Shelley is here: The Cardano blockchain undergoes a historic hard fork
ZUG, 29 JULY 2020. The Cardano blockchain, established in 2017, undergoes a historic hard fork today ushering in the beginning of Shelley—and with it the delivery of full network decentralization, the launch of stake pools, and the beginning of delegation.
Cardano enthusiasts can now register as stake pool operators, and ada holders may delegate their stake to pools, earning rewards for participating in the consensus and block production of the Cardano network for the first time.
As the number of registered stake pools increases, the Cardano blockchain will become progressively more decentralized. Once the Cardano mainnet has reached 1,000 pools, Cardano will become one of the most decentralized, scalable, and secure blockchains to date.
A hard fork event was necessary to transition from Byron—Cardano’s value layer and the basis for the ada cryptocurrency—to Shelley, which brings the Cardano blockchain one-step closer to smart contract capabilities and the deployment of decentralized applications (DApps).
As a result, Shelley also represents the beginning of a new value phase in Cardano’s development, one which welcomes developers, businesses, corporates, and governments to begin building and deploying a new generation of decentralized solutions atop Cardano.
The first industries and sectors that will be invited to explore Cardano for commercial use will be financial institutions who wish to leverage decentralized infrastructure, pharmaceutical companies seeking traceability solutions, the authentication of retail and luxury goods, and agricultural producers for supply chain tracking.
The Cardano Foundation, which advances and enables the Cardano ecosystem, will work closely with all relevant stakeholders throughout the Shelley phase, to identify and enable clear routes to adoption.
Building on the success of Shelley, the developers and entities behind Cardano can now begin looking further ahead, continue building a solid foundation for the rollout of smart contracts, decentralized applications, and enterprise use cases. The arrival of Shelley is a testament to the readiness of the Cardano blockchain, and the Cardano Foundation looks forward to welcoming a multitude of new users into the Cardano ecosystem.
With the rollout of Shelley, the Cardano Foundation can now realize its full vision of building an adoption strategy for Cardano—encouraging integration and execution to enable fast-track value creation for inclusive and equitable growth.
About the Cardano Foundation: The Cardano Foundation is an independent Swiss standards body that oversees and supervises the advancement of Cardano and its ecosystem. The Foundation’s core focus is in developing a Cardano adoption strategy through to integration and execution, to enable fast-track value creation for inclusive and equitable growth. As the legal custodian of the protocol and the owner of the Cardano brand, the Foundation works to drive adoption and partnerships, grow the wider blockchain community, shape legislation, and commercial standards, and ensure stakeholder accountability. Find out more: www.CardanoFoundation.org