After multiple delays and setbacks, Cardano’s (one of the most well-known blockchains for smart contracts) long-awaited Vasil hard fork upgrade finally went live on 22nd Sept 2023. Charles Hoskinson, the creator of Cardano, declared in early June 2022 that the Cardano blockchain would experience an update known as the Vasil hard fork by the end of June 2022. However, for some reason, it got delayed, and it will ultimately be released in the middle of September 2022, near the Ethereum Merge.

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In this article, let’s understand Cardano’s Vasil hard fork. Let’s get this party started!

What is the Vasil hard fork?

A hard fork is a major modification to a network’s protocol that permanently diverges from an early version of the Blockchain. It is up to the miners to decide which Blockchain to keep verifying. In the past, a Hard Fork on the Bitcoin Blockchain produced Bitcoin Cash. The Cardano community anticipated Vasil’s improvement, which finally launched in September 2022.

In a nutshell, the Cardano blockchain has been upgraded via the Vasil hard fork.

It is the second main upgrade to the Cardano network and concentrates on improving connectivity and standard network stability.

Vasil offers new functionality, including pipelining testing, UTXO on-disk storage integration, new CIP methods (CIP-31, CIP-32, CIP-33, and CIP-40), and Hydra.

Expectations from Vasil hard fork

The upgrade was anticipated to result in several improvements to transaction fees, the Decentralized App’s scalability, and the speed of transactions.

• Transaction Fees: Transaction fees will be reduced due to the upcoming development and major network improvements, resulting in smaller transaction sizes and higher network performance.

• Decentralized Application (dApp) Scalability: It is anticipated that the upgrade will address the contemporary issue that has significantly hampered the ability of Cardano’s decentralized applications to scale.

• Speed of Transactions: Vasil will enable developers to store and reference data without output. This will improve transaction throughput and boost the Blockchain’s concurrency. Additionally, it will substantially speed up the transactions.

Before we move forward, let’s understand the various CIP mechanisms and diffusion pipelining that will be introduced.

Vasil’s hard fork top Cardano Improvement Protocols (CIPs) & diffusion pipelining.

• CIP-31 (Reference Inputs)

As the name implies, a reference input would allow viewing an output without actually spending it, which is what Cardano hopes to do with CIP-31. The idea is to make accessing data already stored on the network easier without worrying about UTXO churning from spending and creating new ones.

In terms of use cases, one may provide the example of inspecting an on-chain app’s state without actually consuming its output (for instance, checking the current state of a stablecoin state machine.)

• CIP-32 (Inline Datums)

This proposal aims to make it possible for datums to be attached to outputs rather than to datum hashes. The final goal is to make it easier and faster for users to communicate datum values.

The Cardano team anticipates that this functionality will be utilized widely by DApp developers because it will significantly simplify the overall state of their systems.

The fundamental goal of CIP-32 is to conceptually simplify the scenario when outputs are conceptually related to datums.

• CIP-33 (Reference Scripts)

The Cardano Improvement Proposal 33 proposes to enable scripts to be utilized to satisfy script requirements throughout the validation process rather than necessitating the spending transaction. Reference scripts will be able to be linked to outputs and used to meet script needs.

• CIP-40 (Collateral Outputs)

This one includes a brand-new category of transaction outputs called collateral outputs. In addition, it tries to increase the network’s general scalability.

• Diffusion pipelining

Block propagation time has been improved through diffusion pipelining. As new dApps are deployed on the Cardano blockchain, it is crucial to increase network scalability. The main idea of diffusion pipelining is to send blocks before they have been fully validated while also making adjustments to the consensus layer to enhance block propagation across nodes.

What does the road ahead look like?

The Vasil hard fork is certainly a significant event in Cardano’s history. The first smart contract was only made available in September 2021. However, the network has received one of the most significant upgrades thanks to Cardano developers.

Diffusion pipelining and other smart contract enhancements will probably keep DeFi developers and users interested. It’s conceivable that another upgrade will be required as Cardano grows. If Cardano can keep up, that will be determined over time.

Conclusion: When will the Vasil hard fork happen?

Cardano and Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson has informed his viewers that the hard fork will take place “sometime in September.” The long-awaited Ethereum merge is scheduled to occur on or around September 15—possibly not by coincidence.