Following a recent increment in transaction volume, and also in line with future growth potentialities, Cardano (ADA) has increased its mainnet block size by 8KB.
According to a Monday announcement by Cardano’s founding company, Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), the upgrade was proposed last weekend. Implemented on Monday, it has increased Cardano’s block size by 10% to 88KB, where initially it was 80KB.
IOHK notes that the scalability upgrade “is the latest in a series of planned network optimizations” for Cardano in 2022. It will not only increase the network’s throughput but also ramp up the performance of DApps building atop the blockchain.
Since Monday, IOHK has been monitoring the blockchain’s reaction to the update. This will continue for the next three days, and the results will be crucial in determining the best timing for the next similar effort.
Of note, the upgrade places Cardano a rank higher than where it was in terms of scalability. This is one of the blockchain trilemma factors of scalability, decentralization, and security. Events in the blockchain industry show that no one network has managed to fully attain all three objectives.
However, happenings also show efforts made toward achieving this, including Cardano’s block size increment:
“As the ecosystem grows, we’re focused on delivering the scaling phase of our roadmap; improving speed and network capacity while maintaining security and decentralization,” IOHK tweeted.
Another case is the multiple upgrades on rival network Ethereum, such as EIP-1559 and the upcoming launch of ETH 2.0.
As IOHK noted, Cardano has seen a surge in transaction volume. Crypto data firm Messari points to a 216% hike in transaction volume in the past year.
Additionally, the network took on smart contracts functionality with the Alonzo upgrade in September 2021. This many developers to build on Cardano, though it has not been without hiccups. Both developments have necessitated an upgrade in scalability.