On Friday, the Cardano blockchain celebrated its seventh anniversary, reinforcing its status as one of the most prominent protocols in the cryptocurrency landscape. Currently, Cardano’s native token, ADA, is positioned eleventh in cryptocurrency rankings, with a market capitalization of around $14 billion.
Input Output Global (IOG), the firm responsible for Cardano’s development, marked this occasion on social media, emphasizing key milestones achieved since its founding by co-founder Charles Hoskinson, who also contributed significantly to the establishment of the Ethereum blockchain.
The Evolution of Cardano’s Architecture Over Seven Years
In a commemorative video, IOG revealed impressive statistics showcasing Cardano’s progress and advancements. The blockchain has processed over 95 million transactions, signaling its adoption and functionality over the years.
Moreover, more than 74,000 Plutus scripts have been executed, which are vital for the successful implementation of smart contracts on the platform.
Cardano has also experienced notable community involvement, generating 1.3 million delegated wallets and producing 226 research papers. Additionally, around 1,373 projects have been initiated on the blockchain, further illustrating community engagement.
The Catalyst funding initiative has been instrumental in promoting the Cardano ecosystem, spanning 12 funding rounds and supporting over 1,800 funded projects, which have driven upgrades and further progress within the protocol.
However, the past seven years have also brought significant changes to Cardano’s architecture. The transition from the Shelley era to the Alonzo hard fork represented a crucial turning point.
Progress Towards Decentralized Governance
The Shelley era, commencing in 2020, emphasized decentralization and enhanced network security by introducing the Ouroboros upgrades. These improvements optimized stake pool operations and ADA delegation, incentivizing users with staking rewards.
Subsequently, the Alonzo hard fork implemented in 2021, enabled smart contract capabilities on Cardano, significantly enhancing block size and script memory parameters. This development empowered developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) that utilize Cardano’s functionalities.
Further improvements were introduced through the Vasil and Chang upgrades, with the latter marking the initial hard fork of the Voltaire era, the protocol’s final phase. The Vasil upgrade, unveiled in 2022, incorporated new features, such as Plutus script enhancements to lower transaction costs and the launch of diffusion pipelining for expedited block propagation.
The newly released Chang upgrade is being deployed in two phases, introducing on-chain governance to the network. The first phase, which implements governance features via CIP-1694, lays the groundwork for decentralized voting and governance activities.
The second phase will unveil additional governance capabilities, including participation from delegated representatives and treasury withdrawals, enhancing community empowerment.
Future Directions in the Voltaire Era
Looking forward, the second segment of the Voltaire era will phase out the initial genesis keys, which have been crucial in operating the network since launch, to be replaced by continuous support from stake pool operators (SPOs) and increased participation from delegated representatives (DReps) and the Constitutional Committee (CC).
The upcoming steps toward implementing decentralized governance focus on ensuring that stake pool nodes satisfy operational requirements and that decentralized applications (DApps) are nearing the final stages of completion.
The ultimate transition to the Voltaire era will coincide with the final utilization of the Genesis keys, prompting a hard fork and solidifying Cardano’s identity as a self-sustaining blockchain. Nonetheless, any forthcoming announcements about later upgrades and their respective timelines remain unconfirmed.
As of this writing, ADA, the native token of the protocol, is priced at $0.403, reflecting an increase of nearly 15% over the past week in line with the broader market surge.
Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com
Dutch
English
French
German
Greek
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish