The Vasil network upgrade is slated for Thursday, September 2022.
What is a Hard Fork?
A Hard Fork is when participants on a Blockchain network decide to split the chain, resulting in two versions of the same network or protocol. This is not Cardano’s first rodeo
https://www.essentialcardano.io/article/cardanos-approaching-vasil-upgrade-what-to-expect
Cardano is a public Blockchain platform that is open-source and decentralised and can facilitate peer-to-peer transactions with its native cryptocurrency "$ADA".
It is a unique Blockchain that implements a hard fork every year albeit Vasil being "the hardest"~ Charles Hoskinson.
Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano and previous co-founder of Ethereum said "The Vasil update is one of the long ones, probably the hardest update we've ever had to do as an ecosystem".
The upgrade is named after it's late Chief Blockchain advisor; Vasil St. Dabov.
Hoskinson opined that the update had been delayed many times with the reasons being cited as software issues and testing.
The Vasil upgrade was initially slated for late June 2022 but was delayed due to a plethora of reasons but will now go live on Sept 22, 2022.
The Alonzo hard fork, the first Cardano hard fork which went live on September 12, 2021, made Cardano's much-anticipated inclusion of smart contract features possible.
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What upgrades exactly does Vasil bring to the table?
The Cardano Blockchain ($ADA) surpassed 50 million transactions per epoch amidst optimism of the Vasil network upgrade.
The Vasil Hard Fork will involve several Cardano improvement proposals (CIPs);
CIP-31: Reference Inputs
CIP 31 will promote additional access to network-stored data without the overall disadvantages brought on by spending and rebuilding Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs). It will significantly lower Cardano's transaction costs as a result.
CIP 32: Inline Datums
The current Cardano blockchain implements datums by attaching hashes to outputs.
CIP 32 uses the actual datum as output as opposed to using the hash. As a result, developers would be able to store their data on-chain, promoting decentralization.
CIP 33: Reference Scripts
According to "Cardano's Learn About Plutus Page", Haskell ie. Cardano's native programming language is converted to Plutus so as to be processable by Cardano's VM.
One must upload the script to the blockchain each time you make a transaction.
Blockchain Developers would be able to attach reference scripts to outputs thanks to CIP 33 as Plutus' scripts do not exist on the cardano blockchain.
This will reduce transaction costs by making transactions more compact.
CIP 40: Explicit Collateral Outputs
The CIP 40 upgrade is intended to increase Cardano's (ADA) DDoS protection and safeguard users from possibly losing their ADA collateral as one must interact with dapps.
This will in turn improve Cardano wallets user experience.
Extended Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXO) Support:
The EUTXO model of Cardano will offer a safe and flexible environment for handling many processes without experiencing system malfunctions by making transaction verifications easier while promoting privacy/scalability.
Hydra:
Hydra will attempt to scale the Cardano blockchain as a Layer-2 system by decreasing latency and boosting throughput, or TPS. It will try to maintain low txn fees as the Cardano network expands and additional DApps and smart contracts are introduced to the chain.
What’s next after the Vasil upgrade?
After the September 22 upgrade, IOHK also noted that there would be a PreProduction environment set for September 24. During the event, new Plutus features and cost models will be available in the PreProduction environment before transitioning to the mainnet on September 27.
Then there's the inevitable question.
Will $ADA rally as a result of this seismic upgrade?
The Alonzo hard fork that took place in September last year was met with a lot of enthusiasm but failed to deliver leaving most $ADA maxis to hodl their bags onto the next upgrade.
Though one could argue the Vasil upgrade is on a much bigger scale than Alonzo, PTSD still prevails as no one wants to bag a loss in the wake of a seemingly perilous market riddled with macro landscape fears.
Conclusion
There is also the question of adoption.
Let’s be optimistic for a bit. Swiss sygnum bank expanded crypto staking with cardano. It has also been listed on Robinhood . If the Vasil upgrade is able to significantly increase UX with cardano dapps and txns, $ADA could rally hard in the right conditions.
Disclaimer: This article represents the author’s personal opinion. It is only for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be treated as financial advice.
