Cardano (ADA)

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Cardano will be rolling out a hard fork (major upgrade) to facilitate cross chain developments.

Cardano's Network Major Upgrade Nears, Here's What to Know

In the next 10 days, Cardano is scheduled to undergo a major upgrade. The mainnet hard fork is scheduled to occur Feb. 14, 2023, at 9:44:51 p.m. UTC. It will take place at the start of epoch 394, around absolute slot height 84844800 and estimated block height 8403208.Cardano builder IOG says it is…

www.tradingview.com

 

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I wouldn't consider this a positive sign for Cardano's future:

Cardano Developer IOG Restructures to Venture Studio Model, Lays Off Some Staff

The blockchain research and engineering company has cut jobs as it pivots to a smaller venture studio business model.

www.coindesk.com

 

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I thought Cardano was perhaps falling behind it's peers, but lately it's seen a resurgence. Apparently, there is still a good bit of development work happening on this blockchain.

 

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More details:

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Ownership of each Chaincrib property is split across a finite number of representative tokens minted on the Cardano blockchain.

Here, you don't just own the tokenized properties as NFTs, Based on token share, owners can collect revenue from rent, and vote on property decisions.
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Chaincrib | Fractional Real Estate Platform

Chaincrib is a Cardano based platform for investing in fractional units of global rental properties

chaincrib.com

You will soon be able to buy fractional ownership of rental properties with crypto and collect your fractional share of rent in crypto as well.

 

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Cardano welcomes USDM, its first fiat-backed stablecoin​

Cardano, a leading Layer-1 smart contract network, has announced the launch of the USDM stablecoin by Mehen Finance. This event marks a significant development in the platform’s journey towards broader adoption. The USDM stablecoin, fully backed by U.S. dollars, promises a 1:1 conversion rate for users. It stands as the first non-algorithmic, fiat-backed stablecoin on the Cardano blockchain. The introduction of USDM aims to enhance the ecosystem’s security, scalability, and sustainability for decentralized applications.

Mehen Finance revealed that the onboarding of institutional customers for USDM would start immediately, taking approximately one to two days. Consequently, the USDM stablecoin will progressively appear on the Cardano blockchain during the week of March 18. This strategic move is poised to bolster Cardano’s ecosystem, attracting a broader user base and developers interested in leveraging the new stablecoin’s capabilities.

More:

MSN

 

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Over the past year, bitcoin (BTC) has increased by 148.4% and ethereum (ETH) by 93.9%, whereas cardano (ADA) has seen a more subdued growth of 56.8%. This week marked a notable change as toncoin (TON) overtook ADA, ascending to the ninth-largest market cap and nudging ADA down a notch.

Despite this shift, ADA still maintains a lead over avalanche (AVAX), boasting a market capitalization slightly above $22 billion, compared to AVAX’s market value of $18.27 billion as of April 9, 2024. While BTC soared to unprecedented heights this year and many cryptocurrencies are hovering near their previous peaks, ADA remains 80% below its Sept. 2, 2021, zenith of $3.09 per coin.
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Cardano Slips to 10th Position, Underperforming in a Surging Crypto Market – Market Updates Bitcoin News

After holding a leading spot among the top cryptocurrencies for years, cardano (ADA) has recently been relegated to the tenth position.

news.bitcoin.com

Cardano is struggling to keep up with it's peers even though there appears to be a good bit of development activity within the ecosystem. It could be a sign that it's undervalued compared to it's peers. Or that it's peers are doing things better.

 

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Some perspective on what the USDM stablecoin means for Cardano:

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While Cardano has shown time and time again its resilience as a hub for decentralised and sanction-free transactions, it has largely been ignored by USDT and USDC - two fiat-backed stablecoins created by the Tether Holdings and Circle Consortium. The two USD-backed tokenised assets with a combined value of $137 billion plus, have largely paid zero attention to the Cardano blockchain.

This hesitancy to launch USDT and USDC have served as a form of chasm as several decentralised applications (dApps) have been unable to access real-world liquidity as their counterparts on Ethereum and Solana.
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USDM is the first US-licensed fiat-backed stablecoin, meaning US residents building on Cardano can both store and move capital seamlessly across the Cardano blockchain. Even better, it is totally decentralised as network power rests in the hands of the community.



This means the Mehen project team cannot censor any transaction validated with USDM on the Cardano blockchain. This means users will not experience fund freeze with their native assets. This is due to the availability of a know-your-customer (KYC) verification process that all users have to go through before accessing the stablecoin. This ensures that bad actors or cyber criminals do not move value using the stablecoin, cutting out the necessity of censoring such transactions.

Even better, it operates seamlessly with all Cardano native assets allowing for capital to move across the 162 blockchain projects operating on the peer-focused platform. It is also fully secure, transparent, and scalable ensuring that value transmission across dApps is as smooth as it should be.

The Mehen team is not stopping here, though. The stablecoin maker is already making moves towards collaborating with payment companies to make debit card swipes, chip-and-PIN, or tap-to-pay capability fully accessible on Cardano while leveraging the tokenised value USDM promises.

All in all, USDM’s emergence on the Cardano is the much-needed jet fuel, the peer-reviewed protocol needed to become the new darling of the DeFi space.

USDM Breaking the Stablecoin Barries - A Blessing or Curse?

www.digitalgoldecosystem.com

 

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Blockchain-native ETP investment vehicles are slowly becoming a norm and Liqwid Finance has joined the trend. The Cardano variant ... has recently rolled out an ETP product focused on the peer-reviewed research blockchain network.

Sharing the new development on X, Liqwid Finance revealed that the ETP is codenamed CASL and is accessible for trading on the SIX Swiss Exchange.



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... While other digital assets ETPs like Bitcoin and Ethereum only track the price performance of the underlying asset, the CASL investment vehicle will also allow investors to earn staking rewards from subscribing to the service.
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Liqwid Finance Launches Cardano ETP - Is A US Variant In The Works?

CASL to the WorldBlockchain-native ETP investment vehicles are slowly becoming a norm and Liqwid Finance has joined the trend. The Cardano variant of Aave on Ethereum has recently rolled out an ETP product focused on the peer-reviewed research blockchain network. Sharing the new development on...

www.digitalgoldecosystem.com

 

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Sounds like something big is brewing in Cardano land....

 

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Some details on the Chang fork:

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The Chang hard fork, slated for Q2 of this year, marks the beginning of a new era of governance for Cardano. It’s a culmination of years of hard work, community participation, and testing. This fork will usher in two upgrades: Chang Upgrade Number One and Chang Upgrade Number Two.

Chang Upgrade Number One will deploy governance features on Cardano, initiating the technical bootstrapping phase outlined in SIP 1694. This phase sets the stage for decentralized voting, governance actions, and more.

Chang Upgrade Number Two takes SIP 1694 out of the technical bootstrapping phase, unlocking the final features of on-chain governance, including delegated representative participation and treasury withdrawals. This is monumental, as it empowers the community to propose and fund new projects, ensuring the sustainability and evolution of the Cardano ecosystem.

In conclusion, the Voltaire era signifies a new dawn for Cardano, where governance is decentralized, inclusive, and transparent.
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Cardano's Chang Hard Fork - Voltaire

Today, we’re embarking on an exciting journey into the future of Cardano. Charles Hoskinson himself has emphasized the need for significant changes to propel Cardano into the league of blockchains serving billions. And guess what? The big changes are finally here! Cardano is gearing up for a...

forum.cardano.org

 

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I saw a lot of tweets about this on X yesterday, but it was mostly technical jargon that was difficult to understand:

The Cardano blockchain was hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack late Tuesday. However, the attack was unsuccessful and mitigated before any damage was caused, and the network continued to operate as usual.

DDoS is a common attack vector in which the attacker floods a server (or a blockchain) with spam traffic to prevent users from accessing connected online services and sites.

Fluid Token chief technology officer @ElRaulito_cnft said on X that the attack began on block 10,487,530, each transaction executing 194 smart contracts. The attacker spent 0.9 ADA per transaction and filled each block with several transactions – attempting to stress the network.

Philip Disarro, founder of Cardano development firm Anastasia, said the DDoS could be stopped immediately by deregistering the stake credential used by the attacker. The attack was stopped shortly after Disarro’s post.

“DDOSer halted his attack after reading my tweet in an effort to protect his funds. Alas, they were too late and the pillaging of their funds is already in progress,” he said.

A Cardano developer later clarified that the DDoS attack was aimed at disrupting the system and not to steal staked tokens.

Cardano Unfazed by Failed DDoS Attack Targeting Staked ADA

No downtime was observed as a Cardano developer managed to attack the attacker and take back some funds.

www.coindesk.com

From what I read, in order to effect the attack, the attacker set himself up as a staking validator/pool requiring a 400 ADA deposit/stake (about $160). A Cardano dev posted a tweet saying that people (who? I never understood that part) could deregister (how? not explained) the attacker's staking account causing him to lose his 400 ADA deposit.

From what I read, it sounded like the structure of the Cardano system is pretty robust/smart and this sort of attack isn't really feasible to execute effectively.

 

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I'm not sure how significant this is (or isn't), but sounds like it could be a growth vector for Cardano if it works well.

 

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Seems to be some interesting developments happening with the Cardano space currently. In addition to the last post, I also found this bit of news this morning:



It's a project (ie. doesn't exist yet), but could be another growth vector if it becomes reality. The Unreal Engine is used as the back end engine in a lot of AAA video game titles. Seems like Avalanche (AVAX) will have some competition for the blockchain of choice for gaming developers.

 

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Cardano (ADA) has surged 16% in the past 24 hours, leading gains among major cryptocurrencies, as traders look to a $100,00 price for bitcoin (BTC) in the near term following the Federal Reserve's interest-rate cut on Thursday.

ADA rose above 42 cents in European morning hours Friday to reach levels last seen in late July. Recent price growth catalysts include a marketwide rally and resurging interest in decentralized finance (DeFi) that also spurred gains in ether (ETH) and Solana’s (SOL). Some observers also pointed to ADA's appeal among retail investors.
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Cardano Pumps 16%, Bitcoin Could Pop to $100K After Fed Rate Cut

Majors cryptocurrencies are surging as a bullish backdrop gives traders reason to set a $100,000 price target for BTC in the near term.

www.coindesk.com

Cardano strength has surprised me a bit. I'm aware of developements in the Cardano ecosystem, but until this post election market surge, I really hadn't seen any evidence that the public/market was interested.

 

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Hmm ...

 

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So apparently the Cardano Foundation's X account got hacked this morning and posted a note falsely claiming that they were served with a lawsuit notice from the SEC in an attempt to crash the market price of Cardano.

 

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Some details on the Chang fork: ...

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Plutus V3 was introduced to mainnet with the Chang hardfork. It is an upgrade to Cardanos Smart Contract Language that has improved multiple aspects:

- Performance has been enhanced by reducing computational requirements and adding a Sums of Product.

- Cryptographic Primitives have been introduced, allowing for possible zk (zero-knowledge) implementations

- Interoperability with EVM chains has been enhanced
...

We're just starting to see developers migrate their work to utilize upgrades that were added to the system months ago.

 

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Key Takeaways

• The Plomin hard fork is a Cardano blockchain upgrade that introduces significant governance changes for the community.
• It enables the full implementation of decentralized governance, allowing ADA holders to delegate voting power to DReps (Delegated Representatives) who vote on governance actions.
• Key governance actions include protocol parameter changes, treasury withdrawals, and hard fork initiations.
• The Plomin hard fork requires SPOs (Stake Pool Operators) to upgrade their nodes and approve the upgrade with a 51% majority vote. As of January 22, 78% of the network nodes had upgraded to the new version.
• Once implemented, the Voltaire era of Cardano will be fully realized, giving the community control over the network’s future.
• This marks a significant step towards full community-driven governance on the Cardano blockchain.
• Readiness for supported wallets, dApps, voting, and other information can be found here.

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More:

Explainer: The Plomin Hard Fork (Cardano) - EMURGO

www.emurgo.io

 

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NYSE Arca, a subsidiary of the NYSE Group, has filed on behalf of crypto asset manager Grayscale to launch a spot Cardano exchange-traded fund (ETF).

In a Feb. 10 proposed rule change filing to the SEC, NYSE Arca proposed that the stock exchange list and trade shares of a new Grayscale Cardano Trust.

If approved, the product would be Grayscale’s first standalone Cardano (ADA) investment product.

According to the filing, Coinbase Custody Trust Company would be the custodian of the assets, and BNY Mellon Asset Servicing would serve as administrator.
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https://cointelegraph.com/news/grayscale-files-cardano-trust-spot-etf