Input-Output Hong Kong (IOHK) announced the launch of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) alpha sidechain on June 12, adding that the sidechain is currently available on the test network. The launch means that it will now be possible for developers to build Solidity-based applications on Cardano. The announcement comes less than two months after the company published a blog post entitled "Interoperability is the key to blockchain growth", where it discussed some of its side chains, including the EVM side chain without permission:
“THIS SIDECHAIN WILL ALLOW DEVELOPERS TO WRITE SOLIDITY SMART CONTRACTS ON THE CARDANO NETWORK, CREATE EVM-COMPLIANT DAPPS, ERC20-COMPLIANT TOKENS (AND EVENTUALLY THEIR OWN SIDECHAINES) WHILE GAINING MANY BENEFITS FROM THE CARDANO NETWORK. THIS MEANS THAT USERS WILL BENEFIT FROM MUCH LOWER FEES AND FASTER SETTLEMENT TIMES ON A MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE BLOCKCHAIN. ”
According to a blog post, the sidechain will be fully compatible with Ethereum tools and upgrades. Ouroboros Byzantine Fault Tolerance protocol, web3 wallet compatibility and Cardano main chain security. The number of interoperability upgrades on Cardano has increased significantly. Mikomedia, a sidechain protocol, was launched on the network last March. The Cardano based protocol allows developers to create smart EVM-compatible contracts that run on Mikomedia C1. They also plan to create side chains that will support interoperability with other networks, such as Solana. Last April, Wanchain announced a non-binding and two-way cross chain for Cardano. Wanchain currently has bridges that connect to more than 15 L1 and L2 networks.
The network is ready for the highly anticipated hard fork Vasil, which should arrive by the end of June. IOHK also revealed that developers are now building more than 1,000 applications on the Cardano blockchain .