Cardano (ADA) has hit its latest all-time high with a value of $2.64.
Data showed the altcoin surpassed the $2.60 mark in the small hours of August 22. The third most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization had made another attempt at the $2.60 threshold on August 20. However, it fell short at $2.58 and, by the evening of August 21, had slid back down to $2.40. ADA then made another steady climb, smashing its previous records and settling on $2.64. At time of press, the price was hovering just under this mark at $2.61.
This milestone is the prize for a somewhat turbulent week for ADA. It began last Sunday at $2.19, but by Wednesday (Aug 18), the token’s price had taken a tumble down to $1.92. It was from here that ADA spiked again and made plays for the all-time high. This month, it also overtook both Tether (USDT) and Binance Coin (BNB) in the market cap rankings.
The achievement has sparked euphoria in the Cardano Community, according to on-chain metrics and analysis platform Santiment. They tweeted on August 22:
“Mentions of both the # Cardano hashtag and $ADA cashtag have absolutely exploded with the # crypto asset’s new # AllTimeHigh, The crowd & its euphoric behavior at this level will have a major hand in whether prices continue toward $3.00 & beyond.”
Smart contracts coming soon
One of the other key factors reportedly contributing to ADA’s recent price surges is the upcoming smart contract launch. Earlier in the month, reports indicated that the token’s value spiked 20%, from $1.54 to $1.88 around the time that ADA founder Charles Hoskinson announced the upcoming debut of a smart contract feature.
Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), the driving force behind ADA, releases regular video updates, in which the Alonzo smart contracts are often discussed. In their most recent installment, dated August 13th, IOHK’s Head of Delivery Nigel Hemsley revealed the potential date of the smart contract launch.
“We can have a complete smart contract release ready for people to use our full smart contract toolbox ready for the Alonzo hard fork […] we’re aiming at Monday, September 12th.”
Hemsley also said that a hard fork of the testnet was planned for September 1st. The mainnet release will follow more than a week’s worth of testing.