Binance to support Cardano’s Chang hard fork

Binance has announced that it will support Cardano’s upcoming network update and hard fork.

Cryptocurrency exchange giant Binance announced on August 30 that it is ready to support Cardano (ADA) for the Chang hard fork. Ahead of the hard fork, Binance will suspend ADA deposits and withdrawals.

The exchange expects a temporary pause on Cardano deposits and withdrawals to come into effect at 20:45 UTC on September 1, 2024. Notably, September 1, the date Cardano expected to activate the Chang hard fork, was postponed from August 27 due to the unpreparedness of Binance and other crypto exchanges.

What should Binance users pay attention to?

According to Binance, the suspension of deposits and withdrawals will not affect ADA trading. The exchange will also take care of any technical requirements on behalf of its users, meaning Cardano holders will not need to do anything.

However, the resumption of deposits and withdrawals will only occur after the hard fork is complete and the network is considered stable.

Cardano Chang is ready for the hard fork

The Chang hard fork is key to Cardano’s roadmap, and the upgrade is part of the path to the Voltaire era. Voltaire will allow Cardano to become a self-sustaining ecosystem with governance improvements like voting and a treasury system.

Chang attracted great attention from the community and expectations were quite high, as was the case before the activation of smart contracts on Cardano with the Vasil hard fork.

The working group for the hard fork, which includes community representatives, Emurgo, the Cardano Foundation, and Intersect, voted for Chang’s approval on August 28. This follows a previous delay after exchanges fell behind in preparations.

According to the update, staking pool operators, decentralized applications, and exchanges have reached the expected application threshold.

While SPOs reached 92% readiness, exchanges reached the threshold at just 46% as of August 23. While exchanges were over 90% readiness, the total value locked in dApps was at 50% readiness.