Cardano, a third-generation cryptocurrency and smart contract platform and the home to altcoin ADA, ended 2019 with the launch of its Shelley testnet, which went live on December 13, 2019, can now boast more than 500 staking pools, marking a major milestone for decentralizing the network.

Investors confident about Cardano

Investors were waiting expectantly for the launch of Cardano’s Shelley incentivized testnet, in which participating users were able to earn real ADA rewards, which they reportedly receive by the end of the testnet period. Since the testnet launched, data from ADAPools has shown that there are more than 500 staking pools. If the number of pools keeps its growth rate, the network could reach its equilibrium with 1000 pools sooner than expected.

A better PoW

As Cardano enters its Shelley state, now there will be a crypto consensus algorithm move towards proof-of-stake with the integration and welcoming of the Ouroboros BFT (OBFT) consensus. The consensus is said to be the first proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus that matches the security of proof-of-work consensus.

Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) is a class of simple consensus algorithms, and Ouroboros BFT is a BFT algorithm that belongs to the Ouroboros family. The Ouroboros family also contains Ouroboros Classic (used in the Cardano Byron era) and Ouroboros Genesis (used in the Cardano Shelley era).

According to Charles Hoskinson, co-founder, and CEO of IOHK, the blockchain firm behind Cardano, the network could see the Ouroboros Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Consensus Protocol (OBFT) as early as mid-February.

On January 17, Hoskinson said in Livestream that he has “pretty high certainty” that the OBFT consensus protocol would be implemented very soon. He said:

“Looks like February — at pretty high certainty — we’re going to have the OBFT hard fork occur. We’re still talking to our exchange partners about that and we just want to make sure all the infrastructure is lined up for it, but infrastructure looks pretty good, so mid-February we anticipate an OBFT hard fork.”

Hoskinson also revealed that Daedalus, the secure multi-platform, hierarchical deterministic wallet for the Ada cryptocurrency is in its weekly release cycle.

“Looks like we are on the last mile of the hardware support. So at some point, you will be able to restore your ledger devices into Daedalus. You could manage ledger accounts and keep your private keys on the ledger device,” he said.

Other Developments

Apart from upgrading its blockchain network, Cardano has been involved in other developments. Emurgo, the organization’s commercial blockchain arm has partnered with the government of Uzbekistan to form a blockchain task force.Emurgo stated in a press release, that its new cooperation with the Uzbek government and Kobea Group & Infinity Blockchain Holdings, the official Technology Advisory Agency for Uzbekistan’s Digital Economic Development Project, will provide advisory services regarding infrastructure for digital asset banking, blockchain education units and will also examine the potential for Cardano’s third-generation blockchain in the country.