Cardano Last Week: Hoskinson Protests Infra Bill, ADA Reaches Japan, And Alonzo Purple Launch

The Alonzo upgrade for Team Cardano is chugging on at a steady speed, with the first fully public Cardano testnet went live this week. Let’s look into what that means for the Cardano community and other mentionable incidents that happened for the fifth largest crypto this week.

Cardano Founder Speaks Out Against Infra Bill

The amendment proposed by Senators Warner, Portman, and Sinema to the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill only exempted miners from IRS reporting requirement, leaving proof of stake (PoS) validators, software developers, and wallets still in the KYC reporting loop. As a result, it has faced sufficient ire from crypto leaders, like Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, who raised the question, 

“In running a stake pool, nothing in the protocol has any notion of KYC, so how does a PoS operator report to the IRS on some form, who the person delegating a transaction to them is, as it is a pseudonymous transaction?”

He explained that the exemption of miners implies that PoS protocols would need to conduct 100% KYC for validators and transactors to comply with regulations. 

However, on Monday, the Senate struck down another last-minute amendment which would be limiting reporting requirements to traditional brokers, or “businesses who conduct transactions on exchanges where consumers buy, sell and trade digit assets.” Following this news, the Cardano founder has called for a rally in protest in the country’s capital.

“I think it’s about time we get a rally going in Washington DC. I’m going to make some phone calls.”

ADA Goes To Japan

Japanese crypto exchanges have received the go-ahead to start listing Cardano in their offerings across the country. This is momentous, as Japan’s strict rules always pose a challenge to new cryptos trying to get listings in the country’s exchanges. However, Japanese investors will now have the opportunity to trade in the fifth-largest and rapidly growing crypto asset from crypto exchanges based in their country. The first crypto exchange that will be onboarding ADA is Bitpoint, which is scheduled for later this month.

Cardano Welcomes Smart Contracts With Alonzo Purple

The final purple phase of Cardano’s Alonzo upgrade has kicked off, according to parent company Input-Output Hong Kong (IOHK). After completing the Blue and White upgrade, the final stage of the Alonzo upgrade is now live as the first fully public Cardano testnet to support smart contracts. 

IOHK announced the news on Twitter, saying, 

“It’s an important moment, marking significant progress in the rollout of smart contracts on the Cardano mainnet, which is targeted for the end of August/early September.”

The team is set to keep launching full smart contract compatibility in the coming weeks. According to Hoskinson, the Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) event is still scheduled for August 12-13, when IOHK will hard fork the network and open up the testnet to developers who wish to deploy their own smart contracts. 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.