- Unless there are setbacks, the Chang hard fork is scheduled to go live on the mainnet next week.
- Cardano has already crossed the first Chang threshold in terms of SPO readiness, paving the way for the fork activation.
The Cardano ecosystem is gearing up for a major milestone in the form of the Chang hardfork, which will strengthen the scalability governance structure and overall performance of the network. In fact, today the Chang Hardfork Working Group proposed the target dates for the implementation of the hardfork.
Cardano-focused educational resource Intersect informed in a bulletin on X (Twitter) that the group has set August 27 as a tentative target date for Chang on the production mainnet. A final decision on the launch of the hard fork will be announced beforehand on Friday, August 23.
The technical team also highlighted September 3rd as an alternative ideal time window for the hard fork if the proposed dates are not feasible.
Update on the Chang Hard Fork
Chang will introduce improvements to Cardano’s governance and scalability through the implementation of the Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP) 1694. The proposal gives ADA holders a more democratic say in Cardano’s future development and upgrades. On the technical side, the hard fork will improve the network’s throughput and overall efficiency.
The desired thresholds for implementing the first phase of the Chang hard fork are 70% (or more) of nodes upgrading to v9.1.0 and at least 80% exchange liquidity to be able to effectively process transactions and operations. Last week, Cardano reached the first threshold after achieving node readiness.
Exchange readiness metrics have improved since then, but liquidity still lags, standing at 34.8% at press time, according to Cardanoscan data. 21 exchanges have reached “Ready” status to support the Chang hard fork, while 19 others, including Binance, are still in the process of achieving this status.
Meanwhile, 17 exchanges, including Bybit, which has a liquidity share of 5.42%, have yet to make any progress.
ADA/USDT Technical Analysis
The upcoming Chang hard fork is expected to give Cardano (ADA) a much-needed boost as it has been pushed out of the top 10 rankings based on its market cap.
The dethronement of Cardano (ADA) by Tron (TRX) earlier this week marked the second time in the last five months that ADA was dethroned, after being overtaken by Toncoin (TON) in May.
The period leading up to Chang’s implementation has already led to renewed optimism on the network, with market intelligence platform Santiment noting this week that Cardano has seen the most positive sentiment so far this year, despite its price woes.
Source: Santiment
News of the Chang hard fork target dates also gave ADA a slight boost in terms of spot market activity during the week.
Cardano (ADA) was trading at $0.353 at press time, after gaining 6.82% over the past 5 days.
Source: TradingView
On the 4-hour chart, the Moving Average Convergence Divergence indicator showed increasing bullish momentum. The MACD line crossed above the signal line on August 19, suggesting that momentum has shifted in favor of buyers.
