Cardano Marks Nine Years Since Its First Block

On September 23, 2026, the Cardano Foundation marked nine years since Cardano’s first block. Its anniversary figures trace a network that began with an ADA allocation and later added delegated staking and on-chain governance.

From the First Block to 124 Million Transactions

Cardano’s first block was recorded on September 23, 2017, during the Byron era. It contained 14,505 transactions distributing approximately 31.1 billion ADA in the network’s initial allocation.

The Foundation now reports 13,978,119 blocks and 123,982,111 transactions. Both are lifetime totals; they do not indicate the current pace of network use.

Shelley Introduced Stake Pools

The Shelley upgrade brought stake pools and delegation in 2020. ADA holders could delegate their stake to operators responsible for producing blocks. The Foundation’s latest snapshot counts 2,890 stake pools, though that figure does not show how many independent operators run them.

Governance Votes Now Shape Cardano’s Rules

The Plomin upgrade enabled full on-chain governance in January 2025. The Foundation now reports 36,322 votes across 158 governance actions.

Those votes have led to concrete changes. An updated Cardano Constitution took effect in January 2026, and the van Rossem hard fork moved the network to Protocol Version 11 in July following governance approval. Nine years after the first block, Cardano’s chain records decisions about its rules alongside its transactions.