IOHK made an announcement on Friday via their social media accounts that Smart Contracts will launch on the Cardano Mainnet on Sunday 12th September 2021. This will be implemented through a hard fork combinator event, dubbed the “Alonzo hard fork“.
This long-awaited update will take Cardano into the Goguen Era, which represents a big leap forward in terms of capability for the network. The introduction of decentralized applications (DApps) and smart contracts to the network is a huge step forward for Cardano and will allow it to enter the DeFi sector which currently boasts a market cap of over $140bn (£100bn).
Cardano Testnet
The Cardano testnet is scheduled to be hard forked on Wednesday 1st September 2021. This will allow the development team to see how the whole package runs in a production environment. It will also allow them to test the upgrade on the testnet and identify any potential errors and fix them before the mainnet launch.
On top of this exciting development, the Cardano Summit 2021 has just been announced and will take place 25th September – 26th September. It will feature a mixture of virtual and live events. Anyone interested in the event who would like to register can do through the Cardano Summit website for free. There will also be in-person events spread across the world in the following locations:
- London
- Miami
- Berlin
- Cape Town
- Tokyo
- Wyoming
- New York
This news has pushed Cardano up to the 3rd ranked cryptocurrency by market cap. ADA is currently trading at $2.23 with a $70 billion market cap and is up 50% over the last 7 days.
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