Cardano’s Alonzo Mainnet hardfork, which will introduce smart contract capabilities on Cardano, is set to be deployed on September 12 if everything goes right, according to Nigel Hemsley, the head of Delivery and Projects at Cardano’s developer company IOHK.
The hardfork will finally open up the platform for any willing developers to build decentralized applications such as exchanges (some of which are already testing on the testnet), NFTs, and DeFi-dapps.
Nigel affirmed the team is running many types of tests on the current testnet to obtain an overview of how the system is supposed to run and ensure a smooth transition during the hardfork process.
The testnet, which is acting as a pre-production environment for the upcoming Mainnet, is however scheduled to undergo another hardfork to give the system a period of stability and allow Cardano developers, exchanges, and community members to run more extensive tests and smart contract exercises.
“And then we have to make sure we’re ready and we’ll submit a proposal for our Mainnet hardfork and we’ll also package it up with our Plutus application backend, so that we can have a complete smart contact release, ready for people to use our full smart contract toolbox, ready for the Alonzo hardfork. And this is the date that we are aiming at, September 12.”
September Welcomes Goguen Era for Cardano
The hardfork will mark the end of the Shelley era for Cardano, which allowed people to run fully independent nodes on the network and staking, and usher in the smart contracts era dubbed Goguen.
The set date comes a year and a month after Shelley’s launch in July 2020. It is expected not only to boost ADA’s price wildly but increase adoption, and attract intense developer interest, including those from other platforms such as Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain.
ADA’s momentum has already started to rise, as investors and analysts expect the upgrade to be monumental for the 4th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The coin crossed the $2 price level for the first time since mid-May on August 14, as the crypto community anticipates at least a mini-rally from the upcoming upgrade.
Despite losing 9.5% on the day, ADA is still trading above $2 as of publication.
Cardano to Become World’s Leading Energy Efficient Cryptocurrency
In addition to being a third-generation technology, Cardano is also-self proclaimed as the most environment-friendly cryptocurrency in existence. This is because it is the most decentralized proof-of-stake protocol, a far more environmentally-friendly blockchain technology than resource-heavy networks based on proof-of-work.
In August 2020, Charles Hoskinson described Cardano as an open platform that seeks to provide economic identity to billions of people who need it by providing decentralized applications to manage their identity, value, and governance.
With the Goguen era in sight, Cardano will finally be in a position to prove its worth with how efficiently and affordably dapps can run on it.
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