The team behind Cardano’s ecosystem, Input Output Global (IOG for short), plans to release a software toolkit by the end of this month. This toolkit should help developers deploy independently developed sidechains on Cardano to improve the ecosystem.
First public testnet already built
A sidechain is, as it were, a separate blockchain that works together with a main network, in this case with the Cardano network. Adding sidechains can often make a main network more scalable.
As a proof of concept, IOG developers have already used the toolkit to build a public testnet, in this case for a sidechain compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Anyone who wants to can install DApps, create smart contracts, and move tokens across testnets. Among other use-case specific capabilities, the toolkit allows sidechain developers to choose their preferred consensus process.
Solana as a partner chain
With the toolkit, IOG hopes to create a kind of family of Cardano sidechains and partner chains. They also believe that the development of sidechains will pave the way for mass adoption. Whether this is also the case in practice, however, remains to be seen. Still, it remains a good development in itself.
Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson has said he would like to see SOlana as one of the partner chains. This is because Cardano could benefit greatly from Solana’s network speed, while Solana could benefit from Cardano’s infrastructure and security.
Cardano’s Basho phase
In addition to the sidechain upgrade, according to the roadmap, parallel accounting styles could also be implemented as part of the “Basho phase.” This can improve interoperability in the Cardano ecosystem.
Cardano developers have also unveiled the first Cardano smart contract built in Eopsin, a new Pythonic programming language. Once development is finally complete, Eopsin allows developers to build 100% valid Python programs using the pre-existing Python tool stack (including syntax highlighting, debugging, unit testing, verification, and more). The end goal of this project is to integrate Python with Plutus smart contract technology.