Cardano, a well-known layer-1 blockchain, has just successfully completed the hard fork upgrade “Chang”, introducing on-chain governance through its native crypto ADA.
The community of the cryptographic network can celebrate a very important step towards the decentralization of Cardano, publicly described as “the era of Voltaire”.
Soon ADA holders will be able to effectively vote on development proposals for the ecosystem, playing a key role in the future of the blockchain which will lose that component of centralized control.
Now appointment in 90 days for the second phase of the upgrade.
Let’s see all the details below.
Chang hard fork: Cardano introduces on-chain governance with ADA
Sunday at 22:44 (GMT+1), Cardano officially launched the hard fork “Chang”, starting the long-awaited process of transferring control of its network to the holders of its native token ADA.
The update is inspired by the proposal CIP-1694 first published at the end of 2022, which aims to redefine the three governing bodies of the cryptographic community.
In this first phase, the Constitutional Committee, the delegated representatives (dReps), and the stake pool operators (SPO) have been established
The authors of the CIP Jared Corduan, Andre Knispel, Matthias Benkort, Kevin Hammond, Charles Hoskinson, and Samuel Leathers, emphasize the key role of these cryptographic entities.
Today's Chang hard fork marks a major milestone for the Cardano blockchain, ecosystem, and community––fulfilling the promise of a truly self-governing, decentralized network.
Welcome to a new era of decentralized governance: Voltaire. 
https://t.co/sE0iyRKLg9 pic.twitter.com/dA0JkgYOio
— Cardano Foundation (@Cardano_CF) September 2, 2024
Moving forward, the Foundation of Cardano along with Input Output Global (IOHK) and Emurgo will not have the keys to activate updates on the chain.
The responsibility for the upcoming hard fork and the next technical improvements of the blockchain will be entrusted directly to the token holders of ADA.
We remind, however, that at the moment the cryptocurrency has not yet completely transitioned to an on-chain governance.
In 90 days, the second phase of “Chang” will take place, during which the final steps will be completed and ADA will be given additional utility.
As stated by Giorgio Zinetti, CTO of the Foundation Cardano:
“Once everyone is on board and well informed, they will be ready to actively participate in governance”.
Cardano is just the latest in a series of cryptographic projects that have shifted the focus of their infrastructure towards a more decentralized status.
Since its initial launch in 2014, it has consistently attracted the attention of the entire crypto world without, however, bringing strong DeFi activity to the chain.
We remember that Charles Hoskinson, founder of the project, co-led the initial development of his current main competitor Ethereum, alongside Vitalik Buterin.
Now it competes with the same to secure a market share in the digital asset sector and decentralized exchanges.
https://t.co/9EuDN8H0K5
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) September 1, 2024
A step towards the Voltaire era for Cardano: freedom and decentralization associated with some risks
The hard fork Chang of Cardano marks the beginning of a period described as the “era of Voltaire”, focused on achieving full decentralization of the network with ADA.
The term “Voltaire” is inspired by the famous French writer of the 1700s who is widely known as a defender of freedom of speech.
The update implements for the first time the concepts of liquid democracy and constitutional republic, where the power of governance is entrusted to the community.
This is a great milestone for the project, which sees several significant transformations in the political system of the blockchain on the horizon.
In about 90 days the hard fork should come to an end, completing the second phase of the upgrade and definitively making ADA enabled for governance purposes.
According to Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, the Chang upgrade reflects the promise of a decentralized model by the project:
“Every holder of ADA can contribute to the evolution of the ecosystem. The community will collaborate, innovate, and govern by mutual agreement.”
Hoskinson also emphasized that these changes not only improve the efficiency of the network, but also strengthen the security and user trust.
However, these benefits are also counterbalanced by some risks: decentralization through DAO can indeed be a double-edged sword
Often decentralized autonomous organizations present excessive spending budgets and suffer from inadequate control by sometimes inexperienced users.
Furthermore, the choice of a democracy based on the possession of ADA tokens implies that the control of the blockchain can pass to some powerful stakeholders.
We will see if the hard fork will bring the expected results or if it will only complicate the future of the project.
Analysis of the price of the crypto ADA
The completion of the first phase of the hard fork “Chang” of the Cardano blockchain does not seem to have particularly affected the price action of the ADA token.
The crypto indeed loses 5.26% in the last 24 hours, without detaching itself from the rest of the cryptographic market which suffers from the bearish performance of BTC and ETH.
ADA has been in a predominantly bearish downtrend since March, with prices following the lower part of the 50-period average on the daily time frame.
In 6 months the asset has lost about 60% of its value, dropping from 0.8 dollars per token to the current price of 0.32 dollars.
Not even an excellent news like that of the success of the hard fork can change the short-term fate of the Cardano coin chart.
This latest one seems to be waiting for the search for a bottom, and a possible restart in the wake of the increase in dominance of the altcoin sector.
For the moment the outlook of ADA remains bleak and oriented towards other leg down.
Attention to possible reversal movements: in particular, the level of 0.5 dollars could separate ADA from the return to the bull market.
Despite Chang not having an immediate positive impact on ADA, we remember that over time it could favor a greater institutional appeal of the cryptocurrency.
In fact, by opening up to the decentralization of the network, it becomes much more difficult for governments or companies to censor information or transactions on Cardano.
As a result the network becomes more interesting from the point of view of investment in DeFi for large market makers or cryptographic entities.
ADA in turn could benefit from the increase in popularity of decentralized finance on the chain, and support an increase in demand in the market.
