In today's interview, Lloyd Duhon, Chief Operations Officer at Mainstreet, provides a deep dive into the platform's unique use case, development outlook for the next 12 months, and tantalizing glimpses of their exciting roadmap. As the COO, Lloyd plays a pivotal role in establishing and optimizing Mainstreet's operational foundations, thereby contributing significantly to the platform's growth and advancement in the rapidly evolving peer-to-peer commerce landscape.

Mainstreet strategically positions itself among industry leaders like Paypal and Stripe, showcasing an innovative and competitive edge. The platform sets itself apart by delivering a swifter and more user-friendly interface, effectively tackling the challenges associated with cryptocurrencies. This commitment ensures a seamless experience for both consumers and business owners. As we explore further into Mainstreet's narrative, it becomes evident that they are not just keeping pace with industry standards but actively redefining them. Let's dive right into the exciting world of Mainstreet!

In today's interview, we'll explore the world of Lenfi, a decentralised protocol for lending and borrowing which operates without custodial control. Lenfi was built on the Cardano blockchain, and we have a special guest joining us, Mantas, the lead developer responsible for this exciting project. So, what exactly is Lenfi, and why did they choose Cardano as their platform? Read further to discover these answers and more.

Here's an interesting insight. Were you aware that Lenfi enables depositors to offer liquidity? You can deposit your funds with predetermined conditions or in any of the liquidity pools. Let's explore the depths of Lenfi's universe to grasp its tremendous potential.

Meet AdaStat, a cutting-edge Cardano (ADA) Blockchain Explorer, crafted by active members of the Russian-speaking Cardano community. It's your independent alternative to standard network-developed explorers. With AdaStat, you can effortlessly explore blocks, transactions, pools, addresses, accounts, epochs, and slots, including active epochs, created blocks, staking rewards, and more.

Some of AdaStat's unique features include a versatile Chart Maker for custom graphics and a robust pool filter for refining pool searches based on parameters like pledge, delegators, and stake size. For deeper insights into this fascinating explorer, we highly recommend reading through interview with the project's co-founder and Lead Developer, Dmitry Stashenko.

W3:Ride revolutionizes cycling fitness through gamification, fostering an engaging community. Achievements, challenges, and progress tracking make cycling enjoyable and healthier. The app encourages global connections, while a unique reward system promotes cycling over cars. Personalized virtual bikes and avatars enhance user identity, and charitable partnerships empower cyclists to ride for meaningful causes. By linking the app with Strava, Apple Health, or Google Fit, users accumulate $Cyclr based on distance, duration, and speed. Find out more about this exciting project as we delve into more details with co-founder and CEO, Romain Pomarelle.

DEMU's vision is to establish a direct connection between fans and the artists they love, fostering deeper relationships. Their mission is to equip artists worldwide with advanced tools to streamline music sales and licensing, increase licensing revenues, and regain control over their business. The DEMU protocol ensures fair distribution of royalty payments to rights holders for all on-chain sales channels, providing real-time visibility into music usage and owed earnings. To achieve this, DEMU replaces expensive centralized solutions with a decentralized network of node operators, securing music through token-gated access, granting artists full control, and eliminating costly content storage overhead.

Most stories today are not creating a positive global culture or envisioning a sustainable future for the next seven generations. Video games are violent, social media is toxic, and TV content is dumbing us down. Mandala aims to change this! In the following interview, the team explains how they aim to create a positive global culture and envision a sustainable future by offering a new narrative that breaks away from the negative influences of current media. Their multiverse incorporates a variety of mythologies, inviting audiences to participate actively and make a difference. Through existing distribution platforms, Mandala seeks to broaden worldviews and catalyze a cultural shift during a critical time in human entertainment.

In this interview, Jingles, one of the co-founders of Mesh, talks about the project and how it aims to improve the developer experience within the Cardano ecosystem. Mesh is an open-source software developer kit that provides developers with the necessary resources and support to build innovative and impactful applications on the Cardano blockchain. Jingles discusses Mesh's features, the reasons for choosing Cardano, and the project's plans, such as a bounty program and improving the serialization library.

We interviewed the NEWM team, a blockchain-based project aiming to create a music ecosystem that allows musicians to own their creative content and monetize their art from conception to retirement. Including a streaming platform, music rights marketplace, micropayments, ticketing, and fractionalization of IP rights, focusing on user-friendly design and technology using the Cardano blockchain.

For the January edition of the Spotlight Article, we interviewed James Dunseith, Co-Founder of Gimbalabs.

Can you introduce yourself

My name is James Dunseith. I met Juliane Montag and Roberto Carlos Morano during Fund 1 of Project Catalyst, and we founded Gimbalabs with a Fund 2 Catalyst proposal.

Before getting into this work, I taught high school in New York City, and I trained teachers at BetterLesson and MIND Research Institute.

Can you tell us more about Gimbalabs and the problems you are addressing?

Gimbalabs is building community spaces, technical infrastructure, educational programming, and open-source code, making it more likely that Cardano will actually change the world.

We know that the potential of Cardano is exciting, but the world won't change just because some new technology exists. We founded Gimbalabs because we want to increase the likelihood that the ideals of Cardano will happen.

To start, we focused on two things: technical infrastructure and developer education. Our technical infrastructure is called Dandelion. We provide education through "Project Based Learning" (PBL) courses. Along the way, we have created a community where people meet, and projects are launched.

Our goal is to build systems as robust as the Cardano protocol. A network requires infrastructure and people who know how to use it to be robust and resilient. We are building Dandelion so that anyone can deploy critical infrastructure for interacting with the Cardano protocol. We are building Project-Based Learning courses so that people get first-hand experience using Cardano and sharing decision-making power.

Can you introduce yourself

I go by Allusian, and I have served as a Core Contributor at ADAO since October of ‘21, after listening into spaces its earliest founder hosted and frequented in the community in the wake of the Goguen era. My main focus has been on the upkeep and design of the Discord server, onboarding new members, writing and editing documents, articles, and outreach via social media, as well as scheduling and organizing guest speakers for ADAO’s educational “Roundtable” Twitter spaces hosted every Saturday.

Thomas DiMatteo is a community organizer, crypto researcher, entrepreneur, and front-end developer, with a keen interest in decentralized finance and governance on Cardano and other blockchain ecosystems. He has six years of experience as a small business owner serving customers throughout the state of Florida, several years as an investor in blockchains, and a participant in decentralized finance and autonomous protocols.

Hey guys, happy to connect today and learn more about ADAO. Can you tell us more about the mission of ADAO and how you are trying to achieve it?

ADAO’s mission is to build open-source tools, educational and supportive resources to empower robust, decentralized systems of collaboration and governance, starting with Cardano. We are achieving this by attracting talent from various disciplines and walks of life who share our passion for building systems that enable, empower and facilitate new ways of organizing. Some of ADAO’s major contributions to the ecosystem include the RoundTable multi-signature Wallet DApp, the ADAO Staking Portal, and the Agora Protocol, which we have partnered with Liqwid Labs to develop.