Intersect Development Update #18 - June 14th

14 min

Welcome to the eighteenth edition of the Intersect Development Report! We’re approximately halfway into Intersect’s first year, and we want to thank all our members for working hard to shape Cardano’s and Intersect’s future!

This week, we are excited to update you on member-experience improvements; including Discord enhancements and changes with working groups. In addition, we’re excited to share Messari’s Q1 report on Cardano. Voting opens for the interim Constitutional Committee seats, DRep pioneer program, community hubs, and more.


Let’s get straight into the update!

Messari - Cardano Ecosystem Analysis Q1 2024

We’re pleased to share Messari’s Q1 report on Cardano. Commissioned by Intersect, the report dives deep into the state of play for Cardano in Q1 of 2024!

Key Insights from the report:

  • Cardano’s revenue (USD) increased 44% QoQ. This was partially driven by ADA’s 7% QoQ price increase.
  • TVL (USD) surpassed $500 million in March, setting an all-time high. Several new protocols, such as Axo and USDM, have launched or are nearing production, while incumbents, such as Indigo and Minswap, have continued to grow.
  • Core infrastructure — SanchoNet, Hydra, and Mithril — continued development and testing.
  • Member-based organization Intersect started a grants program for governance features. Early grant recipients include projects for educational materials and a DRep platform.

Read it in full

Committees and working groups, & SIGS

We are excited to confirm a member-led initiative to maximize the wealth of expertise within our membership by leveraging self-assembled "Special Interest Groups (SIGs)”. These groups will enable our membership to form around topics of interest and discuss them with other members. SIGs can freeform faster, shape their purpose and objectives, and remain as SIGs into the long term as they self-determine!  

SIGs are essentially working groups without a committee to which to roll up. For example, the stablecoin and marketing working groups have no natural committee home but are equally important to our members and the broader Cardano ecosystem. To clarify this structurally within Intersect and to empower members with more flexibility and options, all existing working groups, except those already working within or supporting a committee, will be reassigned as SIGs. Conversely, they can transfer to being a "working group” if a committee needs support, thus enhancing our collaborative efforts and joined-up thinking!

Documentation updates may take some time to permeate, but if you have any queries, contact the committee team at Intersect.

Core Infrastructure Roadmap (CIR) working group
The CIR working group was formed at the end of April 2024 to foster an infrastructure roadmap for Cardano. This roadmap is expected to expand as external expertise and representation become necessary. In 2025, the working group hopes to contribute more widely to the budgeting process for Cardano’s development plans.

In May, the group set up a regular schedule of workshops and began testing prototype processes. The current focus is on making the workstreams functional and engaging with the community. Further details can be found here.

Discord changes

Discord has seen a few changes recently. This week, we created four new channels on our Discord server: community grant updates, community hub updates, governance tooling updates, and community tooling updates.

These channels mark the beginning of our Discord server restructuring process, designed to provide everyone in our community with weekly access to relevant information. All content shared in these channels will be strictly embedded to maintain a consistent communication strategy and adhere to Intersect branding.

Follow the Discord here to see these updates and more.

Open Source

In the last week, the Open Source program celebrated some major wins that we are happy to highlight.

Partnerships: We collaborated with CBIA, Awen, Hyperledger, Linux, and various community members to enhance our understanding of our client base and support open-source projects within the ecosystem.

Developer Advocate Program: We launched our Developer Advocate program by incorporating the DevEx working group under the OSC remit to strengthen our alliance with developers. If you are interested, please apply here. We are looking for 3 Developer Advocates, and more will come soon.

Pilot Program: We initiated a pilot program to demonstrate open source on Cardano, supported by a 14-point assessment to establish a benchmark letter grade for progress.

Public Report: We released our first public report on open-source project maturity for May. Key highlights include:

  • Robust activity and contributions from diverse organizations and geographies in the Cardano ecosystem.
  • Significant development efforts in projects like Plutus and Cardano Node.
  • Positive growth indicators include the spread of new projects and an influx of active developers.
  • Emphasis on maintaining momentum and enhancing community engagement for sustained growth and innovation.

Documentation Repositories: We created documentation repositories for 6 out of 7 Committee spaces, with more details available here: MCC, Civics, OSC, TSC, Budget, and Parameters.

Chang upgrade

Later this summer, the first Chang upgrade will be available to SPOs to implement, bringing the first phase of on-chain decision-making to Cardano. The hard fork working group has been coordinating the release plan, including a timeline and more information about the upgrade package available to SPOs in the coming weeks.

Read more.

Constitution Update

Get out and vote!

It’s time to select your preferred candidates for the interim Constitutional Committee (ICC)! Voting is now open - powered by Intersect member Summon - and will close on June 23rd at 21:45 UTC!

Vote now

We have confirmed 21 applicants on the ballot, including mult-sig collectives and organizations! The top three candidates will be voted on via ranked-choice, and results are expected on June 26th.

 Constitution workshops

Elsewhere, applications are closed to host a consultation workshop on drafting the final Constitution. We have had an incredible response, receiving over 98 applications from 46 countries worldwide! Over the next two weeks, a small group of volunteer members will evaluate all applications in conjunction with the Intersect team.

The final list of workshops will be confirmed on July 3rd. The first workshops are expected to kick off in August and run throughout the summer and into the fall, so watch for a workshop near you to have your say.

DRep pioneer program

We are excited to announce the upcoming workshops for our DRep Pioneer program.

  • You’ll need to get your skates on and register for the DRep workshop created by workshop leader Reshma Mohan. This workshop is happening this weekend, June 15th and 16th, from 14:00 until 16:30 IST. From the looks of the material, this one is a must for anyone interested in becoming a DRep -  Register here.
  • Join us for a virtual workshop in Vietnamese, led by Ha Nguyen,  
  • A big event in-person workshop in Chicago on June 29th in English, led by Adam Rush.
  • Looking forward to July 6th, workshop leader Martin Musagara is launching his DRep Pioneer workshop. If you're interested in familiarizing yourself with Cardano's governance and equipping yourself to participate actively in it as a DRep, you can reserve your place here.

Anyone interested in becoming a DRep should take advantage of these opportunities to learn and connect! To keep abreast of all of the DRep workshops along with how to register, please follow this link

Community tooling

Keep an eye on our Intersect grants page to learn more about funding opportunities. In the meantime, Phase 2 of our Inclusion & Accessibility category is now open. Find out more!

We’d like to highlight some of the Educational grant category milestones delivered by Intersect member Lucas Macchiavelli. Congratulations!


In other related news, Intersect member EMURGO has published an article on 5 Ways to Participate in Cardano Governance With Intersect.

Governance tooling

Last week’s release to SanchoNet GovTool included support for direct voter registration and voting on governance actions, an easier registration process for DReps, and a comprehensive DRep directory for improved transparency and selection. Now that the SanchoNet GovTool is back online, we are refactoring our git processes to speed up future releases (read more here).

This week's release includes displaying DRep profile content submitted on-chain during registration and properly handling and presenting relevant metadata. This allows delegators to get context about a DRep and make a more informed choice.

SanchoNet Govtool participation dashboard is available on participation.sanchogov.tools. From this dashboard, everyone can keep track of Govtool usage and participate in its testing.

And here are these week's updated SanchoNet stats:

Introducing a new X space

Intersect member Jenny Brito will launch the first of many X spaces for Intersect this year, and they kick off this coming Thursday (June 20th) at 18:00 UTC. Join Jenny and some special guests for this new fortnightly X Space, bringing the latest updates, plans, ideas, and more to the wider Cardano community. And every third space will be held in Spanish!

Following June 20th, the next space will be Saturday June 29th at 12:00 (midday) UTC

Set your reminders!

Community hubs

Our Community Hubs continue to host events and engage their communities. With four hubs live, we plan to expand into different regions over the coming months. Here’s a quick update:

  1. Japan Community Hub:
    • Second Town Hall: Held on Monday, 10th, with 14 participants.IntersectJapanHub-002.
    • In-Person Launch Event: It is scheduled for Friday, 14th, in Tokyo. Nigel Hemsley (COO) and Nick Cook (Head of Membership & Community) will attend; over 54 people have registered!
    • Upcoming Meet-Up: In-person meet-up in Okinawa on Friday, 21st.
  2. Sri Lanka Community Hub:
    • X Space Event: It was held on Saturday, June 8th, with 557 participants. We appreciate the healthy discussions and look forward to more X Spaces.
    • Industry Expo: Booth at the International Industry Expo 2024, from 19th-23rd June. Check out their tweet!
  3. WADA and LATAM Community Hubs: Preparing events and materials. Stay tuned for updates.

We are committed to expanding and engaging our community hubs to achieve our collaboration goals - bringing Intersect and Cardano to regional communities and those interested in learning more! Apply to run a Community Hub with funding available here.

This week's reminders 

In this week's reminders section, we’d like to highlight:

  • Our Chang Timeline page on the knowledge base is now updated weekly. You can view this week’s updates here.
  • We’re hiring! - we’re looking for a highly motivated and experienced Membership sales and account executive to join our team on a nine-month full-time contract. During this important period of growth and development for Intersect, this role will be pivotal in growing our membership base, mainly through the introduction and membership sign-up of projects and organizations working within the Cardano ecosystem and beyond.
  • As we move closer to on-chain governance, we’re excited to announce that we are facilitating the interim Constitutional Committee elections. Voting via the Summon Platform is now open until 23 June for you to select the three remaining community seats.
  • Our next Intersect town hall meeting will be on June 25th.

Well, that’s it for this week's update. Thanks for reading!

And finally, we’re interested in hearing more from you about subjects important to you, such as Cardano’s governance. Your ideas and suggestions are crucial to us. If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, please get in touch via email, X, or LinkedIn.