Cardano (ADA) underwent an important upgrade that aims to take it to the pinnacle of its capabilities and set it as the de-facto smart contract platform, as its developers hope it will be.
What is Cardano (ADA) and its upgrade bring?
Cardano, a smart contract platform, with a biggest difference from the other smart contracts platforms just like Ethereum, has the extensive testing and research that is done for every and each upgrade before it is going to be released. Every single thing that was integrated into the Cardano blockchain is thoroughly peer-reviewed and researched before it's tested and eventually will be added to the Cardano blockchain.
We remember that Ouroboros, the Proof-of-Stake protocol that Cardano is based on, was the very first academically peer-reviewed and researched Proof-of-Stake protocol with a mathematically proven of high-level of security. And that thorough approach is meaning a new features will take longer to be added into the Cardano blockchain.
The probability of the biggest criticism is because it is a smart contract platform that does not support smart contracts. But everything are going great and moving along and in the month of July of 2020, the Shelley upgrade just went live!
Before the released of Shelley, the Cardano blockchain was being federated, it means that only some of the nodes are controlled by the Cardano team that are validating blocks and minting new ADA coins.
Together with Shelley, Cardano will move towards a greater decentralization, as with any user holding ADA coin can become a node that have a potential to be selected to mine a new generated block.
The ADA coin is Cardano's own cryptocurrency, the driving force backing the Cardano blockchain and that is allowing users to participate in the Cardano network.
As with everything else on the Cardano blockchain, Shelley has been extensively tested and researched before it is being implemented.
The incentives scheme and delegation introduced with Shelley is basing on the game theory and the most latest research in the protocol of Proof-of-Stake. The goal of Shelley is to give incentives to the creation of staking pools and at the same time will prevent the power concentration to only a few of the pools. The team of Cardano estimated it that after the Shelley era, nearly 1000 staking pools, will have full control in the network, a number that will make Cardano a 50-100 times even more decentralized than other major blockchain networks.
And since it is a Proof-of-Stake protocol, the cost of running the network is significantly lower than Proof-of-Work networks, like Bitcoin.
What does all this mean?
Basically, this means that everyone holding the ADA coin can stake them and will receive staking rewards for helping securing the network. And doing so is as easy as one tap.
But that was not all that hass been going on in the Cardano blockchain. A third era, called Goguen, has been working on in parallel with the Shelley and it is already in the final stages of its development. The Goguen era will be released in some phases and the launch of its mainnet is planned for March 2021.
Goguen will finally bring the much anticipated support of smart contracts, dApps and additionally native tokens, besides ADA.
Cardano fans, like me, believe that this fork will bring Cardano up to par with Ethereum in terms of capabilities.
The most exciting thing about the Goguen era is that it is introducing two programming languages that is specifically designed for Cardano, Plutus and Marlowe;
Plutus is the smart-contract oriented language that developers use to build dApss and new tokens.
Marlowe - high-level kind of programming language for a financial contracts and this comes with a playground, a very easy-to-use platform that are allowing non-programmers to build a financial smart contracts.
Going down to the road, we will have the Basho era that will be introducing sidechains.
Sidechains are an independent blockchains that is running in parallel with the main blockchain and it will help to increase the network's interoperability and scalability.
And finally, when the Voltaire era comes to pass, which is the final step in Cardano's roadmap, holders of ADA that have stake their coins, will be able to not to only secure the network but also take part in governing and shaping its future.
What do you think on staking ADA and the upcoming smart contracts introduction? Do you believe these much anticipated improvements of Cardano will reflect in ADA price too? Personally, I can say yes to this as in the near future, people will be a lot interested with Cardano and will see more deeper on its potential.
How about you?
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Helpful article about Cardano (ADA) : The Sleeping Gem Cardano (ADA)
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