Is Cardano ready for a go at $1? June's hard fork FOMO lifts ADA price to weekly highs

cointelegraph.com:

Cardano (ADA) was among the best performers among the top cryptocurrencies on June 6 as traders assessed a key upgrade that promises to enhance its blockchain's smart contract capabilities.

Dubbed "Vasil," the so-called hard fork event will tentatively take place on June 29, 2022. As a result of the euphoria surrounding this upgrade, traders have started speculating more on ADA's upside prospects, resulting in its better performance than other top-ranking digital assets.

For instance, ADA's price rose by over 14% to $0.64 on June 6 compared to the 6% gains of its top rival, Ether (ETH), on the same day.

Thanks to the excitement surrounding its upcoming Vasil Hard Fork, #ADA surged over 20% to become one of the best-performing cryptos last week.Prices as of now:#ADA - $0.637400#LINK - $7.98#XLM - $0.149126#UNI - $5.34Buy/sell crypto futureshttps://t.co/QgaS0WtKde pic.twitter.com/1DWDxwFJ3Z

Cardano's price history also shows similar euphoric behaviors among traders in the days leading up to hard fork events. For example, the "Alonzo" upgrade in September 2021, which introduced smart contract functionalities to the Cardano network, preceded a 200%-plus ADA price rally, as shown below.

Similarly, Cardano's "Mary" hard fork in March 2021 preceded ADA's 1,600%-plus price boom.

The previous price rallies that led to the hard fork events also occurred amid an expansionary macro-environment. At the time, interest rates were near-zero, and the Federal Reserve was buying $120 billion worth of government bonds every month.

But currently, the U.S. central bank has turned hawkish after witnessing persistently higher inflation. Therefore, many analysts argue that there is now less U.S. dollar liquidity to buy riskier assets, including stocks