According to U.Today, Cardano (ADA), the 10th largest cryptocurrency, has experienced a 20% increase over the past week, outperforming other top 10 cryptocurrencies. This surge comes as Cardano prepares for the Chang hard fork, which aims to stagger the release of governance functionality, easing adoption and onboarding for those with new or additional roles in governance. A significant milestone was reached this week with the release of Cardano node v9.0, marking the end of primary development work for the bootstrap phase of on-chain governance, with only minor updates needed to incorporate Cardano constitution elements.
The latest Cardano node v9.0 version introduces highly anticipated features, including support for Plutus v1 reference scripts and Plutus script signature support via CIP-69. This milestone is crucial for realizing the decentralized governance envisioned in CIP-1694. At the time of writing, ADA was up 5.65% in the last 24 hours to $0.4227 and up 20% in the last seven days. The anticipation of the Chang upgrade has created fresh enthusiasm in the Cardano community, as reflected in the ADA price. Historically, Cardano has shown positive performance ahead of major upgrades. On-chain analytics firm IntoTheBlock highlighted that ADA surged 130%, from $1.35 to $3.10, in just a month before its previous hard fork in 2021.
The current optimism around the Cardano price is supported not only by the anticipated upgrade but also by the broader crypto market recovery. In addition to gains in its USD pair, ADA is also performing well in its BTC pairing. Cardano is on track to mark its fourth consecutive day of gains against Bitcoin, indicating sustained market strength. In the coming days, the market will closely monitor ADA price patterns to determine if it can maintain its surge.
