The Cardano blockchain has recently completed a major upgrade, enhancing its voting system and smart contracts, marking a significant step forward for decentralized governance. On Sep. 1st at 21:44 UTC, Cardano successfully implemented the Chang upgrade at block 10,764,778, officially launching what the team calls the “Conway ledger era.”
One significant change with the Voltaire upgrade is that any Cardano (ADA) token holder can now submit proposals or participate in voting on governance decisions. On Sept. 2, the Cardano Foundation announced that the Chang hard fork is a major step toward creating a fully self-governing and decentralized network for the Cardano community.
Cardano unveils new governance model with CIP-1694
Chang implements a new on-chain blockchain model through Cardano Improvement Proposal 1694. This update lets people vote directly or delegate their vote to representatives. Additionally, it introduces a constitutional committee and a new governance role for stake pool operators, which will gradually start over the next 90 days.
According to the Cardano Foundation, this first phase of the upgrade aims to “make sure everything stays secure and runs smoothly as we kick off the new governance process. ” This upgrade also enhances Plutus scripts, allowing for more sophisticated voting methods, including decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) voting. Additionally, it brings in new cryptographic features and performance boosts for smart contracts.
In an X video on Sept. 2, Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of Cardano, highlighted the significant growth of the ecosystem over the years. Despite this progress, ADA’s price didn’t benefit from the recent hard fork. It drops another 2.4% on the day to $0.333 at the time of writing.
Once a top-five cryptocurrency, ADA has slipped out of the top 10 in market value. It is overtaken by rising blockchains like Tron (TRX) and Toncoin (TON). Adding to its challenges, ADA is still down 89% from its peak of $3.09, which it reached three years ago on Sept. 2, 2021.
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