The price of Cardano, which is currently the 11th largest cryptocurrency by means of market capitalization, has surged with roughly around 7 percent in the past 24 hours.
The sudden spike in Cardano’s price follows the release of an update called Cardano 1.5 on the cryptocurrency main network.
According to the official post describing the update, Cardano 1.5 is a milestone achievement as it is the last major release of the so-called Byron development phase – something the team has been working on since the launch of the main net.
Cardano 1.5 plays a key role in moving to the next development phase called “Shelley.” It introduces a new consensus protocol known as Ouroboros BFT. Notably, this is a very significant step for Cardano’s transition from its current consensus protocol, Ouroboros Classic, to the newer protocol in the Shelley phase called Ouroboros Genesis.
Ouroboros Genesis is described as a major upgrade to the current protocol which underpins Cardano’s network. That’s because it is the first proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol which manages to match the security guarantees brought by proof-of-work (PoW) such as that of Bitcoin’s network, according to the post.
It’s also important to note that the new Ouroboros BFT isn’t going to be immediately activated following the deployment of the current Cardano 1.5 release. According to the release, it’s going to be activated through a separate protocol update, which will come later.
The announcement also describes the update as a hard-fork. However, the team reassures that it will “take place in a smooth and automatic way because this is a planned protocol upgrade whereby all parties of the current federated system have agreed to the change.”
Major updates of the kind are typically a precursor for price reactions. This one was no exception, despite the fact that Cardano’s token, ADA, is usually stable and sleepy.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, Cardano is currently trading at $0.053, which represents an increase of almost 7 percent in the last 24 hours alone.
Cardano’s total market capitalization is currently $1.396 billion, securing it the spot of the 11th largest cryptocurrency right behind TRON. The latter is sitting on a market cap of $1.53 billion.
We had recently held an interview with Cardano’s Founder, Charles Hoskinson on CryptoPotato.
