

January 2023
Jan

Feb

Mar

• Internal assessment• Workshop• On-chain pollplan & pitch• CIP-0094 design

May

Apr-May

Mar-Apr• Further comms• Mainnet run• 49.4% of active stakeparticipation• SPO workshops• Testnet run• Integration with
explorer dashboards• CLI extension• Haskell pull request• Initial comms

Aug

Sep

Oct

• Parameter Committee
recommendation
for minPoolCost• Foundation responseto recommendation• minPoolCost
updated on mainnet

October 2023

The proposal outlined a tricameral model
consisting of SPOs, delegated representatives(DReps), and a Constitutional Committee (CC), eachwith distinct responsibilities. Under the proposedmodel these three groups will collaborate on
governance decisions, including determining
parameter adjustments and treasury withdrawals.

Testing on-chain governance

Answers by pool stake/%

Keep k at 500 and minPoolCost at 340 ada

2.08b / 19.2%

Keep k at 500 and halve minPoolCost to 170 ada

2.73b / 25.1%

Increase k to 1000 and keep minPoolCost at 340 ada

1.46b / 13.4%

Increase k to 1000 and halve minPoolCost to 170 ada

2.99b / 27.6%

I would prefer to abstain
None of the provided options

79.56m / 00.7%
1.51b / 14.0%

Activity Report 2023

9

Edu

Education
Cardano Foundation

Activity Report 2023

10

Education

Contributing to understanding of blockchain and regulatory clarity.
Enterprise adoption requires comfort with theopportunities and risks of blockchain, as well as
certainty on the applicable legal and regulatory
frameworks. A functional understanding of blockchain
is fundamental to the development of appropriate
regulation to protect users and investors, building
trust and confidence in the technology; it also proves
essential to empowering enterprises and developers
to use and contribute to the ecosystem.
The Cardano Foundation has long championed
diverse forms of education, from seeking to foster
regulatory clarity and supporting blockchain research
to providing reliable information. In addition to theFoundation’s ongoing work to engage with regulators,
participate in events and write expert articles, 2023
saw the launch of the Cardano Explorer, the Cardano
Academy, and the ‘Let’s talk Cardano’ webinar series
to advance understanding of the infrastructure andits applications.

07

10+ engagements

Leveraging Cardano Explorer
for regulatory outreachfrom the perspective of both delegators and SPOs,
showing the incentive structures and financial flows.
Likewise, the Explorer provides similar visualization
for Cardano’s smart contracts and native scripts, aswell as compliance with the various asset standards
based on Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIP). The
tool also includes the protocol parameters, the fulllifecycle of the parameters on Cardano, and the key
properties of how Cardano functions.

The beta phase of a new Cardano Explorer launchedin August, the first part of a visualization tool designed
to explain to regulators, policymakers and other legal
stakeholders how Cardano functions. Indeed, theExplorer has already proved an invaluable tool toopen conversations and build understanding
and trust as the Cardano Foundation seeks to meetthe need for high quality information and build on our
reputation as a responsible guide to blockchain.

Built primarily in Java and standard
Web 2.0 technology, the Explorer looks to attract a
broad new community of developers and encouragethem to contribute code to the project. The code will
become open source in the coming months.

User experience is at the heart of the Explorer. For
example, an infographic depicts the staking lifecycle,
setting out transactions and user journeys withaccompanying explanations. These can be viewed

SPO

Pool hold

Fees

500

0.224021

Cardano Blockchain

Pool registration certificate

with regulators and policymakers
Cardano Foundation

Activity Report 2023

11

Education continued
Engaging with policymakers
The Cardano Explorer contributed tothe significant strides the Foundation
made in its regulatory outreach work.
During the year we engaged with the
EBA, ESMA, FCA and FINMA, achieving
coverage in jurisdictions spanning morethan one third of the global population ofsmartphone users.
In addition to participation in events andface-to-face meetings, a core part of theFoundation’s engagement with regulators
centers on responding to consultations.
Examples included the Financial Stability

Board’s consultation on its
stablecoin and crypto-asset activity
recommendations, as well as the
Token Mapping Consultation by theAustralian Government’s Treasury.
The Foundation also contributed topolicy developments and publications
on Staking in Switzerland.
In all responses, the Foundation
advocates for an appropriate,risk-based legal and regulatory
framework that takes into consideration
the vast range of existing and potential
blockchain use cases.

Launching webinars
As a further way to equip the community andstimulate conversations, the Foundation createda series of webinars titled ‘Let’s talk Cardano’.
The first focused on the Women of Cardano,
featuring three panels: Businesses Building on
Cardano, Cardano NFTs (cNFTs), and Womenin Catalyst. Later episodes discussed the ways
blockchain can create positive social impact,
delved into tokenization, and offered insights into
the role of oracles in the decentralized finance(DeFi) landscape. The webinars also gave the
Cardano community an opportunity to ask
questions of our CEO, Frederik Gregaard.

Establishing the
Cardano Academy
In December the Foundation launched the Cardano Academy, afree resource housing the Cardano Blockchain Certified Associate(CBCA) course. This followed the success earlier in the year of
the Alpha Program, comprising the first 10 modules of the course,which was accessed by more than 1,500 participants spanningmore than 30 nationalities and 15 different industries.
Designed for anyone from business professionals, students,
teachers, or researchers to Web 2.0 professionals and blockchain
engineers, the course incorporates gamified micro-learning
delivery to maximize engagement, comprehension, and retention.
In 2024, the Foundation intends to provide those undertaking thecourse with the opportunity to become CBCA-certified.
The Foundation is delighted to have welcomed Brazil’s stateowned energy company Petrobras as the first Fortune 500
partner of the Cardano Academy, with content delivered via
the Petrobras University.

The Cardano Academy
is empowering the digitalarchitects of the future.

Take the course

Cardano Foundation

Activity Report 2023

12

Adoption

Adoption
Cardano Foundation

Activity Report 2023

13

Adoption

Creating the conditions for diversifying blockchain adoption.
The Foundation works to encourage adoption
through targeted partnerships with enterprises,
institutions, government agencies, NGOs, anduniversities to develop a range of legacy use cases
anchored on blockchain. Another significant part ofour mission is to engage with and support the Cardano
community, assisting the development of tools thecommunity can use to leverage Cardano to solve
problems in new ways.
The Foundation sees the advancement of open
source technologies as an important step towards
a sustainable and robust Cardano ecosystem. An
open source approach facilitates the creation oftechnologies that meet specific enterprise needs,
while supporting the community by ensuring an
egalitarian, innovative space that allows all developers
to build upon and improve tools for the future of the
network. We advocate for the open source maturityof the Cardano ecosystem, supporting collaborative
initiatives that increase the diversity, as well as thequality and quantity of blockchain solutions.

Cardano Foundation

Assuring the authenticity
of licensed merchandise
As part of the Cardano Foundation’s collaboration
with the US-based sports brand, Epoch Sports,
and the full-stack apparel ecosystem, Merchadise,limited edition lacrosse jerseys were embeddedwith a near-field communication (NFC) Epochbranded patch and distributed during the 2023
World Lacrosse Men’s Championship.
Scanning the patch with a smartphone takes theuser to a website showing a digital NFT version of
the jersey, linking the physical garment to a secure
blockchain to prove the item’s authenticity. These
NFC patches not only allow consumers to register
their purchase, but to access exclusive rewards
and special offers.
This technical collaboration seeks todrive blockchain adoption in the licensed
merchandise industry by potentially enhancing
intellectual property protection as well as
engagement. NFC chips or other technicalsolutions, securely linked to a blockchain recordin the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), could
replace traditional licensed intellectual property
hologram tags on sports apparel, guaranteeing
authenticity for purchasers and empowering
license owners to combat counterfeiting.
Activity Report 2023

14

Adoption continued

Set-upFacilitating verification of provenance
Keen to demonstrate ways of leveraging
Cardano to facilitate traceability in supply chains,the Foundation collaborated with the wine
industry in the Republic of Georgia to address
challenges in relation to counterfeiting as wellas the cumbersome, heavily paper-based export
process. Digitalizing processes and putting
them alongside digital signatures onto a sharedsystem on a trusted blockchain, especially one notgoverned by a single authority, makes it possible tovalidate the entries, even if the participants in theinternational supply chain access the information
via different applications.

Connected
Packaging
ProviderHarvestManufacturing

Bottling

Export

04

05

07

16

17

Campaign andproduct data
points preconfigured

Labels printed
and information
uploaded

Connected packaging
campaign, products, anddata points updated

Connected
packaging system
updated with
relevant data

Campaign
activated

CardanoFoundation
(CF)

08

12

SCM information
added to CF web
app, signed bywinery, and added tothe blockchain

Signed conformity
certificate data
added to CF
web app and theblockchain

06

01

03

09

10

Supply chain
management(SCM)

Grapesharvested

Wine createdthroughmanufacturing
processand stored
in Qvrevi forfermentation

Wine bottled
and lot
createdWinery/exporter apply
for conformity
certificate on
NWA portal

NWA notified

Information
captured into
CSV file

Lab quality
testing
requested

15
Certificate
revokedon-chain by
CF web app

Information
updated to CF
web app

14

18

Certificate
contains
incorrect
information

Bottlesscanned andassociatedto conformity
certificate

Wine readyto be shippedand exported

NWA systemnotified and
CF web app
updatedWineryNetworked
Warehouse
Automation
(NWA)

02

11

13

Information
stocked on
NWA host

Request and lab results
reviewed by NWA

Certificatedprinted,signed, andpostedConformity certificate
issued by NWA
Items in blue refer to certificates that are revoked on-chain.

Cardano Foundation

Activity Report 2023

15

Adoption continued

Using blockchain for impact
Launched in January 2023 at the ‘Blockchain
for Good’ conference in Davos, the Cardano
Foundation’s second Annual Global Impact
Challenge happened in collaboration with
Switzerland for UNHCR, the UN Refugee
Agency’s partner in the country.
Rather than the typical approach of donating directly
to a charity, the project established a mechanism
for providing ongoing support, with ada holders
delegating to a stake pool and any potential rewards
generated from that stake pool directed towards
supporting Switzerland for UNHCR’s mission. With
this innovative approach, Switzerland for UNHCR canreceive long-term support that is not earmarked toa particular crisis, while donors can continue to help
while retaining their original delegated stake.
Leading Swiss digital asset infrastructure provider
Taurus operates the charity stake pool, and the
Cardano Foundation made the initial delegation of
3.5 million ada. The UNHCR’s Innovation Program
receives 20% of the stake pool rewards, while
the remaining 80% fund Switzerland for UNHCR’s
missions supporting forcibly displaced people.

Cardano Foundation

Other examples of the Foundation’s work with
Switzerland for UNHCR include a ‘Let’s talkCardano’ webinar held on World Refugee Day
about the potential of NFTs for humanitarianaid, and joint participation in a Sygnum Bank
podcast to discuss how blockchain can help tosolve humanitarian challenges. The Foundation
has also facilitated introductions across the
Cardano community, leading to multiple projects incollaboration with the UN Refugee Agency’s Swiss
partner to help the refugee cause, including thelaunch of exclusive NFT series.

08

3.5m adadelegated by the Cardano Foundation
for the Impact Challenge with
Switzerland for UNHCR

09

1.7m adadelegated by the Cardano community for
the Impact Challenge with Switzerlandfor UNHCR

The work with Switzerland for UNHCR follows
the Cardano Foundation’s first Annual Global
Impact Challenge, a partnership with veritree that
saw the Cardano community contributing to theplanting of one million trees in Kenya. The Cardano
Foundation designs these Impact Challenges
to unite the international Cardano ecosystemin support of an application that demonstrates
the utility of blockchain technology while creating
positive impact.

Activity Report 2023

16

Adoption continued
Growing on-chain activity withtechnical enablers
Equipping developers with the best tools
and information ensures they have the means tocontinue problem-solving and building solutions.
Moreover, using accessible programming
languages is key to driving developer diversity,
helping to maintain a strong, secure blockchainthat fosters and rewards innovation as wellas collaboration.

the Cardano Foundation has committed toprovide ongoing maintenance, plus to work withthe community to define standards and potentialreference implementations for decentralized data
APIs where Ledger Sync might be used as theunderlying data layer. Delivering a hosted data
API that guarantees high availability and accuracy
with a professional support model would further
address the needs of enterprises and make iteasier for them to implement blockchain solutions.

The community identified an opportunity to simplify
and enhance the creation of smart contracts on
Cardano. An open source approach resulted in
Aiken, a new programming language for smart
contracts, easily approachable for developers
familiar with languages such as Java and Rust.
This new solution has already seen promisinglevels of adoption, achieving more than 4% of
smart contract volume on Mainnet in the threemonths to December, and more than 1% on
PreProd Testnet even before its officiallyreleased for production.

The Foundation also made significant strides
on a new version of the Rosetta application
programming interface (API) to be rolled out
in 2024. This will replace the heavyweight
dependency on db-sync with a more lightweightdata provisioning layer to reduce the application’s
resource footprint. The Rosetta standard simplifies
blockchain deployment and interaction, ensuring
developers can use external applications tointerface with different blockchains in a similar
way. This should reduce the operating costs oftrading for exchanges.

Summer 2023 saw the launch of Ledger Sync,
a Java-based data provisioning tool built on open
source software enabling ready and dependable
access to data on the blockchain. Basing Ledger
Sync on this well-established programming
language further supports diversification of the
Cardano developer ecosystem. In addition torunning this project in an open source fashion,

A new partnership with TxPipe provides easy
access to common Cardano services on
their platform Demeter and streamlines thedevelopment process within the Cardano
ecosystem to make building decentralized
applications (DApps) more developer-friendly.
The Foundation subsidized a free tier that offered
access to the Demeter platform. It enabled

Cardano Foundation

access to several developer tools from the
Cardano ecosystem, as well as starter-kits forvarious use cases including templates for quickly
bootstrapping new projects.
Launched in December 2023, the Identity Walletmakes it possible to maintain digital and physicalidentities in an off-chain infrastructure thatlinks to the blockchain. The open source walletcharacteristics also ensure its interoperability
with the most widespread identity standards
and mobile platforms. Furthermore, the walletis scalable across blockchains, acknowledging
that user identities should not end up boundto a specific infrastructure but rather that user
sovereignty must be core to any solution design.
As a more formal complement to ongoing input
from developers, the Foundation invites feedback
from the technical community on gaps andopportunities for improvement in its annual Stateof the Cardano Developer Ecosystem outreach.
The second edition of the survey ran in the autumn
and provides a useful barometer of the current
technical landscape, its evolution since 2022,
and potential opportunities for enhancement in
the current programming stack.

10

40%

largest Cardano DApps migrated
to Aiken11

200+

developers completed Aiken’s
introductory tutorial

Equipping developers
with the best tools
and information
ensures they have themeans to continue
problem-solving andbuilding solutions.
Activity Report 2023

17

Adoption continued
Optimizing reward calculation

Improving Cardano Ballot

Launching the Cardano StoreIn return for their role in operating the network,
SPOs may receive rewards, shared with thosestaking funds to that pool. The Foundation open
sourced a node-independent reward calculation
with the objective of diversifying the means of
performing and validating the rewards calculation,
and also to provide comprehensive documentation
related to Cardano’s treasury, reserves, andpool rewards.

Since its initial deployment for the Cardano Summit
2022, the Cardano Ballot has evolved significantly
into a modular, open source repository featuring
independent backend services that can becoupled with bespoke user interfaces, enabling acustomizable blockchain-based voting solution.
In addition to free, user-based voting, the Ballot
can now also be leveraged for stake-based voting
events, weighted according to the amount of
ada staked by participants before a predefinedsnapshot of the Cardano blockchain.

Managed by the Cardano Foundation, theCardano Store sells a limited range of Cardanobranded merchandise accessories to further
activate the Cardano brand and help bring it toa wider audience. In addition to elegant designs,
the Store also looks into ways of leveraging
blockchain’s immutable records to authenticate
products. The first batch of 250 hoodies
incorporate an evolved version of the Merchadise
solution with improved verifiability using encrypted
NFC tags and CIP-25 based NFTs.

Upgrading Kupo and Ogmios
During 2023, features were added to Kupo,a chain-indexer that synchronizes data fromthe blockchain according to patterns matching
addresses in transaction outputs. Performanceand usability improvements included allowing
inputs to be filtered by metadata tag, the ability
to use Hydra nodes as possible data sources,
and a new command to allow copying and filteringof an existing index.
The Ogmios bridge interface also underwent asignificant upgrade during the year. The releaseof the new major version 6 led to several key
changes in the API, as well as a normalizationof the underlying schema in an effort to makeinterfaces across all Cardano tools more uniform.

Additional innovation in 2023 included supporting
the Cardano Summit 2023 Awards voting with thefirst-ever Hydra Tally. To enhance transparency,
scalability, and auditability, the Foundation used
Aiken smart contracts and Hydra to enableon-chain validation of the voting results. This
allows the public to inspect the smart contract dataand easily confirm whether the results were tallied
correctly for each award category.
12
During the year the Foundation also supported
IOG for a CIP-1694 pre-ratification event using the
Cardano Ballot. The requirement for a stake-based– as opposed to user-based – approach to voting
saw each ballot weighted according to the amountof ada staked by an address at a given time.

1,050+

user-based votes for Cardano Summit Awards

13

700+

stake-based votes for CIP-1694
pre-ratification event
Cardano Foundation

Activity Report 2023

18

Connecting, educating,and inspiring the
Cardano community.
Cardano Foundation

Activity Report 2023

19

Cardano Summit 2023

Each year the Cardano Summit stands asa highlight, offering a valuable forum forcelebration, inspiration, and collaboration.

Taking place in November, this year’s main stage
event in Dubai was complemented by 27 communityled events around the world, with thousands of virtual
attendees accessing the content remotely, live
and on demand.
The first ever Cardano Summit Hackathon preceded the event,
providing the community with further opportunities for learningand collaboration. Hackathons also frequently trigger fresh ideas
and lead to rapid prototype development. The Summit Hackathon
therefore challenged participants to develop technology-driven
projects that promote transparency in governance, a focus in the
Voltaire phase of the Cardano blockchain. Participants were tasked
with creating solutions such that individuals and organizations
unfamiliar with blockchain can easily access and understandgovernance actions, policies, and decision-making processes.
More than 1,000 people worked on 41 submissions, with the winnerannounced during the Gala Awards Dinner at the end of the Summit.

Cardano Foundation

14

10,000+attendees globally

15

1,000+

Cardano Summit Hackathon participants

16

500,000+
on demand content views

Activity Report 2023

20

Cardano Summit 2023 continued
In addition to the invaluable networking opportunities thatcharacterize the Summit, the opening evening of the event in
Dubai included an energizing Battle of the Builders. The Cardano
Foundation designed this new feature to encourage innovationand entrepreneurship. Ten finalist startups, poised to leverage the
Cardano platform, pitched their projects to the expert panel of juries
and in front of the Summit attendees.
The following two days covered a rich program of presentations,panel discussions, workshops and masterclasses. Day 1 focused on
operational resilience and education, with over 35 sessions, while
the panels and keynote sessions on Day 2 delved into adoption andimpact. The Summit closed with a Gala Awards Dinner in the shadowof the world’s tallest building, to celebrate award recipients acrossten categories in addition to the winning Hackathon team.
The Foundation was also pleased to announce at the Summit ourthird Cardano Global Impact Challenge partner, the UNDP-ledcommunity platform Tadamon. The partnership seeks to increaseawareness of how blockchain technology can address thedevelopment challenges faced by civil society organizations(CSOs) across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The collaboration
will develop capacity-building programs, knowledge-sharing
initiatives, training sessions, and collaborative events to foster
knowledge about blockchain technology.
The Cardano Summit exemplifies the power of bringing people
together. It is a reflection of – as well as a catalyst for – the palpable
growth of the Cardano community and the exciting opportunities
that lie ahead.

Cardano Foundation

The Cardano Summit exemplifies
the power of bringing people together.
It is a reflection of – as well
as a catalyst for – the palpable growthof the Cardano community and theexciting opportunities that lie ahead.
Visit Summit website

17

75+

sessions and workshops in Dubai

18

25+

community-led events across the world

Activity Report 2023

21

cardanofoundation.org