Cardano, a intelligent contract platform and Ethereum competitor, is transitioning and preparing for Voltaire after completing Basho. In the final phase, developers focused on scaling and improving performance.
A key part of this transformation will be the full activation of the Chang difficult fork. According to KardanoscanOn August 19, only 33% of all SPOs were ready, while 14% of all supporting exchanges were ready.
Once all SPOs upgrade their node and the network transitions to Voltaire, there will be many benefits. One of them is that Cardano will adopt a decentralized governance model.
Will Cardano lead the ZK scale race after Chang?
In addition, one observer shared his observations with Philip DiSarro, founder of Anastasia Labs, he said network would be leading the zero-knowledge (ZK) scaling race. In the podcast, DiSarro claims that Chang will give Cardano a significant advantage, giving the platform a lead in the current “scaling war.”
This advantage will be mainly due to the additions that the Chang difficult fork brings to Cardano. After the difficult fork, Cardano will integrate Plutus v2, allowing developers to create and run intelligent contracts more efficiently.
The programming language also supports complete computations, which are the core of ZK proofs. In addition, after the update, the functions will be ready to enable off-chain computations, which is necessary for instant ZK folding.
For this reason, the observer is confident that Cardano after Chang will be unique and will not be “copied by anyone.” This advantage, the observer continued, gives the network a “huge, unique selling point” in terms of scaling ZK.
Ethereum Leads in Layer 2, but Transaction Determinism is Key
Ethereum scales primarily through bullish rollups, where transactions are merged and approved offline. The problem with this model is that centralized systems act as intermediaries, diluting the real benefits of approving transactions on-chain.
Some of these centralized systems include a sequencer for ordering transactions. There is also a fault-tolerant system to ensure that all published transactions are correct.
Through Chang, Cardano may adopt ZK scaling as its primary means of streamlining transaction processing. With this choice, off-chain transactions via rollups, similar to Ethereum, will be more effective and decentralized, as the platform supports determinism.
The developers’ emphasis on this means that all transaction inputs will always produce the same output, a feature that is suited to ZK scaling. Since the same inputs produce the same output, transaction outcomes are highly predictable.
ADA remains under pressure as the network continues to struggle to shake weakness, with the coin down 60% from its March 2024 highs and retesting key support at $0.30.
Main image from Flickr, chart from TradingView
