Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, has expressed his enthusiasm for the formation of PRAGMA, a new independent open source association. This initiative marks a pivotal move towards achieving global scalability—a goal that Cardano aims to fulfill as it endeavors to become the financial operating system of the world.
Cardano Makes Crucial Step Forward
During a recent update shared on X, the Cardano Foundation, alongside partners Blink Labs, dcSpark, Sundae Labs, and TxPipe, announced the launch of PRAGMA. This association aims to foster a robust and diverse ecosystem, crucial for the scalability and resilience required at a global level.
Hoskinson highlighted the critical nature of such developments in his statement, saying, “Multiple clients and a diverse and resilient ecosystem of open source projects and utilities are required for a global scale protocol seeking to build the financial operating system of the world. I’m excited to see groups come together to start building these clients and projects.”
Interestingly, PRAGMA’s formation comes as a distinct and independent initiative within the ADA community, not directly coordinated with existing governance bodies such as IOHK. When questioned about the new group’s relation to these entities, Hoskinson stated, “They decided to form an entirely different group and not coordinate with Intersect. I’ve never had a formal meeting with them about their intent or the exactly structure and funding behind Pragma. I was actually only recently informed about their existence.”
He further elaborated on the potential benefits of PRAGMA’s independence, stating, “I’m glad to see the community forming their own structures and development priorities. While Pragma will not speed up feature delivery to Cardano, it does add operational resilience and also a second set of eyes on the formal specifications of Cardano.”
What Pragma Is About
The official press release by the Cardano Foundation sheds more light on PRAGMA’s mission and initial projects. It stated that this new not-for-profit open source association is dedicated to advancing blockchain software projects and fostering an alternative open-source ecosystem for ADA and potentially other blockchains. The signing of statutes, scheduled for 22 April, signifies the formal commencement of the association’s activities.
Sebastian Bode, Director of Engineering at the Cardano Foundation and a Board Member of PRAGMA, underscored the collaborative spirit driving this initiative. “PRAGMA represents an important step forward in the Cardano Foundation’s mission to support Cardano becoming a public infrastructure. Together, we are a team of passionate software engineers from various backgrounds who build open-source tools for developers aiming for mass adoption of blockchain.”
PRAGMA’s initial focus will be on a select number of pivotal projects. One such project is Amaru, which is the development of a full node written in Rust and designed to operate side-by-side with the existing Haskell nodes in a fully interoperable manner. Another key initiative is Aiken, a smart contract platform that aims to both simplify and enhance the development of smart contracts.
Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, emphasized the broader implications of PRAGMA’s establishment for the ecosystem. “At the Cardano Foundation we are advocates for the open source maturity of the Cardano ecosystem, supporting collaborative initiatives that increase the diversity, as well as the quality and quantity of blockchain solutions. PRAGMA represents a significant milestone on this path.”
Looking ahead, PRAGMA plans to expand its membership to developers within the broader ADA ecosystem by 2025. This long-term strategy aims not only to integrate existing projects but also to stimulate the emergence of new and meaningful tools that could fundamentally enhance blockchain technology’s adoption and functionality.
At press time, ADA traded at $0.517.
