The Cardano Summit 2021 that took place 25-26 September saw many important announcements, featuring Chainlink, COTI, SingularityNET, DISH, Veritree and Autonio.
The event was primarily virtual, but there were many physical locations around the world where people gathered to experience the summit together.
I travelled to Berlin to attend it in person and meet some of the very passionate members of the Cardano community, these included Beatrix and Christian from Bio Pool as well as Mati from CardanoFans, which are operators of 2 stake pools that I invited on my Cardano SPO Column.
Input Output shared a short video featuring Tim Harrison summarizing all the exciting things that happened over the weekend:
An incredible community. An incredible journey. And we're just getting started…
As #CardanoSummit2021 draws to a close, here's @timbharrison with a recap of an incredible weekend. #CardanoSummit2021 #Cardano $ADA @cardano pic.twitter.com/6pQWc7EsS8
— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) September 26, 2021
Summary
Cardano integrating Chainlink oracles
This announcement was a pleasant surprise for both the Cardano and Chainlink communities. This strategic collaboration will allow the leading Proof of Stake blockchain to natively integrate price feeds from Chainlink.
Through a strategic collaboration between Chainlink Labs and @InputOutputHK, #Chainlink Price Feeds are being natively integrated onto the @Cardano blockchain to enable Cardano developers to build a variety of #DeFi applications powered by secure oracles. https://t.co/NVJbi9VPrU
— Chainlink (@chainlink) September 25, 2021
With regard to this collaboration, Charles Hoskinson said:
“Not only will integrating Chainlink price feeds reduce the go-to-market time for Cardano developers, but it will establish a secure foundation for Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem, helping make Cardano more trusted by users around the world.”
Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, commented:
“We’re excited to leverage our extensive experience and expertise by establishing native support for Chainlink on the Cardano blockchain and supporting its next stage of growth into markets like DeFi and beyond”.
COTI to issue a stablecoin on Cardano
This news was in the air for some time and many rumours were circulating on the matter. The confirmation finally came during the Cardano Summit 2021: the COTI platform will be the official issuer of Djed, a new stablecoin for Cardano.
“Djed is based on an algorithmic design that uses smart contracts to ensure price stability. Smart contract programming is also used to ensure that the stablecoin will work effectively for decentralized finance (DeFi) transactions”.
Shahaf Bar-Geffen, Chief Executive of COTI Group, said:
“Blockchain participants are using stablecoins to engage in everyday transactions because they allow monetary value to be exchanged in a seamless manner, regardless of the sender and recipient’s location.
I believe that adding the Djed stablecoin to the Cardano blockchain will significantly improve how transactions are settled on the platform”.
Charles Hoskinson commented:
“The Djed stablecoin could be a game-changer in the crypto space, appealing to an entirely new audience at a time when the industry is already experiencing astronomical growth. Djed shares our commitment to formal verification, proving a robust method of combating price volatility of crypto markets”.
SingularityNET and Hanson Robotics introduce Grace
During the Cardano Summit physical event in Wyoming, a humanoid robot called Grace appeared on stage alongside Charles Hoskinson and the CEO of SingularityNET Ben Goertzel.
Grace looks like a healthcare worker and her tasks will involve monitoring the health of the elderly and interacting with them, which is very important during these times of isolation and loneliness due to the risks related to Covid.
Cardano will improve Grace’s performance and lead to lower, predictable, and stable costs.
Ben Goertzel said:
“With Cardano’s market-leading capabilities, Grace will be able to scale to meet this global challenge. As we gradually ramp up Grace’s general-intelligence capabilities over the next few years, she will be able to serve more and more valuable functions in the elder-care and medical space – learning more and more about humanity and absorbing human values as she goes”.
DISH, Veritree and Autonio
Other announcements included:
- The partnership with the Fortune 250 company, Dish Network, which is a TV and wireless service provider that will use the Cardano blockchain to improve its network and be at the forefront of innovation.
- The exclusive partnership with Veritree to help heal the planet through reforestation records that are transparent, immutable and auditable by all. An ITO (Initial Tree Offering) has been launched that allows ADA holders to use their funds to plant trees around the world and receive tree tokens.
- The deployment of the Autonio ecosystem on the Cardano blockchain. We’ve mentioned Autonio and its token NIOX in an article about Yield Farming. Up until now, Autonio’s suite of products had only been deployed on Ethereum’s layer 2 solution, Polygon.
In conclusion
There were certainly other important partnerships and announcements, and this week a dedicated website will be launched by IOHK featuring all of the presentations and interviews that were showcased during the summit.
After the activation of smart contracts and the summit, Cardano is ready to leave a very active September behind and continue building and innovating towards the end of 2021.
It has also been a very productive month for Charles Hoskinson, who has also announced the Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University to which he donated $20 million:
https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1440443081183019017?s=20
