Topic: [ANN][ICO]Cardstack: The Experience Layer of the Blockchain + Tally Protocol - page 19. (Read 48404 times)

The smart contracts underlying two of the four components of the CARD Protocol—namely the CardPay protocol for payment processing & exchange rates and the CardBridge protocol for layer-1 and layer-2 integration—have reached the point of completion.



We are working to refine the contracts in response to feedback from the smart-contract auditors, so as to ensure that these upgradeable smart contracts are in compliance with the industry best practices for clarity and security.

We will soon prepare to deploy this to the respective mainnet (Ethereum mainnet and xDai chain) to have the contract ready for beta users

May was all about our DeFi payment & reward system: Card Pay. This blog post catches you up on what's been going on this month: https://medium.com/cardstack/whats-new-at-cardstack-f5323ed3bcaa

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How does Cardstack compare to the SaaS tools of the Web2 world?

In this video, Chris Tse explains how all the different parts of Cardstack work together to cover countless use cases and replace the apps we use today.

https://youtu.be/EbhqUU-GjUM

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Happening tomorrow, June 1, Chris Tse will present at the Media & Entertainment SIG about a development tool that lets you build blockchain applications out of a library of templates. This will include a look at new code for NFTs.

Tune in at 9AM PDT / 12PM EDT / 6PM CEST / 12AM SGT https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_X0WkMtkWzaVUKF-PRBNQ

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Learn more about Card Pay, our DeFi payment and reward system—consisting of a Web dApp for supplying tokens & issuing prepaid cards and a mobile wallet for biometric payments. https://medium.com/cardstack/defi-payments-with-card-pay-b87d13c80ac1

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Curious to know what we've been up to this week? Check it out here: https://medium.com/cardstack/june-2-inside-cardstack-this-week-2afd520caaf8

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How is Cardstack evolving tools from the Web2 world? How does it compare to other SaaS tools? Learn how the different parts of Cardstack come together as Chris Tse shares the many use cases it can cover.

https://medium.com/cardstack/cardstack-vs-saas-part-1-ff20434fec12

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We've been very busy this week!

Catch up on our progress here: https://medium.com/cardstack/june-9-inside-cardstack-this-week-3aa4fde5dd5a

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Work continues on the workflows that leverage the CardPay SDK. All the logic of the smart contracts that are necessary for the creation of prepaid cards has been completed and deployed to the respective testnets.



Once the user experience for all these workflows is completed, using the workflow thread model taken from the Boxel design system, we will be able to open up testing to users in the Cardstack community.

As for gas prices, a gas price oracle will help determine the appropriate gas price to be used on the xDai chain. The gas price is very low, averaging 1 gwei, with the fastest being 5 gwei.

Since the xDai chain is denominated in xDAI (a stablecoin), most transactions that are needed for the CardPay protocol are less than a tiny fraction of a penny.

To help with testing these cross-chain bridging and minting operations, we use Kovan ETH to create DAI, which are bridged as the testing stablecoin to back our prepaid balances.

If you missed any of our announcements in the past few weeks, here's a recap of what's been going on this month: https://medium.com/cardstack/whats-new-at-cardstack-47002b93c33a

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Check out what we've been up to this past week! https://medium.com/cardstack/april-28-inside-cardstack-this-week-826c9d381bdf

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Here's a recap of all the exciting things we've been up to this week! https://medium.com/cardstack/may-5-inside-cardstack-this-week-a8c3f6ede816

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We are pleased to announce that Cardstack (CARD) is now listed on KuCoin. View this official link for more details: https://kucoin.com/news/en-card-gets-listed-on-kucoin?utm_source=CARD

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Cardstack is thrilled to announce an integration with Chainlink!

We will use Chainlink Price Feeds to establish accurate and tamper-proof exchange rates on Card Pay—our upcoming payment and reward network. https://medium.com/cardstack/cardstack-to-integrate-chainlink-price-feeds-for-secure-exchange-rates-8c24c728ec6c

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Coming up next Tuesday: Cardstack's AMA with Chainlink!
We will be talking about Card Pay, the challenges of bridging crypto and traditional payments, and how Chainlink's oracles for asset prices will secure user and merchant funds. https://youtube.com/watch?v=MXnJDdkcTLY

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Watch Chris Tse talk about the Cardstack Project with Gains Associates.

Chris delves into use case examples, the benefits of decentralization, the Cardstack marketplace, NFTs, and much more.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzVeAgVgqNo

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Happening today - Cardstack's AMA with Chainlink!

Join us as we discuss Card Pay, the challenges of bridging crypto and traditional payments, and how Chainlink's oracles for asset prices will secure user and merchant funds. https://youtube.com/watch?v=MXnJDdkcTLY

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Here's a quick update on what's been going on this past week: https://medium.com/cardstack/may-12-inside-cardstack-this-week-a31af1cc9eeb

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Check out our latest product talk, where Cardstack’s founding director Chris Tse welcomes our new community members and catches you up on our plans for this year, specifically Card Pay —our DeFi payment & reward system. https://youtu.be/KHDBF_OHSDI

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What is the Cardstack Project and what are we building? Learn more in this interview with Chris Tse: https://youtu.be/OzVeAgVgqNo

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Get a glimpse of what the Cardstack team has been up to this week! https://medium.com/cardstack/may-19-inside-cardstack-this-week-30ebcc0c46e1

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What's exciting about Cardstack? How does Card Pay work? What is the role of the CARD token? How are we using Chainlink?

These and many more questions were addressed in our AMA with Chainlink last week. https://medium.com/cardstack/ask-me-anything-cardstack-chainlink-a55793bcae61

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This is what we've been working on this past week: https://medium.com/cardstack/may-26-inside-cardstack-this-week-97a638c2ddff

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

We're currently working through the edge cases for the Web UI, to ensure our thread-based workflow model can support the process of bridging tokens and setting up smart-contract wallet / multisig accounts, which lead to the issuance of prepaid cards to customer wallets



We are simultaneously adding new design system components to the Boxel repository and leveraging those components immediately in an end-to-end test (involving all the Web3 APIs) in a live app

That work will continue until the remainder of the workflows is completed. Stay tuned for more exciting developments!

Here is Part 2 of our blog series about the AMA session Chris Tse hosted last week. While Part 1 addressed the product- and marketing-related questions, Part 2 focuses on the crypto and technological aspects of the Cardstack Project.

https://medium.com/cardstack/ask-me-anything-part-2-fd7571a1364c

April 21: Inside Cardstack This Week



Card Pay

As part of the Card Pay project, we want to ensure that there are products you can purchase on layer 2, so that we can complete the payment loop from customer payments to merchant withdrawals and product deliveries. We anticipate that Card Pay will be used for online, crypto, physical, as well as ephemeral goods and services. The easiest place to start is simple NFTs, which represent digital objects.

The completion of this ERC-721 aspect is now part of our work on the CARD Protocol. The aim is to bridge ERC-721 tokens between layer 1 and layer 2, so that the code can support the minting of NFTs (which represent products) on the xDAI chain. Once purchased, customers can bridge their NFTs back to layer-1 marketplaces like Opensea.

When Card Pay is launched, you will be able to mint, price, collect, and bridge NFTs with your stablecoin-backed balance in your Cardstack wallet. This low-cost minting service provides more access to the NFT space than the current mainnet-based approach. Since our tools are 100% compatible with WalletConnect and ERC-721, there is no need to learn another blockchain technology or have goods locked behind custodial wallets, which cannot fully participate in the rich Ethereum ecosystem.

In preparation for the launch of the smart-contract portion of the protocol, we have successfully automated all the deployment of necessary services using Terraform. We have also made many of the contracts upgradeable, using the best practices recommended by the OpenZeppelin project, so that new capabilities and functionalities can be added to our protocol without interrupting the customers’ and merchants’ usage of the network.

Web UI



On the Web UI front, we are working through the edge cases to ensure that our thread-based workflow model can support the very involved process of bridging tokens and setting up smart-contract wallet / multisig accounts, which lead to the issuance of prepaid cards to customer wallets. We are simultaneously adding new design system components to the Boxel repository and leveraging those components immediately in an end-to-end test — involving all the Web3 APIs — in a live app. That work will continue until the remainder of the workflows is completed.

Card Compiler

On the card compiler front, we continue to port the capability of nested cards — which is very important for the synthesis of data about assets — into the new (V3) version of the Cardstack Hub. This work is done in the main monorepo. It is done on an iterative basis, so we can strive to reduce the number of lines of code that are necessary to express all the compositional concepts needed to support all of our upcoming products — including Card Space, Card Catalog, and Card Membership. Card Pay does not depend on this new compiler, as it uses mostly Web3 APIs directly; Card Pay is only dependent on the Boxel design system, which is ready for deployment.

Catch up on our latest progress regarding Card Pay, Card Compiler, and the Web UI: https://medium.com/cardstack/april-21-inside-cardstack-this-week-2db10d57b50c

Another problem with NFTs: The metadata records of media files can be altered or deleted—either intentionally or because of lack of interest in the network. There is a solution for this. Watch this video on NFTs to learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-S_5AVTnSo&ts

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Many applications that have the ability to render NFTs are currently not open-sourced. So, you may not be able to interact with an NFT if the company that created the app is no longer around. Learn about a potential solution here:  https://medium.com/cardstack/whats-in-your-nfts-e4e45ebc51da



[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Catch up on our weekly progress of Card Space, Boxel, CatalogJS, Card Pay and Cardstack's Mobile application.

https://miro.medium.com/max/1000/1*Fdct5b_lTdP8fJnbU_vzkA.png

Read up here: https://medium.com/cardstack/march-24-inside-cardstack-this-week-94e1e15ae988

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What's in Your NFTs? Learn more about the potential, concerns & solutions surrounding NFTs which Chris Tse talked about earlier this week.

Read here: https://medium.com/cardstack/whats-in-your-nfts-e4e45ebc51da

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Last week, Chris Tse shared insights into Card Pay—delving into the layer-2 payment protocol, its future users, different roles within the protocol, the governance function of the CARD Token & the incentives it provides.

Read the full paper here: https://cardstack.com/cardpaypaper

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It's time to set your alerts again! Tune in today at 9 am EDT / 3 pm CEST / 9 pm SGT as Chris Tse shares more on Card Space.

See you then! https://youtube.com/watch?v=dSl6nzC4JjM

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Cardstack is not purely a blockchain project—it is a project that combines cloud & blockchain technology. We are reusing the proven, rethinking the broken & inventing the missing links. Read more here: https://medium.com/cardstack/combining-cloud-blockchain-tech-e8aee04e1045

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Catch up on our latest progress updates around CatalogJS, Card Pay, and the Cardstack application & wallet. https://medium.com/cardstack/march-31-inside-cardstack-this-week-20a198ab30fd

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In case you missed any of our recent announcements—here's a summary of what's been going on this month: https://medium.com/cardstack/whats-new-at-cardstack-3cd370c4d020

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Cardstack is hiring! We're on the lookout for a Senior Software Developer to join our team. Click here for more info: https://emberwork.com/offers/1617117943-senior-software-developer-at-cardstack

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Cardstack founder Chris Tse participated in a panel discussion about “Ensuring User Privacy & Security of DeFi and Crypto Applications”.
If you missed it, you can watch his section of the discussion here: https://youtu.be/meGOSTtS6UA

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Here's our latest article about Card Space — our builder tool that allows you to create your own website on the decentralized Web the no-code way.
https://medium.com/cardstack/introducing-card-space-c5022bbb54ee

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Mondays are for exciting updates! Tune in today for Chris Tse's presentation on the **Cardstack roadmap**. Catch the premiere at 9 am EDT / 3 pm CEST / 9 pm SGT.

See you soon! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGOKbDz_7xY

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Cardstack wants to make crypto payments practical for regular users. To do this, the team is working on a payment protocol, an associated Web-based dApp & a mobile app that is fast, cheap, and easy to use. Get an in-depth view of this protocol here: https://medium.com/cardstack/card-pay-protocol-for-a-new-software-economy-2650ed639f4d

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Cardstack's lead developer, Ed Faulkner gave the closing keynote at the 2021 Ember Conference. Ed showcased a new type of build system that eliminates the need for NPM install, shifting the work of building a JavaScript application from the server to the browser through service workers.

Read more here: https://twitter.com/cardstack/status/1379714413423337473

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 At Cardstack, we are offering an open-source sponsorship for developers worldwide to work on libraries, so we can continue making progress on reusable infrastructure, while we are working on the full integration of the customer-facing experience.

Learn more here: https://twitter.com/cardstack/status/1379746633701748736

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Catch up on everything that's been going on at Cardstack this past week: https://medium.com/cardstack/april-7-inside-cardstack-this-week-85549d1fdb3e

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Coming up on Monday, 12th April, Cardstack AMA with Chris Tse! Join us at 9 am EDT / 3 pm CEST / 9 pm SGT. Be sure to subscribe to the #Cardstack YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/cardstackproject

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We are excited to announce that Cardstack is integrating with xDAI! Our payment and reward network Card Pay will be deployed on the xDAI chain. Read more about this here: https://medium.com/cardstack/cardstack-integrates-with-xdai-30e2fbd9d5aa

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The 2021 roadmap for the Cardstack Project was released this week! Check out this article, which talks about the product launches we have planned for this year. https://medium.com/cardstack/2021-card-pay-card-space-card-catalog-7ad7e9860e8

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One creative work can be minted under various NFT platforms. So, the same creative content can be two different NFTs, on two different minting platforms. This creates an uncertain value due to the duplicate token.

How can we solve this issue?

Learn more in this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-S_5AVTnSo&t=598s

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Here's a quick recap of what's been going on at Cardstack this past week: https://medium.com/cardstack/april-14-inside-cardstack-this-week-2bdf72532442

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What are custodial wallets and why is reliance on a custodial wallet a problem?

Watch this part of the video about NFTs, where Chris Tse breaks it down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-S_5AVTnSo&t=709s

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We're grateful to our community members for making our first-ever AMA session a success! A lot of great questions were asked and addressed. For those who missed this session, we've compiled the questions in a two-part blog series. Here's Part 1: https://medium.com/cardstack/ask-me-anything-part-1-39cf50e296eb

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The inspiration for Card Space comes from the reality that creators are faced with today, dominated by big names like Google or Amazon—centralized apps sitting between the world’s creative output & the world’s audiences.

Learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSl6nzC4JjM&t=77s

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

We also wired out the exception management, where build errors are surfaced to the #CatalogJS UI and presented to the developers so that they can debug and fix the error. $CARD

https://twitter.com/cardstack/status/1374302461561688068?s=21

We will be using #CatalogJS as a component to integrate third-party modules into #Cardstack runtime when we are ready to bring more capabilities - especially ones that are not planned as first-party features and be able to support them out of the box without modifications.

https://twitter.com/cardstack/status/1374302462211858434?s=21

We've published a new video, where Chris talks about his vision and strategy for Cardstack—specifically about his plans to grow the ecosystem. This is the first in a series of (both long and short) videos about the progress and the products of Cardstack that we will publish in the coming weeks.
https://youtu.be/Sd73a89K3xQ

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Coming up: A product talk about Card Pay! 

Make sure you join us for the premiere on Monday, 9 a.m. EST / 3 p.m. CET / 10 p.m. SGT.

https://youtu.be/zeGxShpQHWI

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Our development of the $CARD Protocol is focused on the build on top of the smart contract, and L1-L2 bridging that is already in place, to add support for decentralized commerce (dCommerce) features.

Learn more: https://twitter.com/cardstack/status/1367429622367801350

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Our work on the Cardstack mobile app is currently focused on applying the latest visual design, which contains the Cardstack branding as well as the UI components from the Boxel design system. The plan is to bring it to the live mobile app soon.

Learn more: https://twitter.com/cardstack/status/1367064015491399683

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We believe that Cardstack is the interface layer for the next decade. What's coming in the 2020s is a version upgrade in the tech that we use, in the business models we pursue, and in the way that culture is defined.

Learn more: https://twitter.com/cardstack/status/1367841962297073668

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In case you missed our premiere about Card Pay yesterday, here's a short article that summarizes the key points made by Chris Tse. If you'd like to dive deeper into Card Pay: the full video is available on our YouTube channel and linked in the article.
https://medium.com/cardstack/introducing-card-pay-754887d471a3

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The Cardstack team working on the Boxel design system is currently consolidating all the UI components that we have used in dApps as well as enterprise apps into one design system catalog.

Read more here: https://twitter.com/cardstack/status/1369951243192336385

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On the product development front, we're currently using the Boxel design system to create a dApp builder & hosting service called Card Space.

Read more here: https://twitter.com/cardstack/status/1370315073739059208

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Our recent video on Card Pay showcases different aspects of the Web, mobile application and the smart-contract based protocol. If you missed this, watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeGxShpQHWI

We're polishing the iOS app to include interaction improvements such as interactions around organizing cards within your wallet or displaying clear confirmation messages for various actions you take in the network.

We're also preparing to add some flexibility to our smart-contract implementation, so as to support multiple types of fiat on-ramps as well as other layer-2 chains in addition to the xDAI chain.

Stay tuned!

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How is Card Pay making crypto payments practical for regular users?

Chris Tse answers this and many more questions on the Card Pay protocol here: https://medium.com/cardstack/card-pay-protocol-for-a-new-software-economy-2650ed639f4d

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Catch up on the development of Card Space, Boxel, CatalogJS and Card Pay. https://medium.com/cardstack/march-17-inside-cardstack-this-week-3eb4e75abfc6

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The Cardstack Ecosystem is about a decentralized network of designers and developers coming together to compete with the centralized superpowers of Silicon Valley.

Learn more about the Cardstack ecosystem here: https://medium.com/cardstack/the-cardstack-ecosystem-73dc89aae2c8

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Next week, Chris Tse will be talking about NFTs. The video will premiere on Monday, 22nd March, 9 am EDT / 2 pm CET / 9 pm SGT. Stay tuned! https://youtu.be/M-S_5AVTnSo

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Have you set your alerts? Our Premiere on NFTs will be airing today at 9 am EDT / 2 pm CET / 9 pm SGT. We look forward to seeing you then! https://youtu.be/M-S_5AVTnSo

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We have reached a milestone in developing the CatalogJS build system! The entire end-to-end run-through of the Ember app (an open-source framework that Cardstack is built upon) can now compile and build on this new infrastructure.

Read more here: https://twitter.com/cardstack/status/1374302459561091075

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Here's a great explanation on the Cardstack Platform and Products by one of our community members, Derek. https://derek-yfqiu.medium.com/cardstack-explained-in-one-page-40d96e4d0053

Cardstack Weekly February 26, 2021

This week we continue working on the UI component for Cardspace. The upcoming hosting service for apps and dApps that are created using the Card metaphor. We are working to allow for creation of new Card spaces with only a web3 wallet, which allows for reservations of URLs as an NFT that you can transfer to another person later. This initial implementation allows us to validate the full stack rendering pipeline that connects to underlying smart contracts both for paying for the fees necessary to conduct on-chain transactions on the layer 2 blockchain, as well as to purchase add-ons from the catalog in the future.

On CatalogJS, we have set up the content distribution network (CDN) hosted at catalogjs.com, currently in testing so that packages that are processed by CatalogJS can be accessible in a fast and efficient way over a global network. This distribution network will be used for the user facing Card Catalog, but it is important that we get the developer version of this asset deployment process smooth out and optimized.

On the mobile app front, the team continues working to apply the latest visual design, which contains the Cardstack branding as well as the UI component from the Boxel design system and bring them into the live mobile app. We are using an open source library called storybook.js to manage the design system assets within the React native codebase. Based on community feedback, we are including the Android customization and ensuring the stability of the android version of our app, while we are developing the beta for ios version. Our goal is to release the android version very soon after the ios release, as we know many of the community members are android users. Since we are using react native and applying the same design style to both versions, there should be minimal visual and functional differences.

On the protocol front, we are building on top of the smart contract and layer 1 - layer 2 bridging that is already in place to add support for decentralized commerce (dCommerce) features. We are working through a set of protocol primitives which allows for the payment for products and services using a mix of fungible and non-fungible tokens. Eg. you can pay for a download using a number of stablecoins in your wallet, or by redeeming a one time use coupon which is in itself an NFT. Observing what is happening in the community token / creator token space, we are also designing an enhancement to the protocol where a buyer may have to possess a certain badge, which is an NFT or have a certain number of tokens in the wallet for a period of time before they are permitted to purchase an item, and that item can be just a download link, where a file can be downloaded after payment, or it could be an ERC721 NFT where an on-chain transaction delivering a virtual good into your cardstack wallet after successful payment. Our approach for NFT is not specific to the current excitement around crypto art or collectibles, but as a generalized mechanism for inventing new patterns of commerce and engagement between creators and their fans / cult. The user interfaces for the Card Pay protocol are being reimplemented using the latest code in the Boxel design system so it can take advantage of all the functionality and visual refinement that we have achieved in the Boxel codebase.

On the marketing front, we have secured internal and external resources so we can handle and support the increased interest in the Cardstack project from different channels. We welcome new community members who have joined us in Telegram and followed us on Twitter, and we are working on bite size resources that allows newcomers to catch up on the progress we are making at Cardstack and would love for the community to share these resources with like minded people so we can grow a decentralized community that can together build the Web3.0 experience that will bring blockchain technology into the mainstream.

Compilation of our weekly updates from the last year: https://www.notion.so/Cardstack-Updates-7a516107f5a84858a3e0682dfd9a93f3#a64a2e7f815149149c6937915554c787

Let’s talk about Milestones

As you move through your workflow step by step, the system tracks your progress until you reach the final milestone and the workflow is completed.

Let’s look at the example of our Ebook Editing workflow between author and editor:
You’re the author. You want the editor’s help to make your book really great. So, the nice bot asks you to share your manuscript with your editor (see “Required actions” in Friday’s post). Good author that you are, you click the “Share Manuscript” button. Now, your action
- embeds your manuscript card in the workflow, so your editor can access it,
- checks off your first milestone,
- adds the corresponding “Milestone reached” notification to the workflow,
- updates the status of your project via progress wheel, and
- triggers the next action—in this case, a prompt for your editor to start editing your manuscript (this prompt is visible to him only).

Of course, not all milestones are reached that easily. They may require more than one click (and the completion of more than one task) to accomplish the desired check mark....

=> more on tasks coming up

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Let’s talk about Tasks

Tasks in the Cardstack Workflow system are like tasks on Asana or Trello, but they are much more useful—because they are directly associated with your different workflows!

Tasks can not only be added to your personal or shared to-do list like they can everywhere else, but to a message thread as well—even to individual messages, attachments, or actions inside that thread. A colorful pointer in the thread tells you immediately what your task is about, which message it concerns, which card you need to look at, or which button you have to click. Meanwhile, you can use the expandable task list at the top to keep track of all tasks related to that thread.

Any participant can assign tasks inside a thread. You can add a task for someone else—e.g. to let your editor know that you need him to look at your outline before you can continue. Or you can add a task for yourself that only you can see—e.g. to remind yourself to check out the link to the stock image library your editor has sent you for your cover art. And once you’ve completed a task, you can check it off with one click, as you would on Asana or Trello.

In addition, there are tasks a nice bot can assign. Those are tasks you should look out for, because they are tied to required actions and tell you that someone (maybe even you) is blocking the workflow. For example, only when you’ve clicked the “Share manuscript” button (thus shared your manuscript with your editor) can the editing workflow continue.
Very convenient feature: You don’t need to check off system-generated tasks manually. They are automatically resolved once you have clicked the button that the bot asked you to click.

=> more on related workflows coming up

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Let’s talk about Composable Workflows

Some workflows are simple. Others are more complex. Which is why Cardstack workflows are composable.

Say you’re done editing your manuscript with your editor. Now it’s time to involve a proofreader. So, you can simply add an Ebook Proofreading workflow into your main Ebook Editing workflow (alternatively, you could start with a complex workflow that comes with related flows already).

This related workflow will be included in your main workflow, so you can access it easily—but other participants can’t. Each participant can only see the workflow that person participates in, meaning: Your editor can only access Ebook Editing, your proofreader can only access Ebook Proofreading, and you can access everything.

Now, you can send your manuscript through a portal to your Ebook Proofreading workflow, get it proofread, then send it back to the main Ebook Editing workflow, where that action will check off your “Proofread” milestone. This way, you keep the participants separate—and yet, they work together towards the completion of the same overall project.

This composability allows you to combine workflows in two ways. You can
- nest workflows inside each other: Such “included workflows” help you to complete your main workflow, e.g. you can get chapter 1 of your ebook proofread or translated before you submit it.
- chain workflows together: Such “linked workflows” don’t affect the main workflow, but help you to keep track of your project, e.g. you can repeat the same editing workflow again for chapter 2 of your ebook.

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The Cardstack Workflow is a multi-functional tool for multi-faceted work.

It makes your work life easier, because it keeps you updated on the progress of all your projects.
It makes your communication more cohesive, because you get to communicate on the same platform where you’re doing your work, so all participants can see that the work they’re discussing is actually getting done.
It makes your project management more organized, because the actions you take inside a flow organize your work for you.
And it makes everything more fun, because the pain of switching between 10 different apps every single day is finally over. All the different aspects of your workflows are combined in this 1 tool, which can be further extended to provide absolutely everything you need.

This way, you can finally leave subscription hell behind and manage your whole work efficiently, without a handful of SaaS companies holding you down. And if you want to use this workflow system on your phone, you can use the mobile version of the Cardstack Workflow.

We will continue working hard to bring this unique workflow system to life and plan to release a video demo soon. Use cases of the Cardstack Workflow could include content collaboration, payment collaboration, contracting, governance, community formation, and much more. Stay tuned for future updates!


[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Within a workflow, a card (e.g. forms, documents, asset references) and its binary representation are stored as JSON documents; they are attached to the message thread the same way a gif is attached in a chatroom. So, the off-chain storage is provided by the messaging network; initially, that will be the Matrix network. One of the nice things about using the Matrix protocol is that the attached file is replicated to two different servers: the sender's Matrix host and the recipient's Matrix host. It works very much like email, where the storage of messages is “off-chain”, while they are replicated (similarly to a blockchain node) for the parties that need to have a copy. Our off-chain storage mechanism achieves decentralization without the congestion that comes from having every node replicate every message and attachment. With that said, for cards that need a global state synchronization (so that everybody in the entire world will have access to the off-chain storage), Cardstack can store the attached JSON document in an IPFS end point instead of the originating server within the Matrix file attachment API. We also have a way to anchor these IPFS records using the git protocol on the Ethereum mainnet, which is even more decentralized and immutable. Users will not see the difference, regardless of the backend. The default will be the Matrix file attachment method.

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The Cardstack Workflow is anchored on the federation capability of the Matrix protocol. So, any user who is either part of the main Matrix community or on a federated node on Matrix would be able to participate in the Cardstack Workflow. Since Matrix is an open-source and permissionless federation, you could say that anybody can join the community. We are focussing on hiding the complexity of the underlying secure messaging protocol and enhancing the business utility, by adding workflow and task management on top of an already decentralized family of secure communication hosting providers.

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Let’s talk about Messages & Versioned Attachments

The messages inside a thread are similar to emails and chat messages—but without the headache. No need to send 25 files back and forth, because each version of your document is a separate attachment with a different name (“final.doc” / “final1.doc” / “final2.doc” / “finalfinal.doc” / FINAL.doc”). Instead, you can attach and exchange the same card as often as you like, even while you’re editing it collaboratively—because this attached card is alive and remembers its version history.

And when it’s your turn to act on the card, you will be asked to take an action, e.g. by a bot who points you to the button that you need to click.

=> more on actions coming up

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Let’s talk about Actions

Take an action, reach a milestone. That’s the basic idea.

But it’s a little bit more complicated, because there are different kinds of actions—typically in the form of buttons you can click:

1. Required actions that you have to complete in order to move the workflow forward. These actions are needed to check off a milestone.
For example, in an Ebook Editing workflow:
- You have to share your manuscript with your editor if you want his help to edit it.
- You have to submit your manuscript if you want to publish it.

2. Suggested actions that you can (but don’t have to) take. These actions are optional because they aren’t needed to reach a milestone; they normally don’t affect the current workflow. For example:
- You could click to revise your manuscript after you have submitted it.
- You could click to view your published ebook on the publishing platform when the workflow is completed.

=> more on milestones next week


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Is there any limitations which groups can be invited to the community? I guess there are so I would like to hear more about that.

Let’s talk about Threads & Workflows

You simply click on a queue item to open the corresponding thread.

Now, your typical message thread in Telegram or Discord has a few participants and a bunch of chat messages, possibly with an attachment or smiley face here and there. But there is much more to this thread.

For one thing, it is not only a simple conversation. It can be a formal workflow between multiple participants—a step-by-step process with milestones, actions / buttons, reminders, and progress updates.

Secondly, both the thread itself and individual messages can be annotated with tasks. You can assign them to yourself or to your colleagues, if it’s their turn to finally do some work.

=> more on participants next week

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Let’s talk about Participants

A thread between several parties is like group DM—but one that connects people from inside and outside your organization.

Of course, participants of a thread can be from the same community, like author and editor in our Ebook Editing workflow. But they could also be from different organizations, like representatives from two or more companies who share a workflow for a collaborative project.

A Cardstack Workflow makes it possible to send messages, transfer cards, and assign tasks across organizations—with visibility settings playing an important role. For instance, if you add participants at a later point, you get to choose how much they see: Do you want them to be able to catch up and see the entire thread history? Or do you want them to see only messages sent after they have joined? Either way, you can adjust the settings according to your needs.

=> more on messages coming up


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Can you explain me in more details how exactly off-chain record keeping is being realized? Idea looks interesting now that off chain record keeping its bothering me...

Cardstack Membership System is interesting idea, it combines on-chain and off-chain record keeping. System consists of three primary roles: Card Stackers, Card Makers, Card Members. Each has it's own dividendts and features