As many of you know, Shelley will be going live on the Cardano 1 mainnet on the 29 July—this Wednesday—at 21:44 UTC to be exact. Shelley is a considerable undertaking for the integration, exchange relationship, and technical teams at the Cardano Foundation, as the Cardano blockchain will be undergoing a hard fork.

As a result of Cardano’s hard fork, there may be third parties who take some time to update their infrastructure, and we would like to make everyone aware of these potential scenarios here.

Owing to the complexity involved in maintaining support for ada, exchanges will only be able to update their infrastructure in the final stages of the Shelley hard fork process. As a result, some exchanges will likely experience downtime in their ada wallet deposit and withdrawal support—however, trading will not be affected during this time.

Exchange updates will not occur simultaneously. Some exchanges may be functioning at full capacity before others. As ada is traded on a large number of exchanges, some exchanges may communicate updates separately with their customers.

The Cardano Foundation has kept exchanges informed throughout the Shelley rollout.

We would like to remind users that their funds will remain safe during this process. Rest assured that even if exchanges experience downtime related to their ada wallet functionality, that this is a transient event and normal services will resume.

The Cardano Foundation would like to remind ada holders that they are not required to do anything to prepare for Shelley. On this note, we also kindly request that the Cardano community stays vigilant throughout the Shelley hard fork period, paying particular attention to fraudulent actors who seek to exploit the deployment of Shelley.

You will never be contacted by a member of the Cardano Foundation, EMURGO, or IOHK unless you have reached out to them, and you will never be asked to move your ada.

This is particularly relevant during Shelley’s rollout, as fraudulent parties may pose as official Cardano representatives and encourage you to transfer ada ready for the hard fork.

If you need to redeem a wallet balance prior to the hard fork, you may still do so in Daedalus. Users may redeem wallet balances through Daedalus from Byron era random wallets, Byron era sequential wallets, Shelley era wallets, Yoroi wallets, hardware wallets (Ledger and Trezor), and Daedalus paper wallets.

We ask for the Cardano community’s assistance in identifying and reporting any unusual activity that may arise during the hard fork—together, we can make Cardano better for the few and for the many.