According to U.Today, Cardano is gearing up for one of its most significant upgrades, the Chang hard fork, with a major alert issued for node providers. Intersect, a member-based organization within the Cardano ecosystem, announced the release of Node 9.0.0, which includes all necessary changes for the Conway ledger era. This node is the first candidate to bring on-chain decision-making to the Cardano mainnet.

Cardano Node v9.0 marks a crucial milestone for the blockchain, completing the primary development work for the bootstrap phase of on-chain governance. Only minor updates are needed to add Cardano constitution elements. The new node version includes anticipated features such as support for Plutus v1 reference scripts and Plutus script signatures via CIP-69, which are essential for achieving the decentralized governance concept outlined in CIP-1694.

The Chang upgrade will impact the entire Cardano ecosystem, particularly stake pool operators (SPOs), exchanges, and decentralized applications (dApps). To proceed with the upgrade, 70% of SPOs and 85% of exchange liquidity must be on the Chang mainnet candidate. Therefore, it is crucial for SPOs, exchanges, and dApps to upgrade to the latest Cardano node version.

Exchanges play a vital role in Cardano's liquidity and stability, and they must ensure their systems are compatible with the new node to facilitate seamless transactions and operations post-update. Similarly, dApps must prepare by testing with the latest node release. Specific modifications may vary, with significant updates in Plutus v3 potentially introducing breaking changes that require extensive testing.

The schedule for the Chang upgrade will depend on the community's readiness, with the hard fork date set once the required levels of SPO and exchange readiness are met.