Cardano has recently become the third-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, next to Bitcoin and Ethereum at $39 billion on March 2021.
The founder of Cardano (ADA), Charles Hoskinson, is also the co-founder of Ethereum and BitShares. The crypto is built by Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), a company that helps people build cryptocurrencies and Blockchain. IOHK was launched in 2019 for the African nations, especially Ethiopia. Cardano is a Blockchain platform with many advanced protocol developments.
Within a short span of 12 months, Cardano has surged 2,000%. In February alone, prices have surged 300%. IOHK supports the Glow language through a development environment to write decentralized applications that run on smart contracts. Project Atlas was launched in 2020 to enhance user's experience with more accessibility on the Cardano platform. Its next goal is to make it accessible in multiple development languages and deploy them on its Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Cardano is gaining preference for its low value and its advanced features.
On March 1, Cardano was updated with a "hard fork" by which users can create tokens through its Blockchain using the Daedalus wallet. Users can send and receive Cardano through the update. The hard fork, named "Mary" will allow its users to run on Cardano natively. Hoskinson calls the hard fork update "historic".
The Cardano Blockchain runs the ADA token and will allow users to create non-fungible tokens to prove their authenticity and ownership.
Cardano's ADA Coin Prices
ADA coins rallied to #1.30 in January 2018, but with the crypto market crashing within a few months, its value slid to $0.05 by the end of 2018. Though 2020 was better, the crypto value has moved to a record high value at $1.49 towards the close of February 2021 and took support at $1.16 later. Experts predict the ADA prices may rise higher to $2 by 2023 and towards $3, later .
Cardano prices are in a corrective mode, and the downtrend is due to the sell signal flashing in the charts. It may correct to around $1.15 in the short term, but a huge rally is expected in the months to follow, say experts.
The crypto market has been on a bullish trend, with bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, showing a 36% increase. Ether soared 7.4% higher. The ADA token rose 275%. Cardano's market capital value rose to $40 billion, pushing other cryptos like litecoin (LTC) and bitcoin cash (BCH) behind.
Cryptocurrencies have become popular in 2020. The financial crisis of 2008 was another reason for the sudden surge in crypto investment. Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, says that banks must trust electronic transfer of money, as money is held on a Blockchain on a "trustless network" with transparency and no duplication of transactions in cryptocurrency.
Cardano and Ethereum
Ethereum runs on a decentralized finance application (DeFi) through smart contracts on blockchains. The upgrade to Mary protocol makes it a high competitor to Ethereum.
Ethereum has enjoyed the DeFi market, creating many projects through the Ethereum network. It made strong price gains through the smart contracts that run on Blockchain. ADA is a big competitor to Ethereum as it has better features and has a lower market value.
ADA's market capitalization was at $39 billion in March 2021, while Bitcoin has $908 billion and Ethereum has $175 billion. ADA has overtaken other crypto coins such as USDT (US dollar Stablecoin) and BNB (Binance coin) in market capitalization and poses a threat to Ethereum. Investors prefer Cardano as it is a cheaper alternative asset. When compared to other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether, Cardano has a lower unit cost.
Other Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin
Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, slid almost 25% to $43,300 after reaching all-time highs at $58,600. Investors now wait apprehensively for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's announcements on the bond yield before making further decisions.
Bitcoin posted a high of $58,600 on February 21, pulling up the prices of other cryptocurrencies.
Ethereum
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, is lower by 23% from its all-time highs and is currently trading at $1,444.
Dogecoin
The dog-themed currency, Dogecoin rose to a record high of $1,870 last week but fell almost 7% later, remaining volatile with many tweets from Musk pushing its value higher and lower.
Big Players in Cryptocurrency
When Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk announced that he had invested $1.5 billion in the crypto market, the value of bitcoin surged higher. Dogecoin prices were volatile in February, surging higher or falling sharply from the many tweets from Elon Musk. Tesla, PayPal, and Visa are some big companies that allow users to use bitcoin across their network, which has increased the crypto user base. Several fund managers from Wall Street are investing in bitcoin and other digital assets.
Big players are pushing crypto prices higher, say experts.
