Alonzo's first testnet launched on the Cardano blockchain. This is the next step towards the deployment of smart contracts on the network, which is scheduled for September this year. According to the announcement of the Cardano developers, the Alonzo Blue testnet has been successfully launched and will initially be available to a limited number of staking pool operators, Plutus program members, as well as several partners. Blockchain developers have made significant progress towards the launch of Plutus smart contracts, which will enable the deployment of a wide range of decentralized financial applications. IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson previously stated that the Alonzo hard fork will be activated on the mainnet in about three months, but also urged the community to consider potential obstacles to the rollout of the update.
According to Alonzo's updated rollout plan unveiled at the latest Cardano 360 event, smart contracts will launch on the mainnet around September. This event will be preceded by several intermediate development phases. For example, as part of the test network, Alonzo White Cardano plans to attract more partners and will conduct network performance testing. After a few small milestones, Cardano is "pretty much closer" to the final deployment of the hard fork. Earlier this month, it became known that Cardano is preparing to test the migration of ERC-20 tokens to its blockchain. According to the previous plan to deploy the Alonzo hard fork on the Cardano blockchain, the update was supposed to be activated in August.