Tim Harrison, the VP of Community and Ecosystem Communications at Cardano developer Input Output, has announced that the first phase of the Chang hard fork is expected to go live on the mainnet on Aug. 27. 

"Are you prepared for Chang? Rocket is on the pad. Governance is coming," Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson commented on his X social media account. 

The final decision regarding the hard fork launch is expected to be made on Aug. 23. 

A week ago, more than 70% of Cardano's stake pool operators (SPOs) adopted Node Version 9.1.0, clearing the biggest hurdle on the path to Chang. According to Input Output, the exchange liquidity metric is also improving. Moreover, the leading decentralized applications (dApps) also appear to be ready. 

With the latest hard fork, Cardano is expected to switch to community-driven governance. The first part of the upgrade will focus on releasing an interim version of the network's constitution and setting up an interim Constitutional Committee (CC). Delegated representatives are expected to be introduced during the second phase of the hard fork's implementation. 

In the meantime, as reported by U.Today, ADA, the native token of the Cardano ecosystem, recently dropped out of the top 10. According to CoinGecko data, it is currently in 12th place with a market capitalization of $12.3 billion (behind Tron and Dogecoin). The altcoin lost its much-spot in the top 10 despite the hype surrounding the Chang upgrade.  

In early June, Hoskinson pitched the Chang hard fork as Cardano's most significant milestone to date.