Its an exciting time to be building on Cardano - the Plomin hard fork recently went live. While this exciting for governance and the roadmap ahead, in this guide I want to give a short summary on the major changes and things that Cardano dApp developers should look out for.

Discover how to test dApps on Cardano using MLabs’ CLB emulator, a cutting-edge tool for property-based and mutation-based testing funded by Project Catalyst in Fund10. Learn about state machine modeling, unified testing with Atlas, and integration with CTL.

At MLabs, we’re fortunate to have an incredibly talented team of experts driving innovation every day. We recently sat down with our Chief Technical Officer, Ben, to get to know him better and learn more about his role, career journey, and insights into the world of software development. Here’s what he had to say:

MLabs is upgrading its suite of open-source Cardano tools to support the Conway era and Plutus V3. Enhancements include Ply for CIP-57 blueprint generation, lightweight Conway testnets via NixOS, and updates to LambdaBuffers, YTxP, and Tx Village for compatibility. These upgrades aim to simplify DApp development, improve tool interoperability, and streamline developer workflows.

Pisa Fees is a decentralized protocol enabling Cardano transaction fees to be paid in non-ADA tokens via smart contracts. It facilitates token-to-ADA "Feeswap" exchanges without requiring complex ledger changes, benefiting DeFi, gaming, and other blockchain applications. Supported by Catalyst Fund, it promotes broader adoption and usability on Cardano.

Covenant introduces a Turner-total, call-by-push-value, serializable DSL designed for reliable, secure programming in domains like smart contracts. It guarantees termination, safe execution, and predictability. By serving as a target for higher-level tools, Covenant supports composability and serialization, enabling developers to create robust applications with confidence in correctness and performance.

In this post, we showcase Cardano Racers, one of the first games built on Cardano. Launched in March 2024, the game is set on a mission to boost engagement and encourage active participation in the Cardano ecosystem. The game can be played at https://www.cardanoracers.com/