Cardano decentralization continues: insights into our P2P deployment https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/05/11/cardano-decentralization-continues/

👉 Please forward this message to other SPO groups.

SPO Call paused for this week. All the key people who we like to have on the SPO call – Kevin, Duncan, Ger etc – are completely focused on getting ready to deploy the first Alonzo testnet (TLDR nearly there!). We’ll be giving the community an update on progress there this week, by the way, so keep an eye out. Thanks as ever for the support!

Cardano Node 1.27.0

Node version 1.27.0 provides important new functionality, including supporting new CLI commands that have been requested by stake pools, providing garbage collection metrics.

It includes the performance fixes for the epoch boundary calculation that were released in node version 1.26.2, plus a number of bug fixes and code improvements.

It also includes many fundamental changes that are needed to prepare for forthcoming feature releases (notably Plutus scripts in the Alonzo era).

Note that this release includes breaking changes to the API and CLI commands, and that compilation using GHC version 8.6.5 is no longer supported.

https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-node/releases/tag/1.27.0

If you spot a Cardano scam email cardano-fraud@iog.io.

📢 Announcing new stake pools chosen for our delegation strategy.

Committing to the health and diversity of the Cardano network, we are now announcing the new round of winners for delegation.

https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/05/14/announcing-new-stake-pools-chosen-for-our-delegation-strategy/

We now have moved our delegation to the pools identified in our recent blog post. Thanks as ever to the whole SPO community and congratulations to the pools being awarded delegation this time. To all pools who missed out this time, we’ll have a fresh delegation call next quarter.

Invites for the SPO Call tomorrow at 16:00 UTC have been emailed https://mailchi.mp/iohk/spo-community-call-673666.

Next week we welcome Robert Phair who will introduce the CIP (Cardano improvement proposal - a basic URI scheme to handle Ada transfers and links to stake pools) as well as hosting our usual SPO call with updates and news we feel is relevant.

Invites for the SPO Call Thursday 10th June at 16:00 UTC have been emailed https://mailchi.mp/iohk/spo-community-call-673774

Cardano Stack Exchange moderator election starts in 5 days. The nomination phase began already.

The nomination phase began already.

In the nomination phase, any community member in good standing with more than 300 reputation may nominate themselves to be a community moderator.

https://cardano.stackexchange.com/

SPO call going live in 1 minute (ish) https://zoom.us/j/97076909392

2hrs to go! Project Catalyst Fund4 Voter Registration

Deadline to register: 11:00 UTC today

SPOs are able to vote with their pledge. Very friendly and detailed SPO guides available on how to use your pledged amounts for voting, including if stored on your hardware wallets.

Hardware wallet via CLI interface + Martin's Guide for SPOs (community resource)

Additionally, all of you collectively have vibrant and loyal communities that you serve daily. It would be great if you could excite them to follow your suit and share the news of your participation. Cardano governance in the form of Project Catalyst experiment is an immensely crucial step to empowerment of the Cardano community as a whole. Below, find key resources you can share with your communities for further guidance:

All-You-Need-To-Know reddit post: http://bit.ly/3fIqJiO

Community made voter tool: https://cardanocataly.st/voter-tool/#/

TG announcements channel: https://t.me/cardanocatalyst

Twitter Space going live with CF and IO. It's an open mic 'tell us what you're working on or thinking about' vibe https://twitter.com/benohanlon/status/1403349420150771715

SPO Community Call for next week has been emailed directly to your inbox with the results of the Daedalus Survey! https://mailchi.mp/iohk/spo-community-call-673822

SPO call going live in just over 20 mins! https://zoom.us/j/99084453107

SPO call going live in 10 mins! https://zoom.us/j/99084453107

SPO call going live in 1 minute (ish) https://zoom.us/j/99084453107

SPO call going live in a couple of minutes! https://zoom.us/j/94362880306

Exciting news! The IO global discord server that hosts Plutus Pioneers and the Alonzo groups has been so successful that we are opening it up to the entire Cardano community. There is a dedicated SPO Lounge open to all SPOs and to the SPO-curious, as well as a vibrant and well-moderated community. Come check it out!
You can join Discord here: https://discord.gg/cmveaxuzBn

💜 🎤 We're delighted to announce that we have now successfully spun up #AlonzoPurple and have today begun the new user onboarding process. This is an exciting and important step in the next Alonzo journey. With the support of our OG community testers on the Blue & White phases, #AlonzoPurple will be the first fully public Cardano testnet to support #SmartContracts.

📍 It's an important moment, marking significant progress in the rollout of smart contracts on the Cardano mainnet which is targeted for the end of August/early September.


🎯 Our community has been central to the progress made so far. We have now invited the 150+ strong test team to join the #AlonzoPurple network.

We are also extending a priority invitation to 300 graduates from the Plutus Pioneer program, our developer education course teaching Plutus smart contract coding to 000s of developers.

Once the initial AlonzoPurple team has been successfully onboarded (kick-off call Monday), we’ll hard fork the network and open #Alonzo any developer who wishes to join.

Check out the Twitter thread for the full update - thanks.

https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1423704788512952331