Cartesi Ecosystem Recap - November 2023

Newsletter/Dec 5, 2023/KARMEN TRUONG

December 5th - Psst… app-specific rollups aren’t just another scaling solution, they’re in a category of their own. Check out the video explainer we’ve been working on to learn how application-specific rollups are the way to add more processing power to web3 and let builders work on projects that rival Web2 applications.

Wen Roadmap?

Well, with Cartesi Rollups and its first dApp, Honeypot, live on Mainnet, the Cartesi ecosystem is implementing an initial process to determine the technical direction in the mainnet era for Cartesi Rollups. ✨ Introducing the Technical Vision Forum! All Cartesi community members are invited to propose, explore, and discuss technical features that they would like to see included in the ecosystem's Technical Evolution Plan. Curious to see what this looks like? The first proposals have already popped up on the forum - take a look for yourself.

As such, the Technical Evolution Plan will be a living, breathing roadmap for the Cartesi ecosystem that is created by a diverse Vision Council through a decentralized process that allows for broad community involvement and feedback. Who’s excited about this new era?

Tech

From Modular Day to ETHGlobal Instanbul, we’ve been inviting web3 developers from all over Devconnect to try hack the Honeypot dApp and drain its funds. Now, it’s just over 2 months old and still remains uncracked, hitting the $10K USD mark (69,965 CTSI). And with 8% compounding allocations weekly, it's set to grow even bigger!

Want to take home an early Christmas gift? Crack the honeypot, and the funds are allllll yours, no strings attached. Plus, you’d be helping battle-test Cartesi Rollups security, so it’s a win-win for everyone! Need a clue on where to start? Check out this article by Felipe to get familiar with the workings of the Honeypot dApp.

Research & Design

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

Highlights include:

The Cartesi Machine now boots and runs on Windows, Android, WASM, FreeBSD, and even DOS. Why? Why not! Cartesi is dedicated to opening the design space for people to explore other use cases of blockchain and give feedback on the tech developed!
New features on Cartesiscan (a new blockchain explorer for the Cartesi-based DApps)
- Added dApp connectivity, now users can inspect payloads from vouchers, notices, and reports.
- A new dedicated page for applications and shortcuts to quickly create a connection for the DApps you know/own. Once created, you can easily see the endpoint that DApp is connected to, including the removal if necessary.
Sunodo - deploy verifiable Linux VMs with a click of a button to testnets and mainnets; stay tuned for its upcoming launch!
The Prototype and Support team has been cooking up a storm. Here’s just a few:
- Zk-Snark Verifier using Barretenberg to verify an Aztec Noir program.
- Video processor in the Cartesi Machine using Celestia Data.
- A typescript package that abstracts the complexity of the interaction with a Cartesi Rollups DApp.
Zippie has started an additional project in the Cartesi ecosystem under a grant with a developer team that is focused on defining and implementing a system architecture for real-world asset verification which utilizes Cartesi verification - check out AirImpact - a digital platform for connecting reforestation developers, investors and buyers in the nature-based carbon market.

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!

Tune into the next one by marking your calendars for the first Monday of the month. Got questions? Don’t be shy - ask your questions to core developers, researchers and contributors directly on Discord!

Ecosystem Updates

♟️ Ultrachess

Ultrachess is a fully on-chain chess application developed with Cartesi Rollups, allowing users to put real value on the line and play chess with more than just their Elo at stake.

Testnet release can be expected in Dec.

🎨 Productive

Productive is a Software Development house specialising in web & mobile development projects, with a grant to provide design, development, update, and maintenance for Cartesi ecosystem websites.

Cartesi Explorer Front-End

Send transaction component improvements
Forms improvements
Raw input form and sending

Cartesi.io Site Development

Front-end/CMS new pages development

Rolluplab.io Site Maintenance

Homepage updates
Content updates

Sunodo

Prototyping (completed)
Branding design (completed)
UI Design (completed)
Landing page coding (completed)
Docs site rebranding (completed)
DApp Launchpad UI development (in progress)

Painting DApp

Sunodo implementation
Stay tuned to try it out!

🎮 Aetheras

Aetheras is a blockchain company with experience in and a deep understanding of game development, with a grant to develop Texas HODL’em Poker and Dazzle (match-3 strategy game).

Texas HODL’em Poker

(Completed)
- Migrated poker dApp to Sunodo framework
- Upgraded graphQL schema for Cartesi Rollups v0.8 to v0.9
- Support for in-game wallet and currency-deposit in poker-game
- Tested the hack for using Sunodo-CLI to deploy the dApp to the public testnet, Sepolia.
(In-progress)
- Refactoring some of the poker dApp operation logic
- Integrating Unity client with the dApp

Dazzle

After internal testing, the team has committed to a specific game mode and will build on this concept. The flow of the new PVE game mode will be as follows:

Player enters a stage.
After winning, the player gets to choose to continue, get the current reward (based on stage level), or quit.
(Completed)
- Update the game to support 3 enemies simultaneously; it only supported 1 enemy before.
- Minor adjustment on reward logic: it will now be the last enemy killed that drops the reward.
- Enemy attack pattern update
- UI/UX - Updated the game into a horizontal view.
(In-progress) New: Leveling System & Stage Bonus
- A concept where, after each stage, players can, for instance, pay a certain amount of gold to get bonus damage in the next stage.

Follow Dazzle updates on their Twitter or join their Discord community!

🧠 UXBoost

UXBoost is working on comprehensive user research and service flow study for Cartesi's hacker/developer experience, including awareness, learning about Cartesi tech, hacking experience, and grant applications. UXBoost aims to gain insights, identify improvement areas and devise strategies to enhance the overall user experience.

Experience Research
- Mixed-method research (survey+interview) on Cartesi experiment week. Received 36 responses and completed 3 interviews. Four interviews are scheduled. (In Progress)
- Delivered ETH Paris hacker’s experience research report.
UX & Visual Design
- Redesigning the visual and UX design on the World Arcade game web page. (In Progress)
Community Knowledge Sharing
- Shared hacker’s research insights on Discord.

Community Grants Program

Drand Tooling for Cartesi has completed its second milestone and is now on the last stretch of the project. 🚀 Milestone 2 marks that the builds and tests are automated using GitHub actions, ensuring the code is both clear and clean. All previous issues that arose from the last review were addressed, and corner cases cited in the proposal were implemented - making it well-prepared to kick off Milestone 3!

DCA Monster, an AMM with Stream Swap on Cartesi Rollups for timed asset swaps, precise DCA, and full-price trajectory access, has completed its first CGP deliverable. Developing Streamable Tokens tailored for Cartesi Rollups, this Python-based solution, utilizing SQLite3, offers efficient, highly composable token streaming!

And its first iteration is live on Sepolia for community testing! Start exploring Stream Swap and DCA today: https://dca.monster

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

If you tuned into the Cartesi Experiment Week closing ceremony and project demos, you’d have seen the struggle to present projects in under 4 minutes. That’s why we’re diving deeper into the projects with Research and Design calls, starting with DFaST - what is it, and why was it built? Hear from the team:

Contributoooor Spotlight

He might be fond of his tiny tools (it’s sfw, we promise), but let’s give a huge kudos to podcast host, master of ceremonies and all-round production wizard… it’s none other than Cartesi’s Creative Producer, Claudio Marques!

From running around Istanbul ensuring everything was smooth sailing for Cartesi’s VM Day, Ideathon and Recharge Station at ETHGlobal’s hackathon, this month also saw the launch of A Tiny Web3 Podcast.

For the time-crunched, it’s a 15-minute weekly podcast where web3 builders, enthusiasts and leaders from the Cartesi ecosystem and beyond share how they’re paving the way forward for web3 adoption. A podcast that's small in size but big on web3 wisdom. Take a listen to the latest episode and subscribe:

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. Congratulations to the top 5 members on our first sprint leaderboard: @heyodhewow, @raflac_, @hello_beige, @Izzang55s, @pulsar5991 - you’ll all be receiving a Cartesi hoodie!

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

We ended Cartesi’s ETHGlobal 2023 run on a high in Istanbul! From hosting VM Day (our very first event with Fuel) to Cartesi contributors giving presentations and taking part in panels all throughout Devconnect week, recap it all with Siannie’s DevConnect & ETHGlobal Istanbul 2023 Cartesi Recap. (TL;DR? Check out the thread)!

P.S. You may have seen World Arcade at an ETHGlobal hackathon, but did you know you can try Cartesi’s World Arcade from the comfort of your own home? Give it a shot here.

Over at Developer Advocacy, they’ve already started laying the groundwork for increased developer adoption in 2024 with a 1-month in-person masterclass in Lagos with Web3Bridge. Delivering in-person workshops and providing first-hand support to developers looking to build on their web3 development skills, we’re excited to connect with developers in Africa who want to know more about Cartesi! Sign-ups closed on November 30th. Stay tuned for some exciting content coming your way…

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. 😉