Hey Cardanians! Welcome aboard the Weekly Cardano Digest #108!

We've filtered through all the noise to distill crucial updates into a breezy, 5-minute read. No need for you to sift through endless info — we've got you covered. Ready to delve into this week's top Cardano news? Let’s dive in.

Here are the topics of the week:

• ☁️ Google Cloud Launches a Cardano Node on Testnet

• 🔄 Lace Adds In-Wallet Token Swaps via DEX Aggregators

• 🧑‍💻 Cexplorer Releases New API for Cardano Developers

• Weekly Development Report

• & More!

☁️ Google Cloud Launches a Cardano Node on Testnet

Google Cloud has officially launched a Cardano node on testnet, a key technical requirement for operating a Midnight validator. This milestone is part of Google Cloud’s deeper involvement in Cardano’s privacy-focused partner chain, Midnight.

The collaboration was announced in late 2025 during TOKEN2049, when Charles Hoskinson and the Midnight Foundation confirmed a strategic partnership with Google Cloud. As part of this agreement, Google Cloud committed to running critical Midnight infrastructure, including validator operations.

Importantly, running a Midnight validator requires operating a stake pool on the Cardano base layer. This means that while Google Cloud is not independently validating Cardano mainnet, it is directly involved in running Cardano nodes as a prerequisite for securing Midnight. The newly launched testnet node is a concrete step in that process.

👉 Learn more

🔄 Lace Adds In-Wallet Token Swaps via DEX Aggregators

Lace has rolled out a major UX upgrade: users can now swap $ADA for other tokens directly inside the wallet, without opening or connecting to a DEX.

Lace integrates with DEX aggregators like SteelSwap, which automatically compares liquidity and pricing across multiple decentralized exchanges and routes trades through the most efficient path available.

This significantly reduces friction for everyday users. By abstracting away manual DEX selection and execution, Lace makes on-chain trading simpler, faster, and more intuitive, an important step toward making Cardano DeFi accessible to a broader audience.

👉 Follow updates

🧑‍💻 Cexplorer Releases New API for Cardano Developers

Cexplorer has launched a new, fully documented API, designed to make it easier for developers to access Cardano on-chain data when building applications, dashboards, or analytics tools.

The API includes a free Starter Tier, with scalable options for higher limits or custom requirements. This lowers the barrier for experimentation while still supporting production-grade workloads as projects grow.

Developer tooling is critical infrastructure. By improving data access and reducing setup friction, updates like this help accelerate building on Cardano and support a healthier, more diverse developer ecosystem.

👉 Learn More

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Essential Cardano’s weekly development report