Coins update: Cardano Jostles With XRP As ADA Picks Up Speed Despite the New Vasil Upgrade Delay

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, Cardano (ADA) flipped XRP to become the 7th largest crypto asset by market capitalization, only a week after meme currency SHIB passed Tron on the list of top cryptocurrencies.

ADA Surpasses XRP

The Cardano community has been enthusiastic on the asset despite a sizable decline in market cap this year, especially with the impending Vasil Hard Fork promising significant network upgrades. On July 13, ADA's market cap hit a low of $13.8 billion for the year, but it didn't stop the asset from outperforming 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.

Continuing delay for Cardano's Vasil Hard Fork

Cardano's Vasil Hard fork, which was supposed to happen by the end of the month, has yet again been postponed. The network upgrade was originally scheduled for last month, but the Cardano team postponed it until the end of July. As the deadline draws nearer, the team has once again delayed the upgrade by additional weeks.

The Vasil Hard Fork upgrade has been postponed, according to Input Output Global (IOG), the organization in charge of managing Cardano's research and development initiatives. Technical manager at IOG Kevin Hammond stated that the team is working to guarantee a smooth procedure when the hard fork is ultimately 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.