Input Output, a research and development company, has announced the release of the Valentine upgrade, which includes support for Plutus SECP cryptographic primitives. This upgrade has been designed to facilitate interoperability, which is critical for blockchain growth.
It ensures that DApps built on Cardano are not siloed to one ecosystem, enabling users to interact with different blockchains and access a broader range of services.
With native support for SECP, cross-chain interoperability is now possible while ensuring the highest level of security. Developers can now create cross-chain DApps that are secure, reliable, and cost-effective.
Previously, Plutus DApp developers had to spend a lot of time, effort, and resources to implement algorithms for validating ECDSA and Schnorr signatures when working with other blockchains. This increased potential security risks and resource usage.
To make it easier for developers to build cross-chain applications, Input Output Global has added new built-in functions to Plutus to support ECDSA and Schnorr signatures. This allows developers to use a wider range of multi-signature or threshold signature designs natively in Cardano, thus providing the highest level of security.
The entire Cardano ecosystem has been preparing for this upgrade, and the core engineering teams have performed intensive integration testing in the preview test environment since November 2022, with positive results.
Over 80% of block-producing nodes were running the required new node, and exchanges have already been notified of the upgrade. This ensures that they have enough time to upgrade their systems as required, Input Output explains.
The Valentine upgrade is not as complex as the Vasil upgrade and does not have such an impact on existing DApps, says Input Output. Nonetheless, the teams are ensuring readiness by working closely with key Cardano stakeholders, such as SPOs, DApps, and exchanges, that may need to prepare for the new capability.
