After several delays and some setbacks, Cardano’s long-awaited Vasil update was finally released on September 22nd. From the outside in, the hard forks are designed to help improve the scalability of the ecosystem and the overall ability to transfer transactions, as well as advance the development capabilities of Cardano’s decentralized applications (DApps).
to celebrate At the event, an announcement was made by blockchain firm Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) — which is currently overseeing the design, build, and maintenance of the Cardano platform — after just minutes of development.
To get a more comprehensive view of what the upgrade represents and its potential impact on Cardano (as well as the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem), Cointelegraph reached out to Shahaf Bar-Geffen, CEO of COTI, a protocol for creating payment networks. . In his opinion:
“The Vasil update heralds the beginning of a new era for the Cardano ecosystem and the decentralized finance space in general. The upgrade aims to improve network scalability and enhance Cardano’s smart contract capabilities.”
Bar Geffen further noted that the hard fork would significantly improve the efficiency of JED, an algorithmic stablecoin jointly developed by IOHK and COTI Group, increasing the number of transactions executed on the JED platform, thus helping to position Cardano as one of the main competitors for cryptocurrency transactions. sedentary.
A closer look at what Vasil has to offer
Before considering the functional and operational benefits offered by Vasil hard fork, it would be best to understand what exactly are hard forks. In its most basic sense, a hard fork is a network upgrade that is triggered when those who govern a blockchain platform decide to add or fix certain features to the ecosystem.
In other words, when a hard fork occurs, the network splits into two versions that operate separately, one of which follows existing features and rules while the other continues as an updated version of the network.
Giving his view on the technical aspects of the upgrade, Charmaine Hu, Head of Crypto Insights at cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, tells Cointelegraph that at the application layer, Cardano’s Vasil hard fork aims to enhance the network’s existing smart contracts to provide a better experience for both. Users and developers by adding:
“This will simultaneously lead to a more efficient build process in terms of on-chain applications. At the infrastructure level, the many updates that come with the Vasil hard fork will allow Cardano to increase block size and TPS while preserving the POS engine.”
The highlight is that the Vasil hard fork aims not only to improve the scalability of the chain and optimize its existing resources, but also to enhance the stability and connectivity of the network. “This is a big and important step forward for Cardano, as the upgrade is expected to reduce network transaction costs and increase transaction speed,” he added.
Finally, it should be noted that Vasil is not the first major upgrade of the Cardano network because about a year ago, the project saw the release of another hard fork called Alonzo, designed to allow users to visualize DApps using smart contracts. The Alonzo upgrade, along with many other developments, was Cardano’s way of offering users an attractive alternative to Ethereum, another platform that allows the continuous development of new applications using smart contracts.
Why is Vasil so important?
Named after a prominent member of the Cardano community who died in 2021, Vasil St. Dabov, the update will improve the ecosystem’s transaction throughput and efficiency and prevent latency speeds. In addition, the hard forks will see the implementation of a technology called “piping propagation,” which seeks to improve block propagation times while increasing the transaction processing capacity of the network.
The Vasil hard fork will contain three main Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIPs), namely CIP-31, CIP-32, and CIP-33. In this sense, CIP-31 will encourage the introduction of a new reference input mechanism that allows DApps to access transaction output data without having to recreate it as before, making the whole process extremely streamlined and time-saving. At the same time, CIP-32 is designed to enhance Cardano’s original levels of decentralization by offering on-chain data warehousing capabilities to network participants.
CIP-33 will make transactions lighter by making changes to the system’s original programming script, allowing for faster processing and lower fees. Finally, another improvement called CIP-40 will be offered as part of Vasil. It will introduce a new mechanism for outgoing transactions to help improve sending blocks without full validation.
Other updates include an improvement to Cardano’s native smart contract programming language, Plutus, which will now be more functionally advanced than the previous iteration. In addition, Vasil will also improve the security of the platform by making it easier to interact with Cardano’s UTXO model (which is designed to resemble Bitcoin) while keeping the transaction burden off-chain.
Possible effects on ADA
While the first round of hard forks started on September 22nd, the remaining updates are expected to go into effect on September 27th. At this point, the second stage of the hard fork will return the Plutus cost model, which has an impact on the processing power and memory rates required to control Cardano’s native smart contracts.
In addition to the Vasil update, the Cardano team revealed that they are working tirelessly on developing a Layer 2 scaling solution – the Hydra head protocol – capable of processing transactions from the Cardano blockchain while still using it as a key layer of security and selling.
Up to this point, a recent update from the Cardano team revealed that it had successfully resolved a known issue with the Hydra node architecture. As it stands, the protocol does not have an exact release date. However, the IOHK team has hinted that the display could hit the market sometime in late 2022 or the first quarter of 2023.
Vasil was originally scheduled to air earlier this year but has faced several setbacks. Even though the update is now live, the ecosystem is still suffering from the impact of these delays. For example, since the beginning of 2020, Cardano’s native cryptocurrency, ADA, has continued to have a decline in its transaction volume. Not only that, but from a purely price-performance standpoint, the upgrade wasn’t able to do much in terms of boosting the value of ADA, with coins trading down less than 1% per week.
Although ADA price action remains lackluster, the fact that the Cardano ecosystem has made great strides in the past year shows that the project appears poised for big things in the short to medium term.
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