Alicia Maher 
Ahead of an incoming smart contract upgrade, popular token ADA, the native coin of the Cardano Network has yet again reached another all-time high. Cardano has been one of the biggest success stories of the past year in the crypto community. Coming from obscurity as a relatively newer coin, it has been previously billed as the underdog to its major competitor Ethereum. Detractors have recently been put to rest however with the impressive run we’ve witnessed by the Cardano team over the past year.
Cardano is a decentralized token created by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson in 2017 following a dispute between him and fellow founder Vitalik Buterin. Since then, Cardano has taken its time to establish itself as more than just an Ethereum spin-off and is now the third-ranked cryptocurrency in the world by market cap. Named after the mathematician Gerolamo Cardano, Cardano serves to fix a lot of the problems that more popular networks such as Ethereum and Bitcoin do not. With a large percentage of the arguments against Bitcoin being centered around its energy consumption due to its intensive proof-of-work (POW) protocol, Cardano fulfils a niche that Bitcoin does not. Rather than operating on the same proof-of-work protocol that Bitcoin and Ethereum use to verify transactions, Cardano instead uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol. This has led to significantly less energy consumption in comparison to other chains relying on PoS.
Cardano Price Moons On Testnet Launch
Over the past year, Cardano’s energy-efficient network along with its team has allowed it to gain increasing attention from investors. Its price went from a $0.076 last year to a mouth-watering $2.2 high in May. Following the ensuing slump in the market, the Cardano team did not rest on their laurels. They have gained investor confidence and have since then bounced back.
The announcement of the impending introduction of smart contracts to the Cardano Network further sent ADA to new highs earlier this month where it broke its previous all-time high established in May. Wednesday saw the first rollout of the new smart contract upgrade codenamed ‘Alonzo’. Although this upgrade was only integrated into the test network (testnet) Cardano’s price broke yet another barrier and reached a new all-time high. This has solidified investor confidence even more as people now look ahead to the much-anticipated launch of the upgrade on the main network on September 12th. While the launch on the mainnet might not see the same meteoric rise in value that occurred with Binance-owned BNB, all signs point to the positive for the future of ADA.
Amidst the recent testnet launch, Cardano was also featured on CNBC and a french news channel ‘CNews’ where it was described as an ecological Bitcoin. With Cardano’s energy-efficient PoS being central to its operation, this characterization is not far off the mark and will continue to be a major driving force in its ongoing rise.
