Cardano Nears All-Time High as Investors Await Smart Contracts

The price of cardano (ADA), the native token of the Cardano blockchain, neared an all-time high Thursday, rising to $2.44, as investors await a September release for the planned “Alonzo” upgrade for the blockchain – a move that will usher in smart-contract functionality and thus address what critics have described as one of the network’s most glaring deficiencies.

• At press time, ADA was trading at $2.35, up 14% during the past 24 hours, based on CoinDesk pricing.
• ADA reached an all-time-high price of $2.47 in May.
• Lead Cardano developer Input Output recently announced a timeline for the Alonzo upgrade, targeting Sept. 12 for the final release date. 
• Smart-contract functionality would allow Cardano to incorporate more applications, including decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms that allow for automated cryptocurrency lending and trading.
• The improvement could put the network in a better position to challenge Ethereum, currently the leader among blockchains with smart-contract functionality.
• In a prediction market started in July that allows participants to bet on whether Cardano can release smart-contract functionality by Oct. 1, the betting contract was trading at 79 cents as of press time.
• That is up from 30 cents on July 18 when the market was first launched but down from its all-time high of 85 cents on Aug. 12 and Aug. 15. The betting contract pays out $1 of the stablecoin USDC if Cardano succeeds in meeting the timeline. 

Correction (21:43 UTC, Aug. 19, 2021): An earlier version of this story erroneously stated that Cardano had hit an all-time price. This story has been corrected to show that the price rose close to an all-time high.