Chang & Plomin upgrades
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View details on Chang and Plomin upgrades in the dedicated space
The Chang upgrade is the culmination of many years of hard work, including all the community participation that has taken place through community workshops and testing on SanchoNet. This moment represents a significant step towards minimum viable on-chain governance as defined in CIP-1694. As stake pools upgrade their nodes to support the new protocol, Cardano will have moved into the Voltaire Era, creating a self-sustaining blockchain and trailblazing the way forward for the industry.
The first of two upgrades (Chang Upgrade #1) will deploy a set of governance features to Cardano and enter the technical bootstrapping phase as described in CIP-1694.
The second upgrade (the Plomin upgrade, previously Chang Upgrade #2) moves CIP-1694 out of technical bootstrapping phase and unlocks the full features of CIP-1694 on-chain governance including full DRep participation and all types of governance action.
There is a tradition of naming hard forks in memory of notable historical figures or significant contributors to the Cardano community.
The upgrade honors Phil Chang, who sadly passed away in 2022. Phil was a pioneer in Cardano governance at IOG, and his thinking contributed significantly to Voltaire's conceptualization. As part of Voltaire, the Chang upgrade transitions the ledger into the Conway era, establishing decentralized decision-making foundations by implementing CIP-1694 on-chain governance mechanisms.
Originally the “Second Chang Hard Fork” (Chang 2), renaming to the Plomin Hard Fork, in memory of Cardano community contributor Matthew Plomin, reflects a natural progression of Cardano’s governance growth.
Matthew Plomin was an exemplar of the Cardano community, representing every individual who stands ready to pick up the torch and carry the ecosystem forward. Matthew was a much loved and respected member of the Cardano community. He passed unexpectedly on November 14th, 2024
The Chang upgrade will follow a similar path to that of the Vasil upgrade. The final decision to hard fork will be made – in consultation with members of the SPO, DApp and community – against 3 key criteria:
No critical issues outstanding on node (including ledger, CLI, consensus, etc.)
Benchmarking and performance-cost analysis is acceptable
Community (including exchanges and DApp projects) has been properly informed and has had sufficient time to prepare for the hard fork combinator event
The Plomin upgrade utilises bootstrap on-chain governance mechanisms to vote, ratify and enact major changes to the Cardano blockchain. These as being described in the Voltaire era and CIP-1694 documentation.
It is the first major event to use such on-chain governance. Although likely the upgrade will require the similar criteria as the above Chang upgrade the decision on what this is, and if it has been met is now in the hands of community governance actors, in this case stake pool operators and constitutional committee members. To find details on these please continue reading into the Plomin upgrade overview in the following section of the knowledge base.
Further details and attestations of community readiness for major upgrades such as hard forks can be found in our dedicated space.