IOHK, the blockchain development team behind Cardano, announced on July xv that the project's Alonzo test cyberspace had officially transitioned from Blue to White, bringing with it the ecosystem's long anticipated expansion to functional smart contracts.

While the previous testnet, known as Alonzo Blue, did offering some smart contract features, these were only bachelor to a limited number of insiders. Yesterday'south upgrade will permit nearly 500 validators, stake puddle operators, and developers to test these features going frontward.

Alonzo White is set up to run for two to four weeks earlier upgrading to the terminal testnet for its current development phase, known as Alonzo Purple.

Despite some recent backlash from others in the blockchain community, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson recently said in a YouTube video that everything is still on track according to the project's development roadmap, noting that more than than $10 meg in NFTs accept been sold throughout the Cardano network forth with "tens of thousands of assets". Once Alonzo White is released to the mainnet, developers will be able to launch dApps, NFTs and more than.

On the heels of the Alonzo White announcement, an NFT and DeFi Market place called the Spores Network announced a successful $ii.three meg fundraise on July 16. The company stated that it hopes to leverage Cardano'south lower transaction costs, lower carbon footprints, and higher transaction throughput to bring NFTs to mainstream users.

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With more companies and artists joining the growing NFT marketplace, such every bit Dolce and Gabbana and a fantasy soccer platform, bringing more NFTs to the network could pb to big gains for Cardano and its users.