Analyzing how ADA might respond to Cardano’s much-awaited Vasil hardfork

Ahead of the upcoming Vasil testnet that is to launch in early June 2022, Cardano published an encouraging update. The network reported a strong foundation with many new projects planned out with Fund9 that are to be launched.

Cardano recently posted their Weekly Development Report to inform users about the ongoing development updates. The report has provided a timely update related to the recent activities on the network with the Vasil hardfork set to launch next month. The testnet is expected to be released in early June while the hard fork is set for launch on 29 June.

IOHK reviewed the work of various teams in the report with the Plutus and Marlowe teams doing brilliant work. The Plutus team added “Plutus.ChainIndex.App (runMainWithLog)” allowing it to process startup logs more efficiently while optimizing to the “MakeKnownM” builtin. The Marlowe team improved user optimization in the Marlowe Run. They also set up Sentry integration and fixed some mock-chain testing issues.

Source: IOHK

Project Catalyst announced the launch of Fund9 with a $16 million ADA grant and other ecosystem rewards. The project is expecting over 1,000 proposals with the launch set for 1 June.

A twitter user posted that NFT sales on Cardano hit $27 million in April which was acknowledged by Charles Hoskinson. In another NFT update, the IOHK report suggested the addition of 800,000 NFTs to Cardano since late March 2022. The rise in the number of minted pieces of non-fungible art and projects is linked to the Cardano network’s growth.

Me too https://t.co/3R2cBLMJLy

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) May 19, 2022

What does the ADA price say?

Despite the accomplishments on the network, the price of native ADA token continues to stumble after the recent market sell-off. At more than $18 billion, Cardano current stands as the eighth biggest crypto asset by market capitalization.

ADA is currently trading at $0.54, being 3.54% up in the last 24 hours. However, ADA is till down from the weekly high of $0.6 because of the increasing turbulences of risk assets in the market. Another factor is the recent drop in the network volume which has reduced by 30% to $450 million. What’s more concerning is that the volume was $1 billion at the start of the week.

Source: Santiment

The social dominance was up to 3% yesterday after the release of the report. As reported, the IOHK update also contained details of the Vasil launch on Cardano which must have prompted social dominance. With this increase in dominance on social media, the Cardano ecosystem can expect volume to shoot up in the near future. The increase can also have an indefinite impact on ADA prices just in time for the Vasil hardfork.