Top Crypto News Today: Cardano Vasil Upgrade Goes Live Successfully, ADA Price surges above $0.45%

Key takeaways

• Cardano Vasil Hark Fork goes underway at 3:28 AM (IST) on 23rd September 2022
• ADA price surges to $0.47, right after the launch of the Vasil Hard Fork

🎊 #Vasil deployed!!

Thank you to @CardanoStiftung, @InputOutputHK, #SPOs, and everyone in the #Cardano ecosystem that made it happen! 🎉#CardanoCommunity pic.twitter.com/p4oK2T9FMa

— Cardano Foundation (@CardanoStiftung) September 22, 2022

What is Cardano Hark Fork?

For the uninitiated, Cardano Vasil Hard Fork is a major upgrade that is slated to enhance its throughput, efficiency and block latency speeds. This step is essentially another milestone that brings the project one step closer to dethroning the largest smart contract and DeFi platform out there – Ethereum. With this latest upgrade, Cardano’s developers hope to improve the efficiency of smart contracts to make Cardano cheaper and faster to use.

Cardano’s smart contract capabilities launch saw intense traffic coming on the chain with a huge number of developers wanting to build DeFi protocols on the chain. As blockchains get busier, speeds typically slow down and fees increase. So the Vasil Hard Fork is expected to solve this two pronged issue at once. Vasil is considered by many developers in the ecosystem as the “most extensive upgrade attempted” to Cardano to date.

#Vasil is the most ambitious update program for #Cardano to date. With such a complex upgrade and multiple stakeholders, we need to be confident the ecosystem is ready.

In the last 48h the following exchanges confirmed they are #ReadyForVasil:@ChangellyPro@hitbtc@ZBexchange

— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) September 21, 2022

However, it must be noted that this will simply be the first step in a larger plan of executing multiple steps to achieve this aim. The entire hard fork won’t be integrated all in one fell swoop. The first round, which will begin the process of the Vasil Hard Fork will take place during the epoch that happened just a while ago today on 22 September, 2022. The rest of the Cardano Vasil hard fork will take effect in the next epoch, on 27 September.

Vasil key dates:

-September 19th – Mainnet update proposal needs to be submitted by this date to trigger HFC event on 22nd

-September 22nd – Mainnet HFC event (era transitions from Alonzo -> Babbage)

-September 27th – Plutus V2 Cost Model available on Mainnet#CardanoVasil

— 🎉🎆 Cexplorer.io || Cardano Explorer (@cexplorer_io) September 14, 2022

SO NOW THAT THE VASIL HARD FORK IS UNDERWAY, WHAT’S NEXT?

As mentioned earlier, the next step in the Cardano Vasil Hard Fork will take place during the next epoch on the 27th of September, 2022. According to the Cardano Explorer, the second round of updates will focus on the Plutus cost model. The language’s cost model refers to the central processing unit (CPU) and memory fees associated with running those contracts. 

VASIL HARD FORK – AFTER MUCH DELAY

Cardano Vasil Hard Fork is finally happening after a huge delay. It was originally set to go live in June, 2022, then pushed to July over technical snags. The deadline was then pushed again as the developers wanted to ensure that the upgrade happened smoothly.

However, it is undeniable that the network’s native crypto token has taken a hit in price, thanks to these delays. According to data from Messari, ADA has seen a gradual decline in daily transaction counts since the beginning of the year. 

HOW DID THE CARDANO VASIL HARD FORK IMPACT ADA PRICE?

Along the same lines as the on-chain metric mentioned above, there has been a strong downward trend in ADA’s price too, which has fallen over 68% YTD, as of today, 22 September, 2022. Even in the short term, it is stuck in a bearish price pattern, a descending triangle pattern on the charts – and is very close to breaking down below it. A breakdown below that level could trigger further selloffs in ADA price, despite positive news regarding the Cardano Vasil Upgrade.

Prices as of 22nd September, 2022.

Additional Read: Cardano Price Prediction