Cardano, a proof-of-stake blockchain platform, has completed Alonzo hard fork to introduce Plutus-powered smart contract script.

The Alonzo hard fork is a significant upgrade on the Cardano network. It includes the much-anticipated implementation of smart contract functionality. The smart contract is a piece of computer code that is automatically executed when certain predefined conditions are met. The Alonzo hard fork was ushering its long-awaited smart contract functionality, which was declared as completed by Cardano.

IOHK tweeted on Monday, September 13 that the upgrade of Alonzo hard fork had been completed at epoch 290. This completion would facilitate the creation and execution of smart contracts on the public blockchain for the first time.

IOHK tweeted in the second part, “It’s still early days, with exciting times ahead.” they also published a blog post the same day asserting that their mission truly began that day. The blog post read, “This is where the mission truly begins as we – the whole community – start delivering on the vision we have all been working towards for so long. Building a decentralized system that extends economic identity and opportunity to everyone, everywhere.”

The Alonzo fork will enable smart contracts to be written using Plutus scripts for Cardano. The team describes this as “a purpose-built smart contract development language and execution platform using the functional programming language Haskell.” The team also encourages its community to maintain sensible expectations for Alonzo by writing, “There are high expectations resting on this upgrade. Some unreasonably so. Cardano watchers may be expecting a sophisticated ecosystem of consumer-ready DApps available immediately after the upgrade. Expectations need to be managed here.”

Cardano was founded by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson and developed by his research firm, IOHK. Until now, Cardano has been receiving several criticisms for failing to deliver smart contract functionality.

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The founder of rival platform Internet Computer, Dominic Williams, also slammed Cardano for taking a huge amount of time to launch smart contracts, stating, “It amazes me that this chain had been in the market for 2 years and is only just adding support for smart contracts, and people are happy with this progress.”

Rushali Das

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA