At the beginning of this week, ADA was trading at $0.051 and today it spiked 31% to $0.067.

At the time of writing, the 11th largest cryptocurrency by market cap has been trading at $0.0638. While this digital asset is up 93% YTD, it is still down 95% from its all-time high.

Despite these gains this week, Cardano’s mentions on social media remained low with most of the attention remaining on other altcoins like Ether and OMG, as per Santiment.

However, “ADA is quietly creeping up as a hot altcoin as of late.”

Meanwhile, the development activity on the Cardano network continues to rise.

“ADA continues to show signs of strength in the market, and there are some emerging decoupling indications. Year to date, its impressive development activity rate continues to rise,” shared Sentiment.

3.. 2.. 1.. $ADA 🚀 pic.twitter.com/HwJR1TwbBS

— paTo.. 🌕 (@moonshilla) May 24, 2020

This uptrend in development activity and the price is because of the launch of much anticipated Shelley update, now just a few weeks away.

Cardano creator and CEO of IOHK Charles Hoskinson revealed the roadmap and official launch date of Shelley upgrade. And the hard fork is slated for June 20.

“Guys wanna know when Shelley is? Let’s tell ya… June 9 – this is when it opens up to everybody. The next date we have for you is June 16, that’s when we start putting things together end-to-end,” he said.

“If everything works without a hitch, June 30 we’re shipping Shelley,” said Hoskinson adding if something does go wrong, the release may get delayed to a week later on July 7. This means all users must update by July 20.

First launched in 2015, Cardano’s Shelley-era aims to deliver “true decentralization.”

“I'm really proud of everybody. It's been a long time coming and it's been a difficult year because we've had to change the tires while the car is running,” he said.

“What we're creating is basically the world's next operating system.”

Hoskinson, who also co-created the second largest blockchain network Ethereum, said Cardano’s virtual summit will happen in early July.

Just a few weeks back, the first Shelley block was produced on testnet within the “friends and family” stage, which Hoskinson said came precisely when it was meant to.

The Shelley Incentivised Testnet already lets holders earn ADA by staking it, which is the process of holding the coins while maintaining the network.

In Cardano’s case, the amount you delegate is one of the ways to stake your coins other than operating a stake pool themselves affects how its PoS protocol Ouroboros chooses who gets to add the next block.