Introduction
Cardano is a popular community oriented blockchain and as we all already know, Cardano is currently in its second “Shelley” phase which emphasizes primarily on Decentralization of the network by incentivizing its users to deploy their own nodes which eventually promises more strength and diversity to the Cardano network. The next, third phase and the most awaited one for Cardano is “Goguen” in which Smart contracts are expected to be introduced. And that’s where ADAX will be putting their mark!
Smart contracts are essential for Cardano to compete with well established and well known names such as Ethereum. One of the most fundamental reasons behind Ethereum’s success has been its’ EVM and smart contracts allowing users to create contracts custom-tailored to their needs. This has resulted in a surge of dApps. While one of the most used smart contracts on Ethereum is “ERC-20 token”, which enables people to issue and trade their own tokens on Ethereum blockchain; it is already possible to create such tokens on Cardano network but as opposed to versatile and customizable contracts on Ethereum, currently Cardano only provides a standard template token and also the process is not as simple as deploying a smart contract on Ethereum. Therefore, smart contracts on Cardano network have been a long awaited feature and such claim is justified by demand from traders and dApp users.
Cardano is primarily written in Haskell language and in contrast to Ethereum’s “Solidity”, Cardano has introduced its’ own programming language / platform known as “Plutus” which has been available to developers lately but lacks a lot of documentation. Cardano’s answer to Ethereum’s “Remix” platform is known as “Plutus Playground”.
Entire Cardano community is looking forward to it and our development team has primarily focused on the new Alonzo hard-fork since its announcement. Alonzo update has been distributed in further three stages: Alonzo Blue, Alonzo White and Alonzo Purple. The update started releasing earlier, but it was not until 1st September 20:20 UTC that it was activated. While the hard-fork will not be activated on mainnet until 12th September, our development team is continuously making its effort and progressing on this front.
Earlier, our team also published a document describing the step by step process of deploying a node on Cardano network as well as the process of creating and issuing tokens/assets on Cardano.
Conclusion
To conclude, it seems Alonzo is only the entry case into this third phase of Cardano and there “still is a long way to go” before we have real smart contract capability on Cardano blockchain. Choice of less popular Haskell programming language for Cardano’s core has also been a big blocker which has been preventing developers from around the world from adapting and contributing to its development. Lack of resources such as proper workflows, documentations and resources like the StackExchange site, make it extremely difficult for developers to quickly understand and adapt Cardano and/or its Plutus platform. Since working with Cardano protocol without all the resources available to developers requires extreme levels of commitment, it is certainly not possible for small/medium development companies and freelance developers to be really able to adapt Cardano like it happened with Ethereum, leaving only large scale enterprises who have resources to allocate developers specifically for research and development (R&D) purposes on Cardano and being able to integrate and use it commercially.
The entire development process for Cardano and its entry to the second phase has also been unconventional mostly as the second phase was actually a complete rewrite of Cardano blockchain software and protocol. This also creates uncertainty for developers and organizations interested about upcoming phases of Cardano roadmap. Let’s say we are in the end of the Shelley phase and near to the beginning of Goguen phase and a complete rewrite in protocol and software at this stage for the new phase will render all efforts and development useless in previous integrations. For all the reasons mentioned above, development in the Cardano network is actually far more expensive as compared to other blockchain protocols.
ADAX Progress:
Wallet integration
The vital part for every dApp to work is a web wallet. To be more precise, web extension which injects API into website’s javascript context. Without it, interaction between our web app and blockchain is quite impossible. Like Ethereum has it’s Metamask, there is still an open spot in the Cardano ecosystem. We are currently looking into many different wallet solutions, including but not limited to GeroWallet, Daedalus, Yoroi, AdaLite, Exodus, CardWallet. We are happy to announce that we already have a fully interactive UI, which needs to be wired with appropriate interactions with the Cardano blockchain and upcoming smart contract functionality (more on that later). Once a fully functional wallet API is launched, we are ready to go. We have everything set up to integrate it extremely quickly.
Indexing protocols
Another upcoming challenge for the ADAX UI is presenting aggregated blockchain data. It’s not a vital issue though, as the first swap version will be released without beautiful charts and aggregated statistics. Nevertheless, we are looking into the future as we are keen on delivering the best product we can. As seen on BSC, blockchain data querying can become a real issue moving forward. Cardano ecosystem being in the infancy stage, currently there is no solution for this. We are closely tracking progress in this space and at the same time, we are looking at a scenario where we roll out our own solution.
Smart contracts (Plutus)
Some exciting progress has been made regarding ADAX decentralized backend infrastructure. After rolling out proof of concept pool factory, pool and swap smart contracts on Plutus playground, we are working on the second, more advanced version which will be close to production ready release. As Alonzo hard fork Plutus version will be somewhat identical to current Plutus version under Plutus Playground, we can happily say that we already have working MVP, yet keeping it undisclosed to retain first mover advantage. It took some time to wrap our heads around the eUTXO model, but that is already behind us. Another headache is the ever-changing Plutus repository and breaking changes, but that is poised to end after September 12th.
Oracles
We are researching possible ways to utilize oracles in our swapping protocol. The vision is that there can be an alternative swapping mechanism for low liquidity pairs, where price is determined via oracle, instead of pool-asset ratio. This would allow the creation of small liquidity pools for niche projects which do not have a lot of capital to inject in the creation of the pool, having in mind that oracle has reliable multiple sources to take price from. This would make price manipulation extremely hard (depending on oracle) and remove slippage at all, yet still keep the system decentralized.
Order Book
Our R&D team is also exploring possible ways to transfer time tested Order Book to eUTXO model, including on chain matching algorithm, which is the only centralized part used by current DEX’es.
Front-End
With a continuously growing mobile user base around the globe we’re making sure to follow all the proper guidelines and best practices when designing mobile ADAX web. Our designer and frontend teams are working and finalizing work in this regard as of writing. We’re putting extra effort so that our users would have the best experience when using both — mobile and desktop versions.
To further assist on your journey on our platform, we are adding some quality of life features such as dark/light modes, persistent user options/preferences through sessions and many more. In addition, our users will have an option to customize their experience by changing every color to their liking, making it feel even more personalized and comfortable.
We know that keeping in touch with everything that is happening around is tough, therefore we’re adding a push notifications option, if the user decides to opt-in to it. This will assist traders to be aware of market situations, price changes, follow watch listed pools, etc.
Making a new investment can be intimidating, therefore we’ll be assisting you in that regard. Our analytics team will offer suggestions for new pool options depending on your previous activity and historical data. New dashboard will list all suggestions with appropriate data to support our claim and guide you towards positive outcomes.
