Cardano’s May 29 hard fork vote brings ADA’s DeFi weakness into view
Cardano’s upcoming Van Rossem hard fork aims to improve smart contract performance while highlighting the network's need for increased DeFi adoption.Summary
Cardano is preparing for its "Van Rossem" (V11) hard fork, scheduled for a May 29 mainnet governance vote. The upgrade introduces significant enhancements to the Plutus smart contract environment, including better script performance, reduced execution costs, and new cryptographic primitives like BLS12-381 multi-scalar multiplication for ZK proofs. While technically robust, the upgrade arrives as Cardano faces a significant usage gap compared to competitors like Solana and Ethereum, particularly regarding total value locked (TVL) and stablecoin liquidity. Success for Cardano hinges on whether these technical improvements can attract developers and stimulate decentralized finance activity, or if the network will continue to struggle with a high market-cap-to-TVL ratio.
(Source：CryptoSlate)