Motley Fool Australia » Investing » The Cardano (ADA) price is smoking the other cryptos

It has been another positive day for cryptocurrency traders. At the time of writing all of the ten-largest cryptocurrencies are posting notable gains since this time yesterday.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), may be pushing 8% higher to US$11,637 per coin, but one popular altcoin is absolutely smoking it.

That altcoin is the little-followed but widely appreciated Cardano (ADA).

In afternoon trade the ADA price is up 21% to 67 U.S. cents according to Coin Market Cap. This has given the fifth-largest cryptocurrency a market capitalisation of US$17.3 billion and puts fourth-positioned bitcoin cash (BCH) within its sights.

What is Cardano?

Cardano is an increasingly popular third-generation cryptocurrency that was launched last year by a global team of leading academics and engineers.

It was designed to provide a more balanced and sustainable ecosystem that better accounts for the needs of its users as well as other systems seeking integration. In essence, it has been designed to improve on bitcoin’s technology in every respect.

And it does appear to be delivering on its promise with its proof-of-stake method, Ouroboros. This ambitious piece of technology does have significant potential to shake up the financial industry in my opinion.

But it is early days and it hasn’t yet gained traction like Ripple’s xRapid product. Furthermore, upstart Stellar Lumens (XLM) has another impressive piece of technology vying to replace bitcoin in the future.

If I were a gambling man I would be putting my money on XRP and XLM succeeding. However, there is still a long and volatile road ahead and putting an accurate valuation on any of the cryptocurrencies is close to impossible.

In light of this, I think the prudent thing to do is to watch on from the safety of the sidelines for the time being.