Cardano'south Ada received a fresh moving ridge of optimism and ownership volume on Feb. 26 that pushed its price to a new all-time high of $1.29, making it the third-ranked cryptocurrency by market place capitalization.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that Ada surged 27% from a low of $0.98 during the early on trading hours on Feb. 26 to its new high at $one.29 on tape trading volume.

ADA/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Momentum for the project has been edifice throughout the calendar month of Feb post-obit the integration of the Mary upgrade to Cardano's testnet on Feb. 3. The upgrade enables smart contract functionality, helping transform the blockchain into a multiasset network similar to Ethereum.

Mary's mainnet launch date revealed

The latest rise in toll coincided with Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson posting the following tweet, indicating Mary would be live on the mainnet at the beginning of the next epoch on March 1:

Ada briefly spiked to $1.17 following the annunciation before pressures in the broader cryptocurrency market pushed it back beneath the $1.00 level on Feb. 25.

Thereafter, the trading volume for Ada has surged to a new record of $12.8 billion, helping elevate information technology to a new all-fourth dimension high. The open interest for Ada futures also rose to $580 million, surpassing Litecoin (LTC) to become the third-largest derivatives market.

According to information from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, meanwhile, market weather condition for Ada have been favorable for some time.

The VORTECS™ score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of celebrated and electric current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading book, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. Ada price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As seen on the chart above, the VORTECS™ score for Ada reached a high of 79 on Feb. 25, around 24 hours before the price began to fasten 27% to a new all-time high.

Smart contract functionality is the key component of the Mary upgrade and is expected to usher in a new era of functionality for the Cardano ecosystem. Once integrated, decentralized finance applications will be able to operate on the network and provide an outlet for users who are looking to escape loftier gas fees on the Ethereum network.