Cartesi Ecosystem Recap — June 2023

Newsletter/Jul 6, 2023/Karmen Truong

Research & Design

Enjoying the increased frequency of core-units-updates over on Discord? Or finding it a bit hard to keep track? 😵‍💫 If you’re in the latter camp, don’t worry! Check out a summary of development highlights from June below:

Cartesi’s documentation has undergone a complete revamp, supporting documentation for both Cartesi Rollups 0.8 and 0.9 as well as an update for Cartesi Compute (Cartesi’s computational Oracle solution) sections. Read more about what’s new in the upgraded docs portal with this handy guide from core contributor, Nico.
The Node unit is laser-focused on the last milestone toward production readiness in the beta stage for Cartesi Rollups.
There’s a new version for the Explorer in its repository! The Cartesi Rollups Explorer is now ready to present data for DApps on Cartesi Rollups v0.9.0. A detailed break down of the release is here.
A new version for the Emulator SDK is coming and it brings many improvements. More details here over on our Discord channel.
The Compute Unit, driven by Zippie, successfully ran the first zkLinux — Linux booting inside a Cartesi Machine (big emulator) inside RiscZero ZK proof at approx 2000–3000 machine cycles per ZK proof segment. 🤯
Early documentation for Sunodo is live! It still needs a lot more info and contributions are very welcome. Check it out here.

For the eagled-eyed among us, you might have spotted a new addition in the form of Research and Design meetings! Cartesi’s R&D meetings are now being published on Youtube, granting everyone access to intricate discussions and up-to-date discourse at the forefront of Cartesi tech. Check out the first video, delving into DEX data structures here:

Got questions? Ask your questions to core developers and researchers directly on Discord!

Ecosystem Updates

♟️ 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.

Currently in progress:

Verifying bot bytecode by enabling users to upload git repositories and compile them within the ctsi-machine to verify a bot’s source.
NFT minting AKA getting chess AIs outside of the Cartesi portal to enable trading within NFT marketplaces (Opensea, Blur).
AI ownership: where chess engines can own other chess engines.

🖼️ 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

Improved test coverage for packages/ui workspace
Improved test coverage for apps/rollups workspace
Improved test coverage for apps/staking workspace

Decentralized Painting Canvas App

UI Design and Development done. Pending review
Rollups setup and Back-end development in progress

🎮 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

Bug fixing for initial playable build

Dazzle

Interactive tutorial implementation
Built-in wallet flow implemented and in testing
Tournament mode leaderboard implementation
Bug fixing

Follow them on their newly activated Twitter | Discord communities!

🧠 UXBoost is working on comprehensive user research and service flow study for Cartesi’s hacker/developer’s 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.

Created a research plan (learning objectives, sample size, target criteria), questions, observation grid, and user journey template to conduct interviews.
Recruited 6/7 participants from previous Cartesi hackathons, completing four interviews. More in progress.
Aligned with core contributors, collecting and analyzing units’ operational processes, roles, responsibilities, and work experience of each core contributor.
Mapped out the working relationship chart from backstage research and reflected on the hacker/developer’s experience to identify areas for improvement.

P.S. Want more frequent updates? You can check in on your favourite projects over on the Cartesi Discord under ecosystem-updates too!

Community

Community Grants Program

Over on the Cartesi Governance forum, we’ve seen 5new proposals submitted in June with a tooling proposal being voted through by you for funding. 🥳

Sharing your feedback, whether that’s in the Governance forum or by voting on Snapshot, is where the real magic happens — let’s make the Cartesi ecosystem thrive together!

If you want to shape the Cartesi ecosystem by voting, make sure you’re ready for the next one by staking your CTSI.

Events

Hold onto your hats because the events scene in June has been nothing short of exhilarating! We’ve just wrapped up on Cartesi’s first community-driven hackathon in Rio de Janeiro, with students from the prestigious Instituto de Computação Universidade Federal Fluminense.

Meanwhile Ukrainian Ambassador, Muxailo headed to Incrypted’s annual conference in Kiev, raising awareness of Cartesi with local devs and Web3 enthusiasts alike. Check out his recap of the event:

Contributors Carlo and Gabriel dropped by the dOrg community on Discord, taking the hot seat to answer questions on Cartesi tech, computation and everything in between. If you missed the live session, sit tight! dOrg will be serving up a sizzling podcast replay that’ll teleport you straight into the heart of the action.

Cartesi’s Chinese community has been on a roll, with core contributor Jacky joining up with @TangDAO_ for a Web3 roundtable introducing Cartesi tech and welcoming more passionate individuals into the Cartesi community. Core developers Stephen and Zehui also jumped into the mix, taking part in an L2 discussion with the BinanceZH community — check out the replay here:

For the fourth instalment of the Cartesi Game Developer Community Call, we were joined by infinite game developer Ronan to chat abstraction layers for on-chain games. Plus we got the inside scoop on the latest updates from the realms of Dazzle and Ultrachess, catch up with the replay:

And before the month is officially over, we’ve got our Cartesi Coders Monthly — for everyone and anyone who loves what the Cartesi community is doing and wants to get more involved!

Plus, Blockchain Game Alliance’s Demo Day — learn more about the exciting games being developed from BGA members. Ultrachess and Dazzle will be showcasing Cartesi tech alongside games from Union Avatars and Gala Games.

P.S. Stay in the loop and never miss a beat with Cartesi’s exciting lineup of events — subscribe to our supercharged public events calendar!