Cardano, the home of the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap ADA, is set to soon fully launch smart contract functionality. The network entered its second era, Shelley, last July, and is now set to begin its third era, Goguen, which will introduce smart contracts. This functionality should enable decentralized applications (DApps) on the blockchain.
Yet, most Polymarket users are betting that the much-awaited smart contracts will not go live on the proof-of-stake blockchain when October begins. Cardano founder, Charles Hoskinson, has once again lambasted such skeptics claiming imminent smart contract deployment won’t happen. In an Aug. 4 tweet, Hoskinson suggested starting a fund that will pay for the critics’ therapy.
Notably, Cardano has been highly criticized in the past for slow development with some positing that its peer-reviewed approach was responsible for the delays.
Surprisingly, the Alonzo testnet that’s supporting key features of smart contract development for Cardano’s upcoming Goguen era has been making steady progress. The testnet was split into three different color-coded phases named Blue, White, and Purple.
In mid-July, Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) announced that the Alonzo testnet had successfully transitioned from the Blue to the White phase. The Alonzo White phase allows stake pool operators and validators to test the smart contract functionality on a more advanced level unlike on Alonzo Blue.
If all goes well, the completion of the purple stage will lead to the launch of smart contracts on the Cardano mainnet in September of this year as per the project’s roadmap. This will give Cardano the ability to compete with other decentralized finance ecosystems such as Ethereum, Solana, Binance, and Polkadot.
ADA’s price action has reacted positively to the strong progress made by the IOHK team, standing as one of the most popular cryptocurrencies. While the price of the token has dropped with the rest of the crypto market in recent weeks, it has held up in the $1 to $1.30 level. Moreover, 71.77% of all ADA tokens are staked on the network, amounting to circa $30.93 billion out of an approximately $43.1 billion market capitalization.
