Cardano's ada surges as much as 22% after creator Charles Hoskinson stokes hopes its smart-contract update is imminent

• Ada surged by over 20% in intraday trading Wednesday to almost $1.80, its highest in two months.
• Its founder Charles Hoskinson said the network's purple smart contract update is coming Friday.
• Other altcoins rose, with Ripple's XRP up more than 9.1%, dogecoin rising 6.1% and dot 5.3% higher.

Cardano's native token ada shot up as much as 20% early Wednesday after its creator Charles Hoskinson stoked hopes that a much-anticipated update is imminent.

Hoskinson, who is CEO of cardano's developer Input Output HK, said Tuesday he will reveal the date of the final release of the alonzo update on Friday.

"We'll be able to announce when the alonzo hard fork is going to happen, and at that point you'll be able to run smart contracts on Cardano," he said in a YouTube video.

Ada briefly climbed to a two-month high of $1.7948 in early trade, marking a 22% increase in 24 hours, before easing back to around $1.7831, marking a 12.9% rise, according to investing.com. But the coin is still down 22.7% from an all-time high of $2.394 in mid-May.

The cardano network's alonzo upgrade will incorporate more-advanced smart contracts and decentralized finance, or DeFi, applications to the blockchain. The "alonzo purple" hard fork release is the final step in a multi-stage process, and it could help cardano match the bigger ethereum network in incorporating smart contracts.

Smart contracts are effectively contracts that execute a function automatically once a series of conditions are met. They allow engineers to use the blockchain to perform a variety of functions such as send information or documents. DeFi applications allow two counterparties to exchange capital or assets, without an intermediary.

Read more: Ether to $14,000, doge above $1: The CEO of a payment platform breaks down why ethereum's upgrade could drive up the prices of multiple cryptos and shares his forecasts for bitcoin and XRP

On Friday, blockchain engineering and research developer IOHK said it had begun onboarding users to alonzo purple and had started testing the update.

"With Friday's revelation that the mainnet launch is on track, crypto investors and enthusiasts in general, were hyped on the optimism that a supposedly superior blockchain infrastructure with the possibility to support the next generation of smart contracts is on the horizon," Konstantin Anissimov, executive director at London-based crypto exchange CEX.IO, told Insider.

"This typically influenced the stability of ada and is contributing to its ongoing price surge," he said.

Ada is the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, with a value of around $57 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.

Other altcoins rose Wednesday, with Ripple's XRP up more than 9.1%, dogecoin rising 6.1%, and dot climbing 5.3%. Meanwhile, leading cryptocurrency bitcoin edged up 1.3% and ether added 2.7% over the last 24 hours, according to Coingecko.

"The growth of other altcoins, including ethereum, XRP, dogecoin, polkadot and others must have been triggered as a general correlation with bitcoin, which has continued to maintain a steady growth towards the $50,000 price mark," Anissimov said.

"However, the altcoins listed have their inherent utility, investor sentiment and strong ecosystem, all of which are vital in fueling the ongoing price growth we are seeing today."