A protocol parameter from the Shelley era written d that determined how block production was split between the federated nodes run by the genesis entities and the growing set of community stake pools.
d was introduced at the Shelley hard fork (July 2020) with an initial value of 1.0 (fully federated), declined incrementally as decentralization progressed, and reached 0 on March 31, 2021, leaving block production entirely in the hands of community SPOs. The parameter was removed from the protocol at the Vasil hard fork once the federation no longer played any role in producing blocks.
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- Genesis KeysThe seven cryptographic keys created at Cardano's launch that signed every block during the federated Byron era and gradually yielded block production through Shelley.View term
- ByronThe first era of Cardano development, establishing the foundation of the network.View term
- ShelleyThe second era of Cardano development, introducing decentralization and stake pools.View term
- VasilThe hard fork on September 22, 2022 that improved smart contract efficiency and network performance.View term
- Stake PoolA server node that participates in the Cardano network by validating transactions and producing blocks.View term