Cardano Newsletter

Weekly Cardano Digest #125

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 11 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #125!

We've filtered through all the noise to distill crucial updates into a breezy, 5-minute read. No need for you to sift through endless info — we've got you covered. Ready to delve into this week's top Cardano news? Let’s dive in.

Here are the topics of the week:

🛡️ Scorechain Adds Full Cardano Support for AML and Compliance Monitoring
📊 Pentad V2 Update: 3 of 4 Critical Integrations Now Live on Cardano
🔐 EMURGO Acquires Ctrl Wallet to Expand Cardano's Multichain Reach
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🛡️ Scorechain Adds Full Cardano Support for AML and Compliance Monitoring

Cardano was fully integrated into Scorechain's compliance and investigation platform on May 4, 2026. The integration adds support for ADA and Cardano native tokens across risk scoring, entity attribution, and transaction monitoring. Built specifically for Cardano's UTXO model, it enables institutions to monitor, investigate, and report on Cardano transactions within the same workflow used for other major blockchains.

Capabilities include real-time KYT (Know-Your-Transaction) monitoring to detect high-risk flows and laundering anomalies, plus address screening against OFAC, UN, EU, and other international sanctions lists. The integration directly supports exchanges, custodians, and financial platforms operating across multiple chains, strengthening Cardano's position in regulated markets.

This is a meaningful regulatory infrastructure unlock for Cardano, making it dramatically easier for compliance-conscious institutions and trading venues to onboard ADA and Cardano-native assets without bespoke tooling, and reinforcing the network's institutional readiness.

👉 Learn more

📊 Pentad V2 Update: 3 of 4 Critical Integrations Now Live on Cardano

Pentad Critical Integrations status: three of the four flagship integrations are now officially live on Cardano. The integrations live: Circle's USDCx stablecoin (launched via xReserve infrastructure, boosted Cardano's stablecoin supply by 40%), Cardano data integration on Dune Analytics (full on-chain queryable data), and Pyth Network Pro Oracle (institutional-grade feeds, sub-100ms latency, 125+ publishers).

LayerZero remains pending as the fourth integration. The Pentad, comprising the Cardano Foundation, Input Output Global, EMURGO, Intersect, and the Midnight Foundation, has increasingly aligned around practical ecosystem expansion rather than fragmented initiatives.

The update also confirms that the design phase for Pentad V2 has already begun, focused on expanding infrastructure and capital flow. Collectively, the package represents Cardano's most coherent execution against a published technical roadmap to date.

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🔐 EMURGO Acquires Ctrl Wallet to Expand Cardano's Multichain Reach

EMURGO, one of the three founding entities of Cardano, announced the acquisition of Ctrl Wallet (formerly XDEFI), a multichain crypto wallet supporting over 2,300 blockchain networks including Ethereum and Bitcoin. The companies first partnered in 2025 to improve cross-chain access for Cardano users, and bringing the wallet fully in-house allows EMURGO to accelerate development and tighten integration with Cardano-native applications.

The acquisition does not include the $CTRL token, only the wallet technology. The deal complements EMURGO's broader product stack, including the Cardano Card (with Wirex) and the SecondFi neofinance platform, transforming EMURGO from a pure foundational entity into a vertically integrated consumer crypto company.

The strategic move positions Cardano as a home base for multichain asset management and gives EMURGO direct ownership of the user experience layer across hundreds of chains.

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Interesting Stories

Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #124

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 04 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #123!

Here are the topics of the week:

👛Lace 2.0 Goes Live with Cardano, Midnight & Bitcoin in One Wallet
💵TxPipe Ships Dolos v1.1, First Point Release on the v1 LTS Line
🤖Masumi Brings x402 Live on Cardano, Unlocking AI-Agent Payments
Weekly Development Report
& More!

👛Lace 2.0 Goes Live with Cardano, Midnight & Bitcoin in One Wallet

The Lace 2.0 extension shipped on April 28, 2026, marking the first time Cardano users can manage ADA, NIGHT and BTC assets natively in a single non-custodial interface. The release lands as the first wallet to integrate the Midnight mainnet, giving users direct access to private, ZK-proof-based transactions without leaving their primary Cardano wallet.

Beyond multi-chain support, Lace 2.0 introduces a redesigned UI built around an asset-class navigation pattern, deeper dApp connector flows, and the foundation for the upcoming Lace Mobile wallet for iOS and Android. The release also sets the table for the next phase of UX work: smoother fiat on/off ramps, embedded staking flows, and unified portfolio views across the three chains.

The launch is a strategic milestone in Cardano's enterprise-grade UX push. By bundling Midnight privacy and Bitcoin custody alongside ADA, Lace becomes the most direct on-ramp into the multi-asset Cardano stack of 2026

👉 Learn more

💵TxPipe Ships Dolos v1.1, First Point Release on the v1 LTS Line

TxPipe released Dolos v1.1, the first point release on the v1 LTS line, and the entire scope of this version is dedicated to one objective: driving down the cost of running a Cardano backend. Dolos, TxPipe's lightweight "data node," already offered an alternative to full Cardano node deployments by serving an updated ledger and answering queries with a fraction of the resources. v1.1 doubles down on that promise.

The release tunes pluggable storage backends, optimizes ledger query performance, and reduces memory and CPU footprint for high-traffic dApp infrastructure. For builders, that translates to smaller VMs, lower cloud bills, and faster sync times, the kind of structural change that meaningfully shifts the economics of running a serious Cardano product.

Dolos is also a node-diversity story: every team running Dolos instead of a single canonical implementation hardens the network against monoculture failures. With v1.1 cementing the LTS support window, TxPipe is signaling that Cardano backend infrastructure is ready for production-grade, long-horizon deployments, exactly what the ecosystem needs as Hydra 2.0, Leios and the AI-agent economy come online.

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🤖Masumi Brings x402 Live on Cardano, Unlocking AI-Agent Payments

Masumi Network has integrated Cardano with x402, the HTTP-native payment protocol originally built by Coinbase. The pull request adding the Cardano specification of x402 was officially merged into the main repository, making Cardano an official x402 chain alongside the early Coinbase and Binance integrations. Masumi's implementation enables on-chain payments using ADA and USDM, Cardano's native stablecoin.

Patrick Tobler, founder of NMKR and Masumi, demoed the first proof of concept on the Cardano testnet: a memecoin minting flow triggered by a simple web payment of 2 USDM plus a small amount of ADA, an end-to-end agent-to-service payment with no email, no API key, no manual auth required. That's the real significance: x402 is the missing payment rail for the AI-agent economy, and Cardano just got it natively.

The implications go deeper than memecoins. Once x402 is wired into DeFi primitives, autonomous agents can pay for compute, settle trades, or cover protocol fees without human intervention, using ADA and USDM as the unit of account. Combined with Cardano's deterministic UTXO settlement and low fees, this is a structural advantage for high-frequency, machine-driven micropayments.

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Interesting Stories

Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #123

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #123!

Here are the topics of the week:

🏦 EMURGO Unveils SecondFi Neofinance Platform at Money20/20 Bangkok
🎮 200 German Companies Running Agentic AI on Cardano
⚡4,500 Farmers in India Live on Cardano With Syngenta Foundation
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🏦 EMURGO Unveils SecondFi Neofinance Platform at Money20/20 Bangkok

EMURGO, a co-founding entity of Cardano, unveiled SecondFi at Money20/20 Bangkok, a self-custody neofinance platform combining spending, trading, earning, and saving in a single mobile app. SecondFi supports card-based spending at merchants worldwide, cross-border transfers across crypto and fiat, and multichain staking directly from the app, all while users retain full control of their funds.

The platform expands on the recently launched Cardano Card (in partnership with Wirex), moving from a single card product to a full-service financial platform. The waitlist is now open at secondfi.io. The launch comes as stablecoin circulation surpasses $300 billion globally, with demand surging for borderless financial tools in emerging markets.

This positions EMURGO as a direct competitor to custodial fintech apps like Revolut and Crypto.com, but with self-custody at its core, leveraging Cardano’s infrastructure for settlement and staking.

👉 Learn more

🎮 200 German Companies Running Agentic AI on Cardano

Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard revealed at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 that approximately 200 large German companies are already running Agentic AI systems with Cardano as the underlying security, digital identity, and accountability layer. Most companies are unaware they're using Cardano, the blockchain operates invisibly behind consumer applications.

AI agents in some deployments transact using USDM stablecoin with microtransactions metering prompt activity. This represents a fundamentally different adoption model: rather than requiring users to interact with blockchain directly, Cardano serves as invisible infrastructure powering enterprise AI workflows at scale.

The revelation positions Cardano as a stealth enterprise blockchain already in production across major corporations, a narrative that contrasts sharply with the speculative focus of most crypto coverage and suggests significant untapped institutional demand.

👉 Learn more

⚡4,500 Farmers in India Live on Cardano With Syngenta Foundation

Frederik Gregaard revealed at Paris Blockchain Week that 4,500 farmers in India are already using Cardano through a collaboration with the Syngenta Foundation, with 150 new farmers onboarding every week.

The system leverages satellite data for improved harvests, provides digital identity credentials, and gives farmers access to online banking.

The project was funded through Project Catalyst Fund 13 via EcoMandala and is designed to scale to 100,000+ farmers. It demonstrates how blockchain can deliver tangible economic value to underserved populations in emerging markets, from better crop yields to financial inclusion.

This is one of the most concrete real-world adoption stories in all of crypto, not a pilot program or whitepaper, but a live system growing organically and delivering measurable impact to thousands of people who have never heard of blockchain.

👉 Learn more

Interesting Stories

Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #122

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #122!

Here are the topics of the week:

🏦 Hannover Re Reinsurance Tokenized on Cardano
🎮 Materios Emerges as Fourth Cardano Partner Chain for Game and AI Data
⚡ Mithril Completes SNARK Circuit Prototype for Faster Chain Sync
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🏦 Hannover Re Reinsurance Tokenized on Cardano

At Paris Blockchain Week 2026, Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard revealed that exposure to Hannover Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance companies, has been tokenized on Cardano and listed on the London Stock Exchange. The product, developed in collaboration with Archax, covers reinsurance risk categories including flooding and cybersecurity events.

The asset yields between 9% and 12% annually and is non-correlated to traditional markets, meaning it doesn’t move with stocks or crypto. Previously requiring a $100 million minimum investment, tokenization on Cardano now makes this institutional-grade product accessible to a far broader investor base through a regulated exchange listing.

This represents one of the clearest examples of real-world asset tokenization in production on any blockchain, not a testnet demo or whitepaper, but a regulated, listed product operating under the highest level of financial scrutiny.

👉 Learn more

🎮 Materios Emerges as Fourth Cardano Partner Chain for Game and AI Data

Materios (@materios_ntwrk) is a new partner chain joining the Cardano ecosystem.

Materios is a Substrate-based blockchain focused on certifying game scores and AI data, periodically anchoring verified results back to Cardano L1.

This expands Cardano’s partner-chain stack alongside Midnight, Vola Network, and other chains already in development, all built on IOG’s official Partner Chains framework using Substrate.

Materios originates from the team behind Flux Point, the game Tribe and Adam (an AI trading bot already operating in the Cardano ecosystem), bringing practical gaming and AI use cases to the partner-chain model.

👉 Learn more

⚡ Mithril Completes SNARK Circuit Prototype for Faster Chain Sync

The Mithril team published a development update confirming major milestones in integrating SNARK proofs into the Mithril protocol.

The team completed the full review of the recursive SNARK circuit prototype, finalized the security impact assessment, implemented support for multiple proof systems in the STM library, and achieved SNARK proof generation and verification in end-to-end tests.

Work has begun on the recursive SNARK circuit module within the STM library, IVC circuit testing plans, and production readiness procedures for circuit keys and trusted setup. Additionally, the client CLI implementation for Cardano blocks and transactions was completed.

These advances bring Mithril closer to enabling dramatically faster chain synchronization for Cardano nodes through cryptographic proof verification, a critical infrastructure improvement for node operators, light clients, and ecosystem scalability.

👉 Learn more

Interesting Stories

Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #121

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #121!

Here are the topics of the week:

💰 Cardano Approves $80M Orion Fund With Draper Dragon
📈 Volatility Shares Launches First Cardano Futures ETFs in the US
🌍 Anzens Announces $6M USDA Minting Program for Kenya
Weekly Development Report
& More!

💰 Cardano Approves $80M Orion Fund With Draper Dragon

The Cardano community has officially approved the first tranche of the Orion Fund, an $80 million venture capital initiative led by Draper Dragon, through on‑chain governance. The vote cleared required thresholds from both Delegated Representatives (DReps) and the Constitutional Committee, unlocking 50 million ADA from the Treasury.

The fund initiates a $15 million deployment as the first phase, focused on real-world asset tokenization and institutional DeFi. Unlike traditional grants, the Orion Fund operates as a professional venture capital vehicle, returns generated by investments will be channeled back to the Cardano Treasury. The overall target is to grow Cardano’s TVL beyond $3 billion.

The Cardano Foundation formally voted yes on the proposal, describing it as proof that Cardano’s governance model can work with institutional venture capital structures. The approval takes effect at epoch 624.

👉 Learn more

📈 Volatility Shares Launches First Cardano Futures ETFs in the US

On April 2, 2026, Volatility Shares launched two Cardano futures ETFs on the Cboe Global Markets / NYSE: CRDD (Cardano ETF) and CRDX (2x Cardano ETF).

CRDD tracks Cardano futures contracts while CRDX offers 2x daily leveraged exposure. Both are now available on major brokerages including Robinhood.

The products open a regulated pathway for traditional investors to gain ADA exposure without directly holding the cryptocurrency, a critical step on the road toward a potential spot ADA ETF, with the earliest approval window opening August 9, 2026.

👉 Learn more

🌍 Anzens Announces $6M USDA Minting Program for Kenya

On April 9, 2026, Anzens, the issuer of the USDA stablecoin on Cardano, announced it will mint 6,000,000 USDA as part of an expansion into Kenya. The rollout begins with pilot programs involving local banks and financial institutions, with plans to expand into treasury, settlement, and cross-border payments.

This follows Anzens’ first retail transaction in Nairobi at Java House in February 2026. Anzens operates as a licensed Money Service Business with 17 US state no-objection letters and partners with Encryptus for liquidity rails across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and LATAM.

The Kenya deployment marks a significant step in Cardano’s real-world adoption story, bringing compliant stablecoin infrastructure to one of Africa’s most important financial markets, where mobile payments already dominate daily economic activity.

👉 Learn more

Interesting Stories

Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #120

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #120!

Here are the topics of the week:

🔬 Google Quantum AI Ranks Cardano #2 Most Quantum-Ready Blockchain
🔐 Midnight DeFi Ecosystem Expands with SundaeSwap, NMKR, and FluidTokens
📊 Cardano Data Goes Live on Dune Analytics
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🏦🔬 Google Quantum AI Ranks Cardano #2 Most Quantum-Ready Blockchain

A paper from Google Quantum AI, shared widely on April 1, 2026, ranked Cardano as the second-most quantum-ready blockchain worldwide, behind only Algorand. The evaluation assessed whether networks expose public keys, support key rotation, and how long transactions remain vulnerable before confirmation.

Cardano’s eUTXO model keeps spending keys hashed until funds are actually spent, providing inherent protection against quantum attacks. Ethereum and Solana were rated as having the broadest quantum attack surface because their public keys are always visible, while Dogecoin, Zcash, and Bitcoin Cash joined Cardano in “Tier 2.”

This positions Cardano as a top contender for institutional trust in a future where quantum computing could threaten existing cryptographic standards, reinforcing the network’s long-term security narrative.

👉 Learn more

🔐 Midnight DeFi Ecosystem Expands with SundaeSwap, NMKR, and FluidTokens

Alongside the Midnight mainnet launch, the network confirmed DeFi ecosystem partnerships with SundaeSwap (DEX), NMKR (NFT infrastructure), and FluidTokens (lending/atomic swaps). These collaborations bring privacy-compliant DeFi primitives to Midnight, targeting features like programmable data protection and confidential asset management.

SundaeSwap responded by launching the Midnight Capacity Exchange, a tool designed to make onboarding frictionless for users transitioning liquidity between Cardano and Midnight. The exchange leverages SundaeSwap’s existing DEX infrastructure to streamline cross-chain movement.

These partnerships directly connect major Cardano ecosystem players to the new privacy layer, signaling that Midnight is not just a standalone chain but an extension of Cardano’s DeFi capabilities, now with built-in privacy compliance for institutions and individuals alike.

👉 Learn more

📊 Cardano Data Goes Live on Dune Analytics

Cardano’s on-chain data is now live on Dune Analytics, one of the most widely used blockchain data platforms in the industry. The integration, announced by Input Output Group, allows analysts, developers, and community members to start querying Cardano’s on-chain activity and building custom dashboards immediately.

The launch includes a network overview dashboard as the starting point, with governance and DeFi-specific dashboards confirmed as coming next. Dune’s SQL-based interface makes blockchain data accessible to a broad audience, from institutional researchers to community analysts tracking ecosystem metrics.

This is a significant infrastructure milestone for Cardano’s data accessibility. Dune is used by thousands of analysts across the crypto industry, and having Cardano natively available on the platform positions the ecosystem alongside Ethereum, Solana, and other major chains in terms of on-chain transparency and data tooling.

👉 Learn more

Interesting Stories

Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #119

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #119!

Here are the topics of the week:

🏦 Monument Bank to Tokenize £250M in UK Retail Deposits on Midnight
₿ First Bitcoin–Cardano Atomic Swap Executed on Mainnet
🌙 Midnight “Federated Mainnet” Goes Live in Kūkolu Phase
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🏦 Monument Bank to Tokenize £250M in UK Retail Deposits on Midnight

UK challenger bank Monument Bank announced a landmark partnership with the Midnight Foundation to tokenize up to £250 million ($335M) of retail customer deposits, becoming the first UK-regulated bank to tokenize customer deposits on a public blockchain. Deposits remain interest-bearing, fully backed, and protected under the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), ensuring complete safety for account holders throughout the process.

The rollout is structured in three phases: Phase 1 tokenizes up to £250M in savings deposits; Phase 2 expands into tokenized investment products (commodity funds, private equity, structured assets); Phase 3 opens the infrastructure via Monument Technology’s Banking-as-a-Service platform for other institutions to adopt. Midnight’s privacy architecture ensures transaction data remains visible only to the bank and its customers, while maintaining full regulatory compliance.

This milestone represents one of the most significant real-world asset tokenization events within the Cardano ecosystem to date. Charles Hoskinson called it “one of the largest deals we’ve ever done.” For Cardano, Monument Bank’s move signals a new phase of institutional adoption: regulated financial products are now using Midnight’s privacy layer as a trust layer, validating the thesis that compliance-ready ZK chains have genuine demand from traditional finance.

👉 Learn more

₿ First Bitcoin–Cardano Atomic Swap Executed on Mainnet By FluidTokens

FluidTokens executed the first-ever atomic swap between native BTC and native ADA directly on mainnet — with no bridges, wrapped assets, or centralized intermediaries involved. The historic transaction swapped 0.0001 BTC for 50 ADA, settling on-chain with a fee of just 2,000 sats ($1.43). The swap was executed via Fluidly, FluidTokens’ trustless peer-to-peer swap protocol that allows users to post and match cross-chain offers that settle atomically once conditions are met.

This milestone demonstrates that native Bitcoin can now be traded directly within Cardano’s ecosystem without relying on any third-party custody or wrapped token infrastructure. The trust model is fully on-chain: either both legs of the swap execute simultaneously, or neither does. This eliminates counterparty risk entirely and represents a qualitatively different level of cross-chain interoperability compared to bridge-based solutions.

The broader significance is strategic: Bitcoin DeFi integration has been identified as a core 2026 priority by IOG, the Cardano Foundation, and Intersect. FluidTokens’ mainnet success puts Cardano among the first Layer 1s to support trustless, native BTC–ADA settlement. As Fluidly scales and liquidity deepens, Cardano stands to capture a meaningful share of the growing Bitcoin-native DeFi market.

👉 Learn more

🌙 Midnight Federated Mainnet Goes Live in Kūkolu Phase

The Midnight Network mainnet launched its Kūkolu (federated) phase this week, marking the world’s first regulatory-compliant zero-knowledge privacy chain going live in production.

Charles Hoskinson confirmed in a livestream that “Midnight Week” is underway, with the federated mainnet being activated step-by-step through daily go/no-go checkpoints with its 10 institutional node operators, including Google Cloud, MoneyGram, WorldPay, Bullish, eToro, Vodafone’s Pairpoint, Blockdaemon, and Shielded Technologies.

Full decentralization is planned for Q3 2026, when community-driven block production will replace the federated model. The Midnight launch marks the culmination of years of R&D by IOG and the Midnight Foundation, and represents the first live deployment of a ZK-based, regulatory-compliant partner chain to Cardano. For the broader Cardano ecosystem, Midnight adds a privacy layer that complements ADA’s public ledger, opening entirely new use cases in regulated industries.

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Interesting Stories

Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #118

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #118!

Here are the topics of the week:

🌐 Cardano Goes Omnichain: LayerZero Integration Now Live
📈 Cardano's TVL increases after USDCx launch
⚡ Cardano Protocol 11 'van Rossem' Hard Fork: Final Countdown
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🌐 Cardano Goes Omnichain: LayerZero Integration Now Live

Cardano officially went live with LayerZero integration on March 18, 2026, connecting the network to over 160 blockchains via the Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard. The integration makes more than 700 tokens immediately eligible for deployment on Cardano and unlocks access to approximately $90 billion in cross-chain liquidity.

This is a landmark achievement for Cardano interoperability. Historically, Cardano's extended UTXO (eUTXO) architecture, while offering superior security and predictability, made bridging to account-based chains technically challenging. The LayerZero integration resolves this at the protocol level, enabling seamless asset transfers across the broader DeFi ecosystem without sacrificing Cardano's security model.

For Cardano's DeFi ecosystem, the implications are significant: protocols can now attract liquidity from Ethereum and Solana users, and Cardano-native assets gain exposure to 160+ chains simultaneously. Combined with the Midnight mainnet launch and ongoing DeFi TVL growth, this positions Cardano as a genuinely multi-chain hub in 2026.

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📈Cardano's TVL increases after USDCx launch

Cardano's DeFi ecosystem reached a historic new milestone on March 20, 2026, with Total Value Locked (TVL) climbing to 520.41 million ADA. Daily trading volumes across Cardano's DEX and perpetuals platforms combined have surged to $374 million, reflecting growing user activity and capital confidence across the network.

The record is largely attributed to two catalysts: the launch of USDCx stablecoin, which now represents 36% of Cardano's total stablecoin market share, and the SEC's formal classification of ADA as a digital commodity earlier this week, which boosted institutional and retail confidence alike. The combination of regulatory clarity and new liquidity infrastructure is proving to be a powerful growth driver.

The ecosystem is increasingly diversified across lending protocols, DEXs, stablecoins, and liquid staking, signaling structural maturity rather than speculative momentum.

👉 Learn more

⚡ Cardano Protocol 11 'van Rossem' Hard Fork: Final Countdown

Cardano's intra-era hard fork to Protocol Version 11, named 'van Rossem', is nearing activation, with the critical Cardano Node 10.7.0 prerelease expected within days of this writing. The upgrade introduces five new Plutus built-in functions, including BLS12-381 multi-scalar multiplication and modular exponentiation, which significantly improve on-chain cryptography capabilities for zero-knowledge proof applications.

Additional changes include VRF key uniqueness enforcement for improved block production integrity and various performance optimizations, all without altering transaction shape, which minimizes disruption for wallets, exchanges, and DApps. The Hard Fork Working Group is now holding weekly meetings and regular X Spaces to coordinate ecosystem readiness ahead of activation.

The upgrade is expected to meaningfully boost network throughput toward the 1,000 TPS target that Cardano has been working toward under the Ouroboros scaling roadmap. For developers building ZK applications, privacy tools, and high-frequency DeFi protocols,

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Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #117

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #117!

Here are the topics of the week:

📊 Strong Early Activity for USDCx on Cardano
📈 FluidTokens Reaches New TVL Record
🎁 Binance Announces “Midnight HODLer Airdrop”
Weekly Development Report
& More!

📊 Strong Early Activity for USDCx on Cardano

Input Output Global shared early data on the USDCx rollout, showing strong initial adoption during the first week of integration.

More than 15 million USDCx have already been minted on Cardano, with around $1.17M bridged organically by users across 6,100+ transactions. During the same period, DeFi total value locked increased from $127M to $142M.

These early metrics suggest that stablecoin liquidity is beginning to move into the ecosystem. As USDCx integrations expand across wallets, exchanges, and DeFi protocols, the availability of dollar-denominated liquidity could become a key building block for Cardano’s growing financial stack.

👉 Learn more

📈 FluidTokens Reaches New TVL Record

Cardano lending protocol FluidTokens has reached a new milestone, with total value locked surpassing 18 million ADA, marking the highest level of liquidity ever recorded on the platform.

The increase reflects growing usage of lending markets within Cardano DeFi, where users can borrow, lend, and deploy capital directly on-chain.

As liquidity pools expand, lending protocols like FluidTokens help strengthen the financial infrastructure of the ecosystem, supporting more advanced DeFi activity beyond simple token swaps.

👉 Follow updates

🎁 Binance Announces Midnight HODLer Airdrop

Binance has announced a HODLer airdrop for Midnight’s $NIGHT token, distributing allocations to BNB holders.

According to the announcement, the token will soon be listed on Binance, the world's largest exchange.

The move introduces Midnight to a much broader audience, while giving exchange users early exposure to the network’s privacy-focused infrastructure as it continues progressing toward full ecosystem expansion.

On the other hand, remember that the mainnet will be launched this month.

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Interesting Stories

Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #116

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #116!

Here are the topics of the week:

🛒 ADA Payments Go Live at SPAR Supermarkets in Switzerland
💵 USDCx Goes Live on Liqwid
🧩 Cardano Rosetta Java Simplifies Institutional Integration
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🛒 ADA Payments Go Live at SPAR Supermarkets in Switzerland

Cardano continues expanding into everyday commerce. Through a partnership between the Cardano Foundation and DFX, $ADA can now be used for purchases at 137 SPAR supermarkets across Switzerland.

The integration allows customers to pay with Cardano directly at grocery store checkouts, turning a blockchain transaction into a simple retail payment experience.

While crypto payments have long been discussed as a future use case, deployments like this bring them into highly visible real-world environments. Each transaction demonstrates how digital assets can function not only as investment vehicles, but also as practical payment tools in everyday life.

👉 Learn more

🌆💵 USDCx Goes Live on Liqwid

Cardano’s largest lending protocol, Liqwid Finance, has integrated USDCx into its on-chain money market.

Users can now supply USDCx liquidity, borrow against their positions, and deploy stablecoin capital directly inside Cardano DeFi. This addition expands the range of lending strategies available on the platform while strengthening the role of stablecoins within the ecosystem.

As dollar-denominated liquidity becomes more accessible on-chain, lending markets gain depth and flexibility. Integrations like this help Cardano DeFi evolve from simple token swaps toward more mature financial primitives.

👉 Follow updates

🏛️ Major Institutions Join Midnight as Validators

The release of Cardano Rosetta Java v2.1.0 introduces a major improvement for institutional integrations. The implementation follows the standardized Rosetta API framework originally developed by Coinbase, enabling exchanges, custodians, and wallets to integrate Cardano using familiar infrastructure.

Instead of learning Cardano’s native APIs, institutions can interact with the network through the same interface used for many other blockchains, querying balances, submitting transactions, accessing historical data, and interacting with on-chain governance.

The latest Rosetta Java 2.1.0 release also includes full support for Conway/Voltaire governance features, such as SPO voting, DRep vote delegation, and CIP-129 integration. In practice, Rosetta acts as a standardized gateway, making it significantly easier for institutional platforms to connect to the Cardano ecosystem.

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Interesting Stories

Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #115

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #115!

Here are the topics of the week:

💵 Official Bridge for USDCx Is Now Fully Open
🌆 Midnight Launches “Midnight City”
🏛️ Major Institutions Join Midnight as Validators
Weekly Development Report
& More!

💵 Official Bridge for USDCx Is Now Fully Open

The official bridge to bring USDC into USDCx on Cardano is now fully live.

This removes a major friction point. Liquidity can now flow directly from Ethereum, Base, centralized exchanges, and other supported networks into Cardano’s native USDCx environment.

In practical terms, this means stablecoin capital no longer feels siloed. Builders gain easier access to deep dollar liquidity, and users can move value into Cardano without complex routing or synthetic workarounds. It’s a structural improvement that strengthens interoperability and reinforces Cardano’s integration with the broader digital dollar ecosystem.

👉 Learn more

🌆 Midnight Launches “Midnight City”

Midnight has launched Midnight City, a gamified city simulation powered by AI agents running directly on the network.

Each action inside the simulation generates real zero-knowledge proofs and on-chain transactions. Users can explore districts, inspect activity, and toggle disclosure settings to see how privacy operates in real time.

This isn’t just a demo. It’s an interactive window into how Midnight’s confidential computation works in practice. By turning abstract privacy mechanics into something visible and explorable, Midnight City makes the network’s capabilities tangible ahead of full-scale deployment.

👉 Follow updates

🏛️ Major Institutions Join Midnight as Validators

Midnight has announced that MoneyGram, eToro, and Pairpoint by Vodafone will operate validators during its federated mainnet phase.

They join previously confirmed participants including Google Cloud, Blockdaemon, Shielded, and AlphaTON, forming a strong early validator lineup as the network transitions toward production.

Institutional validator participation adds credibility and operational depth during Midnight’s early stages. With SPO participation expected to open in later phases, the validator set is gradually expanding, combining enterprise infrastructure with Cardano-native operators.

👉 Learn More

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Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #114

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #114!

Here are the topics of the week:

📊 Messari Releases State of Cardano Q4 2025 Report
🪙 FluidTokens to Enable ADA Borrowing with Gold Collateral
💵 USDCx Is Now Live on Cardano
Weekly Development Report
& More!

📊 Messari Releases State of Cardano Q4 2025 Report

Messari has published its State of Cardano Q4 2025 report, highlighting a quarter defined by institutional coordination, governance resilience, and expanding on-chain activity.

A major development was the formation of the Pentad alliance, uniting five core ecosystem entities and establishing a ₳70 million Critical Integrations fund to secure tier-one stablecoins, oracles, and custodians. This formal coordination strengthens Cardano’s institutional infrastructure and long-term market positioning.

The quarter also saw strong ecosystem signals: the Cardano Card launched via Wirex, enabling ADA payments at over 100 million merchants in 190 countries; average daily NFT volume surged 133.4% QoQ; and DEX volume rose 17.3% to $4.4M, with Minswap capturing 72.4% of activity. Governance proved resilient as well, with a snap election restoring the Constitutional Committee after the Atlantic Council’s resignation, maintaining on-chain ratification thresholds and demonstrating operational continuity under pressure.

👉 Learn more

🪙 FluidTokens to Enable ADA Borrowing with Gold Collateral

FluidTokens is preparing to implement $ADA borrowing using tokenized gold ($fGLD) as collateral, connecting Cardano DeFi with real-world assets.

This integration expands lending options beyond crypto-native assets, allowing users to access ADA liquidity while holding exposure to gold-backed tokens. It represents a meaningful step toward blending traditional store-of-value assets with decentralized finance functionality.

By integrating RWAs directly into lending markets, Cardano DeFi continues to evolve beyond simple token swaps and staking, moving toward more diversified collateral models and broader capital utility.

👉 Follow updates

💵 USDCx Is Now Live on Cardano

USDCx, a non-EVM, privacy-compatible version of USDC issued by Circle, is officially live on the network. Fully backed 1:1 by USDC, it creates a direct bridge between Cardano and one of the largest stablecoin ecosystems in crypto.

This is less about adding “another token” and more about eliminating friction. ADA holders can now move value seamlessly between Cardano and the broader USDC world, including exchanges and other supported networks, without complex workarounds.

Stablecoin liquidity underpins modern crypto markets. With USDCx live, Cardano gains direct integration into a $70B+ digital dollar infrastructure, strengthening interoperability, expanding liquidity options, and positioning the ecosystem for more advanced financial use cases.

👉 Learn More

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Weekly Cardano Digest #113

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 14:00:16 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #113!

Here are the topics of the week:

🌘 Midnight Mainnet Set For Launch by End of March
💧 CME Group Launches ADA Futures
🧑‍💻 Cardano Powering Verifiable Enviromental Impact
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🌘 Midnight Mainnet Set for Launch by End of March

At Consensus Hong Kong, Charles Hoskinson confirmed that Midnight mainnet is scheduled to go live by the end of March, marking a decisive step forward for Cardano’s privacy-focused partner chain.

He also highlighted major partnerships already in place, including collaborations with Google and Telegram, with additional integrations expected as the network transitions into production.

With mainnet activation, Midnight moves from extended testnet experimentation into live infrastructure. Programmable privacy, selective disclosure, and shielded smart contracts will now operate in a production environment, a major milestone for Cardano’s expanding multi-chain architecture.

👉 Learn more

🏦 CME Group Launches ADA Futures

CME Group has officially launched futures for Cardano ($ADA), alongside Chainlink and Stellar.

CME is the largest derivatives exchange in the world, serving global banks, asset managers, hedge funds, and institutional traders. Listing crypto futures there represents regulatory alignment, deeper liquidity, and institutional-grade price discovery.

For Cardano, this provides regulated exposure for traditional finance capital and opens the door to more advanced financial products built around ADA. It’s not just a listing, it’s a structural milestone in crypto’s integration into global markets.

👉 Follow updates

🌍 Cardano Powering Verifiable Environmental Impact

Plastiks is leveraging Cardano to turn plastic recovery data into verifiable, tamper-proof on-chain records, supporting transparent ESG reporting and circular economy initiatives.

So far, the initiative has traced and recovered 10,032,898 kilograms of plastic, equivalent to 331,085,965 plastic bottles (1.5L), with verified entities operating across 20 countries.

This is blockchain functioning as infrastructure rather than speculation. By anchoring environmental accountability on-chain, Cardano is supporting measurable, auditable sustainability outcomes at global scale.

👉 Learn More

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Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #112

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 14:00:16 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #112!

Here are the topics of the week:

🍩 SundaeSwap LPs Qualify for $NIGHT via Glacier Drop
💧 FluidTokens Temporarily Boosts ADA Lending Yields to 6%
🧑‍💻 Cardano Foundation Releases 2025 Developer Ecosystem Survey
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🍩 SundaeSwap LPs Qualify for $NIGHT via Glacier Drop

Liquidity providers on SundaeSwap v3 received a pleasant surprise. Users who were providing $ADA liquidity on June 11 have qualified for $NIGHT allocations as part of the Glacier Drop.

This distribution directly rewards on-chain participation rather than passive holding. By recognizing active liquidity provision, the Glacier Drop reinforces the idea that meaningful engagement on Cardano is increasingly tied to tangible ecosystem benefits.

Claims open on January 30, making it worth checking eligibility for anyone active on SundaeSwap v3 during that period.

👉 Learn more

💧 FluidTokens Temporarily Boosts ADA Lending Yields to 6%

FluidTokens has launched a targeted incentive program, temporarily boosting $ADA lending yields to 6% APY by subsidizing returns with protocol fees.

The structure is deliberately controlled. Incentives accrue automatically, the program is capped at 10 million ADA TVL, and it runs for a defined three-month window, encouraging liquidity supply without creating long-term distortions.

This approach strengthens Cardano’s lending markets while keeping incentives sustainable. It’s a practical example of how protocol-level design can increase capital efficiency and user participation without excessive emissions.

👉 Follow updates

🧑‍💻 Cardano Foundation Releases 2025 Developer Ecosystem Survey

The Cardano Foundation has published the 2025 State of the Cardano Developer Ecosystem Survey, offering a data-driven look at how builders are actually working today.

The survey includes responses from 109 developers, most with seven or more years of professional experience. Results show a strong preference for reliability-focused languages, with Aiken emerging as the dominant smart contract tool.

Key priorities stand out clearly: identity, DeFi, stablecoins, and core infrastructure, while scalability and documentation remain top needs. This kind of grounded feedback provides valuable guidance for shaping Cardano’s next technical and ecosystem decisions.

👉 Learn More

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Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #111

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 14:00:15 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #111!

Here are the topics of the week:

💵 Cardano and Midnight to Integrate USDCx by Circle
🔗 FluidTokens Enters Final Phase of the Bitcoin → Cardano Bridge
⚡ Ouroboros Leios Shows Strong Progress on Cardano Scaling
Weekly Development Report
& More!

💵 Cardano and Midnight to Integrate USDCx by Circle

Cardano and Midnight are set to integrate USDCx, a new privacy-preserving version of USDC developed by Circle.

USDCx is a non-EVM, compliance-friendly stablecoin, fully backed 1:1 by USDC, designed to operate beyond traditional smart-contract environments while enabling confidential transactions. According to Charles Hoskinson, the integration will bring Circle’s liquidity directly into the Cardano ecosystem, with the added benefit of fast deployment timelines.

This strengthens both networks at once. Cardano gains deeper, institutional-grade stablecoin liquidity, while Midnight expands its privacy stack with a regulated, widely trusted asset. Together, they move closer to supporting advanced DeFi, payments, and enterprise use cases where privacy and compliance must coexist.

👉 Learn more

🔗 FluidTokens Enters Final Phase of the Bitcoin → Cardano Bridge

FluidTokens is entering the final phase of its Bitcoin to Cardano bridge, a major step toward unlocking Bitcoin liquidity inside the Cardano DeFi ecosystem.

The bridge is designed to enable $BTC to be used natively within Cardano DeFi for lending, trading, and other on-chain financial activity, without users needing to leave the ecosystem. This opens the door for Cardano applications to tap into the largest pool of liquidity in crypto.

With its extended UTXO model, low transaction costs, and expanding DeFi stack, Cardano is increasingly positioned as a DeFi execution layer for Bitcoin. If successful, this integration could significantly deepen liquidity and broaden the range of assets actively used on Cardano.

👉 Follow updates

🌘⚡ Ouroboros Leios Shows Strong Progress on Cardano Scaling

Development on Ouroboros Leios, Cardano’s next-generation Layer 1 scalability upgrade, continues to advance at a steady pace. Leios is an evolution of the Ouroboros consensus, designed to dramatically increase throughput while preserving decentralization and security.

Work is progressing 24/7 across global teams, with 80 updates published in the past week alone. Recent simulation results point to substantial gains:
▪️ Sustained throughput of ~300 TxkB/s
▪️ Around 200 TPS for average transactions
▪️ Up to 1,000 TPS for smaller transactions

These results reinforce Leios as a foundational upgrade for Cardano’s long-term scaling roadmap. As development continues, it lays the groundwork for higher on-chain activity, richer DeFi, and broader application demand without compromising the network’s core principles.

👉 Learn More

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Weekly Cardano Digest #110

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 14:01:28 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #110!

Here are the topics of the week:

🤖 Surge Goes Live on Cardano Mainnet
🏗️ Iagon and Fireblocks Bring Tier-1 Institutional Infrastructure to Cardano
🌘 Midnight Partners with AlphaTON Capital to Bring Private AI to Telegram
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🤖 Surge Goes Live on Cardano Mainnet Group to Launch Cardano ($ADA) Futures

Surge is now live on Cardano mainnet, bringing user-friendly, sovereign algorithmic trading to the ecosystem. Surge is a browser-based protocol that allows anyone to build and deploy Cardano DEX trading bots without writing code.

The protocol is designed around two core objectives: empowering users with self-sovereign algorithmic trading tools, and maximizing Cardano KPIs such as transactions, DEX volume, and active wallets, all while minimizing the ADA cost per unit of activity.

By lowering the barrier to automated trading, Surge can significantly increase on-chain activity and liquidity efficiency. It represents a new class of tooling where sophisticated trading strategies become accessible to everyday users, reinforcing Cardano’s DeFi stack with more active, capital-efficient participation.

👉 Learn more

🏗️ Iagon and Fireblocks Bring Tier-1 Institutional Infrastructure to Cardano

Iagon has announced a major collaboration with Fireblocks, delivering full $ADA and Cardano Native Tokens (CNT) support into the institutional infrastructure used by 2,400+ global organizations.

Fireblocks is integrating a complete Cardano stack, including CNT transfers, balances and history, ADA staking and voting, unified SDKs, and webhooks for exchanges and custodians. Under the hood, this solution will rely on Iagon’s enterprise nodes and Insights API, placing Iagon at the center of how institutions interact with Cardano.

This stop-gap integration, expected to complete by February 2026, makes Cardano immediately operational for banks, fintechs, custodians, and major trading venues. It also opens the door for CNT listings on platforms like Revolut and Bitvavo, strengthening Cardano’s institutional access layer and long-term adoption path.

👉 Follow updates

🌘 Midnight Partners with AlphaTON Capital to Bring Private AI to Telegram

Midnight has announced a strategic partnership with AlphaTON Capital to deploy privacy-preserving AI agents on Telegram, targeting a potential reach of nearly 1 billion users.

The initiative focuses on enabling AI interactions that protect user data by default, leveraging Midnight’s confidential computation and zero-knowledge-based privacy architecture. AI agents can operate without exposing sensitive information, a key requirement for compliant and large-scale deployment.

This partnership moves Midnight firmly into real-world application territory. By combining messaging platforms, artificial intelligence, and blockchain-based privacy infrastructure, Cardano’s privacy layer positions itself at the intersection of AI, compliance, and mass-market distribution.

👉 Learn More

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Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #109

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 14:01:08 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #109!

Here are the topics of the week:

🏦 CME Group to Launch Cardano ($ADA) Futures
🔁 Minswap Surpasses $900M in Annual Trading Volume
🧩 Cardano Builder DAO Crosses 13M On-Chain Transactions
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🏦 CME Group to Launch Cardano ($ADA) Futures

CME Group is set to launch futures for Cardano ($ADA) alongside Chainlink ($LINK), marking a major institutional milestone. CME is the largest derivatives exchange in the world, widely used by banks, hedge funds, asset managers, and global financial institutions.

This is not just another listing. CME futures play a critical role in price discovery, risk management, and institutional access, acting as a gateway for traditional finance to gain regulated exposure. Historically, CME products have preceded deeper institutional participation across asset classes.

For Cardano, this represents a powerful signal of maturity. Being listed on CME places $ADA within the same institutional framework used for equities, commodities, rates, and major digital assets — reinforcing Cardano’s position as part of the financial mainstream..

👉 Learn more

🔁 Minswap Almost $900M in Annual Trading Volume

Minswap, Cardano’s leading decentralized exchange, has processed over $900 million in trading volume over the past year, according to recent protocol data.

The numbers reflect sustained on-chain activity across swaps, liquidity pools, and active users. Minswap continues to dominate Cardano DeFi by volume, fees generated, and total value locked, confirming its role as core liquidity infrastructure for the ecosystem.

Consistent volume at this scale shows that Cardano DeFi is not episodic. It’s active, competitive, and supported by a broad user base, with Minswap acting as a central hub for token discovery and capital flow on the network..

👉 Follow updates

🧩 Cardano Builder DAO Crosses 13M On-Chain Transactions

The Cardano Builder DAO has surpassed 13 million on-chain transactions and 500 million API requests, highlighting the scale at which Cardano-native applications are being built and used.

The dashboard tracks 26 active projects, nearly 64,000 monthly active users, and over 150,000 downloads, offering a transparent, real-time view into how builder-funded tools are performing across the ecosystem.

This level of usage shows that Cardano’s builder economy is already operating at meaningful scale. Open analytics, high API demand, and millions of transactions reflect an ecosystem where infrastructure is not just deployed. it’s actively used and relied upon by developers and users alike.

👉 Track all projects live

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Essential Cardano’s weekly development report

Weekly Cardano Digest #108

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 14:01:57 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #108!

Here are the topics of the week:

☁️ Google Cloud Launches a Cardano Node on Testnet
🔄 Lace Adds In-Wallet Token Swaps via DEX Aggregators
🧑‍💻 Cexplorer Releases New API for Cardano Developers
Weekly Development Report
& More!

☁️ Google Cloud Launches a Cardano Node on Testnet

Google Cloud has officially launched a Cardano node on testnet, a key technical requirement for operating a Midnight validator. This milestone is part of Google Cloud’s deeper involvement in Cardano’s privacy-focused partner chain, Midnight.

The collaboration was announced in late 2025 during TOKEN2049, when Charles Hoskinson and the Midnight Foundation confirmed a strategic partnership with Google Cloud. As part of this agreement, Google Cloud committed to running critical Midnight infrastructure, including validator operations.

Importantly, running a Midnight validator requires operating a stake pool on the Cardano base layer. This means that while Google Cloud is not independently validating Cardano mainnet, it is directly involved in running Cardano nodes as a prerequisite for securing Midnight. The newly launched testnet node is a concrete step in that process.

👉 Learn more

🔄 Lace Adds In-Wallet Token Swaps via DEX Aggregators

Lace has rolled out a major UX upgrade: users can now swap $ADA for other tokens directly inside the wallet, without opening or connecting to a DEX.

Lace integrates with DEX aggregators like SteelSwap, which automatically compares liquidity and pricing across multiple decentralized exchanges and routes trades through the most efficient path available.

This significantly reduces friction for everyday users. By abstracting away manual DEX selection and execution, Lace makes on-chain trading simpler, faster, and more intuitive, an important step toward making Cardano DeFi accessible to a broader audience.

👉 Follow updates

🧑‍💻 Cexplorer Releases New API for Cardano Developers

Cexplorer has launched a new, fully documented API, designed to make it easier for developers to access Cardano on-chain data when building applications, dashboards, or analytics tools.

The API includes a free Starter Tier, with scalable options for higher limits or custom requirements. This lowers the barrier for experimentation while still supporting production-grade workloads as projects grow.

Developer tooling is critical infrastructure. By improving data access and reducing setup friction, updates like this help accelerate building on Cardano and support a healthier, more diverse developer ecosystem.

👉 Learn More

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Weekly Cardano Digest #107

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 14:00:16 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #107!

Here are the topics of the week:

🔍 TxPipe Completes 14 Protocol Audits Across Cardano in 2025
📈 Cardano Ranks Top 10 in Social Attention Growth in 2025
🌘 Midnight Testnet Surpasses 3M Blocks as Mainnet Nears
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🔍 TxPipe Completes 14 Protocol Audits Across Cardano in 2025

TxPipe released its 2025 security recap, revealing an intense year of protocol-level work across the Cardano ecosystem. The team conducted 14 comprehensive audits, analyzed 152 core smart contract files, and identified 326 total findings, including 81 minor, 50 major, and 69 critical issues.

This work directly strengthens Cardano’s security foundations. By identifying and addressing vulnerabilities before they can be exploited, TxPipe helps ensure that core infrastructure and widely used contracts remain resilient as adoption grows.

The scale of this effort highlights Cardano’s proactive security culture. Continuous auditing, deep protocol knowledge, and independent review remain key pillars as the ecosystem expands into DeFi, identity, and institutional use cases.

👉 Learn more

New data from LunarCrush shows a notable signal forming beneath the surface. In 2025, Cardano ranked as the 7th largest attention gainer, with social activity up 45 percent.

This places Cardano ahead of XRP (40 percent), Solana (25 percent), and more than double Bitcoin’s growth (22 percent), all during a period when most altcoin prices remain heavily depressed.

Rising attention without price expansion often reflects growing awareness, discussion, and ecosystem engagement. It suggests that interest in Cardano is building quietly, driven by fundamentals, development progress, and long-term narratives rather than short-term speculation.

👉 Follow updates

⚡ Strike Finance Passes 1B ADA in Lifetime Volume

Midnight continues to accelerate. In just over seven months, the Midnight testnet has produced more than 3,000,000 blocks and processed 560,000+ transactions, showing sustained and growing builder activity.

These metrics confirm that developers are already stress-testing the network, pushing functionality, and preparing real applications ahead of mainnet. At the same time, scaling mechanisms are actively coming online as Midnight enters its final pre-launch phase.

With mainnet now clearly in sight, Midnight is transitioning from experimentation to execution. The pace of activity signals strong momentum for Cardano’s privacy layer as it moves toward real-world deployment.

👉 Learn More

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Weekly Cardano Digest #106

Lucas Macchiavelli — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:00:37 +0000

Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #106!

Here are the topics of the week:

🔐 Tangem Adds Native ADA Staking Support
🌘 Pulse Builds a Privacy-First AMM on Midnight
📊 Cardano Signs Multi-Year Integration with Dune Analytics
Weekly Development Report
& More!

🔐 Tangem Adds Native ADA Staking Support

Tangem has added native $ADA staking support, allowing users to stake directly from their self-custodial hardware wallets. With more than 6 million Tangem wallets in use, this significantly expands access to Cardano staking among security-focused users.

This integration removes friction for long-term holders who prioritize cold storage while still participating in network security and rewards. Users no longer need to move funds to software wallets or third-party solutions to stake ADA.

It’s a quiet but meaningful adoption milestone. By embedding staking into widely used hardware wallets, Cardano continues to strengthen its position as a network designed for secure long-term participation at scale.

👉 Learn more from @Tangem

🌘 Pulse Builds a Privacy-First AMM on Midnight

A major private DeFi use case is taking shape on Midnight.
Pulse is actively developing a privacy-first AMM DEX directly on the Midnight network.

This marks an important transition for Midnight, from a privacy-focused execution layer in development to real DeFi activity. Trading, liquidity provision, and on-chain interactions will be able to operate with privacy by default, without exposing sensitive user data.

As privacy becomes increasingly relevant for both individuals and institutions, projects like Pulse demonstrate how Cardano’s privacy stack can support functional DeFi, not just theoretical use cases. It’s a concrete step toward a more private and versatile Cardano ecosystem.

👉 Follow updates from @pulsecardano

⚡ Strike Finance Passes 1B ADA in Lifetime Volume

Strike Finance continues to scale rapidly. The protocol has surpassed 1 billion ADA in all-time trading volume, while generating over 1.38 million ADA in total rewards for $STRIKE holders during the current staking period.

Key highlights from this week:
▪️ Over 250,000 ADA staked this period
▪️ 278,000 ADA paid out to stakers
▪️ More than 90 percent of $STRIKE already in circulation
▪️ Fees increased for NIGHT liquidity providers
▪️ V2 public testnet released

With on-chain perpetuals gaining traction and a 2026 roadmap coming soon, Strike Finance is positioning itself as one of Cardano’s most active DeFi protocols, combining real usage, revenue distribution, and continuous product iteration.

👉 Learn More

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