The long-anticipated Cardano hard fork upgrade has officially launched.
Cardano, a Proof-of-Stake blockchain platform, has rolled out its Vasil hard fork update.
According to the Tweet shared by Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), on September 22nd at 21:44 UTC, Cardano mainnet was successfully hard forked.
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The new upgrade is the most significant upgrade since the Alonzo hard fork, launched in September 2021. The previous upgrade allowed smart contract functionality.
The Vasil hard fork upgrade, named after Cardano community member Vasil Stoyanov Dabov, will add smart contract enhancements, increase network capacity, and lower transaction costs. Most importantly, the upgrade will allow faster block creation.
Although the mainnet was upgraded, the developers will be able to enjoy the new upgrades from September 27th.
To celebrate the Vasil launch, Cardano founder and co-founder of Input Output Global Charles Hoskins announced that the blockchain is distributing 100,000,000 of its native token ADA.
It is worth noting that the day before the launch, Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) used Twitter to announce that the platform has met three essential requirements to trigger the hard fork and is fully ready for the upgrade.
In total, 39 exchanges were upgraded, marking up almost 88% liquidity. On the official ecosystem readiness page, Coinbase was the only major crypto company still undergoing the upgrade.
However, Coinbase used Twitter to announce that it will support Cardano’s hard fork upgrade but will be temporarily pausing deposits and withdrawals for Cardano (ADA).
Initially, the upgrade was set to launch in June. However, it was delayed to July 29th. A day before the Vasil hard fork was supposed to be launched, Kevin Hammond, Input Output Global (IOG) technical manager, announced that the team is forced to postpone the launch due to undisclosed issues.
At that time, the team stated that they plan to launch the upgrade in August but highlighted that they will take as much time as needed to ensure that “things are done right.” Finally, on September 2nd, Input Output announced that the Vasil hard fork’s official launch date is September 22nd.
