The volatile and unpredictable cryptocurrency market has certainly made some bold and lucky investors rich, but it has caused some to lose a lot of money, too. That's the nature of an industry that is fraught with uncertain regulations, outright scams, and the potential to upend entire industries. 

Despite the market's troubles in 2022, investors might be looking to put some money to work while digital asset prices are down. One that stands out is Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), which has fallen a whopping 73% this year (as of this writing). Should investors add ADA, Cardano's native token, to their portfolios right now on the dip? 

Cautious development process 

Created in late 2017 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, Cardano is an innovative cryptocurrency that is often dubbed an "Ethereum killer." That's because Cardano tries to improve around the issue of scalability, which Ethereum lacked before The Merge upgrade. Investors seem to appreciate this focus, as Cardano has produced a monster return of 1,500% in the roughly five years it's existed. And it is currently the eighth most valuable crypto in the world, with a market cap of $12 billion. 

Cardano is unique from other cryptos in that the development process can be characterized as slow and steady. Updates are researched thoroughly and peer-reviewed before being implemented, a process that definitely adds time but can improve the blockchain's growth by ensuring mistakes are minimized. 

Right now, Cardano is undergoing the fourth phase, known as Basho, which works on scaling solutions. The fifth and final phase, called Voltaire, will introduce governance functions to the network, making Cardano fully self-sustaining. And recently, Cardano underwent the Vasil hard fork, an upgrade designed to boost transaction speeds while attracting more developers to the ecosystem. 

It's nice to see cryptocurrencies continue to find ways to improve their networks to gain greater adoption over time. All of this activity bodes well for the future of Cardano. 

Where's the utility? 

Despite being known mainly as a tool for financial speculation, I do believe that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology have a future. But what matters to a particular cryptocurrency's long-term viability is its potential to create real-world use cases. And Cardano looks promising in this department. Enterprise solutions like client onboarding in financial services and supply chain tracking for agricultural businesses are two areas in which Cardano's technology can make a positive impact. 

What's more, an exciting layer-2 solution, known as Hydra, could provide a major boost to the throughput of Cardano's blockchain. Each "Hydra head" can process 1,000 transactions per second (TPS). With 1,000 of these running simultaneously, Cardano could process a whopping 1 million TPS. Hydra is set to be released by early 2023. 

The possibility of improved speed and scalability makes Cardano a potential disruptor in the world of decentralized finance (DeFi), challenging the dominance of Ethereum and Solana. According to DefiLlama, the total value locked on Cardano's network, which measures the amount of money being held in various applications, was just $58 million, compared to $26 billion for Ethereum.

The planned launch of an algorithmic stablecoin called Djed provides another important catalyst for Cardano in the near term. Djed can be used to provide liquidity to certain DeFi protocols and can compete with popular stablecoins like Tether and USD Coin. 

The price of one ADA, Cardano's native token, is just over $0.34 as of this writing. As the network continues its thoughtful and deliberate development process and finds ways to implement utility in various industries, its price could rise over time. And that might be enough of a reason for investors to allocate a small percentage of their portfolios to Cardano. 

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The post Is Cardano going to make you richer? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

What happened

Today's moves in equity and cryptocurrency markets are providing a nice bout of bullish sentiment for investors who have been beaten down for most of 2022. As of 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), and Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA) had surged 11.7%, 4.9%, and 13.3%, respectively, over the past 24 hours. These moves come amid expectations that the Federal Reserve could tone down its pace of interest rate hikes sooner than expected, as well as some stronger-than-expected earnings reports from large-cap companies this week.   

One of the key drivers of expectations that the Fed could slow down its rate increases came out of new data released today with updated August numbers in the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index. While home prices accelerated 13% in August year over year, this increase was down considerably from the 15.6% rate seen in July. Accordingly, this was the steepest deceleration we've seen in the Case-Shiller index since its inception.

And data from the Case-Shiller 20-City index provided an even clearer picture of where prices are headed in major metropolitan areas. This metric showed a 1.6% decline in the top 20 major U.S. markets on a month-over-month basis.

Other positive earnings data from global companies such as Coca-Cola and GM this week stoked hopes that the economy could achieve a potential soft landing, allowing for lower interest rates in the intermediate term.

So what

Today's incredible moves higher in major cryptocurrencies signal the kind of high-correlation, higher-beta moves the crypto sector has been making this year. In general, most of the same macro factors driving stocks mostly lower this year have had a similar outsize effect on digital assets. Accordingly, as a higher-risk proxy for stocks, digital currencies often see larger gains during up days in the stock market.

Should interest rates begin to decline later this year, some analysts believe that we could see an accelerated rally into 2023. That said, it remains unclear if the Cosumer Price Index and Producer Price Index will corroborate with the lagging data we're seeing out of the housing market. 

Now what

Long-term investors looking to call a bottom have been unsuccessful in doing so thus far this year. Most bounces have been met with lower lows, suggesting true capitulation in high-risk assets has not been seen today. In some respects, today's surge in major cryptos could be a signal that speculative capital hasn't been fully washed out yet. Thus, perhaps today's rally is a bearish near-term signal for the market.

But it's entirely possible the market is right in its assessment that rates can't rise much further. The economy has undoubtedly slowed in certain core areas, such as housing. And given the lag in data that's been problematic in leading the Fed to be late to react to the initial surge in inflation, it's possible prices have come down more than the data suggest.

My take is that it's probably too early to say the selling pressure is over for crypto in general. However, these three high-quality tokens could be among the best performers when the market does turn bullish once again. Thus, now could be an interesting time to consider easing into positions as the market searches for a bottom. 

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The post Why Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Cardano are rocketing higher today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

What happened

Yet another massive hack in the world of cryptocurrency could be considered par for the course. This year, more than $2 billion has been exploited from various crypto projects, with Tuesday's hack of Solana-based decentralized lending platform Mango Markets creating a tremendous amount of concern among investors. 

As of 2 p.m ET on Thursday, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), and Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA) were down 2.6%, 1.4% and 2.9%, respectively, over the past 24 hours. That said, it should be noted that these cryptocurrencies have regained much of their losses throughout the trading day. Earlier this morning, these 24-hour declines had been as much as 9%, 8.7%, and 10.4%, respectively.

This hack has resulted in Solana losing approximately one-quarter of its total value locked (TVL) on its protocol. Total value locked is a key metric used to determine aggregate use of a network, with declines suggesting investors are pulling their capital out of a given ecosystem.

This recent hack appears to be the result of a sophisticated investor taking out large positions in leveraged perpetual contracts on the Mango Markets platform. This allowed for a mark-to-market surge in the perpetual contracts held by the trader, boosting the value and allowing the hacker to then essentially withdraw all of the liquidity on the protocol. 

So what

This sort of attack on a given project's collateral is one that clearly took a tremendous amount of time and effort. Now, the hacker in question is reportedly open to returning the exploited funds back to the protocol, so long as "bad debt," which arose from a bailout paid to a highly leveraged whale, is repaid. In any case, the ability of one individual to effectively shut down a large and important decentralized lending protocol is big news.

For Solana specifically, this is the latest in a string of security-related issues that have concerned investors. For investors in other projects such as XRP and Cardano, exploits of top-10 projects have clearly provided concern. XRP is battling its own project-specific headwinds tied to an ongoing battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether its token constitutes a security, and Cardano's ecosystem has lost some of its luster following its highly anticipated Vasil Hard Fork upgrade.

Now what

Exploits (or hacks) will remain a key focal point for investors, particularly those who might be skeptical about the underlying technology to begin with. It's still early innings for the nascent crypto sector, and mistakes are going to be made. That said, until the kinks are worked out, many institutional investors might choose to stay on the sidelines. 

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The post A $100 million hack hit Solana, XRP, and Cardano hard today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Cryptocurrencies have had more downs than ups this year. Total crypto market value has dropped from more than $2 trillion to barely $1 trillion. But it's important to remember this is due to general market sentiment. In times of economic trouble, investors retreat from risky assets.

If we look specifically at various cryptocurrencies, we can find plenty of exciting news. In fact, two major players are ready to launch key upgrades in September: Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) and Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA). That's why this month could be crucial for these blockchains and their investors. 

1. Ethereum

Ethereum, the world's second-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, expects to launch the Merge around Sept. 15. This is part of a general upgrade meant to reduce energy consumption, congestion on the network, and transaction fees. The big update also will increase transaction speed on the blockchain.

How will all of that happen? Through a move to the proof-of-stake validation process from proof of work. And by sharding, a method of splitting tasks across the network.

The blockchain has already started the process. It's launched the Beacon chain as a test of proof of stake. This eliminates the complex computation tasks needed to validate transactions. Instead, validation power goes to the biggest stakeholders. This will cut energy use by more than 99%.

This month, Ethereum will merge the Beacon chain with its mainnet. And proof of stake will become the permanent validation method. Sharding is set to happen next year. That will take care of congestion, transaction fees, and speed. These are all key elements for future success.

2. Cardano

Cardano has something in common with Ethereum. Charles Hoskinson was involved in the creation of both blockchains. He was involved with Ethereum first, then moved on to launch Cardano. Now both projects have another thing in common: important upgrades just ahead.

Cardano aims to launch the Vasil hard fork this month (we don't have a specific date). This is a major upgrade meant to boost the user experience and the ability to scale operations down the road.

One of the elements of this upgrade includes pipelining. This has to do with how blocks of data move through the network. Usually, a block goes through several steps one after the other. Pipelining allows some of these steps to happen simultaneously.

Hoskinson even predicted in a tweet this spring that developers of decentralized applications are waiting for the Vasil hard fork before launching.

And there's more to come. Cardano also is working on the Hydra Head scaling solution. This major project will help Cardano increase speed and the volume of data it can handle at one time, and shorten the time it takes to complete a transaction.

What does this mean for investors?

The upgrades set for September could offer Ethereum and Cardano a lift if all goes smoothly. Both cryptocurrencies have posted double-digit declines this year.

If these upgrades run into problems, though, investors won't be happy. And that could send Ethereum and Cardano prices even lower. We also could see a bit of volatility this month as investors speculate about the outcome of the upgrades.

Considering the potential volatility and the risk of any glitches in the updates' rollout, cautious investors might not want to jump in right now. It's probably best to wait until this key moment has passed.

That said, I remain positive about these two crypto leaders over the long-term. So if you can tolerate some volatility and the risk of bumps along the road, now could be a great time to get in on the story.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The post September could be a crucial month for these 2 cryptocurrencies appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

What happened

Few people were hot on cryptocurrency investments this sweltering weekend; Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA) was one of the rare exceptions. After its co-creator nailed a concrete date for a major upgrade of the blockchain platform, investors traded it up through the weekend. As of mid-afternoon Sunday, its value had risen by 4% over the preceding 24 hours.

So what

Friday morning, Cardano's co-founder, Charles Hoskinson, announced that that upgrade is going to occur on Thursday, Sept. 22. It will take the form of a hard fork, i.e., a new, separate, and non-backward-compatible blockchain from the original, which is titled Vasil.

The pop in Cardano's value was due in no small part to a cocktail of relief and hope. Vasil's launch was originally scheduled for June and subsequently experienced more delays.

Cardano has attracted much investor interest since its launch in 2017. Hoskinson was a co-founder of Ethereum, currently the leader in decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts. Cardano is being developed basically to be a faster and more efficient dApp and smart contract platform.

According to a post on the site of Input Output Global, the so-called "driving force" behind Cardano, Vasil "will bring significant improvements using Cardano's hard fork combinator (HFC) approach and enhance the network's performance by increasing throughput, script efficiency, and reducing latency in block transmission."

Now what

Crypto investors have been starved of good news lately, with negative macroeconomic trends such as inflation favoring assets considered to be relatively safer and less speculative. With its creators' goal of making a low-friction blockchain, perhaps even one that can usurp Ethereum, Cardano is already a compelling crypto play. Fresh news of the impending upgrade is getting investors that much more excited about its prospects.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The post Why Cardano was trouncing other cryptos this weekend appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Earlier today, the popular online brokerage Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD) announced that users can now buy and sell the popular cryptocurrency Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA) on its platform. Cardano is currently the eighth-largest cryptocurrency in the world with a more than $15 billion market cap as of this writing.   

Like most of the crypto market, Cardano's native token ADA has been hammered this year, with its price down roughly 67.5%. With the token now listed on Robinhood, is it time to be bullish?

Why the Robinhood listing is a big deal

Joining Robinhood is a big deal for any cryptocurrency because the platform is actually very picky about which cryptocurrencies are listed. With tens of thousands of cryptos now in circulation, Robinhood has only added 16 that can be purchased and sold by its users through the platform.

The likely reason is that Robinhood is constantly under a great deal of regulatory scrutiny as the first online brokerage that has enabled commission-free trading, which has greatly expanded access to markets for retail traders. On Robinhood's most recent earnings call, CEO Vlad Tenev said that it wants to ensure that each cryptocurrency added to the platform does not get classified as an unregistered security:

This can be dangerous and misleading for customers because they may expect these cryptos to be more decentralized than they really are. We employ a rigorous listing framework, which in the short term may feel like we aren't moving fast enough. But we think this approach will pay off in the long term. 

The other big thing about Robinhood is that it opens Cardano up to a whole new user base and makes it very easy to buy and sell digital assets for Robinhood users who might be new to investing and intimidated by cryptocurrencies.

Robinhood not only has a very sleek digital user interface but also a massive user base. At the end of the second quarter of this year, Robinhood had almost 23 million net cumulative funded accounts and 14 million monthly active users.

Being added to Robinhood has not been an overwhelming catalyst for most cryptocurrencies. Past cryptos added to the platform -- like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash -- did not actually experience a huge price jump when they were included. On the other hand, the meme token Dogecoin jumped nearly 39% after being added to the platform.

The news hasn't exactly helped Cardano today, with the price of ADA actually down 1.7% over the last 24 hours. But we're still in the crypto winter, and there is definitely wider access to popular cryptocurrencies now. Many brokerages are also slashing fees on certain crypto trades to get ahead of the competition.

Should you be bullish on Cardano?

While the Robinhood news today has not proved to be a catalyst so far, I do think you should be bullish on Cardano. It's definitely one of several cryptocurrencies that I think has long-term potential.

Cardano's network can currently process 250 transactions per second, which is already pretty good, but developers are contemplating upgrades to the network that could eventually enable it to process as many as 1 million transactions per second.

Furthermore, Cardano is already operating under a proof-of-stake mining concept, which is much more energy efficient than the proof-of-work mining concept Bitcoin operates under, which uses tons of computing power. Cardano is also a popular landing spot for decentralized applications, and there are roughly 1,000 applications being created on the network.

Ultimately, I think Cardano will rebound along with Bitcoin once the crypto winter eventually ends. While Robinhood is not a catalyst as of this writing, I think it could help broaden exposure and bring more users to the cryptocurrency. The price of the token could certainly go lower in the near term, but in the long term, I think Cardano is a buy and therefore it is a good time to be bullish with the price way down.  

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The post Cardano is now on Robinhood. Should you be bullish? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.