If approved, Stellar network will immediately switch from Protocol 19 to Protocol 20.
Recall that over the past two years Stellar Development Foundation (SPF) and Stellar community have been actively working to implement the functionality of smart contracts in the Stellar network.
Protocol 20 is expected to be the most revolutionary update to the Stellar ecosystem. In order to maintain the performance, security and stability of the current network, it was decided to implement the updates in stages.
According to the developers, the phased launch will allow continuous testing of the smart contract and debugging as functionality is added.