Cardano Hard Fork ‘Closer’ As Upgraded SPOs Account For 42% Of Blocks

The blockchain firm behind the Cardano network, Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), said that the much anticipated Vasil hard fork is “ever closer” after announcing the state of three critical indicators that will eventually trigger the mainnet update.

IOHK wants to see over 75% of new blocks coming from upgraded nodes, together with two other “critical indicators” before implementing this Vasil hard fork.

In a Twitter thread that was posted on August 25, IOHK shared its latest “rollout status” of the Vasil upgrade to its 265,800 followers, with updates on “three critical mass indicators” that will determine when the mainnet update will continue.

This update features having 75% of mainnet blocks produced by nodes running 1.35.3, nearly 25 exchanges upgraded, representing 80% of liquidity, and the top ten key mainnet dApps also having upgraded. On August 25, the blockchain firm noted that Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) running the most recent node 1.35.3 now account for 42% of mainnet block production in the current epoch, which is now over 50% to the 75% needed.

Mainnet nodes status:

↗️SPOs/nodes: SPOs running node 1.35.3 (the #Vasil release candidate) now account for 40% plus of mainnet block production in the current epoch.
📋 The metric we’re chasing is 75%.

Data courtesy: @cexplorer_io @PooltoolI 🙏

5/13 pic.twitter.com/4jf62zlqQQ

— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) August 25, 2022

IOHK also said that one of the world’s biggest exchanges, Binance, has allegedly upgraded its Cardano nodes to the latest version. The company has been targeting nearly 25 exchanges to upgrade their nodes, as it may account for nearly 80% of its native token’s total liquidity.

About its mainnet decentralized applications (dApps), IOHK confirmed that they will continue staying close to most of the dApp teams on Cardano, with four out of 10 already confirming they are actively testing against node 1.35.3 on the pre-production testnet.

IOHK also shared that no new bugs have been seen, leaving nine minor bugs still to be dealt with – none of which will result in an unintended hard fork. The much-awaited Vasil upgrade strives to reduce transaction size and support more network activity while lowering costs.

After a roadmap was unveiled by IOHK on May 19 that planned for a hard fork on June 29, the Vasil upgrade has been plagued by delays while the developers guarantee that the network transition proceeds seamlessly.

The co-founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, recently responded to a lot of criticism about the upgrade getting rushed. He indicated that they could delay the launch for months to retest the code that has already been tested and running, but the dApp developers would not see that as worthwhile given they have waited for quite a long time already.