On Thursday, Cardano implemented its latest hardfork, Shelley. This upgrades the network from its prior iteration, Byron.
Staking on Shelley involves holding large amounts of its native currency, ADA, which means there is greater chance users could earn more ADA in rewards for validating the network. All of this is powered by its Ouroboros protocol, which chooses who gets to add the next block to the Cardano blockchain.
The first block for Shelley was validated on a testnet version of the new chain in April. A testnet is like a beta version of a blockchain. Usually, testnet blockchains don’t involve real money. But IOHK ran an incentivized testnet for Shelley, meaning that its users were playing for keeps.
Now it’s moved onto mainnet, onward: “It’s a monumental achievement, but this doesn’t mean we’ll be standing still,” said Aparna Jue, IOHK’s product director, in a statement.
Charles Hoskinson, the CEO of IOHK, added: “This time next year we could see hundreds of assets and decentralized applications running on Cardano.”
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