By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 18th, 2024
Cardano has hit an all-time high of $2.55 amid news of its impending smart contract implementation scheduled for next month.
On Thursday, the blockchain platform first surged 14% to $2.44 in the digital-assets market and traded at $2.35 for about 24 hours. On Friday, Cardano (ADA) finally continued its run from the previous day and is currently trading at $2.51 after a record crest of $2.55 during the Asian trading hours. This now represents a total price increase of 19% on the day, and the momentum shows no signs of slowing down.
The recent surge is enough to see ADA unseat Binance Coin (BNB) as the third most valuable crypto by market cap. ADA’s market capitalization now stands at $80.7 billion, which is about $8 billion more than BNB’s.
Overall, since a July 21st low of $1, the Cardano native token has risen by an astounding 150%.
Purported Reasons for the Cardano All-Time High
One reason for the surge is an increase in daily buyer volume, the most since May. This trend continues to consolidate as buyer volume matches price action.
Another key reason for the soaring prices could be positive investor sentiment towards Cardano’s mode of operations. The blockchain platform also looks to add some upgrades to its functionality this September. The anticipated upgrade, dubbed ‘Alonzo’, would introduce smart-contract functionality to the network. This will address what many critics believe to be one of the platform’s most obvious deficiencies.
In addition, smart-contract functionality will allow the incorporation of more applications to the Cardano network. This even encompasses decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms that facilitate crypto lending and trading. With this improvement, Cardano will be better suited to challenge Ethereum (ETH), the current leader among blockchains with smart-contract functionality. Since its inception in 2015, the network has gone through an array of developmental phases. These include its foundational phase called Byron, as well as Shelley, a decentralized phase that introduced delegated staking. According to the Cardano roadmap, the proposed smart contracts will begin during the project’s third era, Goguen.
Input Output, a leading blockchain infrastructure research and engineering company is the lead developer on the Cardano smart contract initiative. The Hong-Kong-based company recently tweeted a timeline of the ‘Alonzo’ upgrade, with a final release date of September 12th.
It’s happening.
We’re targeting 12 September 2021 for the ‘Alonzo’ upgrade, bringing smart contracts to Cardano via a hard fork combinator (HFC) event.
Find out more about the journey to a new era of smart contracts, DeFi and more for #Cardano $ADAhttps://t.co/59czSxrxFO
— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) August 13, 2021
Cardano (ADA) Has Come a Long Way Since Inception
Founded in 2017 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, after two years in the developmental phase, Cardano looks to compete among other major players. The network seeks to be a more scalable, secure, and efficient alternative in the DeFi space. This space is a $100 billion booming industry that includes other decentralized application platforms, most notably Ethereum.
Earlier this month, Ethereum also teased prospects of a software upgrade that gave the prominent blockchain platform a three-month high value. Cardano’s newer network, which still trails in adoption, has however drawn skeptics like former billionaire hedge fund manager Mike Novogratz.