What Cardano’s Vasil hard fork means for the blockchain

After several delays and some setbacks, Cardano’s long-awaited Vasil upgrade finally went live on Sept. 22. From the outside looking in, the hard fork is designed to help improve the ecosystem’s scalability and general transaction throughput capacity as well as advance Cardano’s decentralized applications (DApps) development capacity. 

To commemorate the event, an announcement was made by blockchain firm Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) — which currently oversees the design, building and maintenance of the Cardano platform — just minutes after the development.

To obtain a more holistic overview of what the upgrade represents and its potential impact on Cardano (as well as the crypto ecosystem at large), Cointelegraph reached out to Shahaf Bar-Geffen, CEO of COTI, a protocol for creating decentralized payment networks and stablecoins. In his view:

“The Vasil Upgrade heralds the dawn of a new era for the Cardano ecosystem and the decentralized finance space at large. The upgrade aims to improve the network’s scalability and enhance Cardano’s smart contract capabilities.”

Bar-Geffen further noted that the hard fork will significantly improve the efficiency of Djed, an algorithmic stablecoin developed jointly by IOHK and the COTI Group, increasing the number of transactions carried out on the Djed platform and thus helping position Cardano as a prime contender for stablecoin transactions.

A closer look at what Vasil has to offer

Before looking at the functional and operational benefits afforded by the Vasil hard fork, it would be best to understand what exactly a hard fork is. In its most basic sense, a hard fork is a network upgrade set in motion when those governing a blockchain platform decide to add or fix certain features to the ecosystem. 

In other words, when a hard fork takes place, the network splits into two versions that run separately, where one version follows existing features and rules while the other continues as an upgraded version of the network. 

Expounding her view on the technical aspects of the upgrade, Charmyn Ho, head of crypto insights for cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, told Cointelegraph that at the application layer, Cardano’s Vasil hard fork aims to bolster the network’s current smart contracts to curate a better experience for both users and developers alike, adding:

“This will simultaneously lead to a more efficient building process with regard to applications on the chain. At the infrastructure level, the many…