OK, that was super-surprising for me, I'll admit to that, but in a pleasant way. We don't have the testnet for Velocity hard fork in place yet, but Steemit team announced the two dates for SMTs launch.
Why two dates?
Because on January 15th, 2019, it is scheduled the time when the testnet for the SMTs will become available.
And on March 24th, 2019 it is due the full release and going live on the blockchain.
What does that mean, exactly?
It means the developers in the Steem ecosystem have around three months to get used to the new technology introduced by the SMT layer, and the way it interacts with the blockchain.
It also means that now projects which intend to add Smart Media Tokens - both already announced and new ones - can have a clear timetable and they can adjust their own roadmaps, onboarding, advertising, to match the release of SMTs, or whenever they will have their own token released.
It is also a commitment Steemit Inc. has taken which they avoided to take recently: to state exact due dates for expected developments.
If they stand by these dates, it's a major move forward toward the maturity of Steem and showing both investors and developers there is careful planning in major developments on the Steem blockchain, and by the evidence of it, in the crypto space in general.
I've seen opinions expressed on the steemitblog that March 2019 is too far away, and they'd better not say it at all.
I also have heard many others say they expect SMTs to be released by the end of 2018. Frankly, I expected the entire infrastructure to be released by mid-2019, and probably only legitimate pressure has moved more resources to their development and made it possible to have a release date within the first month of the next spring.
Knowing the date way in advance also helps projects which will have SMTs tremendously, as I explained above. This point alone makes sense releasing the dates, regardless when they are.