Vasil is Cardano's new update that improves the network's scalability and smart contract capabilities.
Vasil is the name of the new update or hard fork of the Cardano blockchain. This is one of the most anticipated updates, as it comes with a large number of new features and network performance improvements.
La hard fork was implemented a few weeks ago in one of Cardano's testnets, where developers and users will be able to test its functionalities in a controlled manner, without a possible error affecting the operation of the main network.
Testing on the testnet is intended to last about four weeks, after which a governance vote will be held and, if all parties are comfortable, the upgrade will be deployed on Cardano.
What is Vasil?
Vasil is a hard fork or hard fork of the network. This is an update that implements a series of new functionalities and improvements in network performance.
When Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) started working on Cardano in 2015, their goal was to create a superior blockchain that would be scalable, sustainable and capable of implementing sophisticated decentralized applications.
However, until the implementation of the hard fork Alonzo in 2021, Cardano did not have the ability to use smart contracts.
Why Vasil?
Traditionally, Cardano uses as nomenclature for its products and updates names of famous people in the fields of philosophy and scienceHowever, in the case of Vasil, the name is taken from Vasil Stoyanov Davov, a personal friend of Charles Hoskinson, founder of IOHK, and Cardano ambassador to the world.
Vasil was an artist, entrepreneur and blockchain consultant, as well as a much-loved member of the Cardano community, which is why the decision was made to name this hard fork with his name as a way of honoring him, after his death in December 2021.
What improvements will Vasil implement?
Vasil is one of the Major Cardano Updates to date and will include a number of scaling improvements. These improvements include certain key elements such as the pipeline, the new Plutus CIPs, UTXO disk storage, and Hydra.
These features will improve Cardano’s performance and optimize the platform to accommodate the growing range of DeFi-based decentralized applications.
Channeling of diffusion
Essentially, the channeling of diffusion streamlines the process of sharing information about newly created blocks between network participants, ensuring that blocks can be propagated on the network within five seconds of their creation. To do this, the diffusion pipelining propagates blocks once they are fully validated, thereby overlapping the time spent on diffusion with the time needed for validation.
Pipelining also ensures that the block header referencing the hash of a previous block is propagated correctly. The block body is kept within the metadata included in the next block, which is Essential for DDoS resistance even without full confirmation of the block.
Ultimately, the pipeline will add scalability by enabling further block size increases and improvements to Plutus scripts.
Improvements in Plutus
Another of the improvements implemented with Vasil has to do with Plutus, Cardano's programming language. With Vasil, Cardano wants to improve the programming platform to optimize the use and smart contract setup taking better advantage of Cardano’s EUTXO model, including:
- Reference Entries (CIP-31): This update enables data to be shared on-chain. Previously, data was carried in transaction outputs; it was stored and provided access to the information on the blockchain. However, to access the information in this data, the output to which the data was attached had to be spent. This required recreating a spent output. The addition of reference inputs allows developers to query a data without additional steps. This makes it easier to access information stored on the blockchain without spending or recreating UTXOs, which could be useful for oracles.
- Online data addition (CIP-32): By implementing inline data, developers can create scripts and attach the data directly to outputs instead of using hashes. This simplifies the use of the data as the user can see the actual data instead of supplying it to match the given hash.
- Reference Scripts (CIP-33): Updating reference scripts allows developers to reference a script without including it in every transaction. This greatly reduces transaction sizes, improves performance, and reduces script execution costs.
Warranty adjustment and other improvements
The CIP-40, the warranty adjustment, will improve transaction validation. Developers will have the ability to specify a change address for the script's collateral. If the script fails Phase 2 validation, only the collateral amount will be taken, and the remaining funds will be sent to the change address.
Finally, Vasil optimizes the Verifiable Random Function (VRF) process of Ouroboros. Before Vasil, block validation required two VRF functions at each hop of the network. Vasil dispenses with one of these functions, resulting in faster block validation times and network synchronization overall. This way, users will experience increased performance without compromising security settings.
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