- Cardano’s ecosystem has always been driven by its goal of becoming fully decentralized and scalable, with UTXO-HD being a key step forward.
- Like other altcoins, adoption is crucial to its success, and Cardano’s growing presence in Argentina shows it’s making progress.
In one of Cardano’s Weekly Development Reports for May, one highlight stood out: the release of Node v.10.4.1, featuring a production-ready version of UTXO-HD. So, what is UTXO-HD? Short for Unspent Transaction Output – High Density, it’s a major upgrade built on Cardano’s unique Extended UTXO (EUTXO) model. Essentially, UTXO-HD is designed to make the blockchain leaner, faster, and more scalable by optimizing how it stores and processes transaction data.
Think of it as compressing a messy filing cabinet into a sleek, efficient system. By shrinking the memory footprint of the UTXO set, which is all the unspent coins in the system, nodes can handle more transactions with less strain on resources. That means faster processing, smoother performance, even for devices that have lower specs.
This not only boosts speed and reliability but also encourages greater decentralization, since more people can run a node without needing top-tier hardware. Right now, UTXO-HD runs on an LMDB backend, but there are already plans to upgrade to a faster and more efficient LSM tree-based system in future updates.
Cardano and Argentina’s Partnership
Cardano’s roots in Argentina are deepening quite fast, and not just in the crypto community, but at the government level. In June 2024, the Cardano Foundation partnered with the Argentine province of Entre Ríos. The partnership was made official through a public signing between Governor Rogelio Frigerio and Rafael Fraga, Cardano Foundation’s LATAM business lead, which sets the stage for blockchain to play a role in the region’s public infrastructure.
Another moment on October 8, 2024, when Cardano recorded Argentina’s first legally recognized smart contract. This wasn’t just symbolic, it was practical. The contract was a loan agreement between Cardano ambassadors Mauro Andreoli and Lucas Macchia for 10,000 ADA, which was officially recognized under Argentine law. It showed that blockchain tech isn’t just for innovation labs, it’s now part of Argentina’s legal system.
Another key event was the Argentina Digital Nation (ADN) 2024, held on July 31 at the Hilton Hotel in Buenos Aires. Organized by the LATAM Cardano Community, it attracted more than 400 attendees, including Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson himself. As highlighted previously, the event aimed to educate, inspire, and bring together blockchain enthusiasts, public officials, and tech leaders to talk about how decentralized technologies like Cardano could fit into Argentina’s future.
Meanwhile, Hoskinson recently addressed Cardano’s relationship with RLUSD, Ripple’s stablecoin. During his usual AMA sessions on YouTube, he shared that while early talks had started in 2024, the future of RLUSD on Cardano depends on broader corporate decisions that Circle, the company behind USDC, will make. Still, the tone was optimistic, especially following friendlier exchanges between the Ripple (XRP) and Cardano communities.
At the time of writing, ADA is trading at $0.7697, up 5.11% in the past 24 hours, and a 19.29% surge in its trading volume to $ 680 million.
