Cardano surpassed Bitcoin as the best-selling cryptocurrency on the popular eToro trading platform during the second quarter of the year, after seeing a 51% increase compared to the previous quarter.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, saw demand for it rise 42% over the same period, according to CityAM. Simon Peters, a market analyst at eToro, said the growth and potential use of Cardano's native ADA token has attracted investors.
Cardano added the ability for developers to release native tokens on their blockchain earlier this year. Furthermore, it is set to allow developers to create and implement smart contracts across their network through a major update called Alonzo. This allows decentralized financial applications to be deployed across the network.
Peters said:
“This update will be scaled down as it will allow developers to create projects on the network, helping Cardano to position itself as a true 'competitor' for companies like Ethereum.”
Cardano in the center of the spotlight
Alonzo is part of the network's “Goguen” era, named after Joseph Goguen, an American professor of science at the University of California and the University of Oxford.
The Goguen era comes after the Shelley phase, in which Cardano became a decentralized blockchain and community members became validators.
It comes at a time when more than 70% of the ADA's circulating supply is staked. Furthermore, after the cryptocurrency has increased exponentially in recent months. Ethereum, which for some is being threatened by Cardano, has seen its popularity rise 79% ahead of London's hard fork, which will change the network's fee structure.
London's hard fork is another step on the path to Ethereum 2.0 and will make Ethereum a less inflationary asset. For some, if demand gets high enough, it could even become deflationary, as transaction fees will be burned. Peters observed:
"Cryptocurrencies had an exciting year, with major milestones achieved in terms of price movements and increased institutional investment signaling more adoption by the traditional financial services ecosystem"
Other assets also draw attention
In the second quarter of the year, other assets also saw their generation explode on eToro. TRON's TRX and Ethereum Classic (ETC) grew 163% and 161%, respectively, compared to the first quarter of the year.
Therefore, Peters noted that investors stopped focusing only on BTC and ETH. This is because they can only own a fraction of these coins with their investments and have switched to lower priced coins instead.