Charles Hoskinson, the creator of the open-sourced blockchain platform Cardano, anticipates a major event in June in the Cardano ecosystem.

On June 9, Hoskinson announced on X that Cardano’s upcoming Chang fork is approaching quickly, and Cardano Node will likely reach version 9.0 this month.

That means the Cardano blockchain is ready for the hard fork and is now waiting for 70% of stake pool operators (SPO) to install the new node.

“Then, a hard fork can occur, pushing Cardano into the Age of Voltaire,” Hoskinson noted, referring to the latest phase in Cardano's development stages.

Voltaire is the final era of Cardano’s roadmap

Development phases of Cardano, also known as “eras,” are named after notable figures in poetry and computer science, including Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Joseph Goguen, Matsuo Bashō and Voltaire.

The first three stages implemented a basic blockchain, decentralization and smart contracts. The Basho era focuses on scaling the blockchain. Voltaire, the final era, adds governance, voting, and treasury management functionality to the Cardano blockchain.

Chang will be the first hard fork of Cardano’s roadmap’s Voltaire era. This era will introduce community-run governance by enabling on-chain community consensus and allowing Cardano (ADA) holders to use their tokens to vote on proposals.

The upgrade is named in honor of Phil Chang, an early leader in Cardano governance who passed away in 2022.

Hoskinson expects Chang to enable a “decentralized civilization” for millions

According to the Cardano co-founder, Chang is the “most significant milestone in the history of Cardano,” which will help the blockchain ecosystem to enable a “decentralized civilization spanning the entire world with millions of residents.”

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Hoskinson predicted that with Chang, Cardano would have the “most advanced blockchain governance system” and annual budgets, as well as a treasury and valuable insights from the community. He added:

“It’s been nearly 10 years for some of us on this remarkable journey. I can’t believe that in a single decade, we built a nation. I’m proud of all of you. Cardano gives me hope for our industry and the world. Let’s spend the next decade making a big dent in the universe.”

Cardano’s much-anticipated hard fork is set to come amid a drop in ADA cryptocurrency, which has seen a notable decline in 2024. Since Jan. 1, the cryptocurrency has plummeted more than 26%, from around $0.60 to $0.44 at the time of writing, according to data from CoinGecko.

In early April, ADA fell out of the top 10 coins by market capitalization, giving way to the Telegram-linked cryptocurrency Toncoin (TON).

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