Portrait of Mary Shelley by Richard Rothwell (1800-1868)

The Goguen rollout continues with another key building block in Cardano’s evolution into a decentralized, multi-asset (MA) smart contract platform. The Goguen ‘Mary’ update – named after author Mary Shelley – introduces the ability to create user-defined tokens. These custom tokens will be ‘native’, so they can be transacted directly on the blockchain, just like ada. While ada will remain Cardano’s principal currency, Cardano will transform into a multi-asset (MA) blockchain, opening up a constellation of possibilities. This MA capability will become a fresh development fulcrum for developers worldwide, further widening Cardano's reach and potential.

Another hard fork?

Yesterday, using what was effectively a hard fork, we successfully deployed the Mary update to the Cardano public testnet, for final testing prior to mainnet deployment. This forking event is a crucial step in the process, as the Testnet is as close an environment to the Mainnet as we can get. Once we deploy all the elements on the Testnet, invite devs to dive in and monitor the results, we can accurately ascertain how the Mainnet will behave.

Hard forks tend to be disruptive events because the history of the pre-forked blockchain is no longer available. Without careful planning, testing, and execution there can be unintended consequences. Earlier blocks can be lost when the protocol rules are altered, for example.

However, Cardano handles hard fork events differently. We use a hard fork combinator to combine protocols without triggering service interruptions or a network restart – and, crucially, the combinator maintains the history of the previous blocks.

Cardano has undergone several development stages, and the quest is far from over. Goguen is happening now. We’re seeing the early steps toward Voltaire now with Project Catalyst, and Basho will follow. Each stage brings Cardano's journey closer to its ultimate destination: True decentralization and scalability, utility, and sustainable governance. And each stage will use the combinator, a tried and tested technology, to power the transition. We first used it for the Byron to Shelley upgrade, proving the combinator's effectiveness in achieving a seamless transition. Allegra, which introduced token-locking in December, used it, too, as will Cardano’s next development stages.

How we got to Mary

The advent of token-locking with Allegra, though a relatively small technical change to the Ouroboros protocol in itself, established the threshold for Cardano's multi-asset strategy, and the network's future as a whole. The change readied the platform for smart contracts and the support of native assets other than ada.

Allegra laid down the foundations for Mary with the introduction of production-ready code so engineers could start testing. This work covered features such as defining a monetary script, minting, redeeming and burning tokens, and sending tokens in a transaction.

Just before the holiday break, a programming interface (command line interface -CLI) was added for the wallet backend. Since then, updates for that wallet backend and interface, along with explorer support for multi-currency blocks, have been underway.

We are now finalizing the integration of the completed wallet backend with the metadata registry, and the Rosetta API (a common interface for exchanges to interact with the Cardano blockchain) will be updated to support multi-assets.

The metadata registry

The concept of metadata is worth explaining here. In Cardano, metadata is a description of the native assets that people can read. These assets are stored on-chain using identifiers which are non human-readable. The readable version of this information is stored off the blockchain, in public token registries. These registries – initially managed by the IOG – will ultimately be owned and be configurable by the community, thus enabling another layer of Cardano's decentralization goal. By empowering the community to own and configure these registries, we ensure that the community can fully trust the datasets, as the users themselves are the owners of the data, so it's in their best interest to act honestly.

Mary is almost here

The Mary codebase is due to be deployed on mainnet by the end of February, assuming all final testing goes as planned during the month. Mary's arrival is the first in a series of evolutionary stages that will enable the community to benefit from these new capabilities:

• Yesterday, we successfully deployed the Goguen ‘Mary’ code onto the Cardano testnet. The SPO community and internal teams are now doing final UAT on this.
• The Cardano explorer (the tool that retrieves and presents blockchain and transaction information from the Cardano network) has also been updated and released for quality assurance testing yesterday.
• We also deployed a basic version of the Daedalus wallet, for testing the wallet backend.
• During February, the Daedalus wallet will be updated to include support for sending, receiving, and viewing multiple tokens , including integration with the new backend interface.
• The metadata registries (Github repos that store user-submitted metadata) will come online a little later this month.
• From the testnet phase onward, there will be support from our Technical Support Desk (TSD), a specific testnet wallet to view and transact tokens, and use of the registry to add metadata to tokens. There is also a dedicated dev support program run by our community team to support developers who want to get involved.

The deployment of Goguen ‘Mary’ marks a significant stage in Cardano’s journey. When Mary turns her crypto key within the network, we will unlock the mechanism for users to create their own tokens for a myriad applications: Decentralized Finance (DeFi), and countless other business use cases.

Next week, we’ll publish a blog post digging a little deeper into core native token functionality and what users can expect. Remember to follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the very freshest updates as we continue the Goguen rollout.

The Cardano stake pool community powers the Cardano network; the health and vitality of this critical operator ecosystem is essential to the effective running of the protocol. And as we continue to evolve Cardano’s utility through Goguen, this will become ever more important. Staking with quality pools is the very best way to give back to the Cardano community.

Like any ecosystem, success comes from the balancing of interests, dissemination of power, and the variety and diversity of actors. And like an economy, a balance of commercial influence; bigger players, smaller players offering greater diversity and a healthy core in between.

As much as ‘code is law’ (and features the judiciary?) we can all recognize the inputs, outputs, human behaviours and social dynamics that shape the community which surrounds and supports any blockchain protocol.

So as part of our continuing commitment to healthy ecosystem growth, we recently outlined our new strategy for delegating IOG’s ada funds. We instigated this delegation strategy to support our long-term vision for Cardano’s growth and evolution and reaffirm the values we espouse. All in line with following a fiscally sound path which can maintain the commercial viability of our organization.

A positive response

We put out the call for delegation in December. Our community responded very positively, and by the time we closed for entries just before the Christmas break, we had received just under 300 (299 in fact) applications for delegation. We have since retired all but one of our public pools – their creation was always an entirely tactical activity – and we’re now shifting toward our longer term strategic intent.

The process

Over the past two weeks, we have reviewed all entries from our call for delegation. The process has been relatively complex. We have tried to identify a cross section of pools based on a number of factors, all important on their own merit. Viewed holistically, these factors provide an invaluable map of the SPO environment. Among the key factors (and within them, variables) that we took into account were:

Purpose – is this a purely commercial venture, or is it doing something to give back or pay forward to the community or the wider world (content, education, support for the disadvantaged, sustainable practice, donations to charity, etc. )

Geography – are they an active and committed player in an under-represented region?

Technical contribution – is the SPO running a best-in-class technical operation or building (tools, applications etc.) on Cardano? Have they been a contributor since the ITN – or longer?

Stake and pledge ratio – what is the ratio here? Is the amount of pledge ‘reasonable’ given their stake, or does this SPOs ‘commitment to the network’ –through pledge – suggest they ‘deserve’ a higher level of delegation from the community?

Community engagement – are they an active member of the SPO community? Are they adding value through positive role-modelling on social, or supporting other community members via contributing to guilds/alliances etc. Are they helping drive visibility and adoption in an ethical, sustainable way?

The selection process has been challenging, iterative, illuminating and inspiring.

Challenging because we have not been able to delegate to every pool we might have liked to – our SPO community is hugely talented and not everyone got a delegation in this first cohort. While we applied some basic filters to narrow down the field from 299, we still had a long list of probably 75% of that number. So we had to look at factors more holistically; this was not a yes/no choice. Kudos, by the way, to pooltool.io and adapools for providing additional data sources during the process.

As our first-ever program, we had always regarded this as a ‘pilot’ we would evolve iteratively. Initially, we planned to classify pools separately. Pools centered on purpose or mission-driven objectives vs. those focused on more technocratic factors. For a start, we were surprised at the number of mission driven pools within the ecosystem. Given our broader mission as a community, perhaps this shouldn't have been a surprise. However, once we dug into the data, it became clear that many pools were hard to classify, adding value in a number of ways; purpose, technical contribution, geographic spread, community contribution. The very best pools here set the standard for all.

Choosing pools

The selection process was illuminating due to the richness of the data set, which reflected the diversity and breadth of our community. We gained some powerful insights. So much so, in fact, that we plan to anonymize the data set and share a subset with the community a little further down the line, both to identify elements we need to iterate, and to provide a snapshot of community growth and evolution over time. Think of it as a quarterly ‘census’ of the SPO community.

That same richness has been truly inspiring – SPOs in dozens of countries, across every continent (except Antarctica… hmm… now there’s a challenge for someone to take up!). Tangible evidence of a young, but fast-maturing community committed to excellence, collaboration, and making a positive difference in the world. All through Cardano.

So let’s meet the pools we have selected:

Congratulations to our very first 100-strong pool cohort. We’ll start delegating to our selected pools from the end of January/early February (based on operational considerations), staking IOG funds of 3.2M ada per pool to support block production. Each quarter through 2021, we shall recruit a fresh cohort and update this list accordingly.

We want to make our approach as visible as possible. We have created a dedicated Twitter list, so you can follow our first cohort. And while we have no formal guidelines, we see these delegations as bootstrapping; pools should continue doing what they do within the community and look to organically grow their delegate base, while we delegate to them.

To check out some of these pools, visit pooltool.io or adapools and search on each ticker. You will also shortly be able to filter by dedicated lists. Additionally, we’ll also be introducing some of them here on the blog and to our monthly show over the weeks and months ahead.

Looking ahead

If you were not selected this time, take heart. We had many more pools than we could delegate to this time. We encourage all pools that missed out to apply again for the fresh cohort in Q2; we’ll make a new call for applications at the end of March and rotate delegations at the end of April.

Every pool will need to reapply. However, we shall simplify the process for pools that missed out this time. It is also important to note that as the ecosystem grows, we are seeing some strong community contributors emerge who did not apply for delegation. We also welcome community feedback on how we can continue to grow and evolve the process.

Please check out the program and if you want some support bootstrapping your pool operation (or providing ‘block security’ while you grow your organic delegate base) don't miss out next time.

We are delighted to see many pools grow from strength to strength. Equally, when a smaller pool calls out that they are stalling, we must listen. Alongside this program, your choice as a delegator is key to supporting a pool ecosystem of abundance and generosity. Because there lies growth and the community we all desire. This is what we do. As the leading crypto community, it is something we should all be very proud of.

IOG is committed to seeing the Cardano ecosystem grow and flourish. We will continue to play our part. And remember, as a community, we all have our parts to play.

A blockchain environment is not a static one. Blockchains evolve as their communities grow and learn, and Cardano is no exception.

With every development stage, Cardano's core functionality has been expanded with new features: Shelley added delegation, stake pools, and decentralization to Byron’s core transactional capability. Goguen is now starting to bring fresh utility, from metadata to smart contracts and native tokens. Voltaire introduces a treasury and voting system, and we’ve seen the early steps of this process with Project Catalyst and the first ever public funding round for Cardano community ideas.

We introduced transaction metadata in November, an important first element in creating new utility and commercial use cases. We recently deployed the first pre-production environment for native tokens. Following that will be token creation and ERC-20 conversion. Plutus and Marlowe, Cardano’s native smart contract languages are under active development and will be released in 2021, opening up the platform for developers to create fresh solutions and power exciting new use cases.

All of these Goguen elements play their part in delivering Cardano's ultimate objective: a truly decentralized and self-sustaining platform. All the time encouraging deeper community engagement and growth by creating fresh opportunities.

We have a vibrant and skilled community, arguably one of the strongest and smartest in the crypto space. And in line with our avowedly non-’maximalist’ and open approach, we want to reach out to other communities and bring them onboard too.

As outlined in Charles Hoskinson’s recent video, Cardano's next strategic move will be the addition of a range of devnets to draw fresh developer communities into the wider Cardano ecosystem.

These devnets will act as ‘bridges’ between developer communities, providing development environments, virtual machines and suites of developer tools so new applications can be tested in an environment as close to the 'real world' as possible.

Understanding the devnets

After some initial exploratory work back in 2018, we are now restarting and accelerating the K Ethereum Virtual Machine (KEVM) program. The new KEVM devnet is the first of several devnets we’re building out over the next month or so. The EVM runs within the K Framework, a system for specifying languages and VMs, and then deriving tools such as interpreters, type checkers, equivalence checkers, debuggers, etc. for these languages. (The EVM is what runs smart contracts in the Ethereum network.)

K applies formal reasoning and mathematical rigor for the highest levels of assurance. It enables developers to define or implement the formal semantics of a programming language in an intuitive and modular way. K also generates an executable, 'correct by construction VM' from its formal specification, which is fast and powerful enough to run real programs and smart contracts. This effectively means that software should perform the required functions and nothing else, for all possible inputs, and have verifiable evidence.

Our long term vision – in association with our partners at Runtime Verification – is to build a K environment where we can just 'plug-and-play' new VMs. You can hear more about the goals of K from the team at Runtime Verification in this video segment from the Cardano monthly show.

The KEVM devnet, which is aimed at the Solidity/Ethereum community, will enable full backward compatibility with Ethereum. Because Solidity is a high-level language similar to JavaScript and C++, it cannot be directly executed by the EVM. Solidity programs must be compiled to assembly language (EVM bytecode) first, so they can run on the KEVM.

KEVM will allow developers to write applications in Solidity, EVM code, or Glow, providing toolkits to compile and deploy them on the devnet for (close to real-world) testing. We also plan to soon add Truffle integration, further increasing developer usability.

Glow

Solidity is by far the most popular higher programming language compiling to EVM bytecode, but by no means the only one. One fascinating alternative to Solidity is Glow, developed by our partner MuKn.

Glow is a ‘high-level’ language (other examples of high level languages include JavaScript, Python etc.) designed to allow writing highly secure financial contracts intuitively. Glow follows the 'correct-by-construction' doctrine to avoid common pitfalls and potentially costly bugs. Glow can prove that contracts written in this language have certain desirable properties, no matter what other participants in the contract do or do not do.

Glow has been designed with interoperability in mind. There will be Glow compilers targeting many diverse platforms and blockchains, making code reuse so much simpler and more practicable.

This will be the next devnet to be deployed. Most of the core development work is now done, ready for final QA and deployment in January 2021.

IELE - A foundation for third-generation blockchains

Full compatibility with the EVM is convenient and attractive to many experienced developers familiar with Ethereum, but KEVM inevitably also inherits the EVM’s weaknesses.

For this reason we’ll offer a more advanced and secure alternative in the form of our IELE devnet. The IELE (pronounced yeah-leh) virtual machine, also being developed by our partner Runtime Verification, is similar to the EVM, but much more secure. For example, it uses arbitrary precision integers, immediately eliminating many of the EVM's vulnerabilities. IELE is also register-based, not stack-based like the EVM, making it much easier for developers to write IELE bytecode by hand directly.

The term IELE describes two things:

• The IELE VM
• The IELE assembly language

IELE is a human-readable, blockchain low-level language, meant to serve as the foundation for third-generation blockchains. IELE was designed using state-of-the-art formal methods to address security and correctness concerns in Ethereum, while simultaneously enabling the verification of mathematical correctness of smart contract code that K EVM brings to Ethereum.

IELE represents the next step in the evolution of correct-by-construction, automatically generated implementation concepts. It is built to become the foundation of an entire compiler backend, allowing robust gas optimization, including contracts written in a high-level language that has IELE as its compilation target, like Solidity or Plutus.

Bridges between developer communities

The KEVM, Glow and IELE devnets align closely with Goguen’s key goals: to bring use and utility to Cardano, and build solid, lasting partnerships that contribute to the ongoing growth of our developer ecosystem. We aim to attract as many developers from as many disciplines as possible, to foster versatility and inclusivity.

Alongside Plutus and Marlowe, we hope these devnets present an unrivalled opportunity for developers (in the blockchain-crypto world and beyond) to engage with the Cardano platform, build compelling use cases, and contribute to the growth of the ecosystem.

An exciting future

We hope to provide a clear path towards new developer opportunities that will require close collaboration with many different communities, not least Cardano’s own. And it's one step at a time.

We’re putting the building blocks in place now. Once fully established, the devnets will act as bridges between developer communities, opening up new avenues of communication and cooperation across not just blockchain, but the whole developer ecosystem. Cardano will have permanent backward compatibility with the Ethereum network, keeping pace with any developments in the Ethereum chain. And by broadening the developer base, the Cardano community can help drive the continuing evolution of smart contracts and the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Another remarkable year awaits. See you on the other side.

In November, we announced our intent to support our corporate mission and encourage network decentralization through a new delegation approach. But to summarize, starting January, we’ll be delegating a proportion of our ada holdings across a range of community stake pools. Our goal? To support positive social change and continue building a more robust, resilient, and geographically distributed Cardano network.

Today, we’re delighted to take the first step in delivering on this strategy by opening our first call for applications. From today, we’re inviting eligible stake pool operators (SPOs) to consider applying. This is an evolving program, and we will refine it over the year ahead. But initially we are encouraging SPOs to gauge their eligibility for a delegation award based on these criteria:

1. IOG will run two programs: one for ‘Incubator’ pools and another for ‘Purpose’ pools.

Incubator pools will be selected based on more ‘technocratic’ criteria. We’ll focus on pools that are performant and competently run by skilled operators who have invested a decent amount of pledge (or invested heavily in the ecosystem) but have struggled to attract delegation. Again, these are guidelines rather than hard rules; we’ll also look positively upon lower pledge pools with clear technological skill sets that contribute to the ecosystem.

Purpose pools will be selected according to the mission and purpose driving them. We will delegate to pools driving positive change by offering educational opportunities, supporting a charitable endeavor, committed to sustainable eco-friendly energy, etc. Or they might be driven by the desire to increase awareness and adoption of Cardano by hosting a stake pool centered on a developing country, holding blockchain meetups, creating non-English language Cardano/developer content, and many other options. Ultimately, it is up to each pool to state the positive change they want to make and how delegation can help them achieve that goal.

2. IOG will select up to 100 stake pools each quarter and delegate between 3 and 4 million ada to each pool. There will be 4 cohorts/selection processes per year (one every 3 months)
3. While we will not discount larger, more established operations, we will prioritize smaller pools (less than 5M ada/with low saturation) for the Purpose pools.
4. We will monitor the block production rate across any pools we delegate to. We want to support skilled SPOs that are committed to deliver on the task their delegators have entrusted to them.
5. We will show a strong preference to SPOs that run single pools. Any operator running multiple pools will need to demonstrate how they are adding community value by doing so. Failure to declare multiple pools at application will result in ineligibility to receive delegation.
6. We will aim to delegate to a variety of new stake pools each quarter. We are focused on encouraging success and autonomy, and we will change our delegation when we are confident that the pool can continue to operate successfully without our support, or a quarter has passed. Unless exceptional circumstances arise, no pool will receive delegation for longer than 6 months.
7. We will delegate on the basis of trust. We look for the same from SPOs and expect them to be transparent in all their dealings and how they represent themselves. We reserve the right to withdraw delegation without notice from any SPO making false or inaccurate claims about their eligibility for delegation. We will look for SPOs that are transparent with their costs and charge appropriately for them. In the short term, you may be prepared to invest your time and energy ‘for free’ (or at an effective loss, after hosting costs), but remember that this is not a sustainable model for the network over the medium and longer term. You are a pillar of Cardano and so you have every right to be compensated by the community.

8. We will seek community feedback as we develop the process to help us both refine program mechanics and the choices we make. Community members are welcome to raise any particular concerns about delegation choices. However IOG reserves the right to make delegations in line with its ongoing decentralization strategy and changes to the program can be made at any time.

Building a decentralized, empowered, self-sustaining and self-governing ecosystem lies at the heart of our mission for Cardano. If 2020 was about laying the foundations of Shelley, 2021 will be about building upon that success through community opportunity and empowerment. Ultimately, our success is down to community and the protocol. But with this new delegation strategy, we hope to play a small but important role in helping to establish the stake pool ecosystem as a blockchain network unlike any other. Power pushed to the edges, skilled and empowered to support and accelerate all the exciting opportunities the future will bring.

We encourage any SPO who feels they meet the above criteria and would like to apply to do so through this form. We’ll also reach out directly to a number of pools we have already identified as strong candidates (based on their community contribution during 2020) and encourage them to apply. We’ll keep the application form open until the end of this year and review applications in early January, with a goal to make the first delegations by the end of January.

It all began in the ether. Ethereum was launched in July of 2015. Bitcoin had been around for six years by then, but the whole cryptocurrency world still remained a niche affair.

Bitcoin was designed (and so it remains today) purely as a digital currency. When Ethereum came along, it had a solid ace up its crypto sleeve: smart contracts, right out of the box. This meant that third-party developers could build their own applications and run them in a decentralized manner on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum trumped Bitcoin with better marketability and more versatility.

Smart contracts enabled the creation of user-defined tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Fungible Ethereum tokens could be developed with the ERC-20 standard, while unique, non-fungible tokens were created under the ERC-721 framework. However, user-defined Ethereum tokens (both fungible and non-fungible) carried an inherent inefficiency: they required the creation and implementation of custom code because the Ethereum chain did not offer native token support.

Tokenization in brief

Let’s remind ourselves of the purpose and value of tokens. Tokenization can be defined as the process of substituting a sensitive data element with a non-sensitive equivalent. This non-sensitive equivalent is referred to as a token and it has no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value. Simply put, tokenization is the process of turning things into digital assets.

This approach offers distinct advantages: reduced transaction costs, transparency, enhanced liquidity, decentralization, and increased efficiency, to name a few. In itself, tokenization is a highly versatile feature that opens the path to achieving many commercial objectives. This utility stems from the fact that tokens are programmable, so they can be made unique.

For example, tokens can be programmed to grant the holder access to exclusive content, custom merchandise, or even a stake in voting. The actual purpose of the voting process is irrelevant. Ultimately, tokenizing the ability to vote gives participants the feeling that they are part of something larger than themselves, and they can have their views represented in it.

Tokenization can be used to create financial products and economic models. Examples can be envisaged in fields as diverse as collectibles, alternative investments, gift cards, sports betting, in-game assets, commodities, and much more. This has the potential to connect real world goods, services, and activities to the digital space.

Turning things into digital assets, the Cardano way

Goguen introduces a mechanism whereby tokenization is handled natively. That is, the logic is based on the Cardano ledger, rather than smart contracts. By taking this approach, we are able to implement an efficient tokenization strategy that is superior to the ERC-20 and ERC-721 standards supported on the Ethereum blockchain.

User-defined tokens on the Ethereum chain (both fungible ERC-20 and non-fungible ERC-721 tokens) are non-native, that is, the underlying ledger does not directly support these tokens. That is because tokens created with ERC-20 and ERC-721 standards are fundamentally different from Ether, the cryptocurrency native to Ethereum.

The Cardano approach to tokenization enables the representation of custom assets on the blockchain without the need for smart contracts, and also enables those assets to behave in a similar way to the principal currency, ada, except that:

• native tokens can be created and destroyed, unlike ada.
• ada is the only currency that can be used to service fees, rewards, and deposits.

Native tokens, some terminology

The terms 'coin' and 'token' are often used in the crypto world. Sometimes, these terms are interchangeable, sometimes not. And sometimes, 'token' is a sort of umbrella term that encompasses all digital assets.

It is worth making a finer point here. Cardano's approach to tokenization is as unique as the ledger itself, so here's some terminology to help understand the native tokens framework.

In Goguen/Cardano:

• A token is defined as the representation of an asset stored on the Cardano blockchain
• An asset is anything that can be quantified
• A token bundle is a representation of multiple tokens
• Native refers to token logic running on the Cardano ledger, rather than using smart contracts.

Native tokens on Cardano

Ethereum requires custom code for user-defined tokens to be supported on the chain; this adds a layer of complexity, cost (gas is needed to pay for the execution of the code), and inefficiency, since token code for both standards is replicated and adapted, rather than being part of the system itself. This is an inherent weakness of the Ethereum chain, because it leaves room for human error. Custom code, if done sloppily, can introduce bugs that could potentially lead to great financial loss. In one particularly infamous incident, software bugs led to the loss of ether worth $300m. The Cardano approach aims to prevent such catastrophic errors.

Cardano supports user-defined tokens natively, that is, without the need for custom code, through the native tokens framework. Native tokens is an accounting system defined as part of the cryptocurrency ledger and enables tokens to be transacted with (tracked, sent and received.) This eliminates the need to use custom code or costly smart contracts. In short, native tokens remove the unnecessary layer of expensive complexity and inherent inefficiency found in the Ethereum chain.

Why are native assets necessary on Cardano?

Cardano is a distributed ledger. Typically, when a distributed ledger is designed, it can only track a single asset type (its own cryptocurrency, for example.) But as the ledger evolves in terms of further decentralization, the need and possibility of tracking multiple types of assets using the same infrastructure becomes apparent, which is why many blockchains can support multiple assets such as stablecoins, utility tokens, credential tokens, and security tokens.

Native token functionality extends the accounting infrastructure defined in the ledger model (which is designed for processing ada-only transactions) to accommodate transactions that use different types of assets simultaneously.

Native tokens on Cardano have advantages over ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens, in terms of security and affordability. In the next blog post, to be published tomorrow, we’ll dig down into this as well as outline how developers can get involved in the months ahead. For now, visit our Cardano documentation site, where you can access supporting documentation and resources.