For the third consecutive year, Casper Labs hosted a premier gathering of academics, policymakers, and business leaders at Davos, Switzerland.

For four days between January 15-19, the Hub hosted a dedicated series of keynotes and discussions featuring some of today’s brightest minds and biggest newsmakers exploring important and timely issues faced in various industries, including (but not limited to) blockchain, AI, finance, technology policy & regulation, ESG and more.

To learn more about the Hub, please visit thehubdavos.com. You can also watch full panels and keynote presentations here.

Ralf Kubli shared his experience at the Hub. He described the hub as a vibrant and engaging platform for the web3 community. Like the previous editions, this year’s hub also provides a unique opportunity for various players in the industry to converge, exchange ideas, and explore new opportunities.

“Several layer-1 entities at Davos are actively trying to break into the enterprise space. I believe this trend indicates a growing interest and potential integration of blockchain technologies within traditional business frameworks,” said Ralf.

More updates on the Hub will be coming soon.. Stay tuned for additional insights and perspectives from Davos!

Following his insights from Davos, Ralf went on to discuss the Casper Association's efforts to accelerate the release of network updates. He explained that the efforts on protocol updates are “a strategic move that demonstrates the organization's dedication to staying ahead in the rapidly evolving blockchain space.”

Briefly touching upon the Condor (formerly known as Casper 2.0), Ralf said the update is expected to be released in the May-June timeframe. He highlighted that this release is more than an incremental update as it entails new key features to the Casper Network alongside a new consensus mechanism and more.

You can check out the protocol roadmap exploration blog post featuring Casper Labs CTO Medha Parlikar’s insights.

Alongside the upcoming protocol updates, Ralf touched upon the importance of enhancing the existing features of Casper. “Solidifying Casper's unique offerings in the blockchain space by refining and improving upon what Casper already does well,” he explained.

"Educating and supporting developers who are new to the Casper Network is a top priority," said Ralf. He emphasized the importance of enabling developers to interact with Casper blockchain by utilizing infrastructure created by other community members and projects, such as payment on-ramps and DeFi tools. Ensuring that developers have a positive experience and access to open-source resources was highlighted by Ralf as another key goal serving the same purpose.

Toward the end of his talk, Ralf asked for feedback from the community on how the Casper Association is performing in terms of communicating features, providing resources, and guiding users to the right pathways for interacting with the network. “We hope to improve the clarity and accessibility of resources for better community engagement,” he added.

Be sure to join the next X Space or the developer-focused Discord call in two weeks to provide your feedback and ask questions.

One of the key developments of the past month was the successful integration of Casper with Ledger Live. Zondax, a Casper partner was behind the integration.

Zondax operates as an R&D Studio, dedicated to pioneering secure and innovative solutions for the blockchain industry. With a portfolio encompassing over 50 Ledger applications and plugins, Zondax has continually demonstrated its commitment to advancing blockchain security standards.

Juan Leni, the CEO of Zondax, outlined the company's extensive experience in developing Ledger applications and integrations for various layer-1 protocols. “Zondax has been working with Casper for about one and a half to two years, leveraging our expertise in Ledger development, integration, and protocol changes,” he stated.

“The integration of Casper into Ledger Live was a complex and time-intensive process. Initially, Zondax focused on creating a customized Ledger application for Casper, taking into account the unique ecosystem and tooling requirements of the network.”

“Then, the challenge shifted to integrating the Ledger application into the broader ecosystem, including wallets, explorers, and exchanges. Zondax collaborated closely with MAKE, which handled the wallet integration part.”

Emmanuel Murano, Zondax's Engineering Manager, provided a more technical perspective on the integration. He described the development process as intricate, involving different components like a mobile app, a command-line interface (CLI), and a specific package for business logic related to wallet operations. The development covered both iOS and Android platforms and required managing a large repository of code specific to the Ledger Live application.

This part of the development process involved leveraging the public Casper infrastructure and the Casper SDK for executing transactions and other necessary tasks. They also utilized the Casper API for integrating with the Casper infrastructure to handle transaction history and new transaction processes for specific addresses.

Emmanuel outlined the current phase of integration, which focuses on essential functionalities like sending tokens, viewing account activity, and signing transactions. “We have plans for future enhancements, including the integration of the Casper staking protocol into Ledger Live to allow users to view and interact with their staked balances,” he concluded.

Michael Steuer from MAKE was the next and the final guest of this month’s X Space session. He began by emphasizing MAKE’s mission to elevate the Casper ecosystem and acknowledged the critical role of the Ledger integration in this mission. “MAKE is focused on making Casper the best ecosystem out there, not just for end-users and retail, but also for developers, which is ultimately what will accelerate adoption.” he explained.

Following that, Michael expanded on Casper Click and Casper Cloud, two of the tools developed by MAKE to enhance developer and user experience on Casper.

Casper Click is a tool developed with the goal of enhancing the Casper ecosystem by simplifying the integration process for developers and allowing them to connect with all the wallets on the Casper Network through a single SDK. Thanks to Casper Click’s unified approach, the users moving between different Casper apps can enjoy a consistent and familiar experience.

“The ease of signing in and interacting with applications using Casper Click effectively lowers user abandonment rates and fosters higher adoption. For developers, this tool is a game-changer as it drastically reduces the time and cost associated with initial integration. The learning curve, typically associated with navigating multiple SDKs, is eliminated. On top of that, maintenance costs are reduced since the need to regularly update individual integrations is no longer necessary.

Get started with Casper Click.

Michael described Casper Cloud as an “enterprise-grade API middleware platform, designed to elevate the capabilities of the Casper Network.”

Casper Cloud recently entered the open public beta phase. With its ability to provide simple API access to all data on the Casper Network, including both raw and enriched off-chain data, Casper Cloud will be an essential tool for builders.

“For example, it can enhance transaction data with relevant foreign exchange rates or integrate identity information and NFT metadata. The platform also offers efficient data aggregation, enabling queries like total validator rewards without repetitive requests,” said Michael.

Casper Cloud’s high-performance architecture is capable of handling over 10,000 requests per second, a scale impossible to achieve directly from the blockchain.

“Additionally, Casper Cloud introduces a real-time streaming feature, allowing developers to subscribe to WebSocket-based streams for specific topics. dApp developers will find this feature particularly useful as it enables them to receive push notifications for events related to their contracts without the need to constantly monitor the entire blockchain.”

Last but not least, Casper Cloud offers access to a fully managed, auto-scaling, and rate-limited Casper node infrastructure which reduces the overhead and complexity for developers who need reliable node access without the hassle of setting up and maintaining their infrastructure.

You can start exploring Casper Cloud here.

And that’s a wrap for the first X Space community call of 2024. Be sure to join the next call in February, and don’t forget to join us for the developer community call on Discord if you fancy some technical discussions about Casper.