August 2nd - July was a very busy month, highlighted by EthCC. Cartesi participated in seven events in total: we hosted or co-hosted two, and participated in five as a partner or sponsor. The highlight of the week was the "Drinks & Debate" event co-hosted with Cartesi, where we had some great speakers from top projects discussing important topics such as interoperability and fraud proofs! Spoiler alert, Felten was pretty intense in the first panel.

Let's also celebrate Honeypot reaching the 1 million CTSI mark and still not being cracked!

But let’s talk about that later, let’s first take a look at the updates from the Dev Recap Call to see what Cartesi has been up to lately.

Cartesi Development Progress (Technical Update)

Check out the latest Live Development Recap to learn about the latest progress from various development teams.

Highlights

Computational Unit

  • Cartesi as a Linux coprocessor for the crypto economy

  • Use EigenLayer

  • Coprocessor = a stateless off-chain system

  • Goal: Be able to use the existing Cartesi CLI to build extensions to existing smart contracts, leveraging the power of Cartesi

  • Live demo time: 2:11

  • Pre-production mainnet deployment coming soon

Node unit

  • Cartesi Rollups Node v1.5.0 released

  • Fixed deployment errors due to epoch closure

  • The full guide can be viewed here

DevAd Unit

  • Two release candidates for documentation v.1.5

  • New tutorial

  • The architecture page has been redesigned

  • Added community tools page

  • Mugen website update

  • Udemy v2 released

  • Added Builder Bounty

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for our next monthly development review call on Monday, September 2nd, which will take on a brand new format! Connect directly with core contributors and learn about the projects they’re working on. Feedback is always welcome, so if you have any suggestions, let them know on Discord!

Ecosystem News

The Cartesi Honeypot Challenge has now surpassed 1 million CTSI with no vulnerabilities found! As it remains unbroken, this demonstrates the strong security and resilience of Cartesi Rollups. Read more about this milestone here.

Think you can crack it? Feel free to try!


Have you tried RIVES? RIVES is an on-chain fantasy console built on Cartesi, and they’re constantly releasing new content! Here are some updates you might have missed:

  • The new game creation contest will start on August 8th and last until the 15th. This time they have partnered with Forgotten Runes (the world's largest decentralized fantasy brand) to bring you a magical experience.

    • Forgotten Runes offers special prizes on top of the base prize pool, and also provides beautiful sprite graphics to use! The theme is magic, so make it magical!

    • In addition to providing beautiful sprite images, Forgotten Runes will also give away special NFTs when their sprite images are used.

    • All information can be found here: RIVES Game Jam #2

  • Newly released RIVES cartridge - Life is Hard, Conway's Game of Life realized by Lyno.

    • Learn more about this game.

  • They finished the race too, congratulations to Marcus for making it big on the leaderboard!

There’s still a lot to look forward to on the RIVES front, make sure to follow their X account and join their Discord for the latest updates.

Bug Buster, a trustless bug bounty platform powered by Cartesi Rollups, is now live on the Optimism Sepolia testnet! Why Bug Buster? Bug Buster enhances the bounty program by implementing on-chain logic, providing stronger security for software developers and ensuring a hassle-free experience for ethical hackers. We invite all white hat hackers, bug bounty hunters, and researchers to join us on this journey! It currently offers bug bounties for the Solidity compiler.

Stay tuned for when it will be launched on the mainnet 👀

Want to learn more about other projects in the Cartesi ecosystem? Visit rolluplab.io for an overview of all projects built with Cartesi.


Have you seen the new DevAd bug bounty program? It’s a fun way to get deep into Web3, watch video tutorials to master the basics of Cartesi, and start building. Once you’re done, you’ll earn $30 and unlock a bunch of other cool opportunities in our growing ecosystem.

DevAd’s “I Build It, Therefore I Am” show has uploaded three new episodes, which you can check out here .


Additionally, check out Cartesi’s performance on The DApp List.

Cartesi Grants Program (CGP)

CGP is currently moving forward with the latest proposals being released in Snapshot. Last Monday, the World Tycoon proposal was released in Snapshot. World Tycoon is a fully on-chain city-building game built on Cartesi. You can build your city from scratch using in-game funds, leveraging new cryptographic techniques and “play to earn” incentives. The full proposal can be viewed here.

CGP has already seen significant growth in its first round, with a total of 49 proposals submitted and reviewed! So far, four projects have received $141,000 in funding, with seven more proposals under review. Another update is that after the initial review phase, proposals will be publicly reviewed in the #cgp-questions channel on Discord.

Interested in working with us and getting funded? Apply here.

DevAd Seed Grant Progress

There has also been progress on the DevAd Seed Grant, Cartesi’s rapid funding program:

  • CartDevKit - CLI tool to help launch full-stack project repositories for Cartesi.

    • Seed Grant Completed

    • The frontend is fully integrated with Apollo SDK for GraphQL interactions

  • Smart Bus - Intelligent public transport management.

    • Proposal accepted

    • Completed the first phase

    • Currently under review

  • PrivadoID

    • Polygon-Amoy is now online

    • A decentralized credential issuance system is being developed

  • Peeps - A social media platform that combines traditional microblogging with DeFi

    • Completed the funding

    • Complete wallet integration for platform asset management

    • Arbitrum Sepolia is now online

  • Prism - Transforming NFTs into wearable art.

    • Video Tutorial on Stable Diffusion

    • Deployed in Sepolia

    • The first user is created

    • Front-end development is being completed

For an up-to-date overview of all ongoing DevAd Seed Grants projects, click here. If you have an idea to build, check out the Cartesi Grants Program or DevAd Seed Grants and apply for funding!

Community News

The Defiant spoke with Gabriel C and Luca from L2beat about fraud proofs and the importance of collaboration in improving them.



Erick wrote a column on CryptoSlate discussing how modularity is not just a technical improvement, but a strategic shift in blockchain infrastructure design that provides a stronger foundation for future applications. Also, don’t forget to check out Guilherme’s article on how to upgrade Web3 applications securely and trustlessly, and discussing the tradeoffs involved.

Activity

As mentioned before, July was a challenging month for Cartesi. The atmosphere at EthCC was great and Felipe’s face reflected it.

The week kicked off with the "Back to the Future" event we co-hosted with Espresso. The evening consisted of two discussion panels and plenty of drinks. The theme of the evening was modularity and Bitcoin L2s. These panels weren't just regular discussions either, to spice things up we asked attendees to write down random words and put them in a bucket, which participants were asked to use during their presentations. Participants who successfully used all five words were rewarded.


Want to know who won? Watch the full panel here.


https://youtu.be/ddqbXYuGzAA


The panel was moderated by The Rollup (Andy and Robbie)

Speakers:

  • Felipe Argento (Cartesi)

  • Ben Fish (Espresso)

  • Kyle Arojas (Avail)

  • Vince Yang (zkLink)

  • Carsten Munk (Cartesi)

  • Verity Coltman (Espresso)

  • Brett Maverick (Gelato)

  • Dominik Harz (BOB)

  • Orkun Kilic (Citrea)

Cartesi also participated in the Ethereum United event hosted by Espresso, where they invited prominent players from other industries. The goal of the event was, as the title states, to unite Ethereum. Core contributors Bruno and Siannie were also there to chat with Eurocup fans.

Next up was the much-anticipated Cartesi event this week, “Modular Security, Drinks & Debate with Cartesi,” a small, in-depth discussion on topics like fraud proofs and cross-rollup interoperability, featuring guests from L2Beat, Bankless, Celestia, OP Labs, Avail, Offchain Labs, Espresso, Scroll, and the Ethereum Foundation. There was plenty of interesting discussion.

In case you missed it, you can watch both panels now on our YouTube channel:

Discussion Group 1 - Interoperability Challenges


https://youtu.be/tzs8GOG4C_E


The panel was moderated by David Hoffman (Bankless)

Speakers:

  • Felipe Argento (Cartesi)

  • Ben Fish (Espresso)

  • Daniel Helm (Scroll)

  • Prabal Banerjee (Available)

  • Ed Felten (Offchain Labs)

Discussion Group 2 - Prove It


https://youtu.be/Yn_wbskGOLY


The panel was moderated by Luca Donnoh (L2beat)

Speakers:

  • Gabriel Coutinho (Cartesa)

  • Justin Drake (Ethereum Foundation)

  • Mark Tyneway (Optimism)

  • John Adler (Celestia)

  • Ed Felten (Offchain Labs)

L2con, hosted by EpicWeb3 and Zetachain, was a busy event, with Cartesi speaking on three different occasions:

  • Erick was joined on the panel by Anurag (Avail), Altan (Near), Deli (Automata), Yoli (Brevis), and moderated by Andy (The Rollup)

  • Gabriel C gave a keynote on fraud proofs, covering everything we need to know

  • Gabriel B conducted a workshop on the benefits of leveraging Cartesi

  • João participated in a panel at L3 Summit discussing misconceptions about L3 and gave a workshop at dAGIhouse

We were also excited to participate in this year’s Modular Summit hosted by Celestia and Maven77. João and Gabriel B led workshops on Cartesi, and Felipe gave a talk on Cartesi’s design tradeoffs and what they mean for developers. At the end of the event, Erick joined the Sovereign Radio podcast hosted by Joeri to discuss Cartesi and all things modular.

Finally, a big hello to the EthCC team! Although the week was very busy and dynamic, the team met every challenge with a smile. From planning the event to participating in discussion panels, recording podcasts, hosting workshops, networking and running around Brussels, they did an amazing job. A special shout out to Karmen, who played a vital role in preparing for the week, even though she couldn’t make it to Brussels in person (skills issues)!


From left to right: Gabriel B, Bruno, Colin, Cynthia, João, Siannie, Carsten, Erick, Felipe, Max, Charles, Brandon, Gabriel C

In Brazil, you can see the Cartesi team at Blockchain Rio, where Bruno gave a talk on how to attract the next wave of developers with Cartesi. You can also say hello to us at the Modular Crypto meetup we co-sponsored with Arbitrum and Axelar. Felipe participated in a panel discussing AI and blockchain, discussing how Cartesi fits perfectly with fully verifiable AI. Check out the recap video here.


Contributor Spotlight

This month’s Contributor Spotlight is Michael, who consistently publishes “Tool of the Week” posts in the #beginner-friendly channel on Discord. The Dev Tool Spotlight series hosted by DevAd showcases an exciting tool every Wednesday specifically designed to enhance your development experience on Cartesi. Check it out on our Discord.

Upcoming Events

We’re taking a short break from Brussels, but that doesn’t mean we’re not preparing for the upcoming conferences. Stay tuned to our schedule and say hello to us when you get a chance, subscribe to our live public events calendar. Also, don’t forget to participate in event-related activities on Link3, Galxe and Zealy!

  • Before August 15th - RIVES Game Jam#2with Forgotten Runes (online) (https://itch.io/jam/rives2)

  • August 13th - Cartesi participated in the Crypto Town Hall hosted by Mario Nawfal X Space (online) (https://x.com/Crypto_TownHall)

  • August 14 - I Build, Therefore I Am Episode 5 (online) (https://lu.ma/i.build.i.am_ep5)

  • August 23 - RIVES & Vibes | Community Call (Online) (https://discord.com/invite/FQnQqKWVn8)

  • September 2 - Cartesi and Web3 Developer Club - Masterclass Training Program (offline) (https://medium.com/@Web3Clubs/calling-all-developers-join-the-cartesi-web3clubs-residency-program-in-nairobi-486c0be58a3e)

To stay up to date with all completed Cartesi events and calls, head over to our YouTube channel!







About Cartesi



Cartesi is an application-specific rollup protocol with a virtual machine running a Linux distribution, creating a richer and broader design space for DApp developers.


Cartesi Rollups provide a modular scaling solution that can be deployed as L2, L3, or sovereign Rollups while maintaining strong base layer security guarantees.



Disclaimer


This article is for general reference and information sharing purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial or investment advice. The accuracy and completeness of this information is not guaranteed and should not be considered as advice for specific circumstances. Readers should conduct their own independent research and consultation to make any decisions. The author and related institutions are not responsible for any loss or damage caused by reliance on this information. Before making any financial or investment decisions, it is strongly recommended to consult a professional for personalized advice.


Virtual currency is a high-risk investment product. Before making an investment decision, please consult the relevant regulatory authorities whether there is a risk of investment loss.