According to Dean, Cardano has come dangerously close to “midnight” on the hypothetical nuclear clock.
Due to a bug in older versions of Cardano’s client software that was only recently discovered by the network’s developer community, the layer-1 blockchain testnet is now incompatible and unable to support the latest client software.
🧵 (1/n) It’s important to point out today that the #Cardano #Testnet is **catastrophically** broken due to a bug in Cardano Node v 1.35.2. This was the version that we had previously been told was “Tested and Ready” for the Vasil Hardfork. This bug was only discovered…
— Adam Dean (@adamKDean) August 18, 2022
Adam Dean, an ecosystem developer and former Cardano stake pool operator, tweeted a warning late Thursday: the Cardano Testnet, which has been running for two years, has become incompatible with the current version of the blockchain client software. “It is important to report today that the Cardano Testnet is **catastrophically** broken due to a bug in Cardano Node v 1.35.2“, he asserted.
Input Output, the development company behind Cardano, had reassured independent betting pool operators that Cardano Node version 1.34.2 had been extensively tested and was ready to roll out. However, after most operators rushed to upgrade to this version to simulate a Vasil hardfork combinatorial event, ATADA and PoolTool operators discovered a critical bug in the client software which led to incompatible forks being created.
After the bug was discovered, Cardano released a new client software, Cardano Node 1.35.3, which is unable to sync with the original testnet and is currently running on two new testnets without any block history. Analyzing the situation on the Crypto Capital Venture channel today, Dean said the latest developments warrant extreme caution. “This is being overly cautious at this point.“, he said, explaining that the two new testnets are only “not yet complete from start to finish“, which means that no one in the community has been able to test them thoroughly.
Dean said the level of “precipitation” from Input Output to deploy the Vasil upgrade gave him a sense of unease, indicating that the blockchain could have faced a disaster if the community had not caught the bugs in time. “If there was a “nuclear clock” for Cardano, we were dangerously close to hitting “midnight”“, he says writing.
(5/n) To say that this level of “rushing” gives me uneasy feelings is an understatement. If there were a “nuclear clock” for #Cardano we got perilously close to hitting “midnight”…
— Adam Dean (@adamKDean) August 18, 2022
The Vasil hardfork, nicknamed the ” most important update ” of Cardano as of today, was originally scheduled to go live on June 29. However, as the deadline approached, Input Output postponed the hardfork first to the last week of July and then to “ a few more weeks ” to allow more time for testing.
Although the latest testnet break drew community attention, Input Output did not comment on the matter and did not indicate whether Vasil’s upgrade should be postponed again. Cardano’s ADA token fell from $0.54 to $0.46 following news of the incident, marking a 13.3% decline on the day.