Catalyst: the project to promote the growth of the Cardano network

Published on 19 May 2022

The Cardano project has been growing over the years in different aspects. Although many people pay attention to the price of the ADA coin or the possibilities of staking, a little-known mechanism is a way in which many projects begin to be developed through the community decisions. There is a governance system that allows, among other things, to choose those projects that will receive support from the community for their development and growth.

What is Catalyst?

Catalyst is a participation mechanism that allows the Cardano community to select ideas that receive funding by demonstrating community support.
Every three months a new round of projects is presented. These proposals are put to a vote and the winners obtain funds that they will dedicate to development.

Each round of financing is called a Fund. Eight rounds have been completed so far. Fund 1 was developed in 2020 and awarded 250,000 USD. The project has grown to deliver more than 16,000,000 USD in Fund 8.
In total, there are more than 60 projects funded to date.

Who can participate?

You can participate in the project both as a project developer and as a voter. But there are also other ways to do it by commenting, reviewing projects, or collaborating with them.

To be able to participate as a voter there is a requirement: have a compatible wallet with a minimum of 500 ADAs. Although initially, it was necessary to hold an amount greater than 3000 ADAs, it was reduced to allow wider participation.

Any participant who votes for a project will receive rewards for their commitment and support of the Cardano Project Catalyst.

With what wallets can you participate?

To be able to participate in the voting of the projects, it will be necessary to operate with a compatible wallet.
Among the main wallets available are the well-known Daedalus, Yoroi, and Adalite. With these wallets, you can not only participate in voting but also stake ADA and earn a return of around 5% per year. There are also other wallets that allow the connection but are not developed or supported by the IOHK foundation.

How much is the reward?

The number of ADAs that each voter will receive will depend on a formula with three factors: the number of ADAs in each voter’s wallet, the number of ADAs of all voters, and the funds deposited in the treasury for each of the projects.

Installing the Mobile application

To carry out the registration process, it will be necessary to install the “Catalyst voting” application on a mobile device. Be sure of the name and that it is from the developer IOHK.
This app is available for both Android and iOS.
To be able to participate in the project voting, it will be necessary to register with enough time before each round. This registration has a cost of approximately 0.18 ADA.

When you open the app for the first time, it will give you the welcome screen and ask for the initial setup. You must select if you want to receive notifications and advance to the next screen.
At the time of writing this article, registration to vote in Fund 9 is available.

“Your votes decide which ideas become funded projects to help solve real world problems. To participate in Catalyst voting, first, you must register your wallet that holds funds” indicates the first directive.

Registration process

In the next step of the application we will find a blue button that indicates “Register Now”. This button will take you through a 3-step process:
Open the Daedalus, Yoroi or Adalite wallet. Generate a QR code from the wallet.
Scan the code with the mobile app and set a PIN Code to complete the registration.

For this demo, we will use the Yoroi wallet installed as a Brave browser extension on the desktop.
When opening the wallet you must choose the Voting tab in the upper horizontal menu.
There you will find the “Register” button.

The wallet will give you a 4-number PIN code. You should copy and save that number for future use.

The wallet will ask to confirm the PIN and sign the operation with the wallet’s spending password to generate the required certificate for voting.

Then, it will ask again for the spending password to register in the blockchain the certificate previously generated for voting.

In this way, we will enable the transaction fee which is approximately 0.18 adas.
After registration, you will obtain a QR code that we must store safely. This will be the only time we will see the QR code, so we should get a screenshot at this point.

Back to the app

Back in the Catalyst Mobile app, you can go to the scan QR button.
Here it will be necessary to scan the QR code and then confirm with the PIN Code previously generated in the wallet.
That’s All. The registration process will be finished. Now it will be necessary to wait until the moment of the vote so that the possibility of voting for your favorite project is activated in the app.

Voting Power

The application will also inform you that the voting power of each participant will depend on the balance they have in their wallet. The next balance will be taken with a snapshot on August 4, 2022, at 8 AM.

Snapshot dates for subsequent rounds will be reported in the app once each of those rounds is opened.

The voting power will be equivalent to the amount of Adas that are available in the wallet. If someone has 500 ADAs they will get 500 points as voting power.

It is important to note that you must stake your ADA with a stake pool which will ensure you can receive Voting Rewards.
Voting for the next round will start Aug 11 2022 at 6 AM.

Choosing a project

If you want to know about the next round, you will be able to learn about the different projects that will compete. The list is published at Ideascale.

Conclusion

The Project Catalyst Cardano is a great opportunity for developers to get support and funding. This way they will be able to grow their ideas and make the Cardano ecosystem bigger and bigger.
It is also a good opportunity for the community to get to know the projects since they were born and get an incentive for paying rewards for supporting them with their vote.

Published on 19 May 2022