Crypto Roundup: August 23rd, 2021

Bitcoin has once again passed the key milestone of $50K after a week that saw some of the biggest global corporations make moves on the digital asset market. Retail giant Walmart posted a job for a crypto expert to investigate virtual payment options, Facebook announced that their crypto wallet is approaching its launch date, and Microsoft said it is considering using Ethereum to counter-piracy. Meanwhile, the second-largest U.S. mortgage lender revealed plans to accept cryptoasset payments for home loans. This headline-grabbing news helped the market shrug off an exchange hack in Japan, and prices moved up across the board. Top-performing assets include Cardano, which rose to an all-time high ahead of the upcoming Alonzo upgrade, and Algorand which added 25% on the launch of a tokenized real estate marketplace. This Week’s Highlights Cardano becomes third-biggest crypto ahead of Alonzo upgrade Facebook’s crypto wallet prepares for launch Cardano becomes third-biggest crypto ahead of Alonzo upgrade Cardano has risen rapidly through the ranks this past week, toppling Tether and BNB to become the third-largest cryptoasset by market cap. The Ethereum rival ADA added 40% to reach new all-time highs, making a total increase of over 100% in August so far. This comes ahead of the highly-anticipated Alonzo upgrade, which is expected to deploy long-awaited smart contract functionality to Cardano on September 12th. According to da...