Cardano Successfully Upgrades Testnet For Smart Contracts Capability As ADA Accelerates

By Bernice Nyambura – September 3, 2021

Cardano has announced the hardfork of the Alonzo testnet which was implemented on 1 September as successful and one more step closer to the Mainnet launch on September 12, 2021.

According to its parent company IOHK, the deployed upgrades are integrating as designed, and intense testing is underway to make sure everything is ready for the upcoming hardfork.

“Yesterday, we upgraded the #Cardano testnet, successfully deploying #Plutus #smartcontracts capability. The focus now is on final component testing and exchange integrations, ahead of the #Alonzo Mainnet upgrade, still on track for deployment on 12 September.”

ADA Soars

In response to the news, Cardano’s native cryptocurrency ADA soared by 10% on the day to record its newest all-time high of $3.10 from an opening price of $2.81. The ATH also comes as no surprise, since it follows the consistent gains in the Price of ADA witnessed in August due to the buildup in anticipation of the successful deployment of smart contracts capability on the testnet and the Mainnet.

At the time of press, ADA is up 2%, exchanging hands at $2.99 after a slight price adjustment. Additionally, the consistent price gain in August has established ADA as the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap ahead of Tether and Bitcoin Cash.

ADAUSD Chart By TradingView(Click image for larger view)

In only 30 days, ADA has risen by 135% from $1.32 to the current ATH of $3.10 as data by CoinMarketCap indicates. This accomplishment has seen ADA rapidly approach the $100 billion (at $97.5 billion) market cap and reduce the wide gap between its market cap and that of Ethereum ($443.2 billion) at position 2.

What’s next for Cardano?

The Cardano community views the testnet upgrade as an early indicator of the coming success of the protocol once the testnet is implemented on the Mainnet in the following scheduled hardfork on September 12.

Despite being a leading blockchain ecosystem, Cardano’s weakness against top competitors like Ethereum and others like Solana, and Polkadot has been its inability to support smart contracts development.

However, IOHK promises that this will all change after September 12, if all goes to plan. Nigel Hemsley, the head of Delivery and Projects at Cardano’s developer company IOHK maintained that everything is right on schedule. The next one and a half weeks will see IOHK and other involved partners test the network’s stability, security and ensure that the code of the smart contract is working properly.

“This is also the time when 140 exchanges will be switching from Alonzo Purple to the live production environment in preparation for the Mainnet launch.”

The Mainnet hardfork is also expected to usher in a new era for Cardano, enabling decentralized finance capabilities, decentralized exchanges, and other creative solutions that developers will come up with as decentralized applications.

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The original article written by Bernice Nyambura and posted on ZyCrypto.com.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe