New partnership sees DeFi and NFTs come to Cardano (ADA)

Recent announcements culminated in ADA hitting an all-time high yesterday, at $1.69. Despite that, as critics often point out, Cardano doesn’t have smart contracts, yet.

Nonetheless, developments are occurring in the background readying to capitalize when the time is right. This week, Occam, in conjunction with Bondly, gave us a glimpse of what’s to come. They announced a strategic partnership to bring NFTs and DeFi to Cardano.

“Together, the two blockchain leaders will explore development synergies within the growing NFT market for Cardano, a proof-of-stake blockchain platform, to enhance DeFi capabilities and bring high-quality projects through the OccamRazer launchpad and the Bondly Launchpad.”

Occam and Bondly team up

At present, Cardano holders are only able to access staking services. Without smart contract capabilities, DeFi and NFTs are simply not available.

You will soon be able to participate in our #Uniswap Liquidity Mining initiative. Read all about it, including a guide on how to get started, in our latest article. https://t.co/X4JYVR0eOR #DeFi #Cardano #LiquidityMining

— OccamFi (@OccamFi) May 4, 2021

IOG CEO Charles Hoskinson gave August as a soft deadline for a full smart contract rollout. As we approach that date, developers are beginning to announce details of their smart contract offerings on the Cardano chain.

Commenting on the tie in with Bondly, Mark Berger, President of the Occam Association, said:

“Bondly has emerged as an NFT leader and together, we believed our partnership, and by extension the Cardano ecosystem, is a natural fit. Together, we will pursue opportunities to incubate NFT startups and bring high-quality projects across our respective launchpad infrastructure.”

Bondly’s mission is to make DeFi more accessible to everyday users by building trust through its decentralized escrow service and marketplace.

Launched on Polkadot last September, Bondly has gone on to carve out a solid reputation as an NFT specialist. Bondly also offers a range of other services, including swaps, a DEX, and as previously mentioned, an escrow service.

Bondly CEO Brandon Smith said he’s looking forward to working with Occam to realize the untapped potential locked within the Cardano ecosystem.

Cardano smart contracts are close to the testnet phase

The Goguen smart contract era is close to completion but requires the rollout of the Alonzo protocol before that can happen.

During the Cardano360 event in late March, Hoskinson gave a rundown of the steps needed before Alonzo goes live to the general public.

The Alonzo update has already been integrated into the ledger and node code. While “alpha partners” have completed their testing.

Commercial partner Emurgo released a post last week confirmed the next stage of Plutus pioneers stress testing the network is currently underway.

With that, if all goes well, we can expect news of the Alonzo testnet launch very soon.

Like what you see? Subscribe for updates.