Cardano Vasil hard fork completed. What’s next?

The Cardano (ADA) token, which is frequently included in the Top 10 list of cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, has been in a protracted period of price consolidation since reaching its all-time high (ATH) in September of last year.

Nevertheless, since the start of the epidemic, the native ADA coin of the Cardano blockchain platform has increased by more than 10 times, demonstrating the growing interest among developers in building decentralized apps (DApps) for a large user base.

Cardano, which gains from the Ouroboros blockchain system, has contributed to the launch of more than 1,000 DApps that rely on its scalable and secure smart contracts.

With the aim of further improving transaction speeds and augmenting the blockchain’s scalability, Cardano envisaged its Vasil hard fork and was pursuing its implementation for the better part of 2022.

The release of new functionality through the Vasil hard fork on September 22 was announced on Twitter by Cardano's design and development team, Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), and is seen as the second largest event in the cryptocurrency world after Ethereum's merger.

Cardano is well on its way to becoming the "Ethereum-killer," as has been predicted by both experts and cryptocurrency developers, thanks to advances like improved transaction processing capacity and quicker block propagation times.

What benefits does the Vasil hard fork offer?

The Vasil hard fork promises to unleash enormous possibilities for Cardano's community of consumers and developers, even if it is not the first time the cryptocurrency has conducted a hard fork, which is effectively a network upgrade where new features or previous problems are resolved.

By strengthening the capabilities of its smart contracts, Cardano’s Vasil hard fork offers a significantly amped-up experience for developers and lower transaction costs for its users.

Following up on the Alonzo upgrade that the blockchain platform introduced last year, the latest upgrade not only builds on it but also introduces a new concept called ‘diffusion pipelining’.

As a result, the Cardano blockchain now provides better data processing both within and between chains, as well as faster transactions per second by cutting down on the time needed to move blocks (TPS).

Three important Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIPs), namely CIP-31, CIP-32, and CIP-33, have also added new features, such as a new reference input mechanism, the addition of an on-chain storage feature, and a lighter programming script.

To top it all off, Cardano’s native smart contract programming language Plutus has gone through another iteration to make it more powerful and new security improvements have been brought in with still keeping the transaction burden off-chain.

Response of ADA Price to Cardano's hard fork

Cardano's ADA currency hasn't shown the same level of enthusiasm despite all the hoopla and considerable technological upgrades made to its blockchain architecture.

Following the announcement of the Vasil hard fork implementation, ADA corrected by almost 10%, and technical indicators do not give much hope either.

However, it might be argued that the ADA token is only responding to market forces considering the severe pessimistic emotions permeating the global markets, the ripple effects they have had on the whole cryptocurrency ecosystem, and Ethereum's (ETH) comparable downward trend following its merger.

However, investors can anticipate some intriguing follow-up information from the Cardano team, such as the ongoing development of Cardano's layer 2 scaling solution, known as the Hydra head protocol, which may be operational by the first quarter of 2023.

The Cardano blockchain appears to be on track to get better going forward while struggling with implementation delays for the Vasil hard fork and facing lower transaction volumes for most of 2022.

Long-term crypto investors who entered the fray well before the post-COVID19 spike would be less concerned by the recent performance of the ADA coin.

However, short-term investors or those who took an entry during the 2021 boom cycle could take comfort from the fact that Cardano continues to be one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization and enjoys a very healthy trading volume on the various crypto exchanges.

That so, the ADA token is now priced at a very key support level and future holdings ought to be made only after considering one’s risk appetite.

For those who believe in the power of DApps and the unlimited potential they provide in a Web3 future, the ADA token offers a very attractive risk-reward ratio and can observe considerable price increases, supported by significantly larger transaction volume transferring to the Cardano network.

That being said, it seems even more likely that the Cardano blockchain will be their top choice once advantages of the Vasil hard fork start to flow in as more entities and developers swarm to the DApp space in order to develop the burgeoning Web3 space.