‘Ethereum Killer’ ADA Set To Get A Utility Boost As Cardano Upgrade ‘Chang’ Goes Live
By Benzinga
Cardano’s (CRYPTO: ADA) ambitious “Chang hard fork” went live on Sunday, marking the Layer-1 blockchain’s shift toward decentralized governance.
What happened: Romain Pellerin, the CTO of IOG—the company behind the blockchain’s development—announced on X that the upgrade was successfully executed. He added that holders of the ADA token will have the “power to decide the fate of the protocol on-chain.”
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, who also co-founded Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), called the upgrade a new chapter.
Indeed, with the hard fork, ADA holders will be able to elect representatives (known as Delegate Representatives or dReps) and vote on proposals for improvements and technical modifications to the blockchain.
The heart of this upgrade is CIP-1694, a Cardano Improvement Proposal that introduces various governance structures, including the Constitutional Committee, dReps, and Stake Pool Operators (SPOs).
For the uninitiated, a hard fork brings about a radical change in a blockchain’s programming, making it incompatible with older versions.
The Chang upgrade is part of the Voltaire Era, the final phase in Cardano’s current development roadmap to become a self-sustaining system.
Why It Matters: The upgrade added more utility for the native token ADA, which has been lackluster on price charts this year.
Currently the 11th-largest cryptocurrency, ADA has plummeted 44% year-to-date, compared to Bitcoin’s (CRYPTO: BTC) 30% gains and Ethereum’s (CRYPTO: ETH) 7.22% advances.
Price Action: The upgrade failed to rev up demand for the token, as it traded 3.57% lower than what it was 24 hours earlier, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
Image via Shutterstock
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