Cardano Moves To Embrace Decentralized Governance With First Chang Hard Fork

Cardano’s long-awaited first Chang upgrade is live, unlocking governance functionality for ADA holders.
The Voltaire hard fork was executed on Sept. 1, activating the Chang #1 hard fork and its principal upgrade, Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP), CIP-1694.
The upgrade replaces Cardano’s previous “Shelley” governance model, which relied on seven genesis keyholders in the form of Cardano’s founding entities — Cardano Foundation, Input Output Globa, and Emurgo — to implement upgrades.
Chang #1 ushered in the “Conway era,” during which Delegated Representatives (DReps), Stake Pool Operators, and Cardano’s Interim Constitutional Committee will oversee and enact governance, with the exclusion of treasury withdrawals actions. ADA holders can now register themselves as DReps, delegate their ADA tokens to DReps, and propose governance actions on-chain. Governance actions include proposing protocol parameter changes and hard fork initiations.
“This marks the beginning of a new, community-driven era where every ADA holder not only has a say but also a direct role in shaping the protocol’s future,” Nicolas Cerny of the Canrdao Foundation posted to the project’s governance forum.
“It's a milestone years in the making, and it's finally happening,” Cardano tweeted. “We're saying goodbye to the Genesis keys and putting the power of governance into the hands of the people.”
CIP-1694 first articulated Cardano’s vision for decentralized governance back in November 2022.
The Chang #2 hard fork is now slated to extend the network’s on-chain governance by removing restrictions on Cardano’s governance entities sometime after Nov. 30.
Cardano is a Layer 1 network launched by Charles Hoskinson, a controversial Ethereum co-founder, in 2017 following two years of development.
Cardano differed from rival blockchains by opting not to foster an ecosystem of decentralized applications in favor of partnering with academic and government institutions to conduct research. The network did not activate smart contract functionality until September 2021, but only ranks 29th by total value locked with $186.6 million today, according to DeFi Llama.
The price of ADA, Cardano’s native coin, is down 2.2% in the past 24 hours, according to The Defiant’s crypto price feeds. ADA is the 12th largest cryptocurrency with a $12 billion market cap.
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