Cardano Welcomes Over 6,000 Smart Contracts in February

The Cardano blockchain has continued to record massive growth despite the lackluster performance from ADA, welcoming over 6,000 Plutus smart contracts in February alone.

Cardano is one of the blockchain networks with a massive penchant for growth, as constant developments persistently debunk the “ghost chain” claims. Amid these developments, the network keeps recording a massive surge in Plutus smart contracts.

For the uninitiated, Plutus is a platform that developers leverage to write smart contracts that can interact with the Cardano blockchain.

The platform is based on the Haskell programming language, and has consistently evolved over the years to present an environment for the deployment of better-performing Cardano smart contracts.

Notably, Cardano saw the launch of Plutus V2 less than two years ago, which came with the Vasil hard fork in September 2022. Plutus V2 saves cost and reduces transaction size. Since its launch, developers have used the latest Plutus version to write thousands of smart contracts on Cardano.

Cardano’s Plutus Scripts Record Growth

The Crypto Basic reported on Dec. 26, 2023 that Cardano recorded 9,584 new smart contracts in 2023 as of late December 2023. This figure grew to about 10,000 at the end of the year, resulting in a total of 14,373 Plutus V1 and V2 smart contracts on the network by the close of 2023. 

Impressively, the growth of smart contracts on Cardano last year massively outpaced the rate witnessed in 2022. This growth has skyrocketed with only two months into the new year. Total Plutus smart contracts surged to 25,177 as of Jan. 31, representing an addition of 10,804 smart contracts in January alone.

Cardano Welcomes 6,380 Smart Contracts in February

February has seen a similar rapid growth, as smart contracts on Cardano have now increased from 25,177 on Jan. 31 to a current figure of 31,604. This indicates that the network has now welcomed 6,426 smart contracts, over half of last year’s figure, halfway into February.

Significantly, most of this growth is attributed to an increase in Plutus V2 smart contracts due to their advantages over the V1 counterparts. Of the recorded figure this month, only 46 smart contracts came from Plutus V1, with up to 6,380 Plutus V2 scripts.

Amid the sustained increase in Plutus V2 smart contracts, Cardano is looking to launch the upcoming Plutus V3 upgrade. As recently disclosed by The Crypto Basic, IOG has announced the launch of Plutus V3 on the Cardano testnet SanchoNet. Plutus V3 is expected to come with Cardano’s Chang hard fork. 

Meanwhile, ADA has picked up the pace following an extended period of lackluster price performance. The asset has leveraged Bitcoin’s recent surge above $51,000 to reclaim the $0.57 level for the first time in a month. ADA currently trades for $0.5756, up 6.71% in the past 24 hours.