On Friday, the Cardano blockchain celebrated its seventh anniversary, cementing its position as one of the most recognized 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 this milestone on social media, highlighting significant achievements since its co-founder Charles Hoskinsonwho also played a key role in the creation of the Ethereum blockchain.
Cardano’s architectural evolution over seven years
In one commemorative videoIOG shared notable statistics that reflect Cardano’s growth and development. The blockchain has enabled more than 95 million transactions, showing its use and adoption over the years.
In addition, more than 74,000 Plutus scripts have been executed, which are essential for the effective use of smart contracts on the platform.
Cardano has also witnessed significant community involvement, with the establishment of 1.3 million people delegated portfolios and the publication of 226 research articles. Furthermore, approximately 1,373 projects have been launched on the blockchain, which also shows its community usage.
The Catalyst funding program, which has undergone twelve rounds of funding, has played a crucial role in advancing the Cardano ecosystem. This initiative has supported and advanced more than 1,800 funded ideas upgrades and further developments within the protocol.
However, the past 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 shift.
Towards decentralized decision-making
The Shelley era, which began in 2020, focused on decentralization and improving network security through the introduction of the 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 functionalities on Cardano, significantly increasing the block size and improving the parameters of the script memory units. These advancements allowed developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) that took advantage of Cardano’s capabilities.
Further improvements came with the Vasil and Chang upgrades, the latter being the first hard fork of the Voltaire era, the final era of the Protocol. The Vasil upgrade, released in 2022, introduced new features including the Plutus script upgrades to reduce transaction costs and implement diffusion pipelining for faster block propagation.
The recent one Chang upgrade will be rolled out in two phases, introducing on-chain governance to the network. The first phase, in which governance functions are implemented through CIP-1694, lays the foundation for decentralized voting and governance actions.
The second phase will introduce additional governance functionalities, including the participation of delegated representatives and the inclusion of government bonds, further strengthening the community.
Next steps in the Voltaire era
Looking ahead, the second part of the Voltaire era will replace the original Genesis Keys, which have been critical in managing the network since its inception, with continued support from stake pool operators (SPOs) and greater involvement from Delegated Representatives (DReps) and the Constitutional Committee (CC).
The next steps toward achieving decentralized governance involve ensuring that the stake pool nodes meet the required thresholds for usage and so decentralized applications (DApps) are nearing completion.
The final transition to the Voltaire era will occur with the last use of the Genesis Keyswhich will cause 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 past week alone amid the broader market rally.
Featured image of DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com