It’s Official: Cardano Smart Contracts Launch Date Announced

After years of teasing smart contracts, IOHK finally makes the announcement. 

Takeaways

• Cardano smart contracts launch date announced
• IOHK and Cardano Foundation funding DApps
• Smart contracts are not quelling criticism quite yet

Cardano Smart Contracts Launch Date Announced

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.

Find out more about the journey to a new era of smart contracts, DeFi and more for #Cardano $ADAhttps://t.co/59czSxrxFO

— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) August 13, 2021

Input Output HK (IOHK) announced via Twitter that smart contracts are coming to Cardano on September 12th.

“September 12th is just a day,” Charles Hoskinson said during today’s surprise livestream. “But for you it’s going to be an opportunity, and a moment, to build things, to deploy things.” Hoskinson also announced a watch party for the event during the stream.

Previously, Hoskinson estimated smart contracts would be arriving between August 31st and September 6th. However, September 12th still puts smart contracts well within the 90 day window he promised during his June 16th appearance on Lex Fridman’s podcast.

No DApps, No Problem

Cardano is oft criticized for its lack of DApps, but Hoskinson believes that smart contracts will change that: “We will kill all the spooky ghosts in this, so called, ‘ghost chain.'”

The term ghost chain refers to mid to large cap chains with minimal utilization. Although, it’s true that Cardano’s utilization isn’t in line with its current market cap, it also hasn’t had smart contract functionality to facilitate more development on the platform.

Nevertheless, while waiting for smart contracts, Cardano worked on funding potential DApps in house through the 20 million cFund. The cFund specializes in early stage Cardano projects. Not to mention, IOHK also announced today another 4 million USD fund for developers.

“Fund6 is our most ambitious fund yet, with more funding being distributed in Fund6 than in all the previous funds combined,” said Kriss Baird via IOHK’s blog.

NEW BLOG: #ProjectCatalyst Fund6 is the most ambitious fund yet, with $4M-worth $ADA up for grabs. That’s more funding this time than in all previous rounds put together. So let’s build! ⤵️ https://t.co/Gy3cg8dF49

— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) August 13, 2021

Will Cardano Smart Contracts Quell The Criticism?

Cardano has been described as a cult by some for its patient and unwavering fanbase. But for all its true believers, it must have just as many zealots.

As soon as word got out about the September 12th date, a chatter on Hoskinson’s livestream pointed to speculation that the date was fake because you can’t do a hard fork combinator (HFC) on a Sunday. However, Hoskinson pointed out that you don’t have to do the HFC on Monday because that’s when the epoch turnover occurs.

Some members of the Ada cult appear to be mourning the loss of Cardano smart contract FUD.

RIP to the meme 'wen smart contracts' on 12 Sept 2021. $ADA #Cardano

— blockplusplus. (@blockplusplus) August 13, 2021