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For years now, the crypto community has been speculating about the potential of Cardano (ADA/USD), a project that was, at one point, even dubbed a potential Ethereum Killer. The project promised a lot a long time ago, only to spend years in development. However, unlike many other projects that did the same, Cardano has actually started delivering, proving that its way is slow and steady, but reliable and of good quality.
Cardano started 2021 with a series of upgrades that proved that it did not waste all the time is spent in development. Instead, its devs team has stayed true to its roadmap, and the project is now advancing at a formidable speed, coming closer and closer to reaching its potential.
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Just yesterday, IOHK announced a successful hard fork that allowed Cardano to move closer to rolling out smart contracts, by officially entering the Alonzo White stage.
HARD FORK SUCCESSFUL: Delighted to report around 19.44 UTC today we successfully forked the #Alonzo testnet to the new #AlonzoWhite node. The new network is happily making blocks already. 1/5
— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) July 14, 2021
This is a crucial phase for the project that will increase the number of testers dramatically. More importantly, it will bring numerous new functionalities to the Cardano ecosystem.
Cardano progresses on the road towards entering DeFi
As a quick reminder, Cardano’s first Alonzo testnet — Alonzo Blue — went live earlier this year, in May. Now, Alonzo White is attracting just as much, if not more, attention. However, once this era ends, Alonzo will go fully public. This is expected to take place in the upcoming Purple phase, which will make it available to stake pool operators and pioneers.
The series of testnets was named after Alonzo Church, a well-known mathematician. The Alonzo hard fork is currently the most anticipated event in the Cardano ecosystem, and it is expected to arrive on the mainnet in September of this year. Once it does arrive, it will finally bring smart contracts to Cardano’s PoS blockchain in full. This will also mark the end of the project’s Goguen era, and Cardano will officially be able to enter DeFi.