According to U.Today, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of the Cardano blockchain, has proposed a unique name for the next hard fork: Tasseled Wobblegong. This name, inspired by a species of carpet shark known for its ambush predation tactics, reflects the community's newfound freedom in naming hard forks. Hoskinson's suggestion comes as the Cardano community continues to innovate and evolve its blockchain protocols.
The term 'hard fork' refers to a significant change to a blockchain protocol that is not backward-compatible. For example, Bitcoin experienced a major split in 2017, resulting in the creation of Bitcoin Cash. Cardano utilizes a hard fork combinator (HFC) tool to seamlessly integrate new protocols without causing radical disruptions. This tool was notably used during the 2020 Shelley hard fork, which introduced proof-of-stake while maintaining blocks from the previous Byron network.
Following Shelley, Cardano implemented the Mary hard fork in 2021, which added DeFi functionality. Later that year, the Alonzo hard fork enabled the development of smart contracts on the network. Currently, Cardano is preparing for the Chang hard fork, which aims to introduce decentralized on-chain governance. This upgrade will allow ADA holders to vote on various matters, either individually or through delegate representatives.
Tim Harrison of Input Output has indicated that momentum is building towards the Chang upgrade. In the pre-production stage, stake pool operators, exchanges, and decentralized applications will need to upgrade to Node 9.0, which was released by Cardano's development team last month. So far, approximately a quarter of stake pool operators have completed the upgrade to Node 9.0.
