What is the difference between "Voltaire" and "Project Catalyst"?

Question

Voltaire is described as the governance phase of Cardano.

Catalyst is also about voting for the current and future proposals and themes for Cardano.

Will one be merged into the other?

Answer 1

Voltaire is the more general, umbrella term for all governance that will eventually be included in the Cardano protocol. This will include modifications to protocol level parameters such as "a0" and "k" (nOpt), CIPs (Cardano Improvement Proposals), as well as funding initiatives. The funding initiatives are what fall under the Project Catalyst arm of Voltaire.

Project Catalyst is like a beta for the eventual on-chain voting mechanisms that will be put in place. With Project Catalyst, the community can use their ADA as voting power to select projects that they want to see developed using funds from the treasury. The treasury funding will ultimately come only from a portion of the transaction fees. For now, some of the funding also comes from the reserves. You can see the monetary policy here.

Also, the Cardano Foundation webpage on Voltaire and governance: https://cardano.org/governance/