Following years of effort, the first stage of Cardano’s Chang upgrade has gone live, transitioning ownership of the blockchain to holders of its native ADA token. With the upgrade, Cardano enters its final stage of development, dubbed the Voltaire era. 
Cardano, the Layer 1 blockchain founded by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, has officially undergone the first stage of its Chang hard fork, becoming the first major blockchain to transition its centralized governance structure to a token-based decentralized governance system. 
Over the next 90 days, Cardano will undergo a full transformation to a community-led governance model overseen by an interim committee. At the end of the 90 days, the second stage of the Chang hard fork will activate, fully turning power over to its new governance bodies, which include a constitutional committee, delegate representatives, and staking pool operators. 
"The goal of the first stage is to ensure security and continuity during the governance bootstrapping phase, allowing [delegate representatives] to register and campaign for delegation, while developing and ratifying a final constitution by early 2025," Cardano's explanation reads. 
While at times Cardano ranked in the top 5 cryptocurrencies by market cap, recent dynamics have been less than favorable for the token, which fell out of the top 10 last month as TRON's TRX token and Telegram's Toncoin have grown. 
"When I reflect back at where we started as an ecosystem it was just an idea...we've grown tremendously throughout the years. There've been ups and downs, there's been a lot of disappointments, but now we are here," Hoskinson said in a video posted to X. "Now we are here today...a day where the entire ecosystem, the community, every holder of ADA stands shoulder to shoulder as equals and they all have a say in the future not just of this protocol, but what this protocol can do for everyone in the world."
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