The Cardano blockchain celebrated its seventh anniversary on Friday, cementing its position as one of the most recognized protocols in the cryptocurrency market. Currently, Cardano’s native token, ADA, ranks eleventh among cryptocurrencies, with a market capitalization of approximately $14 billion.
Input Output Global (IOG), the development company behind Cardano, celebrated the milestone on social media, highlighting significant achievements since its founding by the co-founder. Charles Hoskinsonwho also played a key role in the creation of the Ethereum blockchain.
The architectural evolution of Cardano over seven years
In a commemorative videoIOG shared notable statistics reflecting the growth and development of Cardano. Blockchain has facilitated over 95 million transactions, demonstrating its use and adoption over the years.
Additionally, over 74,000 Plutus scripts were executed, essential for the effective deployment of smart contracts on the platform.
Cardano has also witnessed significant community engagement, with the creation of 1.3 million delegated portfolios and the publication of 226 research articles. Additionally, around 1,373 projects have been launched on the blockchain, also demonstrating its use by the community.
The Catalyst funding program, which has undergone 12 funding rounds, has played a crucial role in the advancement of the Cardano ecosystem. This initiative supported more than 1,800 funded ideas, promoting upgrades and subsequent developments within the protocol.
However, the last seven years have also seen significant transformations in Cardano’s architecture. The transition from the Shelley era to the Alonzo hard fork marked a crucial change.
Towards decentralized decision-making
The Shelley era, which began in 2020, focused on decentralization and improving network security through the introduction of Ouroboros upgrades. These upgrades improved stake pool operations and ADA delegation, encouraging staking rewards for users.
The Alonzo hard fork, implemented in 2021, enabled smart contract features on Cardano, significantly increasing the block size and improving the script memory unit settings. This advancement has allowed developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) that leverage Cardano’s capabilities.
Further improvements came with the Vasil and Chang upgrades, the latter being the first hard fork of the Voltaire era, the last era of the protocol. The Vasil upgrade, released in 2022, introduced new features, including the Plutus script. upgrades to reduce transaction costs and implementing a broadcast pipeline for faster block propagation.
The recent Chang Upgrade is deployed in two phases, introducing on-chain governance of the network. The first phase, which implements governance functionality through CIP-1694, lays the foundation for decentralized voting and governance actions.
The second phase will introduce additional governance features, including delegated representative participation and cash withdrawals, strengthening community power.
Next steps of the Voltaire era
Looking ahead, the second part of The Voltaire era will replace the initial Genesis Keys, which have played a key role in the management of the network since its inception, with continued support from Participation Pool Operators (SPOs) and increased involvement of Delegated Representatives (DReps) and the Constitutional Committee ( CC).
The next steps towards decentralized governance are to ensure that stake pool nodes meet the thresholds required to operate and that decentralized applications (DApps) are nearing completion.
The definitive transition to the Voltaire era will take place with the last use of Keys to Genesiswhich will trigger a hard fork and solidify Cardano’s status as a standalone blockchain. However, other announcements of subsequent upgrades and their respective dates are not disclosed.
At the time of writing, the protocol’s native token, ADA, is trading at $0.403, up nearly 15% in the past week alone amid the broader market rally.
Featured image of DALL-E, chart by TradingView.com
