Called AlonzoBlue, the first testnet for the Alonzo hard fork is now live, bringing Cardano closer to implementing and deploying smart contracts on its blockchain.
Cardano (ADA), the fifth network blockchain y cryptocurrency largest by market capitalization, is about to roll out a new range of features and products for its crypto community. The network's developers have just activated the first testnet or test network for the hard fork Alonzo, which will allow the network to implement smart contracts (smart contracts).
The test network, called Alonzo Blue, was successfully launched this Thursday, according to the company's announcement Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), the technological development arm of Cardano.
As IOHK explains, the Alonzo hard fork will bring with it a number of new capabilities that will make Cardano a more complete blockchain network, through the integration of scripts Plutus Platform on the blockchain. This hard fork is the latest phase in the current era Goguen, the third era of the network and the one that will allow the implementation of smart contracts on Cardano.
Although developers consider that one of the first implementations of smart contracts in Cardano will be decentralized exchanges (DEX), the activation of this functionality will also allow the deployment of a wide range of new applications and functionalities for DeFi, which go beyond DEXs, for the first time within this network.
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Alonzo and smart contracts
With Alonzo, Cardano is getting closer to implementing smart contracts on its blockchain. As mentioned, the activation of smart contracts will allow the network's developers to create a wide range of products to boost the construction of a decentralized financial ecosystem, which is on par with other blockchains such as Ethereum, Polkadot, Solana, Among others.
Although the development of the network has been quite slow, it is worth remembering that Cardano is a scientifically based blockchain, which is built from scratch, to offer an efficient and effective solution to the scalability and security problems present in other blockchains.
Its “slow” process has caused dissatisfaction among some users in the crypto community, who they point out The constant postponements of the initial dates of the network launches are “annoying”. Nevertheless, the developers assure that the development, with a scientific and research tone of Cardano, will guarantee the creation of a highly secure, scalable and energy-efficient protocol and code without giving up decentralization.
For the time being, AlonzoBlue will be available to a limited number of interest group operators or stake pools (SPO), and for Plutus program members and other network partners.
White and Purple, the next test networks
AlonzoBlue is just the first testnet for Alonzo. The developers estimate that the next testnets, called Alonzo White y Alonzo Purple, will be active in the next two months to allow all SPO operators, Plutus members and more users to participate in Alonzo. After the testnets, the hard fork will be ready for implementation on mainnet and smart contracts will be available on the network from September.
At press time, ADA, Cardano's native token, is trading at a value of $1,70 per unit, and has a market capitalization of over $52.000 billion. Over the past year, ADA has shown growth of over 1.800%, making it one of the most profitable digital assets in the crypto industry.
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