On Friday (August 13), popular crypto analyst Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark on Twitter) explained why he believes that the upcoming launch of the Cardano’s Alonzo hard fork, which provides support for smart contracts, is very bullish for $ADA.

The New Zealand based crypto influencer had this to say about the significance of Cardano being finally able to fully support the kind of decentralized applications (Apps) the have made Ethereum such a popular blockchain platform.

Davis said:

  • Cardano smart contracts are” just around the corner”, which is “a long awaited and very bullish catalyst for the asset”.
  • Smart contracts are now available on the public Cardano testnet.
  • We will soon see for Cardano native DeFi apps, and Apps on other platforms, such as SushiSwap, can then “integrate with Cardano to capture liquidity”.
  • Although Cardano has been able to support non-fungible tokens (NFTs) since the May hard fork went live on March 1 and there is already “a niche but growing / thriving NFT market”, NFTs on Cardano should become even popular once smart contracts are enabled since this will “allow for decentralized markets”.
  • Cardano’s greatest strength is “its large and enthusiastic community”.
  • If all goes well with the Alonzo hard fork, after the launch on the mainnet, we could see $ADA rally “a couple hundred percent”.

Later that day (i.e. August 13), blockchain technology company IOHK (aka “IOG”), which is developing the Cardano protocol, announced the date for the Alonzo hard fork on the Cardano mainnet. This news has helped $ADA to extend its recent bull run.

During Cardano’s “Mid Month Development Update” event on August 13, Nigel Hemsley, Head of Delivery & Products at IOHK, told Tim Harrison, Marketing & Communications Director  at IOHK, that Cardano’s Alonzo hard fork combinator event has been scheduled for September 12.

This highly anticipated announcement seems to have helped $ADA to extend its recent bull ran (which started around July 20), thereby becoming the third most valuable crypto asset by market cap.

As for next month’s Cardano Summit 2021 event, we now know on which days it is going to be taking place:

According to data by TradingView, on crypto exchange Kraken, the price for $ADA, which is at the moment the third most valuable crypto asset by market cap, hit today’s intraday high of $2.2486 at 00:20 UTC. This is not far off from the all-time high price of $2.4590, which was reached on May 16.

Currently (as of 15:05 UTC on August 15), ADA-USD is trading at $2.1073, down 4.87% in the past 24-hour period, but up 71% in the past one-month period and even more impressibly up over 1100% in the year-to-date period.

YTD ADA-USD Price Chart (Kraken) by TradingView

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.