What happened
The price of Cardano (ADA -0.40%) had risen roughly 9% over the past 24 hours as of 10:55 a.m. ET today. There was no obvious reason for the increase, although there are several pieces of news that may explain the move.
So what
The large crypto exchange Coinbase announced yesterday that it has added staking options for ADA, the cryptocurrency that runs on the Cardano blockchain. Cardano runs on a proof-of-stake concept, meaning that individuals stake their ADA holdings to validate transactions on the network and mint new tokens. It rose to popularity after the initial proof-of-work blockchain concept became to be seen as too energy intensive.
Coinbase is offering to assist people that want to stake ADA. People who stake ADA on Coinbase can earn a 3.75% annual percentage yield. The pitch is that people can earn rewards while their Cardano currency is safely stored in a Coinbase account.
Image source: Getty Images.
In other news, the large crypto asset management firm Grayscale Investments recently launched a new fund called the Smart Contract Platform Ex-Ethereum Fund and gave Cardano the highest allocation in that fund.
"After a long time in the making, Cardano has finally seen a massive uptick in projects being developed on its blockchain," said Ben McMillan, CIO at IDX Digital Assets, according to Forbes.
Now what
Cardano has long been looked at as a cryptocurrency with some very solid fundamentals. It is already using proof-of-stake mining, it has smart contract capabilities, and many believe Cardano will one day have the capabilities and infrastructure to potentially process millions of transactions per second, so this is definitely one cryptocurrency I see with long-term upside.
