The crypto community has predicted that the price ofCardano\u2019s native $ADA token will surpass the $1 mark by the end of June, after the implementation of the Vasil hard fork, which is set to deliver considerable improvements to the network.<\/p>\n
A poll run on CoinMarketCap\u2019s \u201cprice estimates\u201d tool, first spotted by Bitcoin.com, has seen over 24,460 cryptocurrency enthusiasts vote that the price of $ADA will hit $1.06 by the end of June, with 15,900 votes believing the cryptocurrency\u2019s price will drop to $0.97 by the end of July.<\/p>\n
Both predictions would see ADA\u2019s price appreciate significantly. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency is changing hands at $0.57 according to CryptoCompare data after recovering from a $0.40 low seen earlier this year. Cardano was last above $1 in April of this year.<\/p>\n
The community\u2019s prediction is relevant as it\u2019s pointing to a date after the Vasil hard fork is implemented on the network.\u00a0 The hard fork is expected to be implemented on June 29 and according to Cardano\u2019s Charles Hoskinson will deliver a \u201cmassive performance improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vasil hard fork is a major upgrade that will involve four Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIPs). These include CIP-31, which introduces a \u201cnew kind of input, a reference input, which allows looking at an output without spending it,\u201d as well as CIP-32, which allows for \u201csimpler communication of datum values between users.\u201d<\/p>\n
Included in the hard fork is also CIP-33, which proposes reference scripts \u201cbe attached to outputs, and to allow reference scripts to be used to satisfy script requirements during validation, rather than requiring the spending transaction to do so.\u201d CIP-33 will \u201callow transactions using common scripts to be much smaller.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, the hard fork includes CIP-40, which adds collateral outputs that remove the \u201cneed for wallets to explicitly set collateral.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hard fork has already seen ADA outperform numerous other cryptocurrencies, even amid a wider cryptocurrency market downturn exacerbated by the collapse of the Terra ecosystem. That performance saw ADA become the sixth-largest cryptoasset by market capitalization this week, surpassing $XRP.<\/p>\n
Activity on Cardano has also been rising, with\u00a0over 5 million native assets having now been minted on top of the Cardano blockchain, doubling the figure seen at the end of last year. There are now 5.01 million native assets on Cardano deployed across over 54,800 policies. Minting policies, according to\u00a0Cardano\u2019s documentation, are a \u201cset of rules that govern the minting and burning of assets scoped under that policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Native tokens themselves are bespoke assets that can be interacted with \u201cright out of the box \u2013 without the use of smart contracts.\u201d The network\u2019s documentation notes native assets can \u201cpractically be treated as ada in every sense because the capability is already built-in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Data has also shown that\u00a0ADA whale transactions have shot up\u00a0to a 4-month high after the price of the cryptocurrency plunged to a bottom at $0.40 earlier this year. Whales were seemingly buying the dip ahead of the Vasil hard fork.<\/p>\n