Cardano informed that token locking functionalities will begin to lay the groundwork for full integration of Goguen into the mainnet

By Selena On Dec 3, 2020

In a recent update, Dimitris Poulopoulos, Goguen Project Manager, and Volodymyr Hulchenko, Cardano Project Manager, informed that token locking functionalities will begin to lay the groundwork for full integration of Goguen into the mainnet. With the importance of these protocol changes, IOHK’s Kevin Hammond provided more details about the implementation and effort that goes behind this.

A full decentralization of Cardano is becoming more and more imminent

First, they have given more power to the community that now produces most of the blocks on the network. Besides, on December 6, IOHK will adjust the parameter k.

As announced by the Director of Marketing and Communications of IOHK, Tim Harrison, they have conducted a study of network activity following Shelley’s deployment. The study found that the parameter was originally set too low at 150 and now needed to be changed to 500.

However, this will have a direct impact on the staking pools and ADA holders because it limits the amount of ADA they can hold before becoming saturated at 64 million ADA. The goal of the change is to support small and medium-sized staking pools. In that way, the company expects the rewards to be “fairer” than at Bitcoin and Ethereum.

In a post via Twitter, IOHK has informed ADA holders that after the increase in the parameter k, they should review the delegation of their funds. If funds are delegated to a pool with more than 64 million ADA, it is advised to move the funds to maintain maximum rewards. As of December 6, pools with 64 million ADA will be oversaturated.

Therefore, users who want to keep their rewards at a maximum should use Daedalus wallet and check the statistics of their pool. If the saturation has a value lower than 30%, the user can keep the funds on the pool. Otherwise, it is important to withdraw the funds before December 1st at 21:44:51 UTC. Harrison summarized the process in 6 simple steps:

So fam:
▶️Open Daedalus
▶️Click on the tile of the #Cardano pool you’re now delegating to
▶️Look at the saturation
▶️If higher than 30%, find a new pool. There are hundreds of lovely ones. Not hard
▶️If less than 30% and you love your pool, tell your friends!
▶️Er, that’s it! pic.twitter.com/O7DImmUfou

— Tim Harrison (@timbharrison) November 30, 2020

IOHK has reported that the reallocation of the delegated funds is entirely a personal decision of the investors. However, they recommend considering “a long-term vision, rewarding the real value of the ecosystem” and having an open approach in terms of fees charged by the staking pools:

“Think not of what Cardano can do for you, but of what you can do for Cardano.”

Furthermore, It is expected that the parameter k will have a new modification in March 2021. At that time, k will be probably raised to 1,000. However, IOHK will maintain open criteria and dialogue with the community to determine if a change to K is necessary or appropriate about network activity.

Token locking functionalities will begin to lay the groundwork for full integration of Goguen into the mainnet

In another development, IOHK has been working on the token locking functionalities before the Hard Fork Combinator [HFC] event which has been scheduled for the first week of December.

Unlike other hard forks, Cardano automatically processes the hard fork without stopping block production. This increases the smoothness level, allows new features to be introduced easily, and develops the platform’s capabilities.

He stated:

“Our goal has always been to make these changes as seamless as possible. To enable a smooth transition, Cardano automatically preserves the history of previous blocks. This allows the protocol to be upgraded without radical interference to the chain. The previous state does not vanish.”

The previous state is expanded to include new capabilities in Cardano; therefore, no chain splitting takes place. Instead, it merges root blocks that comply with the ongoing block production rules with new blocks that comply with the new block production rules. This is what the team calls the hard-fork combinatorial set, which was used in the transition from Byron to Shelley.

As Cardano and Ouroboros evolve, the HFC approach will ensure that Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire blocks will be held in a single chain. Blog added:

“Features will be added at each stage in successive hard forks. Some new features may not even need a hard fork (where the consensus protocol does not change).”

Token locking is a feature in the next protocol update that we are now preparing to deploy on mainnet. Internally, we are calling this development stage Allegra. Alongside the integration of metadata on the network, this is the next significant upgrade for Goguen. The token locking feature added on the next protocol change will prepare the foundation for smart contracts and asset creation alongside ADA running on Cardano.

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