Cardano has entered the “final, critical stage” prior to the platform’s much-publicized Alonzo upgrade, according to blockchain research and engineering company Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK).
IOHK has submitted an upgrade proposal to the Cardano testnet to “hardfork the chain into the Alonzo era,” according to a Twitter post from the company.
The Cardano (ADA) developer says it is still targeting September 12th for the upgrade, which aims to bring smart contract functionality to the blockchain via a “hard fork combinator (HFC) event.”
IOHK says the development is a “major milestone” for the platform.
“Over the days ahead, we’ll be doing final checks and testing within a controlled environment to ensure that we are ready to upgrade the main Cardano network. And usher in a transformative era of smart contracts capability.”
According to Dimitris Poulopoulos, a project manager at IOHK, the window until September 12th will allow the company to identify and fix issues before the mainnet launch while monitoring the network to confirm stability.
Cardano’s native asset ADA surged on Friday as the crypto market rebounded from a mid-week correction. At time of writing, the third-ranked crypto asset by market cap is trading at $2.87 and is up 13.7% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
ADA hit its all-time high of $2.95 on Monday.
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