Cardano Marks Nine Years Since Genesis Block Was Minted

Cardano is marking its ninth year since its genesis block was minted on September 23, 2017. The mainnet launched six days later on September 29, 2017, introducing ADA and beginning Cardano's journey as a public blockchain.

The crypto community is celebrating this milestone with birthday wishes on X, including from non-custodial staking infrastructure provider Everstake and the Cardano Foundation.

The Cardano Foundation highlighted crucial milestones attained by the network, stating that since its genesis block was minted, Cardano has processed over 123 million transactions and activated 11 major upgrades. These upgrades include Byron, Shelley, Allegra, Mary, Alonzo, Lobster, Vasil, Valentine, Chang, Plomin, and van Rossem.

Notable upgrades include the Shelley upgrade in July 2020, which replaced federated block production with community stake pools, and the introduction of smart contract functionality via the Alonzo upgrade on September 12, 2021. Application performance was improved with Vasil in September 2022 and Valentine in February 2023.

Cardano continues to power its scaling roadmap, with future updates in the pipeline, including Dijkstra Phase 1, which introduces the Dijkstra ledger era and Linear Leios, targeting Q4 2026. The open-source Rust node for Cardano, Amaru, will begin producing mainnet blocks in November 2026.