Cardano Don Mark Six Years Since Shelley With 9.25 Million Blocks and No Full Network Halt

Cardano don produce about 9.25 million blocks since dem activate the Shelley hard fork on July 29, 2020. The official Cardano account mark the sixth anniversary with numbers wey cover 439 epochs and around 190 million slots since the network move from Byron enter the Shelley era.

Shelley enable stake pool registration, delegation and staking rewards. E also start gradual transfer of block production go community operators, process wey complete for March 2021.

Shelley Move Cardano Pass the Byron Era

Dem activate Shelley by 21:44:51 UTC for the beginning of epoch 208. Before then, Cardano dey operate for the Byron era, wey federated nodes managed by Input Output, the Cardano Foundation and EMURGO dey responsible to produce blocks.

The archived announcement, “Shelley is delivered”, describe network wey dem design to support participation on large scale by community-operated stake pools. The upgrade allow ADA holders to delegate funds and receive staking rewards without to transfer custody of their assets.

Cardano carry out the transition through im Hard Fork Combinator, wey allow successive protocol eras to operate as one continuous blockchain. Shelley no create new token or competing chain. Nodes adopt the new rules for predetermined slot while the Byron transaction history remain part of the same ledger.

Community Stake Pools Take Over Block Production

The first allocation of blocks to community stake pools begin on August 13, 2020, during the transition from epoch 210 to epoch 211. Cardano reduce im decentralization parameter, wey dem know as d, from 1.0 to 0.9, assign ten percent of block production give stake pools.

Their share come increase as dem dey progressively reduce the parameter. According to the official Cardano documentation, d reach zero on March 31, 2021, put all block production for the hand of community stake pools. Dem later remove the parameter during the Vasil upgrade because federated nodes no dey participate again for the process.

For Cardano protocol, slots be the time intervals wey Ouroboros dey select eligible stake pools to produce blocks.

Cardano experience some technical incidents during the six-year period. For November 2025, malformed transaction exploit one deserialization issue come cause temporary chain partition. The official incident report talk say the network remain online, funds no dey at risk and complete convergence restore within 14.5 hours.

Van Rossem Bring Mainnet Upgrades Enter On-Chain Governance

Shelley decentralize block production, but protocol changes still remain under the control of Cardano founding entities. The Chang hard fork introduce the first CIP-1694 governance functions for September 2024, while Plomin activate the full governance framework for January 2025, including DReps and on-chain processes for parameter changes, Treasury withdrawals and future hard forks.

Dem apply that framework to one mainnet upgrade with the activation of the van Rossem hard fork on July 18, 2026. According to one Intersect network update, Protocol Version 11 receive 77.63 percent DRep support, approval from stake pool operators wey represent 52.7 percent of active stake and support from six Constitutional Committee members.

Van Rossem introduce new ledger rules, VRF key uniqueness requirements, Plutus performance improvements and additional cryptographic functions. E become the first Cardano mainnet upgrade for the full governance era wey receive approval from all three on-chain governance bodies.

Under the system wey dey operate six years after Shelley, ADA holders dey delegate without surrendering custody, community stake pools dey produce blocks, and mainnet upgrades require approval from DReps, stake pool operators and the Constitutional Committee. Van Rossem become the first Cardano mainnet upgrade wey dem authorize through that full governance framework, extend the 2020 transition from block production reach the rules wey go govern future protocol changes.