On Friday, the Cardano blockchain celebrated its seventh anniversary, reaffirming its status as one of the most distinguished protocols in the cryptocurrency market. Presently, Cardano’s native token, ADA, holds the eleventh position among cryptocurrencies, boasting a market capitalization of approximately $14 billion.
Input Output Global (IOG), the development company behind Cardano, took to social media to mark this milestone, emphasizing the significant achievements since its inception by co-founder Charles Hoskinson, who also played a key role in the creation of the Ethereum blockchain.
Cardano’s Architectural Evolution Over Seven Years
In a commemorative video, IOG shared impressive statistics reflecting Cardano’s growth and development. The blockchain has processed over 95 million transactions, indicating its extensive usage and adoption through the years.
Notably, over 74,000 Plutus scripts have been executed, which are crucial for the efficient deployment of smart contracts on the platform. The community engagement has also been remarkable, with the creation of 1.3 million delegated wallets and the publication of 226 research papers. Additionally, approximately 1,373 projects have been launched on the blockchain, showcasing community usage and involvement.
The Catalyst funding program has been instrumental in advancing the Cardano ecosystem, having undergone 12 funding rounds. This initiative has supported over 1,800 funded ideas, fostering upgrades and further developments within the protocol.
However, the past seven years have witnessed significant transformations in Cardano’s architecture. The transition from the Shelley era to the Alonzo hard fork marked a pivotal shift.
Moves Toward Decentralized Decision-Making
The Shelley era, initiated in 2020, focused on decentralization and enhancing network security through the introduction of the Ouroboros upgrades. These upgrades improved stake pool operations and ADA delegation, incentivizing users with staking rewards.
The Alonzo hard fork, rolled out in 2021, enabled smart contract functionalities on Cardano, significantly increasing block size and enhancing script memory unit parameters. This advancement empowered developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) that leverage Cardano’s robust capabilities.
Further enhancements followed with the Vasil and Chang upgrades. The Vasil upgrade, launched in 2022, introduced new features, including Plutus script upgrades to reduce transaction costs and the implementation of diffusion pipelining for faster block propagation.
The recent Chang upgrade is being rolled out in two phases, introducing on-chain governance to the network. The first phase, which incorporates governance features through CIP-1694, lays the foundation for decentralized voting and governance actions. The subsequent phase will introduce additional governance functionalities, including delegated representative participation and treasury withdrawals, further empowering the community.
Next Steps In The Voltaire Era
Looking ahead, the second part of the Voltaire era will replace the initial genesis keys, which have been essential in managing the network since its inception, with ongoing support from stake pool operators (SPOs) and increased involvement from delegated representatives (DReps) and the Constitutional Committee (CC).
The next steps toward achieving decentralized governance involve ensuring that stake pool nodes meet the required thresholds for operation and that decentralized applications (DApps) are nearing completion. The final transition to the Voltaire era will occur with the last use of the Genesis keys, which will trigger a hard fork and cement Cardano’s status as a self-sustaining blockchain. However, further announcements of subsequent upgrades and their respective dates remain undisclosed.
At the time of writing, the protocol’s native token, ADA, is trading at $0.403, up nearly 15% in the last week amid a broader market rally.
