Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, has come up with a unique and creative name for an upcoming hard fork. Instead of sticking to conventional terminology, Hoskinson suggested calling it the “Tasseled Wobblegong” hard fork. This name was inspired by a species of carpet shark known for its predatory nature and its ability to lie in wait for its prey.
With the community now taking part in naming hard forks, Hoskinson believes there is room for creativity. A hard fork refers to a radical change to a blockchain protocol that is not backward-compatible. Cardano has utilized the hard fork combinator (HFC) tool to smoothly integrate protocols after hard fork events, allowing for a seamless transition.
Cardano has already successfully implemented hard forks such as “Shelley,” which introduced proof-of-stake, “Mary,” which brought DeFi functionality, and “Alonzo,” which enabled the development of smart contracts. The upcoming “Chang” hard fork aims to introduce decentralized on-chain governance, allowing ADA holders to vote on important matters.
The introduction of the Chang upgrade is steadily gaining momentum, with stake pool operators, exchanges, and decentralized applications being required to upgrade to Node 9.0 in the pre-production stage. Approximately a quarter of stake pool operators have already made the necessary upgrade.