By Alicia Maher
Everything is bullish for Cardano, largest proof-of-stake blockchain including the price of its native cryptocurrency, ADA following an impressive rally. This run has helped ADA beat its previous peak of $2.46 in May to attain a new one in the last 24 hours. ADA is currently trading at $2.55, after gaining 20% on the day.
ADA’s Price; Source: CoinMarketCap
Alonzo Launch Announcement Contributes to ADA’s Price Surge
ADA surged into the $2 price mark as dust gathered for the announcement of the launch date of Cardano’s smart contract functionality, best known as Alonzo. According to Cardano founder, Charles Hoskinson, the launch of the Alonzo mainnet will take place by September. This announcement further stoked ADA’s price rally, enabling it to gather the momentum for a new all-time high.
With the smart contract functionality, the Cardano blockchain, also regarded as the ‘Ethereum killer’, will expand to accommodate more use cases such as staking pools, yield farms including the minting of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Cardano’s Alonzo will also enable developers to build decentralized applications on the blockchain.
Cardano Touted to Rival Ethereum, Mike Novogratz Criticizes ADA
In light of the Alonzo project, Cardano is projected to give Ethereum a run for its money. Already, Cardano has put a leash on the wagging tongues of Ethereum proponents who had always regarded the former as a vaporware blockchain and its native token, $ADA, as having no significant use case. One of the notable critics of Cardano is CEO of Galaxy Digital, Mike Novogratz, who had expressed shock at the market value of the $ADA token when it was still at $46 billion.
In addition, Mike Novogratz described the Cardano community as a ‘weird cult’ while also admitting that it was a solid community. However, he still found fault in $ADA, noting it was only driven by hype and nothing tangible. The Galaxy Digital’s CEO is a die-hard proponent of Bitcoin and Ethereum and has refused to be lured by any other crypto asset even after Hoskinson pitched ADA to him, back in March.
$ADA is one of the highest altcoin gainers today. Meanwhile, as the launch of the Alonzo mainnet draws near, staking addresses have been on a steady increase. As of June, 50,000 new addresses joined ADA staking pools. In August, the number of staking addresses on ADA AMMs amazingly increased to 660,000 signalling the massive anticipation of the Alonzo mainnet’s launch.
Despite Novogratz’s opinion about ADA, it has not deterred institutional investors from adding the asset to their crypto bags. A case in point is Grayscale’s recent addition of ADA to its large crypto fund, putting it in third place on the fund behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. Currently, ADA shares about 10% of Grayscale’s crypto fund while Bitcoin and Ethereum hold 65% and 25%, respectively.
As soon as Alonzo is fully deployed, it will mark the end of the Goguen era for Cardano. Parent company, IOHK and Cardano itself have recently engaged in a series of partnerships aimed towards making the blockchain and ADA more relevant for community members and investors.