Cardano Multi-Asset ‘Mary’ Update Launches to Mainnet

Late on Monday, March 1, Cardano announced the successful upgrade of the network stating that it is a key milestone in its ongoing rollout.

It added that the update introduces core Goguen features of native token functionality and multi-asset support. Goguen is a major upgrade stage on the Cardano roadmap which introduces smart contracts and the ability to build dApps.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!: We can confirm that the #Cardano ‘Mary’ protocol update was successfully applied to the #Cardano mainnet tonight at 21:44:51 UTC via a managed hard fork combinator event.

Welcome to the beginning of an exciting new multi-asset era on #Cardano $ADA 1/4 pic.twitter.com/vk3qDrIIds

— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) March 1, 2021

Multi-Asset Mary For Native Tokens

According to a IOHK blog post, native tokens will bring multi-asset support to Cardano, allowing users to create uniquely defined custom tokens and carry out transactions with them directly on the blockchain.

The ‘Mary’ upgrade enables the ledger’s accounting infrastructure to process not only ADA transactions but those that simultaneously carry several asset types. It added that native support grants distinct advantages for developers as there is no need to create smart contracts to handle custom token creation or transactions.

Developers and now create tokens on Cardano for everything from NFTs to tokenized stocks or commodities, and according to tokentool.io, there are already over 1,400 of them. It appears that they are just being created for experimental purposes at the moment as most of them do not have a purpose.

The blog post explained that, unlike Ethereum’s ERC-20 standard, tracking and accounting of custom tokens on Cardano is supported by the ledger natively;

“Because native tokens do not require smart contracts to transfer their value, users will be able to send, receive, and burn their tokens without paying the transaction fees required for a smart contract or adding event-handling logic to track transactions.”

ADA Price Update

ADA has surged in price in the run-up to the upgrade, so much so that it has usurped Binance Coin and taken third spot on the market cap charts according to Coingecko.

At the time of press, ADA was still correcting with a 2.4% decline on the day to $1.22. Its all-time high came on Feb. 27 when the token topped $1.45 briefly. Over the past 30 days, Cardano has made a whopping 240% and since the same time last year when it was priced at a lowly $0.05, it has surged over 2,500%.

There are 32 billion tokens circulating out of a maximum supply of 45 billion giving the asset a market cap of $38.8 billion at current prices.