Cardano’s Chang hard fork has succeeded in transitioning to decentralization.
The Cardano blockchain has successfully passed the highly anticipated hard fork, improved voting methods and modern contracts, and ushered in a new era of decentralized governance.
On September 1, at 21:44 UTC at block 10764778, the layer-1 proof-of-stake blockchain Cardano underwent a Chang update that ushered in what the project calls the “Conway Ledger Era.”
One of the key changes is changing Cardano's governance to enable any ADA holder to submit or participate in a voting process for governance tasks as part of the project's “Voltaire” upgrade phase.
In a September 2nd post on X, the Cardano Foundation said:
“Today's Chang hard fork is a major milestone for the Cardano blockchain, ecosystem and community––delivering on the promise of a truly autonomous decentralized network.”
Chang implements participatory governance on-chain through CIP-1694 by allowing direct voting or delegation to agents. It will establish a constitutional committee and new governance roles for cash pool operators over the next 90 days.
According to the Cardano Foundation, the primary goal of the update is to “ensure security and continuity during the administrative bootstrap phase.”
The second phase, expected in 2025, will control, establish and facilitate community self-governance initiatives for the ecosystem, he added.
The update supports Plutus scripts for management, advanced voting methods such as DAO voting. It also introduces new encryption and performance improvements for smart contracts.
The ecosystem has grown exponentially over the years, before adding Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson in a video presented at X on September 2.
“It's the day when the whole ecosystem, the community, every ADA owner stands shoulder to shoulder and everyone talks about the future of not just this protocol, but what this protocol can do for everyone in the world.”
A small step for Cardano; A giant leap for the industry https://t.co/ENXV41XdhZ
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) September 1, 2024
Related: Cardano Releases ‘Node 9.0', Paving the Way for the Coming Chang'e Hard Fork
ADA prices have not seen any gains from the hard fork, which is down a further 2.4% on the day to trade at $0.333 at the time of writing.
Once a top-five crypto, ADA has fallen out of the top ten by market capitalization as other blockchains such as Tron (TRX) and Toncoin (TON) have driven it.
Additionally, ADA is down 89% from its high of $3.09 three years ago today, September 2, 2021.
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