Cardano Activates its Chang Hard Fork

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The highly anticipated “Chang” upgrade for Cardano, a layer-1 blockchain created in 2017 by Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Ethereum, was activated on Sunday.

This marks an important shift towards decentralized governance for the project. With the Chang upgrade now live, ADA token holders will have the power to shape the future of Cardano by electing representatives for governance and voting on development proposals.

The new community governance structure is outlined in the official “Cardano Improvement Proposal” CIP-1694. It establishes three user-led governance bodies: the Constitutional Committee, Delegate Representatives (dReps), and Stake Pool Operators (SPOs).

These bodies will now hold the responsibility of triggering chain upgrades and hard forks, instead of the project’s three founding entities – the Cardano Foundation, Input Output Global (IOHK), and Emurgo.