Cardano has successfully deployed the Alonzo White hard fork, marking another step forward in the road towards smart contracts.
Cardano’s Alonzo hard fork has been successfully deployed, according to developer Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK). In a series of tweets published on July 15, IOHK said that the “network is happily making blocks already.”
The Alonzo hard fork is a key moment along with Cardano’s roadmap, paving the way for smart contract functionality. The full release has a tentative release date of August. It would bring several significant changes to the Cardano network, including the ability to host decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
Many are expecting the potential and utility of ADA to explode following this release, which is the culmination of years of development if one looks at the carefully calculated roadmap. The hard fork falls under the Goguen phase of the roadmap, which deals specifically with the challenge of implementing smart contracts.
It also announced that members of ProjectCatalyst and more Plutus partners will be joining the network. Several hundred people are reportedly on the Alonzo White Network. ProjectCatalyst has also funded various DeFi applications for the network.
IOHK CEO and co-founder Charles Hoskinson, whom many see as the face of Cardano, also spoke about the Alonzo hard fork in a video posted on YouTube. He offered updates on the Alonzo testnet and general statements on development.
ADA making progress
ADA has had a highly successful past 12 months, and it shows in the token’s price rise. There are several major features also in the pipeline, besides this smart contract functionality. Next up is scaling and governance, though that could take much more time.
Cardano has also done well with the public, with its ADA token becoming one of the best performers during the bull market. It also overtook bitcoin as the most held asset on the eToro platform — and it referred to the Alonzo fork as being one of the main reasons behind the price jump.
Grayscale Investments has also added the ADA token to its large-cap fund, making the asset its third-largest holding. ADA is only behind BTC and ETH in Grayscale’s portfolio.
User activity has also increased, with over 650,000 staking addresses recorded in June 2021. The estimated sum of staked ADA is valued at $29 billion, which is more than 70% of the total supply.
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