Cryptos surge as Coinbase says it will buy $500m tokens; Cardano hits new ATH

Cardano has become the biggest crypto to recover from the May 20 crash, with the No. 3 crypto surging nearly 20 per cent to a new all-time high.

ADA tokens were trading for US$2.54 this afternoon, up 30 per cent for the week, 90 per cent for the month and 130-fold for the year.

NEW ATH Confirmed! $ADA 🚀
We’re now going into Price Discovery Zone!#Cardano pic.twitter.com/KxAOhgXX75

— Cardano Malaysia 🇲🇾 (@CardanoKl) August 20, 2021

Charles Hoskinson’s platform is scheduled to finally upgrade to smart contract functionality on Sunday, September 12, allowing developers to deploy the kind of decentralised applications that have created a thriving ecosystem on Ethereum.

Crypto market gains 7% to US$2.1tn

Elsewhere the market was enjoying one of its biggest days in weeks, surging 7.0 per cent to US$2.1 trillion.

The gains came after US exchange Coinbase said it would add US$500 million in crypto to its balance sheet, as well as 10 per cent of all profit going forward.

“We believe in the cryptoeconomy, a future where economic transactions — buying, selling, spending, earning — will be based on crypto assets,” the Nasdaq-listed company said in its announcement.

Coinbase said the change in its investment policy means it’ll be the first publicly traded company to hold Ethereum, proof of stake assets, DeFi tokens and other cryptocurrencies to its balance sheets, in addition to Bitcoin.

We recently received board approval to purchase over $500M of crypto on our balance sheet to add to our existing holdings. And we’ll be investing 10% of all profit going forward in crypto. I expect this percentage to keep growing over time as the cryptoeconomy matures.

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) August 19, 2021

Bitcoin was changing hands for US$47,000, up 6.0 per cent from yesterday, while Ethereum was trading for US$3,225, up 7.4 per cent.

Just five coins in the top 100 were lower, with LUNA being the worst decliner after yesterday’s gains. The token for powering Terra’s stablecoins was down 7.3 per cent in the past 24 hours, but still up 76 per cent for the week.

Voyager Token, Arweave and Audius were down lightly as well.

Swiss investment platform SwissBorg was the biggest gainer, up 33.9 per cent to US96.45c, followed by OMG Network, The Graph and Cardano, which were all up around 20 per cent.

XDC Network, the No. 67 crypto, had joined Cardano in setting an all-time high. Outside the top 100, Yield Guild Games, Bifrost, Starlink and Lido DAO had also reached new peaks.