Smart Contracts Coming To Cardano In 90 Days

During a rather lengthy appearance on Lex Fridman’s podcast, Charles Hoskinson stated that smart contracts are coming to Cardano in 90 days. The bold timeline comes days after Input Output HK (IOHK) announced via Twitter that Alonzo Blue 2.0 had officially launched. The testnet is yet another important step, according to IOHK, seeing as it provides, “the foundations to build all varieties of smart contract applications further down the line.”

All signs point to an August release for the oft delayed Goguen (the name for smart contracts on Cardano’s roadmap). Once completed, Cardano’s community of developers will finally be able to develop their dAPPs through the proof-of-stake platform.

Cardano considers itself a third generation blockchain. Like Bitcoin and Ethereum, Cardano is a first layer protocol that offers decentralized transactions without a trusted third party. It also aims to build on their foundation of permission-less transactions and smart contracts, with scalability, interoperability, and sustainability.

Cardano is oft criticized for its slow progress toward these goals.

Heuristic v. Peer Review

While also appearing on Lex Fridman’s podcast earlier this month, Vitalik Buterin promoted a heuristic approach to developing Ethereum. Heuristic, a.k.a. trial and error, allows Ethereum to do more, faster. This means releasing their protocols and deciding what needs to be improved once it’s already being used. This approach has left Ethereum with an industry leading developer base, and entrenched as number 2 to Bitcoin on the charts.

Despite Ethereum’s success, Hoskinson opted for a more conservative approach. He instituted a rigorous peer reviewed process which led to, amongst other things, trashing their entire smart contract model and starting from scratch. As he told Mark Cuban during a Twitter debate, “…it’s necessary if you actually want security and scale. No more DAO hacks, less off-chain code. Consistent operating cost…”. 

Levity aside Charles, whenever someone pitching me tells me it has to be in person, that's a red flag. I know this isn't a pitch. But would love to know , Where do you use ADA on a daily basis ? How should or could I use it today ? I can answer this for all the crypto I own. https://t.co/bYZjcIVers

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) May 15, 2021

The Long Game

The long game is already producing impressive results in other aspects of their protocol. Ouroboros, Cardano’s proof-of-stake model, pushed Ethereum to move off proof-of-work. It also has Cardano well-positioned as a greener alternative. 

Hydra, Cardano’s second layer scaling solution, is promising transaction speeds of 1000 transactions per second for every validator, which dwarfs Bitcoin’s 4.5 transactions per second. And, based on some estimates, could scale to Visa’s size. 

As impressive as the Cardano tech is, several competitors like Solana and Polkadot boast similar claims to Cardano. Similarly, Bitcoin and Ethereum have their own solutions in the pipeline (Lightning Network, Eth 2.0, respectively). The clock is ticking on Cardano becoming the third generation blockchain it intended to be.

Next Steps

After Goguen is released in August (fingers crossed), Cardano still has two steps left on its roadmap: Basho and Voltaire. Basho will foster interoperability between chains, including adding side chains that will allow for transactions between other chains. Voltaire, the final step, will ensure sustainability through self-governance