Cartesi (CTSI)

1. What is Cartesi (CTSI)?

• Cartesi is solving the urgent problem of scalability and high fees on blockchains by implementing a variant of optimistic roll-ups. Most notably, Cartesi is revolutionizing smart contract programming by allowing developers to code with mainstream software stacks. Noether is Cartesi's side-chain that is optimized for ephemeral data, providing low-cost data availability to dApps.

• Cartesi's competitive edge as a layer-2 and optimistic rollups solution is that it allows developers to code their smart contracts and dApps directly with mainstream software components and Linux OS resources. With mainstream programmability, dApp developers have a new expressive power to create more complex and featureful smart contracts. It also opens the doors for the adoption of regular developers who have never programmed for blockchain, and enables them to create decentralized applications with familiar software stacks.

Recent news

• March 2021: Launched Noether v1.1
• Feb 2021: Integration with Avalanche and Elrond to expand Layer 2 infrastructure within DeFi.
• Jan 2021: Coinone and MyCointainer announces supporting for CTSI Reserve Mining and Custodial Staking.
• Dec 2020: CTSI Reserve mining goes live.

2. Existing products and core infrastructure

2.1 Creepts

Creepts is a decentralized tower defense game built by Cartesi to showcase an early version of Cartesi's core technology.

2.2 Descartes

• Descartes is a decentralized computational oracle for Ethereum. Descartes executes massive computational tasks off-chain, on a Linux virtual machine fully specified by a smart contract. The results of the computations are fully verifiable and enforceable on-chain by honest Descartes node runners, preserving the strong security guarantees of Ethereum.

Descartes is currently live and implemented in several projects:

• Creol Environments: An IoT commercial building control system that carbon offsets itself in realtime to be a carbon-neutral building control system. Creol is implementing Cartesi in their IoT devices to ensure that building stats measurements and computations are verifiable and securely inserted on Ethereum. Integrating Cartesi with their hardware is rendering their IoT system more resilient and fraud-proof.
• SimThunder: is working to make sim racing more fun and realistic with NFTs and a marketplace. SimThunder is using Cartesi as a way to ensure a marketplace for NFTs while maintaining privacy for items that have been shared. With the Descartes SDK, the SimThunder marketplace allows parties to securely trade NFTs and valuable contents.
• Carti: An infrastructure project that aims to bring a packaging technology to life on Cartesi. The objective is to allow developers to have programmatic access to retrieve Cartesi Machines, leading to a better development experience.

2.3 Descartes Rollups

• Descartes Rollups is the implementation of Cartesi Rollups, enabling scalable smart contracts built with mainstream software stacks. Descartes Rollups is a variant of optimistic rollups with interactive dispute resolution.
• Developers will be able to use countless mainstream software components to code smart contracts that run on a Linux VM. With Descartes, developers solves the scalability limits of Ethereum with million-fold computational gains, while preserving the strong security guarantees of the blockchain.

2.4 Noether

• Noether is a high-performance side chain for data availability. It is Cartesi's side chain designed for temporary data availability, allowing dApps to achieve high throughput and storage of large files with reduced fees.
• Noether's Proof of Stake system is currently live and running. Users can stake their CTSI and earn mine rewards to participate in Cartesi's growing network of validators.
• Noether is currently being bootstrapped through CTSI Reserve Mining. The staking rewards from the CTSI Reserve Mining are funded from the “mine reserve”, which avoids inflation in order to bootstrap the network. Early adopters who run nodes may earn higher staking rewards.

3. Token sales and economics

3.1 Key metrics

3.2 Token supply distribution

• Launchpad Sale tokens comprise 10.00% of the total token supply.
• Seed Sale tokens comprise 2.00% of the total token supply.
• Private Sale tokens comprise 5.00% of the total token supply.
• Strategic Sale tokens comprise 0.67% of the total token supply.
• Team tokens comprise 15.00% of the total token supply.
• Advisors tokens comprise 2.11% of the total token supply.
• Foundation Reserve tokens comprise 40.22% of the total token supply.
• Mining Reserve tokens comprise 25.00% of the total token supply.

CTSI token distribution (%)

Seed Sale overview

• The Seed Sale was conducted from August 1st - 31st, 2017 for 20,000,000 CTSI at a rate of 1 CTSI = 0.005 USD and raised a total of 100,000 USD at 457.82 USD = 1 ETH and 7,030.70 USD = 1 BTC, selling 2.00% of the total token supply. The Seed Sale was conducted in ETH and BTC, raising 172.05 ETH and 3.02 BTC.

Private Sale overview

• The Private Sale was conducted from April 6th - May 21st, 2019 for 50,000,000 CTSI at a rate of 1 CTSI = 0.010 USD and raised a total of $500,000 USD at 178.15 USD = 1 ETH, selling 5.00% of the total token supply. The Private Sale was conducted in ETH and USD, raising 561.33 ETH and 400,000 USD.

Strategic Sale overview

• The Strategic Sale was conducted from December 22nd - 31st, 2019 for 6,666,668 CTSI at a rate of 1 CTSI = 0.030 USD and raised a total of 200,000 USD, selling 0.67% of the total token supply. The Strategic Sale was conducted in USD.

Launchpad Sale overview

• The Launchpad Sale was conducted in April 2020 for a total raise of 1,500,000 USD worth of BNB at 0.015 USD per CTSI token, selling 10.00% of the total token supply. CTSI/BNB exchange rate will be determined prior to the date of sale.

3.3 Token governance and use of funds

The Cartesi team releases regular transparency reports that include details on the foundation unlocks and where the CTSI is spent or allocated for governance purposes. The reports can be viewed via the transparency section on their blog here.

The Cartesi team also plans to introduce token inflation for staking rewards in the future, which is yet to be finalized, and not presented in the following chart. More details on the CTSI macroeconomy article can be reviewed here. CTSI will have no inflation until the mine reserve is completely depleted, which will happen no earlier than 2023.

CTSI token release schedule

3.4 CTSI token overview and use-cases

• CTSI is a utility token that functions as a crypto-fuel for Noether:
  • Stakers receive CTSI rewards by staking their tokens and participating in the network.
  • Node runners are selected randomly according to a PoS system, and gain the right to create the next block.
  • Users of the network pay fees in CTSI tokens to insert data on the side-chain.
• CTSI also plays a role with Descartes Rollups.
  • CTSI will be used by dApps to outsource the execution of verifiable and enforceable computation to entities running Descartes nodes.
  • Read here for the team's documentation on the Cartesi Network and CTSI Token.

4. Project team

5. Roadmap, updates, and business development

5.1 Original roadmap and achievements

5.2 Updated roadmap

• Cartesi has released an updated roadmap for 2021, which can be read in depth here.
• 2020 was a very significant year for Cartesi. With the release of the Cartesi Machine (Cartesi's VM) and a decentralized computational oracle, the Cartesi team is now focused on implementing Rollups. This will allow for scalable smart contracts, and also enable developers to code smart contracts with mainstream software components on top of a Linux VM. Most of Cartesi's technical effort this year will be toward bringing this implementation to Mainnet.

R&D 2021 milestones:

• Q1

  • Descartes: SDK v1.0
  • Descartes: Novel arbitration protocol (scientific paper).
  • Noether: PoS v1.1

• Q2

  • Cartesi Rollups on Testnet.
  • Noether: PoS v2.0, supporting delegation.
  • Noether: On-chain infrastructure.

• Late 2021

  • Rollups aggregator service.
  • Rollups validator marketplace.
  • Cartesi Rollups on Mainnet.

5.3 Commercial partnerships and business development progress

Recent and significant partnerships include:

• Avalanche: Cartesi is integrating its layer-2 infrastructure with Avalanche (AVAX), enabling a Linux environment for smart contracts and higher computational scalability. Upon completion, developers building on Avalanche can implement contracts using mainstream software stacks supported by Linux. Software developers will be able to build smart contracts with uncountable software components supported by Linux.

• Binance Smart Chain: Cartesi partnered with Binance Smart Chain (BSC) to allow advanced smart contract capabilities and massive computation for dApps atop the Binance Smart Chain. Binance Smart Chain is a highly scalable blockchain that supports smart contracts and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) programmability, featuring high TPS (transactions per second), and fast decentralized trading with low fees.

• Elrond: Cartesi partnered with Elrond Network to integrate optimistic rollups for high computational scalability and enabling a Linux runtime for smart contracts. Cartesi will expand the array of possibilities for smart contract developers building on Elrond, who will be able to use mainstream software stacks supported by Linux. Besides the advantages of higher productivity given by the vast software ecosystem of the world’s prevailing OS, smart contracts on Elrond will be complemented by massive off-chain computational throughput.

• Polygon (Previously Matic Network) : Cartesi partnered with Polygon to enable greater responsiveness, faster transaction processing and lower transaction fees for dApps created on Cartesi. As part of Cartesi’s ongoing plan to have Cartesi dApps provide a seamless user and developer experience, Cartesi was also pleased to announce that their Creepts dApp was successfully tested on Polygon’s testnet. Polygon will also be exploring using Cartesi for their Plasma exits.

• A full list of updates on the current status of partnerships and business development can be seen via Cartesi’s Medium page here.

6. Cartesi's activity and community overview

6.1 Development activity

*The Cartesi team maintains a public Github (above) for releases, and a private Github repo for development.

6.2 On-chain activity

Community and social channels

Twitter (English)
Discord
Telegram (English)
Telegram Announcement (English)
Reddit (English)
Facebook (English)
Linkedin (English)
YouTube (English)

International channels

Telegram (Arabic)
Telegram (Brazil)
Telegram (Chinese)
Telegram (Indian)
Telegram (Indonesian)
Telegram (Japanese)
Telegram (Korean)
Telegram (Phillipines)
Telegram (Russian)
Telegram (Turkish)
Telegram (Ukrainian)
Telegram (Vietnamese)

7. Appendix

Documents

• Website
• Medium
• Github
• Whitepaper
• Lightpaper
• Cartesi Explorer
• Documentation

Advisors

• Serguei Popov (IOTA, Co-Founder)
• Luis Henrique de Figureido (IMPA, Full Researcher)
• Stas Oskin (Wings.ai, Core Dev & Biz Dev)
• William Bao Bean (SOSV, General Partner)
• Michael Hwang (Big Bang Angels, Managing Director)
• Boris Povod (Wings.ai, R&D Lead)
• T.K. Hamed (CTE Advisor, Founder & CEO)
• Pedro Argento