Blog > 2021 > October

Mithril: a stronger and lighter blockchain for better efficiency

A new IOHK-developed protocol acts as a stake-based threshold signature scheme allowing for transparent, secure, and lightweight stake leveraging

29 October 2021 Olga Hryniuk 10 mins read

Mithril: a stronger and lighter blockchain for better efficiency

At the Cardano Summit 2021, IOHK researchers Pyrros Chaidos and Roman Oliynykov presented the design and goals of Mithril – new research and engineering effort carried out by IOHK. Mithril will provide a stake-based threshold signature scheme that can be implemented as the protocol to solve chain synchronization, state bootstrapping, and trust issues in blockchain applications…

Buffalo soldiers march to the heart of the blockchain

Crypto Bisons is a musical NFT game unveiled at the 2021 summit – and it has far-reaching implications for a host of other applications

28 October 2021 Dominic Swords 4 mins read

Buffalo soldiers march to the heart of the blockchain

You want to demonstrate a unique combination of blockchain functions, bringing real-world elements together with collectibles and smart contracts. Of course you’d like to have a massive cohort of willing creative participants just ready and waiting to develop it. 

It’s time to call in the guitar-playing bisons, obviously. 

Crypto Bisons, a blockchain-enabled NFT game unveiled at…

Plutus Application Backend (PAB): supporting DApp development on Cardano

The PAB provides the components and an environment to help developers create and test DApps, before deploying them to a live production environment

28 October 2021 Fernando Sanchez 6 mins read

Plutus Application Backend (PAB): supporting DApp development on Cardano

The Alonzo protocol upgrade introduced Plutus – a platform that provides a native smart contract language along with the necessary infrastructure and tools to support smart contracts on Cardano. The Plutus platform enables developers to write decentralized applications (DApps) with scripting capabilities that interact with distributed ledgers.

To understand Plutus, one has to…

IOG's third round of delegation gives voice to stake pool operators

Choice of 100 recipients for ada stake based on nominations

27 October 2021 Dominic Swords 4 mins read

IOG's third round of delegation gives voice to stake pool operators

The 100 Cardano stake pools to benefit from the third IOG delegation have been announced. They were chosen from 520 nominations made by stake pool operators, based on contributions to the Cardano community.

All the pools chosen will receive delegated stake of about 3m ada from IOG, in a strategy to encourage a vibrant pool ecosystem. By delegating this large stake to a pool for…

Ouroboros Chronos provides the first high-resilience, cryptographic time source based on blockchain technology

Designed to provide more accurate global timekeeping, Chronos ensures increased security and network resilience to communication delays

27 October 2021 Olga Hryniuk 5 mins read

Ouroboros Chronos provides the first high-resilience, cryptographic time source based on blockchain technology

Global time synchronization across any distributed network is essential to ensure its resilience.

From ensuring up-to-date information between all participants, maintaining accurate transaction processing and block creation, time synchronization is especially important in terms of smart contract deployment.

In collaboration with scientists from the Universities of Edinburgh…