Cardano Gets 'Valentine' Upgrade: Here’s How it Benefits ADA Token

An upgrade to improve security and interoperability features on the Cardano blockchain was pushed live in early Asian morning hours on Wednesday.

Dubbed “Valentine,” the upgrade will make enhancements to cross-chain functionality for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications building on the network. It was proposed earlier in February and voted favorably by network validators, as CoinDesk reported.

The upgrade is said to bring enhanced cryptographic features to Cardano while improving cross-chain decentralized application (dapp) development on Plutus – the smart contract platform of the Cardano blockchain.

“Interoperability is key for blockchain growth. As more dapps are built on Cardano, it is essential that they are not siloed to just one ecosystem, enabling users to interact with different blockchains and access a wider range of services,” a Cardano developer and code maintainer said in a tweet.

Cross-chain bridges are software applications that enable transactions to occur between various blockchains.

Such a feature on Cardano would allow developers to build applications that connect Cardano with other blockchains, which would in turn give users access to other blockchains to interact easily with financial services offered by Cardano dapps.

Dapps rely on smart contracts instead of middlemen to offer financial services, such as lending and borrowing, to users, who often use that dapp’s token or are rewarded in those tokens.

This, in turn, would likely improve the utility of Cardano’s native ADA token. As such, Wednesday’s upgrade preceded buying pressure on the token, with the price up 8% in the past 24 hours, outperforming bitcoin and ether.

The locked value of tokens on Cardano-based dapps has increased over 100% since the start of January to over $110 million, suggesting demand.