Cartesi Ecosystem Updates #12, 2025: A Year in Review

Verifiable Compute and Stage 2 Security

As the curtain closes on 2025, we look back at a year where Cartesi shifted from building the foundation to proving the resilience of its architecture on the world stage. From achieving Stage 2 status on L2BEAT to integrating ZK primitives into the RISC-V VM, the ecosystem has moved closer to the vision of a fully decentralized, Linux-powered future that allows developers to do more in Web3 and build with any code while inheriting Ethereum’s security.

Here is a look at the milestones that defined 2025.

Reaching the Gold Standard: Stage 2 Rollups

The biggest breakthrough of the year arrived in June with the mainnet launch of the PRT Honeypot. This was not just another dApp launch. It marked the debut of our Permissionless Refereed Tournaments (PRT) fraud-proof system, acting live on mainnet and securing an initial bounty of $1,000 in CTSI tokens.

By integrating PRT, Cartesi became one of only three projects to meet the rigorous Stage 2 requirements on L2BEAT. This milestone showcased that Cartesi’s security model is truly permissionless. Anyone can now become a validator and challenge computations onchain, ensuring the network remains trustless and resistant to Sybil attacks.

Resilience Through Testing: The Honeypot Journey

True maturity is shown in how a protocol handles challenges. In October, we conducted a real-world stress test for the PRT dispute game and identified a temporary liveness bug. Rather than a setback, the swift identification and fix served as a testament to the R&D unit’s transparency and the protocol’s hardening. This spirit of "shipping and refining" is what allowed the Honeypot to return to L2BEAT stronger than ever, proving that Cartesi’s security is earned through battle. So the challenge continues for hackers to put PRT Honeypot v2 to the test, now featuring a live banner that showcases ongoing disputes with bounty rewards expected to increase throughout 2026.

The Evolution of the Fraud-Proof Systems

To move even further in strengthening the architecture, Cartesi successfully implemented the PRT Bond mechanism. By requiring participants to post a bond, this created a powerful economic deterrent against frivolous disputes and delay attacks, ensuring that honesty is not just expected, but incentivized.

We also saw the "Dave" fraud-proof algorithm move beyond research. Designed to be even more performant than the initial PRT system, Dave focuses on improving liveness and on an economic model that makes delay attacks unfeasible, and its capabilities have been praised by well-known voices in the space.

Cartesi Machine Upgrades

2025 saw significant upgrades to the heart of our tech stack. The release of Cartesi Machine Emulator v0.19.0 introduced primitives supporting ZK verification of Machine execution. This is a foundational step toward a hybrid future where optimistic rollups can leverage zero-knowledge proofs for faster finality.

Strengthening the Infrastructure: Node V2 and CLI

Our developer experience took a massive leap forward as Node V2 reached "feature complete" status. With the new JSON-RPC API and optimized startup times (now just 3 seconds), building complex dApps has become significantly more efficient.The Cartesi CLI was also overhauled to support Rollups and to facilitate early exploration of modular architectures, including proof-of-concept integrations with external Data Availability layers such as Espresso and Avail, delivered as part of an experimental release.

Ecosystem Growth: AI, Gaming, and Beyond

The Cartesi ecosystem continues to be the premier destination for high-compute dApp prototypes that are impossible on traditional VMs.

• Onchain AI: The "ThinkChain" proof of concept, born from Cartesi Experiment Week #3 run in collaboration with EigenCloud, made headlines by bringing fully trust-minimized LLM inference onchain using DeepSeek. This demonstrated that Cartesi is the only stack capable of running standard AI libraries like TensorFlow and PyTorch within a decentralized framework.
• Gaming: RIVES, the onchain gaming console, moved to Node V2 and continued to push the boundaries of verifiable play. Meanwhile, World Tycoon prototype brought SimCity-style economics to the blockchain, allowing players to tokenize their in-game cities as NFTs.
• DeFi: Projects like Locale Network utilized the stack to create sophisticated lending and investment tools that rely on real-time data transparency and complex offchain calculations.

Cartesi x L2BEAT Partnership Fund

This past year, ecosystem growth also included Cartesi joining L2BEAT’s Partnership Fund. Since L2BEAT is the industry ‘source of truth’ for Layer 2 security and decentralization, by joining the fund, Cartesi is signaling its commitment to continue supporting the security standards and public goods that benefit the entire Ethereum scaling roadmap, raising the bar for Ethereum’s trustless principles.

Foundation and Community: Shared Commitment

The Cartesi Foundation reaffirmed its long-term belief in the ecosystem this year through a strategic open market purchase of $500,000 worth of CTSI, strengthening confidence in its long-term trajectory. And speaking of confidence, Cartesi has also become part of the Strategic ETH Reserve, reinforcing its radical focus and deep commitment to contributing to Ethereum’s future. As every year, a detailed transparency report will follow in January, providing an overview of the state of our finances and ecosystem expenses.

A Global Presence

From ETHDenver to Devconnect Argentina and ETHLatam, followed by the European Blockchain Convention, Cartesi contributors were on the ground worldwide. We strengthened our presence at major events, deepened our footprint in Brazil through PR initiatives and academic courses, and expanded our technical reach through the now-concluded Cartesi Grants Program, which funded meaningful work such as the RISC Zero and Chainlink Automation integrations. On the press front, for an overview of Cartesi’s global media coverage this year, our PR partner MarketAcross has compiled a coverage book, available here.

Education and Expertise

Cartesi has been taught at multiple universities in Brazil through academic programs led by Professor Antonio Rocha from Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), bringing blockchain, Web3, and Cartesi technology into the classroom.

In July, registrations opened for a course titled “Intro to Blockchain, Web3, and Rollups”, developed for national institutions as part of the broader ILIADA project, supported by Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation. In addition, new university courses continued into late 2025, such as the “Blockchain, Web3, and Cartesi Rollups” course offered online at UFBA, also taught by Antonio Rocha.

These initiatives were aimed at preparing future Web3 builders and researchers and included hands-on development with Cartesi Rollups, blockchain fundamentals, and related Web3 topics, demonstrating real engagement and uptake within the academic community.

On another front, co-founder Diego Nehab presented “Enshrine RISC-V” during ETHProof Call #4, the Ethereum Foundation’s research forum with Vitalik’s presence, outlining why the RISC-V privileged ISA matters, what Cartesi unlocks by supporting it, and why Ethereum L1 should consider it on the path to enshrining RISC-V.

Looking Ahead to 2026

The progress made in 2025 has set a high bar. We enter the new year with a battle-tested fraud-proof system, a feature-rich developer stack, and a mature vision of radical focus on building what lasts, supported by a community of builders and contributors dedicated to helping engineer Ethereum’s future.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Let’s keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible onchain.

Goodbye 2025. See you in 2026.