Cardano Vasil hard fork goes live: What you need to know

After months of delays, the Cardano Vasil hard fork went live on September 22 at 9:44 p.m. UTC, delivering “significant performance and capability” changes to the blockchain.

What is the Cardano Vasil hard fork?

The Vasil upgrade, which was originally expected for June or July, is part of Cardano’s third development cycle, which aims to boost network capacity, cut transaction costs, and speed up transactions. 

It will bring a plethora of significant modifications to the blockchain, making it more user/developer friendly for the development of smart contracts and dApps.

Vasil is regarded as the “most extensive upgrade attempted” to Cardano to date, “touching every layer of the network stack” and resolving numerous problems, according to developers at Input Output Global (IOG). Input Output is a development facility that contributes to the Cardano blockchain’s maintenance.

Will the Vasil upgrade have an impact on the ADA price?

Yes. However, it is difficult to predict how the asset would react. That’s because Vasil is unique in that it “is the only hard fork in Cardano history to occur during a bear market.” The previous updates – Shelley, Mary, and Alonzo – all had an impact on ADA’s price movement. Prices rose in the run-up to the upgrades, but then slid down.

Analysts believe the same may be true for the Vasil fork, with prices already responding with a minor surge after co-founder Charles Hoskinson announced the day the update would go live. On Sept. 2, ADA increased by nearly 9% to $0.49 at that time.

After the Vasil, Cardano is continuing its work on the Hydra head protocol, a layer-2 scaling solution that handles transactions outside of the Cardano blockchain while still leveraging it as the security and settlement layer.

According to data from CoinGecko, the price of Cardano’s coin, ADA, increased by almost 4% during the last 24 hours to $0.46 despite being down more than 4.5% for the week as a result of the announcement of the successful launch.