A governance action type that proposes scheduling a hard fork at a specific epoch. Like other Conway actions it goes through DRep, Constitutional Committee, and stake pool operator voting; once it passes, the protocol switches to the new major version at the chosen epoch, provided node operators have already installed the required software upgrade beforehand.
Hard fork initiations were among the first action types enabled by the Chang hard fork in September 2024, making Cardano one of the first blockchains where protocol upgrades themselves are governed on-chain rather than by founder decree.
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- Governance ActionA formal proposal submitted on-chain for the Cardano community to vote on.View term
- Hard ForkA network upgrade that changes the blockchain's rules in a way older software versions no longer understand; every node has to update before the change takes effect.View term
- CIP-1694The Cardano Improvement Proposal that defines Cardano's on-chain governance system, introducing DReps, the Constitutional Committee, and formal governance actions.View term
- DRepA representative that ada holders delegate their on-chain voting power to, so the DRep votes on governance actions on their behalf; like choosing someone to represent your interests in parliament.View term
- ChangThe hard fork on September 1, 2024 that activated the Conway era and brought CIP-1694 governance live on Cardano.View term