The price of Waves (WAVES) has surged by nearly 26% this weekend, thanks to the upcoming release of a “major update” that’s set to let developers launch decentralized applications (dapps) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on its blockchain.

According to a recently published Medium article, the team behind Waves is set to release the Node 1.0 update in a few days. With it will come a new programming language called RIDE, which is set to enable the implementation of decentralized applications on the Waves blockchain.

The Medium post describes RIDE as follows:

RIDE was written specifically for execution in a blockchain environment and designed for building applications that will form the next generation of the internet.

The programing language is also set to introduce the ability to perform mathematical calculations using the blockchain. Per Waves’ team, one of the cases for this could be the launch of algorithmic stablecoins.

Moreover, the update will start letting users of Waves’ decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) start paying for trading fees with coins other than the WAVES token. Initially, other options appear to be bitcoin or ether.

The post also reveals non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are going to be added to Waves. These tokens are non-reissuable, and could open the cryptocurrency’s blockchain to more use cases, like gaming and digital tokenization.

The upcoming release of the update has seen investors bet on Waves, as the price of the WAVES token has risen nearly 26% in the last 24-hour period, going from $1.78 to $2.22 at press time. The cryptocurrency’s market cap is at $222.3 million.

Waves' price performance in the last 24 hours

Notably, WAVES is one of the few cryptocurrencies that hasn’t seen its price surge so far this year. In the last 6 months, it has dropped over 23%, even if we take into account its recent jump.

Late last year, the WAVES token was surging and bucking the bearish trend. As investors put their money on it initially, its drop could be seen as traders taking profits from the token and putting them into BTC, which has been recovering this year.

In May, Waves’ developers revealed they were focusing on making their decentralized exchange a standalone trading-focused product.