Cardano Community Digest: Contingent Staking, SECP, and Twitter Drama Recap

The Cardano Forum has shared the network’s most notable recent developments for the past two weeks.

A woman looking at Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson through a telescope
  • The Cardano Forum has shared the network’s most notable recent movements.
  • The Cardano Foundation has revealed focus areas for 2023.
  • The price of ADA is not reflecting the same upward trajectory as other volumes in the ecosystem.

The Cardano (ADA) ecosystem has faced an ornate February thus far. Amidst a myriad of debates and developments, the Cardano Forum released its bi-weekly community digest on February 20th, 2023, to keep the community abreast of notable recent events.

The announcement published by dennyb2010 from the Cardano Foundation covers focal points for the Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain and related network insights illustrating the community’s response.

Not only has the price of ADA reached a new yearly high, the network has also launched its SECP upgrade and revealed its focus areas for 2023. Still, Cardano community members are active in ongoing debates over contingent staking in response to talk of regulatory enforcement on cryptocurrency staking in the U.S.

SECP Network Upgrade

On Valentine’s day 2023, the Cardano network launched its Valentine’s or SECP upgrade

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According to the community digest, the upgrade has unlocked features that make it easier for developers to build decentralized applications (dApps) that interact with other blockchains.

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The features unlocked by the upgrade include new built-in functions to Plutus that support ECDSA and Schnorr signatures, which improve network security and enable genuine cross-chain interoperability. 

With the addition of new cryptographic primitives, Plutus developers will be able to use a variety of multi-signature or threshold signature designs, resulting in the “highest level of security,” according to Input Output Global (IOG). 

The SECP upgrade fosters the secure, reliable, and cost-effective development of cross-chain dApps, illustrating Cardano’s development-focused approach to evolving the network.

2023 Focus Areas for Cardano

CSO of Bitrue Robert Quartly Janeiro hosted a Twitter Space on February 15th to discuss “all things Cardano,” accompanied by guest speaker Sebastian Bode, the Director of Engineering at the Cardano Foundation.

Bode offered a preview of Cardano’s 2023 priorities, stating that “interoperability with other blockchains is a huge topic” for the Cardano Foundation in the year ahead. The network’s Voltaire era is focused on stronger community involvement, open governance, and open-source software development.

Bode further disclosed that the Foundation will be evaluating the feasibility of financial service use-cases on Cardano, working on alternative platforms to Plutus, and directing its focus to scaling technology.

He also touched on the Cardano Foundation’s objectives, Cardano’s use cases and accomplishments, the Cardano Summit, the project’s growth strategy in the current market, and finally, praised the community’s contribution to the project.

Only 243 listeners tuned in for the Twitter Space, as the Cardano community has remained divided over the debate of contingent staking still ongoing on Crypto Twitter.

The War on Hypothetical Contingent Staking

On February 21, Cardano and IOG founder Charles Hoskinson participated in a debate hosted by BullishDumpling and RichardMcCrackn around a topic that has caused a lot of heat in the Cardano community: contingent staking.

The Twitter Space was a continuation of an ongoing conversation stemming from a hypothetical proposal by Hoskinson following rumors that the U.S. SEC would impose a ban on cryptocurrency staking in the United States.

Among concerned community members, conclusions were drawn that contingent staking would potentially lead to exclusion from the Cardano community, violate the Layer-1 neutrality or even centralize the network.

Hoskinson reiterated that the “bizarre debate” on contingent staking falls short in making sense to him, considering the inherent structure of Cardano stake pools, which set the prerequisite that ADA holders would need to reach a consensus before any changes are actioned on the protocol.

Despite the consistent ebb and flow of the Cardano ecosystem and, in particular, its different groups of community members, the price of ADA has yet to catch up to the movement.

The Price of ADA Talks

At the time of writing, ADA is trading at $0.38, recording a 55.38% decrease from its one-year high of $1.19 on April 4th, 2022. However, the Altcoin recorded its highest price for 2023 thus far on February 16th, when ADA hit $0.41 before dipping back to the familiar $0.39 on February 17th.

Considering the developments during the past two weeks, the misalignment between the progress of the Cardano network and the price of ADA has not gone unnoticed. The viability of the network for public adoption is expected to remain in question until the price of ADA reflects similar sustainable increases that the rest of the ecosystem is currently displaying.

On the Flipside

Why You Should Care

Cardano is a predominant network in the decentralized space. The blockchain’s development and the trajectory of its Altcoin moving forward are highly anticipated after ADA flipped BUSD.

To find out more about the man behind Cardano, read this:
Charles Hoskinson: The Founder of Cardano 

If you’d like to learn more about the inner workings of Cardano, read this:
What Is Cardano, and How Does It Work?

This article is for information purposes only and should not be considered trading or investment advice. Nothing herein shall be construed as financial, legal, or tax advice. Trading forex, cryptocurrencies, and CFDs pose a considerable risk of loss.

Author
Monique Brelage

Monique Brelage is a South African cryptocurrency news reporter at DailyCoin focused on the Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL) ecosystems. She aims to convert complex topics into digestible and engaging news pieces for readers of all knowledge levels.   Before her journey with DailyCoin, Monique has immersed herself in the realm of NFTs and Web 3.0 since 2019. Her experience in multiple industries enables her to conduct critical analyses and convert it into her writing. She acknowledges the profound impact decentralization, Web 3.0 technology, and everything beyond will have on the future.   Monique completed a Bachelor of Communication from NWU in 2020. Her background in media studies, creative writing, and philosophy helped shape her method of news curation, thereby ensuring a broader perspective to help readers remain critical of what they see. Monique's articulation, writing quality, and work ethic are professional qualities she takes pride in.   Monique lives on a farm in South Africa with her partner and cat. She works on her NFT and tattoo art in her free time, and enjoys the natural world around her. She likes reading material that broadens her perspective, indie music, and video games to blow off some steam.