In a notable development, Cardano has clocked seven years. The blockchain launched in September 2017 and has hit several milestones since then. In a post on X to mark the occasion, Cardano’s developer, Input Output Global, highlighted some major achievements of the blockchain.
Timeline of Cardano’s Key Upgrades
Despite its relatively “young age,” about half that of Bitcoin, Cardano has made an impressive mark on crypto. Between the launch in 2017 and now, Cardano has carried out about 95.6 million transactions and onboarded one 1,000 projects.
The delegated wallets stand at over 1.33 million, and the platform has funded over 1,800 ideas to expand innovation. Cardano’s growth trajectory has shifted from staking to decentralization and from native tokens to multi-asset functionality.
Perhaps the achievement community members celebrate the most is achieving full decentralization. The blockchain has built an ecosystem where autonomy and transparency remain critical to functionality.
It has handed control back to users regarding their data, identity, and governance structure. All these notable advances were made possible due to several upgrades on the main chain.
Within the seven years of Cardano’s existence, the chain has undergone several notable hard forks. These upgrades fall under different phases: Byron, Shelly, Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire. In September 2017, Byron marked the launch of the platform’s mainnet and focused on transaction settlement and ADA token distribution.
Other hard forks include Shelly, which enabled staking so ADA holders could earn rewards, and Allegra, which supports users in locking tokens as part of governance or smart contract requirements. Alonzo opened the network to DeFi and NFTs while Vasil enhanced throughput, allowing more transactions per second.
Chang hard fork launched on September 1, signaling the first batch of decentralized governance features of CIP-1694.
Charles Hoskinson’s Vision: Identity, Privacy, and Interoperability
Charles Hoskinson, Cardano founder, was recently at the Token 2049 event in Singapore. Hoskinson shared his perspectives on how identity, privacy, and interoperability will play out in the fourth generation of cryptocurrency. He identified subjectivity as a challenge to building marketplaces on the network.
According to Hoskinson the proliferation of blockchains from a few to over forty thousand and millions of assets is distracting. He emphasized the necessity of building an ecosystem that encourages interoperability and benefits consumers.
The Cardano founder shared his vision of an ecosystem of hybridization that allows users to borrow security and consensus from other systems without leaving their network of choice.
He said that Cardano was actively working on an upgradeable project that everyone in the industry cares about, adding,
“…great things in life come as a result of working together and cooperating.”
He hopes that the crypto community will work together to grow the sector, he said.
Cardano’s Growing Influence in the Crypto Ecosystem
Crypto experts acknowledge Cardano’s role in the ecosystem. So far, Cardano has clawed its way back to the top ten assets by market capitalization. As reported by The Coin Republic, analysts opine that if Cardano maintains its current momentum, it has the potential to flip Solana into the fifth coin.
Meanwhile, a recent survey has favored Cardano over the only altcoin, which includes Ethereum. Besides Ethereum, a poll conducted by Weiss Crypto also featured Solana. Per the result, 76% favored Cardano, 8% – Solana, and 6.7% – Ethereum, as protocols with the best tech
