There is just one day to go before Cardano smart contracts goes live in Mainnet. This culminates years of hard work by input Output Global (IOG) headed by Charles Hoskinson. The former co-founder of Ethereum and his team went through years of extensive peer reviews, development and testing to reach this point.
What should you expect now that smart contracts is ready to go live? Read on so that you are aware and know how to respond:
1. Price Volatility
Hard forks bringing in new functionality tends to affect prices. There is usually a price appreciation before and immediately after the fork as the new functionality attracts buying interest. This is followed by a correction after the fork when short term buyers cash out. Over time however, the market usually recovers and reaches new all time highs so if you believe in Cardano’s long term benefits, just sit back and enjoy the ride.
2. Silent Critics
Critics have labeled Cardano a ghost chain that is over-priced despite not having smart contracts. The amount of hate Cardano sometimes gets is baffling although this is more than compensated by the amount of love given by the Cardano Community. Cardano is hands down the most successful Proof of Stake coin and with the arrival of smart contracts tomorrow, expect critics to be silenced— or maybe not as fanatic detractors may probably just look for a new axe to grind 🙂
3. New Projects
Several projects have already started developing with the new functionalities since smart contracts was available on testnet. It is expected that even more projects will be launched on Cardano or migrated from other platforms. This is due in part to Cardano’s more predictable and cheaper fee structure, aside from other benefits like faster transactions. A bustling and supportive, fast growing Cardano community is also a big draw for new projects.
4. Bug Fixes
Smart contracts has been extensively tested in Testnet internally by IOG, by hundreds of Plutus pioneers and by the general public. Despite this, bugs may still pop up either in the main code or in new projects that are developed. An example is when a recent project encountered issues, IOG had to clarify that Cardano can perform multiple transactions per block. These rumours or actual bugs are part of any new software so expect these to surface in the next few months.
5. Stability and Growth
As all bugs are fixed and new projects become more knowledgeable on how to properly develop in Cardano, there will be a period of stability as the ecosystem matures and new applications become mainstream. Number of transactions will increase along with an expected steady appreciation in price as more use cases for Cardano goes live.
6. Roadmap Completion
There are still two eras left in Cardano’s current roadmap. These will introduce scaling and governance which are both necessary to a growing network bustling with activity. They are not yet required for now and will be delivered in the next few years. Nevertheless, it is good to know that these functionalities are already in the pipeline from the start and are not just an afterthought.
Summary
In summary, the arrival of smart contracts in Cardano is a long awaited event. We should all celebrate this achievement which will give a new level of adoption to Cardano. Having said that, we should also be aware that there will be challenges ahead like price volatility and bug fixes but we should stay calm as these are all expected.
After IOG’s all clear announcement urging stake pool operators to upgrade to the new Cardano version, WISH Pool completed upgrading all its nodes to v1.29 last week. All set for smart contracts!
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