Cardano (ADA), the cryptocurrency ranked at 5th in terms of market capitalization, achieved full decentralization yesterday. With an all-time high of $1.42, Cardano stands at $1.19 – at the time of writing.
Shelley: Complete decentralization of Cardano
Shelley is the – or was – the next step in the development of the Cardano block chain. Cardanohas officially moved from a centralized ledger to a complete decentralized distributed ledger. Ouroboros – the first provable Proof of Stake protocol – has been successfully deployed. The transactions on the Cardano block chain are now verified without the need of any centralized authority. Ouroboros also ensures the process is done more efficiently – without employing as much resources as Bitcoin does with its Proof of Work mechanism.
The percentage of tracsantions that are being processed by the genesis node has reached zero D=0, and the community pools of the network are now fully responsible for producing blocks on the Cardano block chain.
What does Shelley mean for the future of Cardano?
Ever since the announcement of the update, Cardano has been on an uptrend. Even though the cryptocurrency did suffer from some retracements, it was able to establish a new all-time high. Currently, the price is down by 1.2% in the 24-hour timeframe while the daily trading volume increased by around 10%. The Voltaire governance will be implemented through which the community will lead Cardano towards newer developments.
IOHK, the developers behind Cardano, had justified the partial decentralization of the block chain but it was still a controversial topic in the cryptocurrency community as cryptocurrencies’ appeal lies in their decentralization. Despite the partial decentralization of the network, Cardano had been able to rise in the ranks of the market.
With now ADA being fully decentralized, a further increase in the adoption of the cryptocurrency can be expected. Shelley is designed to bring greater security and robustness to the network by being 50-100 times more decentralized than other major block chains.
What’s next?
The extensive roadmap of the Cardano network has the next era Goguen planned to bring smart contracts, and hence decentralized apps, integration to the network. Followed by Basho which will focus on the scaling and the interoperability of the network. And finally, Voltaire governance system which will introduce voting and treasury system and will also mark the completion of Cardano becoming a self-sustaining system.
