Unveiling an open-source association to advance blockchain software projects

Zug, Switzerland, 22 April - Today the Cardano Foundation, alongside Blink Labs, dcSpark, Sundae Labs, and TxPipe announced the launch of PRAGMA, a member-based, not-for-profit open source association for blockchain software projects. The five entities, who are each deeply focused on IT development and engineering in the Cardano ecosystem, aim to foster an alternative open-source ecosystem for Cardano and other blockchains. The association will sign its statutes on 22 April.

The Cardano Foundation sees the advancement of open source technologies as an important step towards a sustainable and robust Cardano ecosystem. An open source approach facilitates the creation of technologies that meet specific enterprise needs, while supporting the community by ensuring an egalitarian, innovative space that allows all developers to build upon and improve tools for the future of the network.

PRAGMA’s initial primary goal is to foster an open-source ecosystem for Cardano by hosting existing projects and helping them to thrive. It also aims to facilitate the development and emergence of new meaningful tools where needed. In the long term, the goal is for the association to become a home to any blockchain-related open-source projects.

Currently in the first phase of organizational development, PRAGMA will focus on a select number of projects at this initial stage. One such key project is Amaru, the building of a Cardano full node in Rust which can run side-by-side the existing Haskell nodes in a fully interoperable manner. The second project is Aiken, a smart contract platform specifically created to both simplify and enhance the development of smart contracts on Cardano. Upon entering the next phase slated for 2025, membership will open to developers within the broader Cardano ecosystem.

Sebastian Bode, Director of Engineering at the Cardano Foundation and Board Member of PRAGMA. said: “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.”

Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, said: “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.”

Further information on PRAGMA can be found at the association's website.