Cardano is gearing up for one of its most significant upgrades, the Chang hard fork. Intersect, a member-based organization within the Cardano ecosystem, has issued a major alert for node providers. In a tweet, Intersect declared, “It’s upgrade season for SPOs. Node 9.0.0 is out and includes all the changes needed for the Conway ledger era. 

Better known as the first node candidate to bring on-chain decision-making to Cardano mainnet.” This new release marks a pivotal milestone for the Cardano blockchain. It signifies the completion of primary development for the bootstrap phase of on-chain governance, with only minor updates needed to incorporate Cardano constitution elements.

Key Features of Node v9.0.0

Cardano node v9.0.0 introduces several eagerly awaited features. These include support for Plutus v1 reference scripts and Plutus script signatures via CIP-69. This milestone is crucial for achieving the decentralized governance concept outlined in CIP-1694.

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The Chang upgrade impacts the entire Cardano ecosystem, especially stake pool operators (SPOs), exchanges, and decentralized applications (dApps). To proceed with the upgrade, the community must ensure that 70% of SPOs and 85% of exchange liquidity are on the Chang mainnet candidate. Consequently, SPOs, exchanges, and dApps must upgrade to the latest Cardano node version. 

Role of SPOs and Exchanges

As detailed in an Intersect blog post, SPOs and exchanges must upgrade to the latest mainnet, hard fork-capable node candidate, version 9.0. Exchanges are vital to Cardano’s liquidity and stability. They must ensure their systems are compatible with the new node to enable seamless transactions and operations post-update. Similarly, dApps must test with the most recent node release. 

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Specific changes may vary, with significant updates in Plutus v3 potentially causing breaking changes that require extensive testing. The community’s readiness will define the Chang upgrade schedule. The hard fork date will be set once the community meets the required SPO and exchange readiness levels. 

Cardano’s Chang upgrade represents a critical step toward enhanced on-chain governance. Therefore, the successful implementation of node v9.0.0 will undoubtedly pave the way for future innovations and, consequently, stability within the Cardano ecosystem.