Did you miss Bitcoin? Buy this cryptocurrency now.

Cryptocurrency markets have seen better days. But if you invested in the world’s largest cryptocurrency right after launch, you’re still way ahead of the game. Bitcoin has risen more than 3,250% since 2009. Even if you invested in Bitcoin at a later date, you may still be looking at double or triple digit gains.

But what if you didn’t? Well, if you missed out on Bitcoin in the early days, don’t worry. Right now is a great time to find young cryptocurrency players who can follow in Bitcoin’s footsteps – by offering long-term growth. A perfect example is Cardano (ADA 0.98%).

Next up: the Vasil hard fork

Cardano is celebrating its fifth anniversary in a way that should please users and investors. The blockchain is launching an upgrade this week: the Vasil hard fork. This should increase Cardano’s speed and efficiency. And that should help it attract even more developers and users.

For example, the Vasil hard fork will use an accounting model that will support faster and more sophisticated decentralized applications. The hard fork will also introduce diffusion piping. This will streamline performance – and increase the amount of data that Cardano can handle. Today, data blocks go through a series of steps. Pipelining allows some of these steps to happen simultaneously.

As it stands today, Cardano has already made significant progress. More than 3,200 Plutus (the original smart contract language used on Cardano) exist on the blockchain. And developers are building 1,100 projects there. The blockchain has processed more than 50 million transactions in total.

Further down the road, Cardano is heading towards another major milestone: the launch of its hydra heads scaling solution. Hydra heads allow certain operations between a certain number of participants to take place outside the main network.

Target for Hydra

Testing has shown that each hydra head can handle 1000 transactions per second. The goal of hydra is to increase the volume of data handled at a given time and the speed it takes to complete a transaction.

The Vasil hard fork – and later the hydra scaling solution – could secure Cardano a top spot in the cryptocurrency world.

Today, the crypto player is already among the most popular. It is the eighth largest by market capitalization. Still, like the rest of the cryptocurrency market, Cardano’s price has fallen in recent months. Cardano has fallen more than 60% so far this year.

Considering the Cardano improvements that are going to happen immediately and in the future, and Cardano’s price today, right now is a good time to get in on the story. The Vasil hard fork is unlikely to increase Cardano’s price anytime soon. EthereumThe recent upgrade – known as The Merge – did not lift that cryptocurrency.

Today’s economic environment

Investors have shied away from cryptocurrency due to concerns about rising interest rates and the economy. In this context, investors often favor safer assets. As a new industry, cryptocurrency has more risks.

But economic downturns don’t last forever. And as things start to look up, riskier assets should see a new wave of interest. All of this means that crypto investors will likely have to be patient.

If you are comfortable with risk and ready to hang in for the long term, Cardano could be a great player to buy right now. Ahead of the upgrades, Cardano may be at one of the most exciting moments in its history.

Cardano may not climb as much as Bitcoin. But it can offer very solid performance over time. So even if you missed out on the most famous crypto player, you can still get a big win in cryptocurrency with Cardano.