on the crypto
Cardano (quotation ADA) is one of the highest-earning cryptocurrencies today, up 15% in 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Not only have many popular cryptocurrencies experienced price increases, but the upcoming Cardano update also means increased investor interest in the project.
What's behind Cardano's 15% gain?
At times, Cardano's slow and steady approach has proved controversial in a cryptocurrency community accustomed to rapid updates and lightning-fast progress. The team behind programmable cryptocurrency peer reviewed each stage of development, and as a result, the introduction of new features has been slower. For example, it only introduced smart contracts last September. Meanwhile, more recent projects, such as Solana (SOL), have gained a larger market share and have more projects running on their ecosystems.
On the other hand, at the end of last year, Cardano crossed the 20 million transaction milestone without any interruption. This is in stark contrast to Solana, who has already faced several disruptions this year. In these uncertain times, some investors may think Cardano is a safer bet. Let's break down the two main factors that led to the Cardano price jump today.
1. Cryptocurrency prices are rising across the board
Cryptocurrency prices were a green sea this morning, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) gaining more than 5% and a number of other popular cryptocurrencies following their lead. Positive news on US jobs and hopes of a loosening of COVID rules in China pushed the stock market higher. As is often the case right now, cryptocurrencies have followed stocks and increased confidence has pushed prices higher.
2. The wait for Vasil's upcoming hard fork
Cardano has a big update in the works. Vasil's hard fork is scheduled for the end of June. The goal is to improve network performance and make it easier for developers to use Cardano's blockchain to build applications. This is important as competition for Ethereum alternatives continues to grow.
Cardano is one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies in terms of market cap, but is only in 29th place in terms of total value locked (TVL), according to DeFi Llama. TVL is the amount of money stuck in each network's applications and is a good indicator of activity on a particular blockchain. It shows that Cardano does not yet have a number of applications, especially decentralized financial applications, equal to that of ecosystems of similar size. If Vasil's hard fork helps developers build more projects on Cardano, it will be a significant step in the evolution of the project.
