Why is it important?

Blockchain is a quickly evolving field. IOG research has kept Cardano competitive, but it needs to be easier for non-IOG research to occur

What does success look like?

Written documents (CIPs, research papers, technical articles) that spark debate in the Cardano community and gets added to the roadmap

Key Metrics to measure

- Amount of research content created

- Number of content that gains traction and receives further funding to be included into Cardano and/or Cardano-related projects

Challenge brief

Cutting edge research is key for the success of any blockchain project. IOG research has kept Cardano competitive, but for Cardano to be decentralized there should be multiple research streams run by different companies & individuals.

Catalyst cannot provide funding for multi-million dollar research projects, but it can help fund preliminary research and it can also fund the creation of lighter research material such as the creation of Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIPs).

Here are examples of what could be funded:

- Research to analyze / improve Cardano's networking protocol

- Research into new cryptographic primitives that may be useful for wallets or dApps

- Research into new design patterns for eUTXO blockchains

- Research to analyze / improve Plutus Core

- Research into layer-2 or off-chain technology

and more