Unleashing Innovation and Collaboration: Catalyst Fund 10 Drives Cardano’s Evolution

Project Catalyst, Cardano’s innovation engine and one of the world’s most significant decentralized grant funds, is set to launch Fund 10 on June 21st, 2023. With a budget of 50 million ADA, this funding cycle aims to continue fostering ecosystem growth and innovation on the Cardano platform. Fund 10 brings exciting new features and structural changes, empowering ADA holders to play a pivotal role in shaping the future direction of Project Catalyst.

How Project Catalyst Works

Project Catalyst operates funding rounds every few months, providing a set amount of ADA to allocate to innovative ideas. The community has three weeks at the start of each Fund to submit proposals that address challenges set in the previous funding round. Proposals are selected through community voting, and funding is allocated to bring the chosen projects to life. Challenges span various sectors, such as government, healthcare, insurance, identity, energy, real estate, security, and supply chain.

Timeline

June 21st, 2023: Fund 10 Launches at Catalyst Town Hall #131
July 17th, 2023: Deadline to Finalize Proposals
August 31st, 2023: Fund 10 Voting Begins
September 21st, 2023: Selected Proposals Announced

Fund 10 Features and Operational Changes

Statement of Milestones: To ensure accountability, funded projects will be required to outline their critical path, key milestones, acceptance criteria, costs, and evidence of achievements at each stage. This milestone-based funding approach aims to maintain a fair and unbiased funding framework.

Catalyst Continuous TestNET: Multiple dedicated TestNETs will be introduced to test proposed features in a sandbox environment, enhancing the user experience and allowing for experimentation without affecting the active funding cycle. This approach ensures the stability and reliability of the production environment.

Catalyst Operator Category: The community will decide whether the existing Catalyst team should continue providing administrative functions or if a new provider should take over. This decision aligns with Cardano’s goal of becoming a self-funded and self-sufficient ecosystem, empowering ADA holders to shape the future of Project Catalyst.

Catalyst Systems Improvements Category: Proposals in this category aim to advance the state of Project Catalyst. These improvements can include enhancing the decentralization of decision-making, streamlining processes, or conducting academic research to address challenges faced by Project Catalyst.

Additional Fund 10 Enhancements

Updates to projectcatalyst.io, including documentation area.
Evolution of the Community Review stage with new reviewer levels and incentives.
New scripts for flagging community reviews for moderation.
Implementation of the Statement of Milestones (SOM) and Proof of Achievement schema across all challenges.
Voting app registration process improvements.
Introduction of a testNET desktop voting tool, wallet connector, and representative voting.

Fund 10 Challenges

Fund 10 will feature 13 different challenges, each designed to push the boundaries of innovation and drive the expansion of the Cardano ecosystem. With a combined funding amount of 50M ADA, these challenges provide exciting prospects for community members to contribute and make a significant impact. Let’s delve into the details of these captivating challenges.

Catalyst Fund Operations:

Budget: ₳2.14M
Focus: This category will accept proposals for the ongoing operations and maintenance of Catalyst fund administration. It aims to provide stability and certainty to Catalyst and the community, ensuring that innovation funding remains available.

Catalyst System Improvements:

Budget: ₳3.57M
Focus: This challenge will determine the research and development required to advance the state of the art of Catalyst. The goal is to enhance the Catalyst Fund Administrator’s ability to better serve the community’s needs.

Atala Prism — Launch Ecosystem:

Budget: ₳3.15M
Focus: This challenge aims to accelerate the adoption and achieve product-market fit for Atala Prism. It seeks to explore strategies and initiatives that can drive widespread usage of Atala Prism within the Cardano ecosystem.

Building on NMKR:

Budget: ₳394,800
Focus: The focus of this challenge is to make the Cardano NFT ecosystem more accessible. It aims to create tools that implement the NMKR Dev API, enabling developers to build on the Cardano blockchain and enhance the NFT ecosystem.

Catalyst Open:

Budget: ₳1.4M
Focus: This challenge provides a space for ideas and projects that do not fit any of the current challenges. It seeks to explore nascent ideas and provide foundational resources before development begins.

Cardano Loves Daos:

Budget: ₳3.15M
Focus: The goal of this challenge is to make Cardano the go-to choice for building decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). It aims to examine the tools and infrastructure needed to enable effective DAO creation and operation on Cardano.

Developer Ecosystem: The Evolution:

Budget: ₳6.31M
Focus: This challenge focuses on equipping and supporting developers with tools and working infrastructure. It aims to make Cardano the first choice for building decentralized applications (dApps), fostering innovation, and promoting collaboration.

Development & Infrastructure:

Budget: ₳8.68M
Focus: This challenge aims to improve the developer infrastructure on Cardano. It seeks to identify research, tools, and software that can enhance the development experience and scalability of applications built on the Cardano blockchain.

dRep Improvement and Onboarding:

Budget: ₳394K
Focus: This challenge aims to achieve a diverse and highly engaged dRep (decentralized representation) participation. It also seeks to simplify the process of voter delegation, making it easy and accessible for all stakeholders.

Open Source Dev Ecosystem:

Budget: ₳3.16M
Focus: This challenge aims to build a community-owned open-source ecosystem that is commercially viable. It aims to drive growth, increase opportunities, and enhance project visibility for the entire Cardano community.

Products and Integration:

Budget: ₳9.08M
Focus: This challenge focuses on the development and improvement of products and integrations within the Cardano ecosystem. It aims to identify high-impact use cases that can drive adoption and offer more value to Cardano users.

SPO Tools & Community:

Budget: ₳4.74M
Focus: This challenge aims to support effective and impactful projects and initiatives that build and enhance the Stake Pool Operator (SPO) ecosystem and community. It seeks to identify strategies, tools, and resources that can empower SPOs and drive their success.

Startups & Onboarding for Students:

Budget: ₳395K
Focus: This challenge aims to support student blockchain startups through Catalyst. It also seeks to increase the number of student proposers and blockchain engineers in the Cardano ecosystem. The focus is on providing opportunities and resources for students to contribute and thrive.

Looking Back at Project Catalyst

Since its inception, Project Catalyst has evolved into a core pillar of grassroots innovation and growth for the Cardano ecosystem. With increasing participation and collaboration, Catalyst has become one of the largest decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) in the blockchain industry. The number of proposals, funded projects, and voters has consistently grown throughout the previous funding cycles.

Conclusion

Fund 10 of Project Catalyst marks a new chapter in the evolution of Cardano’s innovation engine. By involving the community and leveraging the Cardano Treasury, Fund 10 aims to co-build innovation and drive ecosystem growth. With milestone-based funding, continuous testing environments, and opportunities for the community to shape operational aspects, Project Catalyst is set to further demonstrate the power of decentralized innovation management and governance on the Cardano platform.