IOHK, the company behind the Cardano blockchain announced experimenting with a decentralized finance [DeFi] lending protocol dubbed ‘Project Catalyst’. In a long Twitter thread, IOHK urged the Cardano community to pitch and, get community feedback. The community would then vote on the favorite ideas the best of which would get the funds to build the project.
IOHK tweeted,
“We’ll soon be inviting the community to register to vote, kicking off the first-ever public Catalyst funding round. An initial $250k-worth of #ADA will be available for building the best idea[s] at Cardano. And that’s just the beginning…”
Throughout 2021, IOHK revealed several rounds would, in turn, unlock millions-worth of ADA to fund development ranging from content to community resources, decentralized apps[ DApps] to decentralized finance [Defi]. With its latest initiative ‘#festivalofidead’, the team intends to accelerate the development of the Cardano ecosystem by pooling in the community by “empowering” and funding them.
The best ideas which will be selected by Cardano community members will essentially receive up to $250,000 worth of ADA to advance the development of their projects.
The first candidate to be announced for IOHK’s latest project is dubbed ‘Liqwid’ which claims to be an open-source lending protocol on a distributed decentralized cloud. According to Dewayne Cameron, Management Consultant at Liqwid, the platform enables participants to earn interest on deposits and borrow assets directly on the Cardano blockchain.
Furthermore, Liqwid is essentially governed by its members who are the only individuals that introduce proposals or vote on updates. All member decisions will be recorded and enforced by smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain.
According to Liqwid’s official release, the development phase for the protocol will begin in December third week while testing is scheduled for the end of the first quarter of 2021.
Besides, IOHK further revealed a second collaborative idea by Workshop Maybe, a community focussed organization, and Gimba Labs. According to the pitch, the idea aims to drive up adoption for Cardano.