Cardano Becomes a Multi-Asset Blockchain With Today's Hard Fork

The Cardano blockchain, which runs the ADA token, will become a multi-asset chain with its hard fork today.

Named "Mary," the hard fork will allow users to create tokens that run on Cardano natively, just as ADA does. Enabling new tokens was one of the first big use cases that caught on for Ethereum, enabling 2017's multi-billion dollar initial coin offering splurge.

In a video update previewing the hard fork, Charles Hoskinson, founder of IOHK, the company behind Cardano, called the move "historic." 

Hoskinson said that for node operators, the transition should be fairly simple. They just need to update their software and everything should work well. "We've been testing it for almost a month, and the test looks good. Exchanges are happy," he said in the video.

Enabling new tokens is a step on the path to full smart-contract functionality. 

Cardano recently became the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Besides founding IOHK, Hoskinson was previously a co-founder of Ethereum and also of BitShares, with Dan Larimer.