ChainCatcher news, Cardano development company Input Output and the Cardano Foundation submitted an update proposal aimed at upgrading the Cardano pre-production environment to protocol V8, which will take effect on February 11, 2023, at 08:00. Input Output stated that this upgrade will bring new cryptographic primitives to Cardano, encouraging better interoperability with Plutus and secure cross-chain DApp development. The environment will allow the community to continue final integration and upgrade testing before the SECP upgrade countdown on the mainnet on February 14.Examples of SECP (cryptographic primitives) include the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) and Schnorr signatures. These allow users to verify the integrity of specific signature hash data. After the implementation of the new cryptographic primitives, Plutus will be able to easily verify transactions from other blockchains using ECDSA and Schnorr standards. (Source link)

ChainCatcher news, Cardano development company Input Output has launched the EVM sidechain proof-of-concept public testnet, allowing for testing token transfers, connecting wallets, and deploying smart contracts and DApps in a test environment. According to the official documentation, the EVM sidechain testnet environment consists of two networks: the EVM sidechain testnet and the Cardano testnet.It is reported that Input Output launched a toolkit in January for developing custom sidechains on Cardano, allowing developers to leverage Cardano's security and infrastructure to create task-specific sidechains. The toolkit enables sidechains to have their own consensus algorithms and functionalities. Sidechains are connected to the main chain via bridges that allow inter-chain asset transfers. (source link)