Shelley Testnet: What is it, and why does it matter?
The blockchain
space is full of projects, most of them trying to tackle different elements of
our daily lives.
These projects range in usability from seemingly superfluous
to essential, the proposed uses of the technology encompassing every single
part of the world we live in.
Cardano is, at
first sight, yet another case of a blockchain that attempts to deal with
Bitcoin’s problems of scalability while maintaining privacy, with the added
goal of creating a truly distributed blockchain.
That list of goals, while a
good one, is nothing we haven’t seen before. However, there are a couple
details on Cardano’s implementation and philosophy that bear mentioning.
First, Cardano
is developed following scientific philosophies – that is, everything that goes
into it has to first be reviewed and tested extensively. Changes don’t make it
to the blockchain easily.
Second, since everything has to be tested, Cardano
has a handful of iterations of its own blockchains called testnets –which is
where all these tests take place.
The Shelley Testnet: Improved
staking
The
proof-of-stake consensus method isn’t anything new. Blockchains using this have
existed for years now, and many developers have touted the method as the most
likely successor to proof-of-work.
However, proof-of-stake has its detractors,
and coming up with a working, well-balanced method is anything but easy.
The Shelley testnet, and the eventual Shelley implementation of Cardano, is a network where
Cardano users can experiment with the latest proposal on how to implement
proof-of-stake on Cardano.
This applies both to the staking itself and the
smart contracts in the network – as Shelley constitutes a massive rework from
previous implementation.
This upgrade thus opens the door for Cardano to attain
its main goal That of a distributed, secure, trustable blockchain where the
community eventually are the ones in charge.
What should we expect from
Shelley? Will this shake the blockchain world?
It’s unlikely
that Shelley will fundamentally change the blockchain scene by itself. For now,
Shelley is but a proposal – and being a testnet, so far it’s only a beta.
However, Shelley’s state as a beta comes with a handful of upsides that might
well help push Cardano into greater relevance.
By implementing
Shelley as an iterative, community-driven project where feedback is considered
and where changes aren’t final, Cardano manages to keep its main blockchain
stable. This also ensuring that future updates will be as good as possible – if any
details of the implementation bother community members, after all, they’re free
to speak up long before changes go live.
This goes
against some of the bigger customs in software development, specifically that
of keeping surprises around and trying to shake markets with sudden, surprise
announcements. However, it also gives Cardano credibility while helping it be
the best it can be.
Shelley’s
eventual goals include a faster network, a better wallet backend, heightened
security, and what could well be the best implementation of a distributed
blockchain so far.
Particularly that latter goal could well start a revolution,
as current blockchains have been regularly criticized due to how relatively
easy it is to bring them down if you know which nodes to target.
Whether Shelley will
eventually change the blockchain scene is yet to be seen. However, there’s a
lot riding on the testnet, and there’s more than just a little expectative
about it.
Conclusion
Cardano isn’t a big player in blockchain so far, but its approach has
been noticed and many members of the community hope its unique approach towards
development might indeed yield great advances to the technology and its
implementations.
We’re yet to see
if this truly comes to happen. For now, Shelley is a promising future in the
blockchain market, and Cardano a blockchain to keep track of.
After all, if
Shelley’s goals are reached, Cardano could well become a major player in the
market – and its implementation might become the next de-facto blockchain.
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