Cardano‘s ADA coin price is increasing in anticipation of the Alonzo upgrade to the blockchain platform

On Friday, the Cardano (ADA) token crossed the $2 mark, nearly matching the digital asset's all-time high price from a few months ago. This is in advance of the platform's upgrade, which will boost the project's smart contract solutions, making them more advanced and fully functional by the time it goes live.

The meteoric rise in the price of Cardano's ADA

At approximately 9:00 a.m. on Friday, Cardano's ADA rallied to $2.08 ($2.12 as of press). As recently as May, the coin reached a high of $2.31. For 24 hours, the price of ADA increased by 16 percent, bringing Cardano's market capitalisation to $65 billion ($67.8 billion as of this press). This puts Cardano in a close race with tether (USDT) and Binance coin (BNB) for third place in terms of market capitalisation among all cryptocurrencies. This increased Cardano's market capitalisation by 3.3 percent relative to all +10,000 crypto assets valued at $1.9 trillion.

Notably, while Cardano increased by 16 percent, the crypto asset has also increased by more than 45 percent in the last seven days. Additionally, the coin's one-month performance shows a 61 percent gain, while its year-to-date performance shows a 1,365 percent gain. Indeed, quite impressive.

Date of Alonzo's debut

Nigel Hemsley, Cardano's Head of Delivery, revealed in a video from developer Input Output that the Alonzo upgrade now has a launch date of September 12. Having said that, the smart contract functionality of Cardano will enable the development of additional applications, such as decentralised finance platforms that facilitate automated cryptocurrency trading and lending. The upcoming system change could position the network as a legitimate challenger to Ethereum, the current market leader in terms of smart contract functionality.

CEX.IO's Head of Data Analytics, Yuri Mazur, stated in an email that "any increase in the price of cryptocurrencies is either directly related to positive news that boosts buyer sentiment or is a result of the overall market trend." Additionally, he stated, "Cardano's much-anticipated Alonzo upgrade is another reason for investors to accumulate the coin."

To respond to detractors

Cardano's recent price surge was the first in three months, as its chief developer announced a firm release date for the so-called Alonzo update. Apart from the previously-mentioned full smart contract functionality that the upcoming upgrade will bring, this is also to address Cardano sceptics who have cited the said functionality as a significant shortcoming of the network.

There is even a betting game on whether Cardano will be able to implement smart contract functionality by October 1. According to reports, the betting contract offering $1 of the USDC stablecoin if Cardano meets the deadline was trading at $0.85.

Cardano was founded by Charles Hoskinson – a co-founder of Ethereum – with the goal of competing with the Ethereum network and other decentralised application platforms, but as a more openly scalable, efficient, and secure alternative.

Support us!