Cardano Falls Again Two Days Ahead of Smart Contract Launch

Fredrik Vold
Last updated: | 2 min read
Source: Adobe/Alvaro

 

Cardano (ADA), the blockchain network that is attempting to challenge Ethereum (ETH) as the preferred platform for decentralized applications, continues to see lower prices in the market, despite its much-anticipated “Alonzo” smart contract launch being two days away. 

At 11:23 UTC, Cardano’s native token ADA was down by 5% over the past 24 hours, and more than 16% over the past 7 days. By comparison, Ethereum’s ETH token was down by 3% for the day, and almost 11% in a week. ADA is the second-worst performer among the top 10 coins today.

ADA has managed to maintain its position as the third most valuable cryptoasset by market capitalization, well ahead of tether (USDT), binance coin (BNB), and solana (SOL) – another serious contender in the smart contracts field.

ADA price chart:

Source: Coingecko.com

The losses for ADA seen over the past few days come after several users of the Alonzo public testnet earlier this week reported problems with using the first-ever decentralized exchange (DEX) on the platform, Minswap. The problems, described by Cardano as a “concurrency issue,” reportedly made it impossible for some users to make any swaps on the DEX.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the news of the swap issues was widely shared in Ethereum circles in particular, with the writer of the Ethereum-focused newsletter The Daily Gwei, Anthony Sassano, calling it a “fundamental issue” of Cardano. 

Despite the difficulties experienced during public testing, however, Cardano development firm Input Output has confirmed that the Alonzo upgrade – which introduces smart contracts on the platform – will happen on September 12 at approximately 21:44 UTC as planned.

Warming up the upgrade, Input Output has also compiled a growing “Essential Cardano List” that seeks to map out the entire Cardano ecosystem. Among other things, the list includes new projects such as Cardano-only non-fungible token (NFT) collections, NFT building tools, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and blockchain games.

Meanwhile, the major crypto exchange Binance on Thursday announced its support for the Alonzo upgrade. The exchange said that deposits and withdrawals of ADA will be suspended minutes ahead of the network upgrade, and that it will be reopened again once the upgraded network is deemed stable.

Trading of ADA tokens on the exchange will not be affected, Binance further added.
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