Cardano has completed its Alonzo hard fork to introduce Plutus-powered smart contract scripts.
On Aug. 12, Cardano tweeted that the improve had been accomplished efficiently at epoch 290, facilitating the creation and execution of smart contracts on the public blockchain for the first time.
Regardless of celebrating the milestone, Cardano notes that it’s nonetheless “early days for the challenge,” asserting that now is when “the mission really begins” in a blog post revealed on the same day:
Cardano has announced the completion of its Alonzo hard fork, ushering in its long-awaited smart contract functionality.
“This is where the mission really begins as we – the entire group – begin delivering on the imaginative and prescient we have all been working in direction of for so long. Constructing a decentralized system that extends financial identity and alternative to everybody, all over the place.”
The Alonzo fork allows smart contracts to be written for Cardano using Plutus scripts, which the group describes as “a purpose-built smart contract development language and execution platform using the functional programming language Haskell.”
Nevertheless, the group has inspired its group to maintain sensible expectations for Alonzo, stating:
“There are high expectations resting on this improve. Some unreasonably so. Cardano watchers could also be anticipating a complicated ecosystem of consumer-ready DApps accessible instantly after the improve. Expectations must be managed right here.”
Cardano is a public blockchain that was based by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson and developed by his analysis agency IOHK.
Whereas Cardano pledged to rival Ethereum’s dominance in internet hosting decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web3 applications, the project has garnered criticism for failing to deliver smart contract functionality until now regardless of launching in September 2017.
Dominic Williams, founder of rival platform Internet Computer, slammed Cardano for the amount of time taken for the protocol to launch smart contracts, stating: “It amazes me that this chain had been out there for two years, and is only just including assist for smart contracts, and people are happy with this progress.”
Cardano also copped flak in early September after the first DApp to launch on its test net encountered points relating to failed concurrent transaction processing.
Outspoken Ethereum maximalist, Anthony Sassano, tweeted: “Seriously 6 years of “peer-reviewed” analysis and a $90bil+ market cap later and the first dapp on Cardano can’t even do concurrent transaction processing (aka the very thing you need for DeFi).”
Cardano has since sought to address the criticism, asserting that DApps built on the protocol “aren’t restricted to at least one transaction per block.”
Regardless of its detractors, the hype for Candano’s upgrades recently drove its native token ADA into record highs, with ADA rallying 192% from a local low of $1.06 in late July to tag $3.10 on Sept. 3 in response to CoinGecko. ADA is also up more than 1,600% since the start of 2021.
Nevertheless, ADA has since dipped and spent the past week oscillating between roughly $2.30 and $2.80, suggesting many speculators might have bought the rumor and sold the news.
Source: Cointelegraph