The highly anticipated Vasil hard fork has been completed on the Cardno testnet, bringing it a big step closer to mainnet reality and promising broad performance improvements.
Project developers, stake pool operators (SPO) and exchanges are now encouraged to deploy their work on the testnet to ensure integrations run smoothly when the mainnet receives the Vasil treatment in about four weeks.
We are pleased to announce that the IOG team successfully performed the hard fork at 20:20 UTC today #Cardano test net. This is an important next step towards the Vasil upgrade on mainnet.
1/10 pic.twitter.com/9F9vzec0pK
— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) July 3, 2022
Once completed on mainnet, the Vasil hard fork will enable faster block creation and greater scalability for decentralized apps (dapps) running on Cardano. Input Output HK (IOHK), the organization that produced Cardano, said in a July 3 note tweet that in addition to performance improvements, developers would benefit from “greatly improved script performance and efficiency” and lower costs.
Vasil will also enable interoperability between Cardano (ADA) sidechains, one of the main features developers are looking to introduce in the current basho phase of blockchain development. Basho is the fourth development phase for Cardano focused on scaling and will be followed by the Voltaire phase where governance will be the main focus.
The Vasil upgrade is now live on testnet and coming to mainnet in a couple of weeks. Expect Cardano DeFi to hit the rapids from here
— ADA Whale (@cardano_whale) July 3, 2022
IOHK also noted that there would be no proposal for a mainnet hard fork until “ecosystem partners feel comfortable and ready,” but it is expected to come in about four weeks.
The previous phase, Goguen, rolled out smart contract capabilities on Cardano, which decentralized finance (DeFi) developers leveraged by launching dozens of dapp exchanges and DeFi protocols according to ecosystem tracker Cardano Cube.
Related: Ethereum fork a success as the Sepolia testnet prepares to test the merger
Cardano’s top dapp with a total value of $49.7 million (TVL) is currently decentralized exchange (DEX) WingRiders, according to DeFi data compiler DeFi Llama.
The testnet hard fork did little to move ADA, as it is up just 0.1% over the past 24 hours to $0.45, according to CoinGecko.