Constitutional Convention 2024
Buenos Aires, Argentina and Nairobi, Kenya | Dec 4th - 6th
A Constitution for fully decentralized on-chain governance: ensuring every ada holder has a voice in shaping the future of the Cardano network.
The story of Cardano
The story of Cardano
Building Cardano
The eras of Cardano represented major phases of development, each addressing an important challenge.
Cardano has an ethos of openness and transparency. It was designed by a global team of experts who are leaders in disciplines ranging from distributed systems to programming languages and game theory. Input | Output developed the technology with Emurgo driving commercial adoption.
Today, the Cardano Foundation supervises development and promotion, working towards decentralization. When on-chain governance is complete, the community will decide its future.
The Byron era
Foundation
The Shelley era
Decentralization
The Goguen era
Smart contracts
The Basho era
Scaling
The Voltaire era
Governance
The five eras of Cardano
The eras of Cardano represented major phases of development, each addressing an important challenge.
The Byron era
Foundation
The first version of Cardano launched in September 2017, with the Byron era. The Cardano community began, with users buying and selling ada on a federated network using the ground-breaking Ouroborus consensus protocol.
The idea for cardano is born
Cardano launched and the Byron era begins
- Ouroborus
- Daedalus
- Yoroi
The idea for cardano is born
Cardano launched and the Byron era begins
Ouroborus
Daedalus
Yoroi
The Shelley era
Decentralization
The second era of Cardano was the Shelley era. This encompassed the early steps towards optimized decentralization, transitioning smoothly from the federated model of Byron to more nodes being run by the Cardano community.
Cardano moves towards decentralization
- Introduction of stake pool delegation
- Introduction of Incentives scheme
The idea for cardano is born
Cardano launched and the Byron era begins
Cardano moves towards decentralization
Introduction of stake pool delegation
Introduction of Incentives scheme
The Goguen era
Smart contracts
This era integrated smart contracts into the network, enabling the community to build decentralized applications (DApps) on Cardano’s foundation.
Smart contracts are integrated into Cardano
- Plutus
- Marlowe
- Aiken
The idea for cardano is born
Cardano launched and the Byron era begins
Cardano moves towards decentralization
Smart contracts are integrated into Cardano
Plutus
Marlowe
Aiken
The Basho era
Scaling
The Basho era focused on optimizing the underlying performance of Cardano to support growth and adoption. Crucially, sidechains were introduced to vastly improve and extend the capabilities of the network.
The Basho era enables greater scaling
- Sidechains
- UTXO interoperability
The idea for cardano is born
Cardano launched and the Byron era begins
Cardano moves towards decentralization
Smart contracts are integrated into Cardano
The Basho era enables greater scaling
Sidechains
UTXO interoperability
The Voltaire era
Governance
The Voltaire era provided the final pieces to enable the Cardano network to be self-sustaining. It includes on-chain voting, institutions, and constitutional representation.
Cardano works towards on-chain community governance with the Voltaire era
- The Constitutional Convention
- The future Cardano is self-sustaining
The idea for cardano is born
Cardano launched and the Byron era begins
Cardano moves towards decentralization
Smart contracts are integrated into Cardano
The Basho era enables greater scaling
Cardano works towards on-chain community governance with the Voltaire era
The Constitutional Convention
The future Cardano is self-sustaining
- 450 attendees
- 63 elected delegates
- 50 countries