On Friday, the Cardano Blockchain celebrated its seventh anniversary, cementing its position as one of the most popular protocols in the cryptocurrency market. Currently, Cardano’s native token, ADA, ranks 11th 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 accomplishments since its inception by its co-founder. Charles Hoskinsonwho also played a major role in creating the Ethereum blockchain.
Cardano’s architecture has evolved over seven years
In a Memorial videoIOG shared remarkable statistics that reflect the growth and development of Cardano. Blockchain technology has facilitated more than 95 million transactions and has demonstrated its use and adoption over the years.
In addition, more than 74,000 Plutus scripts have been executed, which is essential for the efficient deployment of smart contracts on the platform.
Cardano has also seen significant community engagement, with 1.3 million created Delegated wallets He published 226 research papers. Moreover, approximately 1,373 projects have been launched on the blockchain, also showcasing community use.
The Catalyst funding program, which has gone through 12 funding rounds, has played a crucial role in the development of the Cardano ecosystem. This initiative has supported and promoted more than 1,800 ideas Promotions And further developments within the protocol.
However, the past seven years have also seen major shifts in Cardano’s architecture. The transition from the Shelley era to the Alonzo hard fork was a pivotal shift.
Moving towards decentralization in decision-making
The Shelley era, which began in 2020, focused on decentralization and enhancing network security by introducing Ouroboros upgrades. These upgrades have improved quota collection processes and Ada Delegating and encouraging cadastral rewards for users.
The Alonzo hard fork, implemented in 2021, enabled smart contract functionality on Cardano, significantly increasing the block size and enhancing script memory unit parameters. This advancement has allowed developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) that leverage Cardano’s capabilities.
Additional improvements came with the upgrades of Vasil and Chang, the latter being the first hard fork in the Voltaire era, the final era of the protocol. The Vasil upgrade, released in 2022, introduced new features, including Plutus script Promotions To reduce transaction costs and implement propagation pipelines to spread the block faster.
The last Chang’s promotion It is being rolled out in two phases, bringing on-chain governance to the network. The first phase, which implements governance features through CIP-1694, lays the foundation for decentralized voting and governance procedures.
The second phase will introduce additional governance functions, including participation of authorized representatives and treasury draws, further empowering the community.
Next steps in the age of Voltaire
Looking ahead, part two of The era of Voltaire It will replace the initial configuration switches, which have been central to network management since its inception, with continued support from Stakeholder Group Operators (SPOs) and increased involvement of Delegated Representatives (DReps) and the Constitutional Committee (CC).
The next steps towards decentralized governance include ensuring that interest pool nodes meet the required thresholds for operation Decentralized applications (DApps) are about to expire.
The final transition to the age of Voltaire will occur with the final use of Keys to Genesiswhich will lead to a hard fork and strengthen Cardano’s position as a self-sufficient blockchain. However, further announcements of subsequent upgrades and their dates have not been revealed.
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 a broader market rally.
Featured image of DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com
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