ADA Rockets As Cardano’s Smart Contracts Release Date Is Finally Revealed

The IOHK team has announced the date slated for the mainnet launch of smart contracts with the Alonzo hard fork.

Cardano Targets September 12 For Smart Contracts Launch

The Cardano blockchain is less than a month away from finally rolling out the much-anticipated Alonzo hard fork which will initiate the smart contract functionality on the mainnet. As per a recent announcement by Input Output Hong Kong, the research and development team behind Cardano, smart contracts are expected to debut on the platform on September 12.

“It’s happening. We’re targeting 12 September 2021 for the ‘Alonzo’ upgrade, bringing smart contracts to Cardano via a hard fork combinator (HFC) event.”

The rollout of smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain will allow users to tap into the nascent world of decentralized finance (DeFi). This means they will have the chance to leverage smart contracts to borrow, lend, trade, mint NFTs, create gaming apps, among other use cases.

The head of delivery at Cardano, Nigel Hemsley, said on Friday that the firm’s engineering and test teams are working very hard to ensure that all components are ready for the move to the hard fork on the mainnet. 

IOHK launched Alonzo Purple last week, the project’s third and final stage of the Alonzo phases. Hemsley claims that at least 500 users will be working on the network after the completion of the Alonzo Purple testnet, then the scheduled hard fork combinator event will occur next month. 

In preparation for the rollout, the IOHK team is cooperating with over 140 cryptocurrency exchanges to begin the integration on the Alonzo Purple and make sure they are ready with the complete software package. The final testnet will be implemented on September 1 to enable the team to see how the whole package works in a production environment before mainnet deployment.

Notably, Cardano has been harshly criticized in the past for its slow development and the striking lack of smart contract capabilities. The project has, however, boasted remarkable progress in recent months and this has been reflected in the price of ADA.

Bombastic ADA Price Hits $2 For First Time Since May

As the smart contract launch date draws closer, the Cardano (ADA) bulls are on a roll. The price of the token has soared by over 14% over the past 24 hours, reaching a 3-month high above $2.

ADAUSD Chart by TradingView

ADA has gained approximately 47% within a one-week timeframe, making it the best performer among the crypto market’s top cryptocurrencies. The recent upswing thrust Cardano’s market value to $70 billion, briefly overtaking Binance Coin (BNB) to become the #3 crypto.

Ushering in smart contracts on September 12 will notably fly in the face of skeptics who have previously bet that the capability — which positions the network to better challenge Ethereum — would not be coming anytime soon.