Cardano Node v.9.1.0 Released with Key Features for Chang Upgrade

• The Cardano team released node v.9.1.0, which includes enhancements, bug fixes, and a Conway genesis file to facilitate the Chang transition.
• The performance and tracing team also published release benchmarks for node v.9.0.0, confirming no performance regressions compared to mainnet release v.8.12.1.

Last week, the Cardano blockchain underwent a major development with the launch of Chang hardfork, per the CNF update. The team also released the node v.9.1.0 which includes a Conway genesis filed to facilitate the Chang transition. This update includes several enhancements and bug fixes, especially to the CLI and API.

Last week, the Cardano performance and tracing team finished and published the release benchmarks for node v.9.0.0. These benchmarks play a significant role in block fetch duration and confirm no performance regressions in comparison to the mainnet release v.8.12.1.

Furthermore, they conducted scaling benchmarks on Plutus execution budgets, assessing the impact of changes to CPU and memory budgets. The Cardano team also merged improved shutdown behavior for the tx-generator to master along with working on governance action benchmarking workload.

On the other hand, the networking team held the Network Working Group (NWG) meeting while sharing crucial recordings with the technical audience covering basic concepts of ouroboros-network. Besides, the team has reviewed all standing pull requests associated with Genesis. The team also presented the integration ideas with the Cardano-node for Mithril integration while considering system risks, to be part of a CIP for evaluation by the Technical Steering Committee (TSC).

Cardano wallets, smart Contracts, and Scaling Updates

As per the Cardano weekly report, the Cardano Lace team is in the final stages of preparing for the release of Lace version 1.14 which consists of improvements and other bug fixes.

Similarly, the Plutus team has rebranded Plutus TX as Plinth, a decision aimed at bringing terminology clarity thereby helping to clearly distinguish between Plutus Tx and Plutus Core more effectively. In a prediction last week, Cardano chief Charles Hoskinson predicted that Cardano can overtake Bitcoin in the future, per the CNF update.

The Hydra team merged incremental decommits while successfully running the latest Hydra head on the previous network. Additionally, the team introduced a new NixOS configuration for running a Hydra node. Their next steps include focusing on incremental commits, follow-ups to the incremental decommit work, and enhancements/tests for network reliability.

The Mithril team has also focused on preparing for the upcoming release of the Cardano transaction certificates in Mithril networks. Besides, they also fixed a bug preventing the import of transactions linked to the tip of the Chain. The Mithril team also investigated performance issues on imports from mainnet and SanchoNet.

Amid the broader market volatility, the Cardano price is also showing similar movements. In the last 24 hours, the ADA price is up by 1.60% trading at $0.4188 with a market cap of over $15 billion. On the other hand, the Cardano community has pushing up for a spot Cardano ETF in the market, per the Crypto News Flash report.