Cartesi Ecosystem Recap #5

Newsletter/Jan 12, 2024/KARMEN TRUONG

January 12th - gm gm to another new year! We’ve already had a beautiful start with new interoperability horizons opening up for Cartesi-powered dApps - congrats to Fabio, Bruno and the team for successfully bringing Cartesi Rollups to Syscoin’s Rollux testnet!

Plus, the Technical Vision Council’s been busy voting through an integration with the Espresso Sequencer! Following numerous deployments (and an iconic rickroll) on Espresso Sequencer testnets, the new integration aims to explore the expanded dApp design space made possible by Cartesi + Espresso DA. In the medium term, this integration aims to provide valuable lessons for further protocol integrations with other DA layers like EigenDA, Celestia, and Syscoin, bringing Cartesi’s modular vision to life. Check out the original proposal and submit your own in the Technical Vision Forum!

And if that wasn’t enough, take a look at this demo from the Prototype Unit, which showcases how a Cartesi x Celestia combination unlocks data-intensive applications like verifiable video processing on a verifiable Linux VM:

Tech

Research & Design

Check out the last live dev recap to hear from the units pushing forward on development:

Highlights:

Introducing NoNodo - a lightweight development node for Cartesi Rollups designed to work with applications running in the host machine instead of the Cartesi Machine.
- Why it’s valuable in the development workflow:
  - A replacement for host/no-backend mode.
  - Its only external dependency is Foundry; something Ethereum developers are using already.
  - Doesn’t require Docker
  - Lightweight (10mb), easy to download and easy to get started.
- For the curious: check out the thought process behind NoNodo in the original Technical Evolution Forum proposal.
Rollup Contracts
- V1.2.0 released - contracts deployed to Arbitrum Sepolia, Optimism Sepolia.
- V2.0.0 - close to release. Contracts implement EIP-165, which checks if it implements a given interface - useful for front-end and explorer. Contributors are still working on updating the documentation, improving adherence with the Solidity style guide and testing before release.
Rollups Explorer
- CartesiScan - new homepage with summary-driven content and support to send inputs to applications. In progress - support for ERC-721 token transfers and voucher executions for the next release.
- P.S. Have you grokked Cartesi’s Explorers? On Cartesi, explorers can have a slightly different role because of its novel approach to scalability using app-centric rollups. See what this means in the latest grokking article!
Sunodo - a framework for developing decentralized applications built on top of Cartesi technology.
- Learn more about Sunodo over on its newly released website!
- In progress - sunodo deploy (front-end) - web application used to deploy dApps to testnet and mainnet. Includes financial incentives for running nodes. Stay tuned for a demo of the system…
Prototype & Support
- Transitioning to a new scope - focusing on end-user applications.
- Wrapped up first version of Python high-level framework - now you can pip install python-cartesi. Making it easier to develop Python applications with Cartesi. Big kudos to Felipe Grael for his work on this!
- Check out the python-cartesi quickstart demo in the monthly dev recap call.
Zippie
- Real World Assets - a prototype of a real-world asset verification solution using carbon asset verification as a use-case and testing the integration of the solution to AirImpact’s off-chain carbon asset wallet solution. Done with Cartesi Lambada and Espresso Sequencer technology. Doing 1000 reforestation projects in this manner with established L1 rollups or rollups infrastructure would be too expensive and too complicated to maintain infra for. Check out the demo in action!
- 💃Cartesi Lambada - come and participate in the discussion over in the Technical Vision Forum.
  - TL;DR: Cartesi Lambada is a technological stack designed to provide an alternate means for people to adopt the Cartesi technology.
  - Its main objective is to foster rapid adoption of Cartesi by developers - today; and foster wider comprehension of the Cartesi stack, facilitating its evolution, simpler deployment, and enhanced experimentation.

Dive into the developments in detail and see them posted in real time over on Discord (check out the core-units-update channel) - come and join the conversation!

Set a reminder here to get ready for the next one, Monday 5th February 2024.

Got questions? Don’t be shy - ask your questions to core developers, researchers and contributors directly on Discord!

Ecosystem News

🍯We’re celebrating over 3 months of Honeypot, and in January, it hit its 100K CTSI mark! If you’re interested in cracking it, take a deep dive into its code and unpack the trust assumptions involved in its infrastructure.

Plus, we partnered with Tech YouTuber Tim on a series to teach you how to code decentralized applications using Python!

Curious about other projects in the Cartesi ecosystem? Follow their socials to get updates firsthand: Ultrachess, Productive, Aetheras, Dazzle, UXBoost.

Community Grants Program

Community Grants Steward Hellen hosted the first CGP Spotlight session over on X and was joined by grantees Fabio and Yolan (Drand Tooling on Cartesi) as well as Pablo (DCA Monster). If you’ve ever been curious about submitting a proposal to the CGP, getting funding and what support Cartesi provides, take a listen to the session and hear from grantees themselves:

For development updates from projects funded through the Community Grants Program,

⚙️Cartenix, 🖼️ Decentralized Painting Canvas and🚰 BlockOasis, 🤖AI-Powered System for Detecting License Plate Violations on Vehicles, head on over to the #ecosystem-updates channel over on Discord.

And if you’re curious about what else is being built on Cartesi - there’s been a bunch of new project submissions over in the #✨spotlight channel over on Discord. Check it out, get inspired, and most importantly, get involved!

Community

From building ducks from briqs to scaling trustless games, briqNFT and Dojo co-founder Sylve joined Max for the 8th edition of the Game Builder Community Call. Catch up with all that was discussed in the replay:

Contributoooor Spotlight

Who better to shoutout in this month’s contributoooor spotlight than one of the most voracious Cartesi threadooors out there, Rouslane! ❤️‍🔥It’s all gas, no brakes with Rouslane’s breakdowns and educational content - big kudos for diving deep into the Cartesi rabbit hole and coming out the other side with some fire educational content to share with the web3 community!

Want to be a more active Cartesi Contributoooor and get rewarded for it? Here’s a range of initiatives you can get stuck into:

🏗️Claim a free-to-mint commemorative NFT if you’ve contributed to Cartesi’s core infrastructure repositories. See if you’re eligible for a Cartesi 2023 GitPOAP here.
💬Earn cool badges for your contributions over in Discord! We've defined 6 roles for our community-facing channels, and see if you can rank among the top 3 most active members! P.S. You don’t have to be a developer to take part 😉.
🗝️Calling all Boundless Builders - showcase your Cartesi dApp or Developer Tooling over in the 'spotlight' channel on Discord and receive a commemorative NFT. Plus, you’ll also get a Boundless Builder Discord badge to help you stand out from the crowd!
🌟Solo builder or team looking to build something awesome and get paid for it? Check out the Developer Advocacy Seed Grants for mini technical projects to complete or get up to $5000 USD in funding when you submit your own. P.S. You can also schedule a call with Marcus from Developer Advocacy to learn more!
Earn community points and exclusive swag by taking part in Cartesi Quests over on Zealy.

P.S. Check out the 📌┃opportunities-board over on Discord for other ways to get involved and stay updated when a new RFP drops.

Events

4 ETHGlobal hackathons sponsored. 👏 5 ETHGlobal finalist projects built with Cartesi. 👏1000+ hackers recharged.👏Let’s celebrate some 2023 wins before we look forward to 2024 - read more about Cartesi’s 2023 ETHGlobal run in this handy recap from core contributor Siannie.

Meanwhile, over in DevAd, Jathin and Shaheen squeezed in one last hackathon in India:

And things are kicking into action over in Africa! We linked up with HER DAO to organise everything from web3 workshops to builder meet-ups offering $5K in DevAd Seed Grant

Plus, our Nigeria Masterclass with Web3Bridge has officially begun! 3 days in, and builders are already building with Cartesi Rollup examples, can’t wait to see what ideas and dApps get brought to life by the end of the month!

Upcoming Events

Stay in the loop and never miss a beat with Cartesi's exciting lineup of events - subscribe to our supercharged public events calendar, and take part in event-related campaigns over on Link3, Galxe and Zealy!

Ever had that FOMO feeling because you’ve missed out on events or community calls? Dive into our YouTube channel, where we’re uploading replays and recaps for your convenience. 😉