Cardano launches Chang hard fork with minor technical glitch

The Cardano (CRYPTO:ADA) blockchain successfully implemented its Chang hard fork on September 1, 2024, at 21:44 UTC, marking the beginning of the "Conway ledger era."

This update is part of the Voltaire upgrade phase, which aims to decentralise Cardano's governance by allowing every ADA holder to participate in decision-making and propose changes to the protocol.

The Cardano community responded positively to this milestone.

The Cardano Foundation emphasised the shift towards decentralised governance, stating, "Today’s Chang hard fork marks a major milestone for the Cardano blockchain, ecosystem, and community––fulfilling the promise of a truly self-governing, decentralised network."

Romain Pellerin, CTO at Input Output, noted, “Voltaire decentralised governance is activated, Cardano holders now have the power to decide the fate of the protocol on-chain.”

Charles Hoskinson, Cardano's founder, likened the day to an "independence day" for the community, asserting that every ADA holder now has a say in the future of the protocol.

Crypto analyst Dan Gambardello also celebrated, calling Cardano a “community-driven powerhouse” that gives ADA holders more control over its development.

The Chang hard fork introduced Plutus v3, which enhances cryptographic capabilities with advanced cryptographic primitives that support zero-knowledge proofs, Ethereum signature verification, and improved smart contract performance.

The upgrade also included new tools for developers, such as integer-to-byte string conversion functions, to enhance low-level data manipulation and cryptographic operations.

However, the rollout was not without issues.

Intersect, a member-based organisation within the Cardano ecosystem, identified a problem with ledger state snapshots, causing longer synchronization times when nodes restarted.

A hotfix, version 9.1.1, was announced to address this issue and is expected to be released shortly.

Users were advised to monitor the Cardano GitHub repository for updates on the fix.

At the time of writing, the Cardano (ADA) price was $0.3386.