DeutschCardano is getting closer and closer to the Vasil Upgrade. According to the developers, this is the most significant improvement to the ADA blockchain to date, but what exactly is behind it? CoinPro summarizes the most important information about the Cardano Vasil Hard Fork for you.
What is the Cardano Vasil Hardfork?
The Vasil Upgrade, also known as Hardfork, is a comprehensive improvement to the Cardano blockchain. The significant upgrade bears the name Vasil in honor of the late Bulgarian Cardano supporter Vasil Dabov.
The term Hardfork is used because Vasil is such a comprehensive improvement that backward compatibility is not guaranteed – the improved blockchain therefore splits off from the previous mainnet.
The aim of the upgrade is the integration of four improvement proposals. In detail, these are the following Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIP): CIP-31, CIP-32, CIP-33 and CIP-40.
In short, Vasil’s goal was to improve the throughput of the Cardano network and expand the capabilities of Plutus. Plutus is the name of the network’s programming layer and enables the use of Smart Contracts.
Did you know? Just one week before the start of the Vasil Hardfork, arch-enemy Ethereum with the Merge experienced a significant change.
What Improvements Does the Vasil Upgrade Bring Exactly?
The Cardano developers at Input Output emphasize that Vasil is the most important Cardano Upgrade to date, but why is it so important and what exactly should be improved with it? The Vasil Upgrade covers the following improvements:
- Through CIP-31, reference inputs are integrated, through which transaction outputs will in future contain public date information. These can then be used by various dApps simultaneously. This should reduce the number of necessary transactions in the DeFi sector and relieve the network.
- Thanks to CIP-32, so-called inline date information is being installed. This allows date information to be stored as plain text in the blockchain. Previously, it could only be stored as a hash. Scripts can therefore read time information better.
- CIP-33 enables reference scripts. Previously, a script had to be included in every single transaction. The improvement allows you to specify a reference instead, which then leads to a script that is processed by the blockchain.
These measures should speed up the validation of blocks and increase the speed of dApps. The size of scripts is reduced by 20 percent, their processing is even shortened by 40 percent, while blocks are evaluated a whole 80 percent faster.
In addition, there is CIP-40, which introduces Collateral Outputs. If a transaction takes place using Plutus, it must contain a collateral (a security). This is an additional amount of ADA. This measure protects the network from DOS attacks.
If a validation does not take place because an error occurs and the transaction is rejected, the user loses the deposited collateral. This is set to change with the improvement. Accordingly, a user should no longer lose ADA due to an invalid transaction.
What is Diffusion Pipelining?
In addition to the CIPs, the Vasil Upgrade also contains another improvement: Diffusion Pipelining. This allows the block propagation time to be reduced to a maximum of five seconds, as can be seen on the official Cardano website.
The improvement means that the block header is already distributed in the network before a complete confirmation. The subsequent block contains all metadata about the corresponding transaction – this is how DOS attacks are to be avoided.
At the same time, the block size of Cardano is increased again. Pipelining thus leads to the possibility of further improving the throughput of Cardano and the capabilities of Plutus in the future.
When Was the Cardano Vasil Upgrade?
After there had been repeated postponements for several months, the responsible developers announced a final start date at the beginning of September. The Cardano Vasil Hardfork took place on September 22, 2022.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson also mentioned in a video that some of the functions will be activated as early as September 22, while other functions will not be activated until September 27.
What Impact Did the Vasil Upgrade Have on the Cardano Price?
In particular, larger updates always cause a real hype among cryptocurrencies. Therefore, some investors had also speculated that the Cardano price could rise sharply in the course of the Vasil Upgrade. However, it does not make sense for investors to buy Cardano for a short-term speculation based solely on an upgrade. Instead, investors should always carry out a detailed Cardano price forecast that takes many different criteria into account.
The Vasil Upgrade has not had a long-term impact on the ADA price so far. Instead, the cryptocurrency was somewhat more volatile shortly before the upgrade than in other market phases. Such upgrades are nevertheless important for the long-term price development, because they are the only way to ensure that the crypto protocol continues to develop.
