Cardano Founder Reveals Chang Hard Fork Is 'Basically There'

In an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session broadcast live from Wyoming, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, provided an eagerly awaited update on the progress of Cardano and the upcoming Chang hard fork. Speaking from his ranch, he described the ongoing efforts and milestones reached in what has been a significant journey for the blockchain platform.

Cardano Chang Hard Fork Is Almost Ready

Hoskinson started by reflecting on the challenges and achievements of the past years. “It’s been a very long last few years,” he acknowledged, noting that despite getting “jammed up in a few things,” the ecosystem has managed to overcome these obstacles, particularly in governance. The completion of all elements of CIP 1694 was highlighted as a critical accomplishment, taking about two years to finalize but essential for advancing Cardano’s infrastructure.

The core of Hoskinson’s update was the announcement that node 9.0, which is essential for the Chang hard fork, is nearly complete. “What’s exciting about node 9.0 is, it’s the Chang Hard Fork, It’s basically there,” he stated. This update to node 9.0 follows version 8.2.2 and has been refined to ensure compatibility and stability. According to Hoskinson, the new node has been tagged for release and is expected to be rolled out by next week. He cautiously added, “Monday or Tuesday the signal for the upgrade will come if nothing gets discovered – knock wood.”

The Chang hard fork represents a pivotal moment for Cardano, as it will initiate the transition to the age of Voltaire, a development phase focused heavily on governance. Hoskinson expressed enthusiasm about reaching this stage, which has been “two years in the making.” Achieving a network node density of approximately 70% will trigger the hard fork, marking the beginning of new governance capabilities and broader community engagement in decision-making processes.

In discussing the future beyond the Chang hard fork, Hoskinson elaborated on the complexities involved in moving forward, particularly under the Basho era, which concerns scalability and optimization of the network. He emphasized that this phase also requires substantial community input to balance various trade-offs between on-chain and off-chain data handling and other technical decisions such as on-chain sharding and modifications to transaction processing.

“Basho is a very multi-dimensional thing and it requires a lot of discussion about which direction and tradeoffs people want do they want more of their traffic off-chain or on-chain, do they want a type of on-chain sharding, do they want if any do they protocols like Leios and the tradeoff of them, […] do you want to make adjustments to how transactions are processed tiered pricing fees these types of things uh nobody can unilaterally make those decisions for the thousands of people building on cardano for their daps and for their ecosystem,” Hoskinson explained.

He also touched on the significant roadmap milestones yet to come, including Plutus V3, Hydra, Leios and Mithil, presenting them as strong candidates for the next governance vote. This vote will essentially ratify the final state of Basho and how resources are to be allocated, underscoring the shift towards a fully community-driven development model.

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Reflecting on the journey, Hoskinson remarked, “It’s been almost 10 years and when you reflect on it you say we’ve gone from a static and Federated system to a dynamic and decentralized system with best in class staking to a really compelling strong smart contract platform, the best in class for governance and and […] the best strategy and plan overall.” He celebrated the growth of the community and its increasing control over the roadmap, which he sees as evidence of Cardano’s maturation into a leading blockchain platform.

Despite some audio and visual technical difficulties due to poor internet connectivity at his location, Hoskinson promised to continue the conversation from his office on Monday, ensuring that any unresolved questions or discussions could be addressed promptly.

At press time, ADA traded at $0.377.