IOHK has distributed $250,000 worth of ADA to Project Catalyst. These funds will be allocated to several Cardano-based projects proposed by the community. Project Catalyst is one of the building blocks of Cardano’s Voltaire era, which is expected to bring decentralized governance to the ecosystem.
According to IOHK’s press release, Project Catalyst is expected to control $70 million worth of Cardano’s ADA cryptocurrency in the future. Charles Hoskison is a big proponent of decentralized treasuries, which he believes to be one of the greatest innovations of our time. The idea behind decentralized treasuries is to make developers independent of a project’s founders or executives, while at the same time providing reliable funding for their work.
With decentralized governance, the community can, in theory, propose development projects and then decide which ones get funded, and with how much runway. Several cryptocurrency projects like Tezon (XTZ), Zcash (ZEC), and Decred have already implemented this idea. Hoskinson likewise believes such a treasury could provide a viable solution for Ethereum Classic, which has been recently beseeched with 51% attacks.
During the test stage of Project Catalyst, a wide variety of projects were proposed. The list included everything from solar-powered houses underpinned by Cardano’s blockchain to projects which encourage women to enter the blockchain space. The latter is as close as it got to one of Hoskionson’s favorite topics — gender studies. Hoskinson’s live stream about this announcement can be found here.
According to the project’s development roadmap, the Voltaire era is supposed to begin by the end of 2020; Project Catalyst is a harbinger of this upcoming evolution.
