When it comes to Cardano(ADA), the crypto community is always divided: one side criticizes its development as slow as a snail, while the other insists on holding and not letting go. As an observer who has been tracking this project for years, I have also experienced a shift in mindset—once calling it the "King of Doves," comparing it to other public chains that boast thousands of TPS and aggressive fundraising strategies, which indeed seemed overly conservative. But after reviewing the 2025 roadmap, I realized a widely overlooked truth: the crypto market has never been about who runs the fastest, but who can survive the longest. Many of the so-called high-performance new chains with instant confirmation and ultra-high throughput have already disappeared or become obsolete. Meanwhile, Cardano’s seemingly slow iterations over the past few years are fundamentally about building an extremely solid infrastructure—from the mathematical security verification of the Ouroboros consensus mechanism, to phased upgrade strategies, and balancing compliance with decentralization. Every step has been carefully thought out.

2025 will be a critical turning point for Cardano, with three key areas to watch. The foremost is the comprehensive rollout of the Voltaire upgrade. This is not just routine performance optimization but a complete decentralization of on-chain governance—an ecosystem treasury of 1.4 billion USD, with decision-making power fully in the hands of the token holder community. It sounds simple, but looking across the entire public chain ecosystem, how many chains dare to entrust such a massive fund pool to the community? Most are either decided solely by the project team or governance remains superficial. The significance of this step for Cardano is that it is demonstrating through concrete actions the feasibility of decentralized governance, rather than just paying lip service.