Developers report a surge in Cardano network transaction activity.

Against the backdrop of the upcoming activation of the Vasil hard fork and rising on-chain activity in the Cardano network, ADA’s price rose 13% over the past week.

At the start of the week, the asset’s price jumped 28%. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency had retraced and was trading near $0.58.

On June 2, the Cardano Foundation, a non-profit organization, disclosed ecosystem metrics for May 2022. The monthly transaction count on the project’s network rose by 7.74%, to 42.5 million. ADA supply increased by 8.64%, to 5.03 million, and the total number of wallets reached 3.36 million.

📊Monthly wrap-up of on-chain data 🚀#Cardano #blockchain #ProjectCatalyst pic.twitter.com/Z49EzDFSaL

— Cardano Foundation (@CardanoStiftung) June 1, 2022

In mid-April, one of the Cardano developers said the activation of the Vasil hard fork was planned for June 29, 2022. However, implementation of the update in the testnet will take place at the start of the month.

#Cardano is anticipating a new wave of upgrades with the Vasil HFC event on the 29th of June 2022

Upgrades on Plutus- #Cardano‘s smart contract platform (CIPs)

are among the most anticipated components of this HFC event

Here’s a breakdown of each one of those upgrades:🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/bmU4U2bRkt

— Sooraj 🚢 (@Soorajksaju2) April 18, 2022

The Vasil hard fork includes four Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIPs):

• CIP-31 — introduces a new type of transaction input that allows data to be retrieved at the output without spending. This will ease access to information stored on the blockchain;
• CIP-32 — introduces an ’embedded data’ function that allows storing various information in the blockchain;
• CIP-33 — introduces a ‘reference scripts’ function that allows attaching a script to a transaction output which can be interacted with later via a reference. This will reduce transaction size and increase network throughput;
• CIP-40 — introduces a new type of transaction output tied to on-chain collateralized assets.

It is expected that Vasil will lower transaction costs on Cardano and improve network security. The update will also facilitate interactions with smart contracts.

Earlier in January, the company behind Cardano IOHK unveiled the project’s development roadmap for 2022.