Cardano Jostles With XRP As ADA Gathers Pace Even As Vasil Upgrade Is Delayed Again

The crypto community is witnessing new realities in the space. Assets are reaching new milestones, and the markets are getting more intertwined with traditional finance. In a recent turn of events, barely a week after meme coin SHIB overtook Tron on the list of top cryptocurrencies, Cardano (ADA) flipped XRP to become the 7th largest crypto asset by market capitalization.

ADA Transcends XRP

Despite a significant drop from its market cap this year, the Cardano community has been bullish on the asset, especially with the upcoming Vasil Hard Fork promising significant upgrades to the network. ADA’s market cap dropped to a low of $13.8 billion this year on July 13, but that has not stopped the asset from rising to transcend XRP.

ADA’s market cap has so far been gaining, having increased to $18.67 billion on July 29 – still a significant drop from the $51 billion market cap seen at the beginning of 2022, but high enough for the asset to overtake XRP on the 7th position which currently has a market cap of $18.13 billion at the time of writing.

ADA has been recovering with the rest of the markets in the past two weeks after dipping to a low of $0.42 on June 18 – a 69% drop from the value of $1.377 it started the year with and an 86% decrease from its all-time high of $3.09 reached on September 2, 2021. Nonetheless, in the recent comeback staged by the crypto markets, ADA has increased by 18% in the past two weeks.

Cardano’s Vasil Hard Fork is delayed again 

Meanwhile, Cardano’s Vasil Hard fork, slated to occur by month-end, has been delayed again. The network upgrade was meant to take place last month, but the Cardano team deferred it to the end of July; and now, as we approach the date, the team has once again deferred the upgrade by more weeks.

On Thursday, the entity overseeing Cardano’s research and development projects, Input Output Global (IOG), revealed that the Vasil Hard Fork upgrade would be delayed. Kevin Hammond, technical manager at IOG, noted that the team is looking to get everything right to ensure a smooth process when the hard fork is eventually deployed.

Notwithstanding, the disappointing news has had little effect on ADA, as the asset’s price has remained on its path to recovery. ADA has gained by 6.53% in the past week and is now trading at $0.53 at the time of writing.