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<\/p>\nThe number of smart contracts deployed on the Cardano ($ADA) network is nearing a new milestone, as developers are increasingly working on the cryptocurrency as its ecosystem develops and its decentralized finance (DeFi) space grows.<\/p>\n
According to data from Cardano Blockchain Insights, first reported on by Finbold, there are now a total of 2,90 Plutus-based smart contracts deployed to the cryptocurrency\u2019s network, placing it within 100 smart contracts of the 3,000 milestone.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Plutus, it\u2019s worth noting, is the \u201c\u00a0smart contract platform of the Cardano blockchain\u201d that allows users to \u201cwrite applications that interact with the Cardano blockchain.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The number of smart contracts on Cardano surpassed 1,000 back in January of this year after the price of ADA exploded last year with the rollout of the widely anticipated Alonzo hard fork, which brought in smart contracts into the network, allowing it to compete with other blockchains such as the BNB Chain ($BNB), Ethereum ($ETH), and Solana ($SOL).<\/p>\n
The Alonzo hard fork is part of the network\u2019s \u201cGoguen\u201d era, named after Joseph Goguen, an American professor of computer science from the University of California and the University of Oxford. The network is now anticipating the Vasil hard fork, which is expected to bring in a \u201cmassive performance improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vasil hard fork is a major upgrade that will involve four Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIPs). The hard fork has already seen ADA outperform numerous other cryptocurrencies, even amid a wider cryptocurrency market downturn exacerbated by the collapse of the Terra ecosystem.<\/p>\n
Development activity on the Cardano network, which tracks \u201cthe number of GitHub events that the project organization generated\u201d, has\u00a0surpassed that of other major cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum ($ETH) and Solana ($SOL) ahead of the hard fork.<\/p>\n
As CryptoGlobe reported, an artificial\u00a0intelligence-based price prediction model\u00a0is suggesting that the price of Cardano\u2019s native token ADA is going to surge to trade at $2.9 by September of this year, representing a 530% increase from the cryptocurrency\u2019s current price.<\/p>\n