Abra CEO: Cardano’s “Shelley” upgrade is good as it spurs competition in crypto ๐จ This article is 4 years old...
Abra CEO: Cardano’s “Shelley” upgrade is good as it spurs competition in crypto
2 min read
Updated: Jul. 4, 2020 at 10:17 am UTC
Photo by Micaela Parente on Unsplash
For the longest time, Ethereum has been the king of smart-contract blockchains.
As CryptoSlate sector data indicates, ETH’s market capitalization is an order of magnitude higher than that of the second-largest smart-contract crypto, Cardano (ADA). The difference between Ethereum and its peers is further pronounced when you look at metrics like active users, confirmed transactions, and transaction fees paid.
Chris Burniske, a partner at Placeholder Capital, shared the image below in December, showing the aggregate mining fees paid on Ethereum versus those paid on Tezos, Waves, and Lisk. ย As can be seen, the latter three networks have collected less in aggregate than $500,000 in mining fees while Ethereum has collected in excess of $70 million.
Not to mention, Ethereum has seen strong adoption from some of the world’s biggest companies while other blockchains haven’t.
Yet, the introduction of Cardano’s “Shelley” era will change this, with one prominent CEO saying that competition is needed.
Cardano’s “Shelley” upgrade is finally rolling out
At long last, after years of development and months of testing and optimizing, Shelley is finally here.
For those that are unaware, Shelley is Cardano’s next phase of development, similar to how there is Ethereum 1.0 (current) and Ethereum 2.0, which is currently in development. As the Cardano Foundation describes Shelley on its site:
โShelley will also see the introduction of a delegation and incentives scheme, a reward system to drive stake pools and community adoptionโฆ Come the end of the Shelley era, we expect Cardano to be 50-100 times more decentralized than other large blockchain networks.โ
Confirmed at the Shelly Virtual Summit, a digital conference dedicated to the upgrade, code for Shelley was released.
Deployed on Jul. 1 is node software that contains all of the Shelley features that will go live when a hard fork occurs at the end of July.
Also confirmed at the event is that Coinbase will eventually support ADA staking.
Competition is needed
Commentators on the space are optimistic about the upgrade.
Bill Barhydt, the chief executive of Abra and a former Goldman Sachs and CIA employee, commented on the Cardano upgrade and what it means for the rest of the cryptocurrency space in a Jul. 2 blog:ย
“Many are super bullish on the project and expect great things while others consider the project vaporware such that any failure to deliver would result in a precipitous drop in the tokenโs value. My take is that competition in the cryptocurrency space is always a great thing and is exactly what we need to accelerate the pace of adoption and improvement.”
This Week in Crypto – Newsletter now out. Topics include:
โขย Latest Bitcoin pricing
โขย Cardano on a tear
โข DeFi… What's going on?
โขย Gold and BitcoinJoin us for our next AMA tomorrow (Friday) at 9AM PT on our YouTube channel.https://t.co/r9vke3YPOm
— Abra (@AbraGlobal) July 2, 2020
Founder of the blockchain, Charles Hoskinson thinks this is the case. He said to Messari‘s chief executive Ryan Selkis that Ethereum may soon feel pressure from Cardano due to the upgrade.ย
Mentioned in this article
Cardano 
Waves 
Lisk 
Cardano Foundation 
Coinbase 
Goldman Sachs 
Messari 
Bill Barhydt 
Charles Hoskinson 
Chris Burniske 
Ryan Selkis 
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In this article
Cardano is a decentralized public blockchain and cryptocurrency project and is fully open source.
Waves
$1.51968
Waves is an open blockchain protocol and development toolset for Web 3.0 applications and decentralized solutions, aiming to raise security, reliability and speed of IT systems.
Lisk
$1.03622
Lisk is a blockchain application platform that inspires, enables and supports developers to build blockchain applications written in JavaScript..
Cardano Foundation
There are three organizations that are contributing to the development of Cardano.
Coinbase
Coinbase is a digital currency exchange and wallet service that allows individuals to buy, sell, and store digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.
Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals.
Messari
Messari is a fast growth startup in New York that is building the next generation data layer for the global cryptoasset community.
After working for the CIA, NASA and Goldman Sachs, Bill Barhydt decided to join Netscape working on telecom and Internet banking deals, mostly in Europe.
Charles Hoskinson, based in Colorado, stands out as a prominent figure in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sphere.
Chris Burniskeย is a partner at Placeholder, a New York venture firm that specializes in cryptoassets.
Ryan Selkis is the founder and CEO of Messari, a reliable data and market intelligence for crypto investors.