Cardano Achieves Major Milestone

On Sunday, the Cardano blockchain reached a notable milestone by implementing the Chang hard fork.

This upgrade is pivotal for the blockchain, positioning it as one of the first major networks to adopt a token-based governance system. Cardano's CEO, Charles Hoskinson, celebrated the achievement, asserting that the upgrade elevates Cardano above Bitcoin (BTC) in decentralization.

In a recent social media post, Hoskinson underscored the nature of the recent upgrade and the network itself. He described it as 'one of the greatest technological achievements in human history.'

Hoskinson highlighted the scale of the distributed system, which operates in over 100 countries without central coordination. He emphasized that the system seamlessly upgraded for 'millions of users' who have never met each other. Hoskinson further stated:

'This dwarfs Bitcoin. It's unique, and books will be written about what has happened. Cardano is now a governance virus living, self-replicating, and self-sufficient. It has intelligence and a will to survive and grow. Nothing can shut it down. Nothing can stop its growth.'

Features and Technical Upgrades

The Chang hard fork, executed on block number 10764778, introduces the 'Conway ledger era' as part of a broader initiative to improve Cardano's governance through the Voltaire phase.

One of the primary features of this upgrade is the transformation of the governance model. It empowers every ADA holder to submit proposals and participate in decision-making processes. The Cardano Foundation hailed this shift, stating:

'Today's Chang hard fork marks a major milestone for the Cardano blockchain, ecosystem, and community -- fulfilling the promise of a truly self-governing, decentralized network.'

From a technical perspective, the hard fork activated Plutus v3, which introduces advanced cryptographic capabilities. These include efficient zero-knowledge proofs and versatile on-chain computations.

Key upgrades involve transaction signature validation through the Blake2b-224 hash function and Ethereum (ETH) signature verification using the Keccak-256 hash function, promoting improved cross-chain interoperability.

Performance Enhancements

Additionally, the update optimizes smart contract performance, introducing 'sums of products' encoding that leads to smaller scripts and up to 30% faster execution times.

Despite the successful deployment of these advancements, the hard fork encountered a technical issue related to ledger state snapshots.

Intersect, a member-based organization within the Cardano ecosystem, reported that this glitch necessitated a hotfix to address prolonged synchronization times when nodes restart.

Specifically, nodes that restarted within 14 hours of the hard fork were unaffected. However, those that restarted later would require a replay from the genesis block. A hotfix, labeled as node version 9.1.1, is currently being prepared and set to be released.

Market Reaction

At the time of writing, ADA was trading at $0.329, down 12% in seven days. Despite implementing the Chang upgrade within the network, it failed to elicit a bullish reaction from investors amid the broader market downtrend.