Introduction

Local Authority in a Global Network

If decentralization promises anything, it's an emphasis on local authority. In Cardano, we often refer to the goal of pushing power to the edges. Action happens at these "edges": on teams, in local communities, in cohorts, in organizations, and in collectives.

With Andamio, we call these "local" spaces. Andamio allows people to record learning and accomplishments in local spaces where peers can attest for each other, then to share these credentials across a global network where they unlock new opportunities.

Transactions = Actions

The word "active" traces to Latin activus—"a doing"—from the root meaning "to drive, draw out or forth, move." The opposite is "passive". In these early years of blockchain, too much of what happens "on-chain" has been passive: watching charts, trading derivatives, speculating on abstractions disconnected from anything real.

The global Cardano community understands there's more to it than this. We are driving conversations about digital trust infrastructure and engaging broadly with the U.N. SDGs. We have an on-chain constitution and voting system, Catalyst funding that motivates builders, and infrastructure for scaling what's possible—Hydra, Midnight, Leios. It's all running on the world's pioneering Proof-of-Stake blockchain, supported by nearly 3000 stake pool operators. This is a human-powered network.

And yet, a lot of this action isn't recorded on-chain. We're only beginning to empower local communities, and only beginning to see what decentralization actually solves: people in local places need more options than centralized systems provide.

To send value on a blockchain, someone must sign a transaction that authorizes the movement of tokens. On Cardano, we can write specific rules about how value is sent and how critical data is updated. Andamio uses this capability to record local interactions and issue credentials that attest to real-world actions. When someone completes a course module, submits project work, or earns a credential, a transaction records that action on-chain. Each transaction is an attestation of real participation in real communities.

At launch, Andamio facilitates two local systems: Course and Project. Each defines rules encoded in smart contracts that validate whether transactions are legitimate. But you might not agree with our rules. Andamio allows anyone to add their own local systems to the network, with their own rules, validated by their own communities.

A Network with Users

AI tools make it easier than ever to build beautiful applications. The hard part isn't building—it's finding users.

Andamio is infrastructure with where active, engaged people are already participating: contributors earning credentials, teams forming around projects, communities teaching and learning. Users carry a professional identity across local spaces, building reputation based on real commitments. When you build on Andamio, you're not starting from zero. You're connecting to a global network of active participants who bring their talents and attention with them.

Open and Extensible

Andamio is built on the principle of flexible local rules, minimal global truth anchors.

Local rules are up to you. Global standards ensure that whatever you build is interoperable, tamper-evident, and cryptographically signed. Standards don't tell you what to credential or who can issue. They tell you how to create credentials that work everywhere.

In an age of synthetic content—AI-generated text, deepfakes, bot networks—human attestation matters more than ever. Andamio provides infrastructure for signatures that mean something: real people vouching for real work, recorded on-chain, verifiable by anyone.

Andamio primitives:

• Local credentialing — communities define what credentials mean and who earns them
• Global discoverability — credentials and opportunities are visible across the network
• Token-gated access control — on-chain credentials unlock roles, resources, and permissions
• APIs for integration — connect Andamio to any platform, workflow, or application

Reading This Paper

This paper explains how Andamio builds verifiable trust through local action and global connection.

Section 1: Trust addresses the connected problems of purpose, participation, and proof that any trust infrastructure must solve.

Section 2: Building Blocks describes the protocol's foundations: local solution infrastructure, global connection, and access tokens.

Section 3: Cycles explains how trust is built through participation: connecting to opportunities, collaborating on projects, and earning credentials.

Section 4: Problem Solving shows what happens after a participation cycle completes—new projects, new collaborators, new initiatives.

Section 5: Ecosystem presents our vision for what emerges when groups solving problems overlap: an ecosystem of active communities building verifiable trust.