ADA, the native token of the Cardano blockchain platform and the #5 ranked cryptocurrency by market capitalization ($55.2 billion) has appreciated over 30% in the last month as the platform announced that the Alonzo Purple Testnet is up and running.
The platform launched its smart contract testnet in May 2021, which the platform announced would be divided into 3 stages; Alonzo Blue, representing the first stage, Alonzo White, the second stage and Alonzo Purple, the final stage.
After the successful completion of the first two Alonzo stages, Blue and White, the final, Alonzo Purple has commenced as the first fully public Cardano testnet to support smart contracts. This final stage involves bringing onboard third-party partners, such as exchanges and wallet providers, to ensure integration of the new code with their systems. So far in this final stage of testnet, the developer team has started with the systematic onboarding of cryptocurrency exchanges.
Cardano has been performing negatively since the market crash in May where ADA lost over 50% of its value. While some attribute the price decline to Bitcoin’s nosedive in the same period, others are saying it is because of the failed estimates from Cardano founder, Charles Hoskinson, who estimated that the network would have “hundreds of assets,” along with “thousands of DApps” by July.
Charles Hoskinson however defended himself on YouTube by saying that more than $10 million in nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have been sold through the network but this pales in comparison to his previous estimates.
The team plans to launch full smart contract compatibility in the coming weeks, but following the initial onboarding phase, IOHK will hard fork the network and open Alonzo Purple testnet to any developer who wishes to join. This is termed the hardfork incubator event (HFC).
What they are saying
Charles Hoskinson said in a live stream, “What’s really cool is that five seconds after the HFC event occurs, you can run Plutus code on Cardano… If you’re really creative and really understand our stack, you guys can actually start writing and deploying your smart contracts on mainnet if you so choose, which is pretty awesome. Or you can wait two, three weeks and the testnet will be in a position where you have the full ‘Cadillac’ experience, and you can write stuff and deploy it there.”
On the launch of the final stage of the testnet, the developer team, IOHK said on Twitter, “It’s an important moment, marking significant progress in the rollout of smart contracts on the Cardano mainnet which is targeted for the end of August/early September.”
Bottomline
According to coinmarketcal, smart contract mainnet launch is expected in September 2021 or earlier. ADA is trading at $1.76, up 20% for the day, as of the time of writing this report.
Very good development
Fantastic news for all involved. Great news for those that use smart contracts etc.