Market reaction to US economic indicators and ex-Fed Chairman Janet Yellen’s comments on the Fed’s inflation target had an impact on riskier assets.
Initially, weaker-than-expected labor market data gave hope that the Fed would take a less aggressive path toward policy normalization. Upbeat sentiment sent the ADA higher before US Treasury Secretary Yellen spoke about the Fed’s duty to make inflation a target.
Yellen’s comments sent the riskier assets into the red, with the ADA dropping to an intraday low of $0.449 in response. However, Vasil hard fork updates softened the blow, as the broader crypto market saw even bigger losses.
Cardano updates continue to support the hard fork date in September
Vasil Hard Fork Updates continued to support Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson’s Hard Fork date prediction for September. After upgrading 75% of the SPO contract to version 1.35.3, the market focus shifted to two critical mass indicators, namely,
- About 25 stock market upgrades (equivalent to about 80% of ADA’s liquidity).
- TVL’s Top 10 Dapps have confirmed that they have upgraded to 1.35.3 in pre-production and are ready for the mainnet.
As of September 2, updates to the ADA Hard Fork block indices are as follows:
- Five exchanges are ready for a hard fork, unchanged from the day before: AscendEX (Bitmax), Bitrue, Dex-Trade, MEXC and NDAX upgraded. Bitrue and MEXC make up the 12 most liquid exchanges.
- 30 exchanges are running, up from 28 on Sept.
- Most importantly, Coinbase has begun the upgrade process, with Binance “on the verge of completion.”
- Of the top 12, AAX, ChangellyPRO, and ZB.com have not even started the upgrade process.
Overnight, PoolTool showed that 79% of Cardano SPO nodes had been upgraded to version 1.35.3. Momentum has waned in recent days, with the 75% threshold already being reached. However, Input Output HK urged the SPO contract to continue the upgrade.