Cartesi (CTSI) is a Layer 2 platform for Ethereum — its goal is to make building blockchain apps easier and far more powerful. Its headline idea is bringing Linux to the blockchain: instead of forcing developers to write everything in Solidity (Ethereum's specialized and fairly limited smart-contract language), Cartesi lets them build with mainstream tools and languages (Python, C++, standard libraries) that millions of programmers already know. It does this with the 'Cartesi Machine', a virtual computer (based on RISC-V, an open chip design) that runs a full Linux system off-chain, does the heavy number-crunching there where it's cheap, and settles the results back on Ethereum. To keep that trustworthy it uses optimistic rollups with fraud proofs (results are assumed correct, but anyone can challenge a cheater and win the dispute), so you don't have to trust Cartesi — you can verify it. CTSI is the network's token: it's used to pay for computation, to stake (lock up tokens to help secure and validate the network in exchange for rewards) and for governance votes. It launched in 2020 through Binance and has a capped supply of 1 billion tokens.
Where it stands today: Cartesi is a small, developer-respected project with strong technology but still-modest real-world usage — the classic 'great tech, adoption unproven' situation. Its big current focus is 'Dave', a next-generation fraud-proof system that makes challenges fully permissionless and decentralized (anyone can police the network, not just approved validators); it has been running on testnets and is aimed at a full Ethereum mainnet launch around 2026. Another push is the 'Coprocessor', which lets existing Ethereum apps offload heavy tasks — including AI and machine-learning computation — to Cartesi, plugging into a theme investors are currently excited about. Real pilots exist beyond pure speculation, including retro-gaming apps (RIVES) and public-sector projects in Brazil, but none has yet become a breakout app with large user numbers. So today it's more a bet on future builder adoption than on current traction.