Here are Blockchain’s most outstanding achievements

The year 2022 was kaleidoscopically eventful for the Cardano ecosystem, with the Vasil update, the launch of the EVM compatible Milkomeda C1 and many more important achievements. U.Today has rounded up the top five things Cardano achieved over the past year.

Cardano’s Happy Vasil Day

No words can describe how much you have been waiting for Vasil hard fork was for the Cardano community. Finally, after months of preparation and both the IOG and Cardano team working around the clock, the historic upgrade went live on September 22nd at 21:44 UTC. Vasil introduced Plutus 2.0, a new version of Cardano’s original smart contract language, which made smart contracts more efficient and cost-effective. Later, the Vasil upgrade was implemented by such major crypto exchanges as Binance, Coinbase, Upbit, XT.com and many more, thus benefiting the blockchain.

“Pivotal moment”: Cardano now supports Ethereum dApps

The next milestone for Cardano in 2022 achieved compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), thanks to the launch of Milkomeda C1, a sidechain connected directly to Cardano. Milkomeda C1 allows users to seamlessly move assets between the two blockchains, enabling popular Ethereum-based dApps to run on top of Cardano. This is achieved with the wrapped smart contract technology developed by Milkomeda. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson called the launch of the C1 Layer-2 solution “a huge development” for Cardano.

Cardano ecosystem on board over 1000 dApps

Another milestone Cardano can be proud of this year is the number of people on board dApps to their smart contracts. According to a thread shared by the Input Output Global (IOG) team in June, there are over 1,000 projects building on Cardano and the number continues to grow. The main sphere of Cardano’s focus is NFT: 40.2% of protocols belong to the “NFT Collections” category, while over 4% are marketplaces for NFTs. The top five active protocols also include community apps and social media platforms, developer instruments, gaming platforms, and metaverses. This milestone allowed Cardano to break into the leaderboard of smart contract platforms for dApps.

Cardano is coming to the world’s largest dApp store

At the beginning of September, the Cardano blockchain received support from the Lithuania-based service DappRadar. In its announcement tweet, the world’s largest dApp store invited developers working with Cardano to submit their contracts. Among the top-ranked Cardano dApps on DappRadar at the moment are JPG Store, leading Cardano NFT marketplace, MuesliSwap and Miniswap, Cardano’s decentralized exchanges. This event may not be as important and impressive as the Vasil upgrade, but what seems like a small step for one blockchain could be a giant leap for another, as this was the first time Cardano apps started being added large external trackers.

Snoop Dogg and Champ Medici popularize Cardano

Last but not least, an important milestone for the Cardano ecosystem was popularized by world-famous celebrities, American rapper Snoop Dogg and his son Champ Medici. In April, the star family brought their music content to Cardano in collaboration with NFT project Clay Nation. In September, Champ was released a mini music album dedicated to Cardano and the most high-profile NFT project of the blockchain, Clay Mates. In the collaboration with Clay Nation, the rap artists went as far as invites the Cardano creator Charles Hoskinson featured in their music video, a wild idea that actually came to fruition. In late November, Hoskinson (or rather his clay avatar) actually appeared in a song clip called “Bron and Bronny” by Champ Medici and Snoop Dogg.