Could the Cardano blockchain ADA be making a comeback? It could well be. A few days ago, we informed you that about 1.5 billion ADAs were deposited in staking in the space of 12 hours of time. But that’s not all! Institutional investors also seem to be positioning themselves favorably on Cardano’s token.
Transactions of more than $100,000 in Ada
What some might have thought was a passing phenomenon seems to be turning into a trend. In early March we informed you that the whales had accumulated over 12 billion ADAs (that’s over 40% of the outstanding ADAs that are currently in the hands of the whales.) The Cardano blockchain had even surpassed Ethereum in transaction volume as of February.
The stream of positive news for ADA holders doesn’t end there, as IntoTheBlock posted a tweet stating that LTV (Large Transaction Volume) has exploded! For those who don’t know, LTV lists transactions over $100,000 on the network.
Since the beginning of the year, LTV has grown from 1.35 billion ADAs per day to 69 billion! That’s a transaction volume of over $80 billion made each day! In the space of 3 months, the number of transactions of more than $100,000 has therefore increased 50-fold! A level not seen since mid-2018.
These metrics therefore show institutional interest in the Cardano blockchain, but also in its ADA token, which could benefit from price appreciation as its DeFi ecosystem evolves.
These transaction volumes are not the only indicators of renewed interest in Cardano.
Cardano onboarding more and more users
One interesting thing to consider is that despite the relatively stagnant volatility and average number of transactions, IntoTheBlock also reported that the number of addresses created has been increasing since the beginning of the year. Indeed, these have increased from 3.4 million to 5 million in 3 months, while the number of decentralized applications remains very low compared to the blockchains that Cardano claims to be the competitor.
All for a TVL (Total Value Locked) around $263 million after an all-time high of $326 million reached on March 24.
If you don’t know, ask Charles Hoskinson
Although the Cardano blockchain and its co-founder Charles Hoskison have many detractors. The CEO of IOHK still sees a bright future for his blockchain and finds an explanation for the limited number of DApps, when asked about it:
“What most also don’t understand is that many Cardano DApps are waiting for the launch of the Vasil hard fork in June to benefit from pipelining. So it seems we haven’t seen anything yet in terms of TVL.”
Charles Hoskinson
NB: pipelining is a solution to increase the scalability of the Cardano network.
Developers would therefore be in the starting blocks to deliver DeFi protocols on the blockchain, once the hard fork is effective.
Charles Hoskinson had also spoken about the future of Web3 during a keynote address at Binance Blockchain Week, raising questions about the boundaries between regulation and decentralization in the process:
“As blockchains become more advanced and powerful, we must begin to make difficult and uncomfortable philosophical decisions.”
Charles Hoskinson, at the opening keynote of Binance Blockchain Week
What Charles Hoskinson implies is a reality for which the industry does not yet seem to find answers, that of regulation. For since it has been looking at the topic of blockchain, questions that were not previously considered have begun to surface.
The questions Charles Hoskinson brought up are:
- “At what point can we undo a transaction?”
- “If we can, at what point can we freeze your funds?”
- “I thought we could never do that.”
Beyond the “We’re here for tech” joke that can be seen on social networks during a bear market phase, the co-founder of Cardano called on users and enthusiasts of blockchain to get more involved in the ecosystem and not only seek profit taking and speculation. Because when you have sorted out the messed up projects from those that really want to bring something new, you find women and men inhabited by a vocation that seek to revolutionize the Internet. But some projects can sometimes die prematurely as a result of massive profit-taking by some of their users and result in significant capital losses for others, alerting regulators.
According to Charles Hoskinson, one of the solutions to regulation would possibly be DAO and ended his speech on a positive note:
“If we are truly decentralized, we have to figure it out for ourselves”.
Charles Hoskinson, during his speech at Binance Blockchain Week
Often considered a Vapor Chain, Cardano seems to have attracted institutional investors into its ecosystem, but whether this is a genuine interest in blockchain or simply an opening of a position in the ADA token for profit taking following its price appreciation, which could arrive in June following the hard fork, remains to be seen. It’s up to you to make your own opinion…
