Cardano’s Vasil Hard Fork Confirmed for September 22

Coin cryptocurrency Cardano on the background of a stack of coins. ADA

While the upgrade has initially been scheduled for June, various technical difficulties forced it to be postponed.

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On Friday, September 2nd, Input Output Global (IOG) finally confirmed the date for the much-anticipated Cardano Vasil hard fork. The update, named after a Bulgarian mathematician and Cardano ambassador, is hailed as the biggest one the chain has undertaken.

The Date of the Hard Fork is Set

September is shaping up to be a month of important blockchain updates. During august, Ethereum’s proof-of-stake merge was set to take place towards the middle of the month. Today, IOG finally confirmed the date for Cardano’s important Vasil hard fork.

This update is claimed to be the biggest and most important in Cardano’s history. Still, IOG expects the fork to be executed flawlessly: “thanks to Cardano’s unique hard fork combinator, we anticipate a seamless technical transition, with no disruption for its users or a break in block production” The announcement also took the time to thank both the core team and the wider community for their support.

The Vasil upgrade is a testament not just to the hard work of the core development team, but to the many technical contributions of the wider CardanoCommunity. Many of the Vasil improvements stem from community-driven Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIPs).

What is the Vasil Fork?

In his own announcement of the hard fork’s date, Charles Hoskinson explained that Vasil is just the latest—and the biggest—in a series of upgrades that the Cardano blockchain is undertaking. The expressed goal of these is to improve both the chain’s operability and security.

The security updates might be particularly important to many, as the FBI recently warned investors that more than $1 billion were stolen in crypto hacks just in Q1 of this year. On the developer side, Cardano’s programming language Plutus is also getting an upgrade.

This upgrade is just a part of the greater effort to improve Cardano’s blockchain. The effort is community-driven, and many of the possible future additions, as well as those coming with Vasil, can be found on the list of Cardano improvement proposals.

Hoskinson also took an opportunity to remark on the fact that the fork will end up occurring on Bulgaria’s independence day. He found this particularly poignant as the upgrade itself is named in honor of the recently-deceased Bulgarian mathematician Vasil Dabov.

Do you think that the upgrade will go smoothly? Let us know in the comments below.

About the author

Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate on the investment team at RW Baird's US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.