• Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson says the launch date for smart contracts on the network will be revealed on Friday.
• ADA has gained more than 20 percent in the past few days and developer activity on the Cardano network has increased.

Cardano founder and IOHK CEO, Charles Hoskinson, said that the much-awaited Cardano smart contracts will be launched at a date to be announced this Friday. The date will be before the 2021 Cardano Summit conference, which is already registering participants online.

In a video podcast Tuesday, he noted;

I just wanted to make a very quick video telling you guys a few things, so we had our big meeting today and we kind of went through where we’re at the progress with smart contracts,

We had a lot of discussions with partners and other people and it looks like we are on track for Friday to announce the date. We feel very comfortable with the date and I think it is a very achievable date and I think the community is going to be quite happy about it.

Cardano network growth

Founded in 2015, Cardano (ADA) has developed into a highly researched, peer-reviewed network and the 5th largest global blockchain platform. The network now prepares to launch its smart contracts which will allow developers to build and launch DApps on it. The development is significant as it will not only boost network innovation but also the number of community members.

Last week, IOHK, which is Cardano’s parent company, announced the Alonzo Purple Testnet as the first public testnet. All stake pool operators, members of the Plutus pioneer program, and exchanges can now participate in the testnet. IOHK is also making crypto exchanges “Alonzo HF-ready” to ensure zero ADA transactions disruption after the hard fork.

In response to the smart contract announcements, ADA has spiked 20 percent in the past few days. At writing time, ADA was trading at $1.77 per token, up 19.19 percent in a day, according to our data. ADA’s market cap is now $57 billion, up from $38.9 billion in less than a month.

Additionally, developer activity on the network has also increased, according to experts from Santiment analytics firm. This is because Alonzo Purple is fully public for developers. The preceding Alonzo Blue and Alonzo White were limited to 50 users and 500 validators, stake pool operators, and developers.

ADA and the crypto community

Moreover, growth could be related to the newly introduced Non-Fungible Tokens of Appreciation (NFTA) minted on the Cardano blockchain. The NFTAs are the first of their kind worldwide. Since they are built on Cardano and are native, they will not require smart contracts like Ethereum’s ERC-20 tokens. Simply put, every NFT or NFTA will be in itself a native token of the ADA network.

Nonetheless, a July prediction market showed that most people are betting on Cardano not launching smart contracts by Oct. 1. The majority are of the opinion that most blockchain development launch dates actually end up being delayed. The ball is now in the court for Cardano, as the community awaits to know the launch date and see if it will actually bear fruit.

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