Cardano Voltaire Era Begins: Chang Hard Fork Successful
Cardano has entered into the final phase of its roadmap, the Voltaire era. (Credit: Derek Fenech @ CCN)
- Cardano’s Chang hard fork took place on Sept. 1, 2024.
- Chang decentralized the Cardano network, handing governance and voting rights over to the community.
- Cardano (ADA) is down 14% for the month after TRON overtook its market cap.
Cardano (ADA) has completed its highly-anticipated Chang hard fork, bringing smart contracts, voting, and other updates to the network.
A Success
Cardano’s blockchain successfully launched the Chang hard fork on Sept. 1, 2024, making the network’s decentralized governance aspirations a reality with community-led voting.
In a video update , Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson humorously compared the day to the network’s Independence Day, stating:
“Today September 1st 2024 is the day where we declare independence day, where the entire ecosystem, the community, every holder of ADA stands shoulder-to-shoulder as equals and they all have a say on the future of not just this protocol but what this protocol can do for everyone in the world,”
Aside from decentralizing the network through voting, the Chang hard fork also introduces some complex new technical standards, including improvements to smart contracts.
Specifically, it introduces the “sum of products” encoding, which allows for smaller and more efficient scripts, boosting execution times by up to 30%.
There was a minor technical hiccup during the hard fork as a result of ledger state snapshots, this resulted in some nodes taking too long to synch.
A hotfix is scheduled to be released as node 9.1.1 “in the coming hours” according to a Sept. 2 post from Intersect, who discovered the glitch.
Chang Confirmed
According to social media posts from the Cardano team, the Chang hard fork has a confirmed date of Sep. 1, 2024.
In addition to the news, Cardano boss Charles Hoskinson has formally declared that it has burned all seven “Genesis” keys, which were originally allocated to foundation members and were used to finalize decisions and changes to Cardano.
In doing so, the network is significantly closer to its aim of being completely decentralized. The Cardano constitutional committee has now been formed with community-elected reps to ensure “on-chain actions align” with the Cardano constitution.
To support the upgrade, Binance has announced that it will suspend ADA token and Cardano network deposits and withdrawals. All that is left now is a successful hard fork.
Cardano’s Voltaire Era
According to the Cardano roadmap, the Voltaire Era is when the network becomes fully decentralized with the introduction of governance.
Kicking off this era will be the “Chang” hard fork, which, according to a bulletin from the Cardano member-based organization (MBO), Intersect, is just moments away.
The post highlights that after a period of review, “formal proceeding and the lead-up” to Chang can officially begin.
Though initially set for a June 2024 launch, Intersect has proposed the “target” date for the mainnet hard fork to be Aug. 27, 2024. The post adds that a “final/no go” decision is set for Aug. 23, 2024.
Intersect notes that this timeline could shift should issues arise and offer Sep. 3, 2024, as the next appropriate launch window should all else fail. It comes soon after the Node 9.1 upgrade, the precursor to Chang.
Cardano boss Charles Hoskinson had previously said that the hard fork would take place when Cardano Node reached 9.0. Now that we’re on 9.1 and the update, further delays remain a possibility.
Cardanoscan data shows that 80% of stake pool operators (SPOs) have upgraded to the latest version. This meets the 70% threshold for the hard fork, but liquidity issues remain as just 37% of exchanges have adopted the node. That said, the other 33% are in progress, and the remaining 30% are yet to start.
Chang Hard Fork
The Chang hard fork will formally kick off the Voltaire era by introducing community governance to the network. Once implemented, ADA holders will be granted voting rights on proposals within the Cardano ecosystem. This can involve treasury withdrawals, protocol adjustments, and so on.
Perhaps the most significant development of all is the extent to which Cardano will go to “truly” decentralize itself beyond granting voting rights. It actually intends to burn the seven “Genesis” keys it distributed amongst founding entities such as the Cardano Foundation and IOG.
Presently, it takes at least five key holders to reach a consensus on a change or upgrade. The decision-making process is left entirely to the ADA community by relinquishing these keys.
Will ADA Respond?
Recently, Tron (TRX) overtook ADA’s market cap by a few hundred million, pushing Cardano out from the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
In a day or so, TRX has aggressively extended this lead. Its market cap is $14.3 billion as of Aug. 21, creating an almost $2 billion gap between it and ADA’s $12.6 billion.
ADA has been trading down since mid-March. After briefly glancing at $0.75, it has since lost more than half of its value, dropping to $0.35 at the time of writing.
ADA has recovered from its yearly lows, suggesting it could still pull through if the crypto markets blossom. CCN analyst Nikola Lazic notes that ADA could be eyeing a $0.50 price tag in the near future.
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