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Everything you need to know as Mithril launches on Cardano

The Mithril protocol significantly cuts down the time and resources required to set up a full Cardano node.

Published

10 months ago

August 1, 2023

Mithril eliminated the need to rely on a third party for light wallet interactions.
The technological upgrade didn’t immediately result in price gains for ADA.

Proof-of-stake (Pos) blockchain Cardano [ADA] launched the stake-based protocol Mithril on mainnet on 30 July, marking a pivotal step towards increased speed and efficiency across the network.

Mithril is officially live on the #Cardano mainnet! ?@IOHK_Charles @Cardano @Cardano_CF @IOG_Eng @conraddit @canadastakes1 @euskalstakepool @SPO_DINO @VFS_StakePool @sakepool_ada @sakakibara1JPN @cardano_aden @hix_coffeepool @shiodome47 @rx78pool @slowhand4040 pic.twitter.com/Bn0AThnYL2

— Banksy – LEAD Stake Pool (@LEADStakePool) July 30, 2023

How much are 1,10,100 ADAs worth today?

Demystifying Mithril

The Mithril upgrade aims to reduce the time required for nodes to sync with the blockchain. It enables users to obtain the current state of the blockchain without retrieving its full history.

Running a full node, which entails downloading and validating a full copy of the blockchain, has become a resource-intensive and time-consuming affair. As per a recent blog post by Cardano developer Input Output, the blockchain size has shot up to nearly 100 GB.

The Mithril protocol comes as a solution with its stake-based signature technology. Based on their stakes, ‘signer’ nodes participate in the process by validating snapshots of the full state of the Cardano blockchain through a signature.

These signed snapshots are then collected by an aggregator node who combines them and generates associated certificates. Upon a request, these snapshots and certificates are handed over to the client node who uses it for restoration of a Cardano full node.

The process thus significantly cuts down the time and resources required to set up a full node. Moreover, it eliminates the need to rely on a third party for light wallet interactions.

Things remain tepid for ADA

The technological upgrade didn’t immediately result in price gains for ADA, according to Santiment. At the time of writing, the token exchanged hands at $0.3128, down 0.7% in the 24-hour period.

ADA has been sluggish over the past week, recording marginal losses of 0.5%. However, on a month-over-month (MoM) basis, the token’s chart evoked optimism, with net gains of 9.5%.

Read Cardano’s [ADA] Price Prediction 2023-24\

Despite the launch of Mithril, development activity on the network trended downwards throughout July. This could cause some problems as investors actively assess developer efforts before making capital investments in a blockchain.