Switzerland’s Crypto Valley released its CV Top 50 report. Compiled in partnership with PwC, the report lists Cardano(ADA) as the second-biggest crypto unicorn. They now trail only Ethereum according to the report.
Cardano currently has a valuation of $40.6 billion, which is followed by Polkadot and Aave. Last year Cardano(ADA) didn’t even make the list of unicorns and had a valuation of just $869 million. There are currently 11 in Crypto Valley, five more than the time of the last report.
The Cardano blockchain recently became a multi-asset chain with the launch of the Mary hard fork. This will allow users to create tokens that run on Cardano natively. Enabling new tokens was one of the first big use cases that caught on for Ethereum, enabling 2017’s multi-billion-dollar initial coin offering splurge.
IOHK founder Charles Hoskinson called the move ‘historic.’ Hoskinson added that for node operators, the transition should be fairly simple. They will just need to update their software and everything should work well.
He added in a video that, “We’ve been testing it for almost a month, and the test looks good. Exchanges are happy.” Enabling new tokens is the next step on the path to full smart-contract functionality.
Cardano Hard Fork Mary Allows Integration of DeFi
Mary is one of two hard forks necessary to usher in the Goguen era for Cardano(ADA). That happening will allow them to integrate multiple decentralized services and solutions.
Switzerland’s Crypto Valley, which also includes Liechtenstein, is now home to 960 companies. They have also increased their total number of employees to 5,180 despite the ongoing challenges of the global pandemic.
Crypto Valley‘s top employer remains cryptocurrency brokerage and custodian Bitcoin Suisse. Additionally, announced its partnership with the Zug canton last month. That partnership lets all citizens and local companies pay taxes in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Cardano, meanwhile, recently became the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
