Cardano Crypto Alert: 11 Things to Remember About ADA as Prices Jump Thursday

Cardano (CCC:ADA-USD) is an undeniable powerhouse in the cryptosphere. The Charles Hoskinson-founded network is providing users with an alternate path from Ethereum (CCC:ETH-USD). Its many upgrades, partnerships and other additions over the last year prove as much. But today in particular, investors are on a Cardano crypto alert, with the ADA coin’s volume surging. The network is reminding its users the virtue of patience — and promising to deliver on a much-hyped decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.

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December is a month of reflection for many investors when it comes to their portfolios. Crypto wallets are no different. Now, any investor who is holding ADA-USD in their wallet is surely proud of their investment, seeing the network blossom into one of the most powerful forces in the asset class.

Let’s take a look at what Cardano has done this year — and what developers are saying about the future of the coin.

Cardano Crypto Alert: Not Slowing Down on Network Development

• ADA holders are on a Cardano crypto alert today after developers published a blog post detailing the network’s plan for change in the near future. The post acknowledges the network’s slow-and-steady approach to growth and lays down a path for immediate changes to help facilitate even more growth. But just what has Cardano done in the last 12 months? And where is it going from here?
• To look at Cardano’s growth through the year, it’s first important to put the ADA coin’s growth into perspective. In January, ADA was worth just 17 cents. At its highest point this year, the coin was trading above $3. That’s an increase of over 1,600% on the year.
• Cardano’s biggest moment of 2021 was the execution of the “Goguen” phase of its road map. This phase was executed via the Alonzo Purple hard fork upgrade, which met the network in September. The fork was initially slated for the spring. But in keeping with their slow-and-steady ethos, developers took extra time to bulk up the upgrade.
• This hard fork presents Cardano with a whole new swath of use cases because it introduces smart contracts to the ecosystem. With smart contracts, users are now able to do things like mint NFTs, automate trades and more accurately report data.
• The network has not rested on its laurels in the proceeding months, either. September remained busy as the team hosted the Cardano Summit 2021.
• This summit saw the announcement of partnerships with the likes of Chainlink (CCC:LINK-USD) for real-time data reporting. It also saw the network team up with Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH). That partnership will help the company integrate the Cardano network into its business.
• Cardano’s ADA is also finding great success in exchange listings. Most recently, it is landing a spot on the BitStamp exchange. Currently, it leads the vote for a listing on BitPay as well.
• Today’s blog post from the development team details immediate goals moving forward. The post asserts that the team will keep with its meticulous development, even if it means slower rollout. Investors looking for a very clean final product are certainly excited about this.
• Thanks to the influx of users coming to the booming network, there is now an effort to accommodate them. Specifically, developers note an incoming increase to total block size. This change will translate directly to more data fitting into each block and the overall capacity of the network rising.
• Another major change coming to the network are alterations to the Plutus script memory limits. This doesn’t affect end users, but it does make the network more powerful for dapp developers.
• All of this news is translating to some decent gains in ADA. The coin is up 7% so far today. More importantly, more users are flooding into the network. Volume is booming over 100% today.