Cardano leads tepid crypto market recovery ahead of Memorial Day

Fears of a nasty pre-Memorial Day selloff in cryptocurrencies may have been overstated, early indicators suggest. Cardano’s ADA cryptocurrency was back in the spotlight Sunday, leading a tepid market recovery following news that the developer network was inching closer to launching smart contracts. 

Market update

The combined value of all cryptocurrencies rose 4.4% on Sunday to $1.6 trillion, according to data from Coingecko. Among the majors, it was Cardano’s ADA leading the rally with a 17% gain. ADA peaked at $1.70, according to TradingView, and was last seen hovering just north of $1.63. At current values, Cardano was the fourth-largest cryptocurrency with a total market capitalization of $52.9 billion.

Every cryptocurrency in the top-20 reported gains on Sunday. Bitcoin (BTC) price rose 3.5% to $35,833, Ether (ETH) added 4.3% to $2,431 and Binance Coin (BNB) climbed 6% to $327.

Despite the modest rally, market sentiment remains tilted to the downside this weekend, with investors continuing to speculate about whether Bitcoin has actually bottomed out. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has fallen to 10, on a scale of 1-100 where lower scores are associated with “extreme fear.”

What’s driving ADA?

The presence of oversold conditions following the latest market correction appears to have worked in ADA’s favor on Sunday. The cryptocurrency briefly penetrated the oversold indicator on the hourly Relative Strength Index Saturday before rebounding sharply over the next 24 hours. Prior to the May 19 crypto market flash crash, ADA was among the top-performing digital assets. It peaked at $2.46 on May 16 before unwinding 55% over the next week. Looking beyond the immediate shift in market sentiment, ADA fundamentals remain intact.

On a fundamental note, ADA supporters are celebrating the launch of the Alonzo smart contract testnet by Cardano’s development team Input Output Hong Kong, or IOHK. As Cointelegraph recently reported, IOHK was eyeing a gradual deployment of Alonzo’s testnet in May and June. Early adopters will have the opportunity to test Alonzo Blue, the first alpha testnet, over the next month.

As IOHK explained: The ‘Alonzo’ hard fork will bring exciting and highly-anticipated new capabilities to Cardano through the integration of Plutus scripts onto the blockchain. These will allow for the implementation of smart contracts in Cardano, enabling the deployment of a wide range of new DeFi applications for the first time.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson recently indicated in a YouTube video that attention will shift to solving the scalability issue once the Alonzo rollout is complete.