In exciting news, stake pool operators (SPOs) have passed all the thresholds for the first Chang upgrade. Circa 80% of stakes now produce blocks on node version 9.1.0! 

Whilst we are now technically ready to upgrade, the focus shifts to exchanges and DApps, now responsible to bring us closer to overall ecosystem readiness. Around 30% of exchanges (represented by liquidity) are ready at writing, with shoutouts to WhiteBIT, FMFW, and Gate for signaling readiness early on.

As for DApps, Charli3 was fast out of the blocks, reporting readiness once node 9.1.0 was out. We’re calling on all DApps to report their readiness to the hard fork working group at [email protected].

Intersect’s hard fork working group

July's Q&A session was recorded, and an upgrade guide was shared. Another Q&A session was held on August 15th from 13:00 to 14:00 UTC, and we'll share the recording in our next update.

Keep an eye on Intersect’s hard fork working group readiness page for all the details and latest numbers.

Constitutional workshops underway

We hit the target! Thanks to community members worldwide committed to participating in community governance, we now have 63 scheduled workshops across 50 countries.

Applications are now closed for those wanting to run workshops. We’d like to extend our gratitude to all who applied, as well as dedicated hosts and community members registering to attend their local workshop. By getting involved, you get to have your say on the draft Constitution and the chance to be elected as a delegate to attend the Constitutional Convention in December.

Workshops will be held in Georgia, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Vietnam next week. If you want to participate in these workshops and haven’t yet signed up, check the Luma calendar to find the nearest workshop.
 

Committees elections
 

Intersect was established in January 2024. Individual and organization members staffed seven core committees with support from Intersect professional staff. During Intersect's bootstrapping phase, these committees were filled by those who raised their hands, and they have brought us so far and got us to a stable position. 

As part of our commitment to being a transparent and inclusive member-based organization, elections will now open to all members who want to sit on a committee. So, starting on September 1st, members of Intersect* can apply to join our core committees. The broader membership base will vote on all candidates during October!

If you want to know more about the election application and voting process, please visit one of our community events.  We have created a space within our knowledge base with a wealth of information relating to the committee elections.

If you have any questions about the committee elections, please post them on our dedicated election Discord channel. 

* Intersect members who have joined or renewed their membership for $10 as an individual or $1,000 if an enterprise. "Associates" are not eligible to stand.

Open source

In preparation for committee elections this coming October, the open source committee (OSC) will elect 50% of its seats as part of the committee elections mentioned earlier. Several vacancies are currently open, and still include the opportunity for further elections in October (see above). 

In other news, the open-source office (OSO) staff will attend events like  RareEvo in Las Vegas and the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit Europe in Vienna later this September. We look forward to meeting you there!

ICYMI: We’ve released two new interviews as part of our project support services: Cardano node 9.1.0 with Samuel Leathers and Modus Create/Tweag OSO support. Check them out in the Project Spotlight playlist.

Lastly, our footprint analysis of the Cardano ecosystem, created with Bitergia analytics, is nearing completion. This report will offer an in-depth look at Intersect’s role in promoting decentralized development on Cardano.

Upcoming DRep workshops & survey

This weekend, on August 18th, Andreas Sosilo will conduct a virtual DRep workshop in Indonesian. The event offers participants insights into the roles and responsibilities of a DRep and the overall governance framework of the Cardano blockchain. Register Here.

You can also view a complete list of upcoming workshops here.

Intersect is conducting a five-minute multiple-choice survey to understand the community's thoughts, explore DReps' backgrounds and motivations, identify whom they represent, and uncover any barriers to becoming a DRep.
 

We want to highlight the importance of members' feedback on this vital subject. We'll share the results in a future update, so watch this space.

Community Hubs

Last week, our Japan community hub held a LINE LIVE Talk with 12 attendees and a Constitutional Workshop in Osaka with 29 attendees.

 

Our WADA (Africa) community hub successfully held its West Africa (Goma) launch event with 50 attendees. The event took place simultaneously in three locations: in-house in Accra, in-house in Tamale, and online. The Tamale hub in Ghana, which has been very active, gathered at a venue to participate in governance discussions via a shared link. The event was also streamed online through a link shared on the WADA hub's social media for those unable to attend in person.

To watch the launch, click here - passcode: ".BO$8gS6"

 

In other news, we have the following activities taking place within our Community Hubs:

Japan hub

• X Space is to be held on 16th August at 14:00 UTC.. To join, click here.

WADA (Africa) hub

• West Africa (Ghana) Town Hall on 14th August, with 22 attendees. You can find the recording here (the passcode is TA01vfb$).

CoinCeylon (Sri Lanka) hub

• The Intersect Members Introductory Meetup was held in Colombo on 14 August, with 30 attendees. You can watch the recap video here and find some pictures from the event here.

Membership update

We’re excited to share that since launching our paid membership options on May 30, 2024, we’ve welcomed over 600 new members! That’s an increase of 100 new members joining this week alone. We want to extend our warmest welcome to you all!

Please take some time to review the essential member resources at the bottom of this newsletter. And for those of you who have yet to do so and are considering upgrading from an associate to a full member, you can explore the benefits here and join us here.

Intersect x Rare Evo

We’re thrilled to return to Las Vegas and proud to sponsor Rare Evo this weekend! This year, we’re sharing a Cardano plot with the Cardano Foundation and EMURGO. If you’re in town, swing by!

Intersect's director of marketing and communications, Jack Briggs, will host  a panel along with members Jenny Brito, Adam Rusch, and Lloyd Duhon, who will explore Intersect’s pivotal role in Cardano.

Additionally, Intersect will run a demo and Q&A session focussing on governance tooling. Intersect's head of product, Lorenzo Bruno, and technical lead, Ryan Williams, will present the latest advancements and tools to enhance governance participation.

We’ll share more on this in next week’s update!

Community grants

In Phase 2 of the inclusion and accessibility initiative, the Serbian company Programmer Assist doo has been awarded a grant to integrate Poeditor, a powerful Translation Management System, to assist community contributors in translating the default English version and enabling multi-language functionality.

Poeditor will support translations for Govtool and the Constitutional Committee Portal and will be integrated with Intersect’s GitHub account for efficient localization file management, streamlining the workflow.

The next stage will involve grants for translating GovTool and the Constitutional Committee Portal, which will open soon. We’ll keep you updated. Learn more here.

Governance tooling

With Sancho GovTool accessible again following the installation of node 9.0.1 and available on the Preview network, we are happy to add one more tool: the CC portal on SanchoNet. 

 

Contributing teams are preparing GovTool and CC Portal for the bootstrapping phase on mainnet.

 

SanchoNet GovTool lets Ada holders explore and test governance features outlined in CIP-1694 on SanchoNet through a simple, guided experience. Now open for beta testing, it’s accessible at sanchogov.tools. You can track participation levels through the dashboard.

 

Below, you can see the latest Sanchonet participation statistics:

This week’s reminders

• Check out the delivery assurance monthly milestone report, which provides a progress update on Cardano continuity suppliers for the previous month. Please read the full report on our knowledge base for more details on each supplier and their milestones.
• Our core infrastructure roadmap working group now has a public Discord announcement channel. Visit and join this channel, and you can read more about this working group in our knowledge base.

Important member resources

Intersect Knowledge Base - Frequently updated, our knowledge base provides granular detail on our internal governance structure, committees & working groups, and funding opportunities, among many other items.

Intersect website - The latest news, roadmap, and more.

GovTool - Take part in testing governance actions on the SanchoNet testnet.

Discord / Telegram - Join our lively community and interact with committees, working groups, and other members.

Social - We are continually active on Twitter and LinkedIn, so follow us there to stay updated on our latest news and insights!

Town hall—If you missed our July town hall, please check out the recording. We'll announce the August town hall registrations shortly, so watch this space.

Well, that’s it for this week's update. Thanks for reading!

 

And finally, we’re interested in hearing more from you about subjects important to you, such as Cardano’s governance. Your ideas and suggestions are crucial to us. If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, please get in touch via email, X, or LinkedIn.