Trade quantities for Cardanos Ada -Token have exploded too late with daily figures on average about $ 720 million in February, exceeding an average of $ 1.4 billion in March.
This increase was spurred by a social media post by US President Donald Trump, who mentioned Ada as one of the symbols that would be included in the country’s strategic cryptor reserve.
Although Cardano enjoys his moment with mainstream attention, the Layer-1 blockchain has been calm as a crypto-juggernaut since it went live at the end of 2017.
Adoption Metrics
The ADA tokenet has a market capital of $ 25.6 billion, but what’s more remarkable is what’s under the hood; Data from Google shows that Cardano Blockchain has more than 5 million unique wallets and 1.3 million delegators, with thousands of new wallets being created during the day.
Blockchain also has $ 329 million in the total value locked (tvl), although the Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard believes that metric is overwhelmed by crypto communities.
Instead, he points to “non-value transactions” associated with people performing the real world-of-the-non-financial activities on blockchain rails: to adorn a decentralized ID, tracking metadata, admission documents, that kind of thing. Cardano is a fireplace for such activity, he said.
“I’m struggling to make sure 50% of activity is a non-value transaction,” Gregaard told Coindesk.
An example of this is Cardano’s partnership with Veritree, which saw Cardano Community donates over 1 million ADA tookens to plant 1 million mangroves in Kenya, with each donation verified and tracked on blockchain.
Last week, the Cardano Foundation also announced an agreement with Serpro-Brasily’s largest state-owned IT company-to speed up the blockchain adoption in South America. Serpro processes 33 billion transactions annually for 90% of Brazil’s federal administration. In addition, 8,000 employees will also receive blockchain training.
Cardano’s perspective differs from like Solana and the series of LAG-2 networks such as base proud of the total value locked (tvl) and hyp-driven movements such as memcoins and non-swingable symbols (NFTs).
Tvl at Solana grew from $ 2.2 billion to more than $ 10 billion in 2024, Cardano zipped from a modest $ 445 million to $ 537 million in the same period.
Defi at Cardano
While the Cardano Foundation CEO said his focus is on cases in the real world, blockchain can still boast of a busy defi ecosystem under the surface.
Minwap is Cardano’s original decentralized exchange (DEX). Its cumulative trading volume hit $ 3.4 billion this month, with December alone chopping an almost record $ 271 million, Defillama data shows.
There are also a number of loan protocols, including Liqwid, Lenfi and Optim Finance, with Tvl across Cardano’s lending sector exceeding $ 116 million.
But the most important part of Gregaard’s mission, he insists on, is not to exceed the 50% level of financed transactions. He sees it like staying in line with the Cardano Foundations non-profit ethos, although it limits the potential exponential growth of hype-driven movements like Memecoins.
Cardano Foundation vs Hoskinson vs Emurgo
Fulfillment that ETOS has its own challenges, mostly because blockchain is run by three main units: Cardano Foundation, Charles Hoskinson’s IOG and Emurgo. The latter two are commercial companies that can cause friction between them and the foundation.
“The purpose of having a non-profit was that you can optimize decision making based on 10 years, it is different than if you optimize decision making tomorrow,” Gregaard added.
Some of the friction was highlighted by an anonymous Cardano Society member in December, who wrote an e -mail on a path forward and detailed how the devices that drove Cardano were on Loggerhead.
“CF’s recent outbreaks of activity are part of a larger strategic game – an attempt to undermine Charles, IOG, Crossing and the Wider Management Card,” the E -mail read.
“It’s been a long and difficult road, but I agree with some of the feelings from the warning,” wrote Hoskinson in response to X.
However, Gregaard was more diplomatic about any potential rift.
“There is no monetary exchange between us, but we work very closely together,” he said.
“We sometimes go to [a conference] And we share a booth. So we meet and we sponsor booths together, it’s the closest you get to any affiliated companies, which is very different compared to both the Ethereum Foundation or Tezos Foundation, where they basically control the Treasury and control the payments. “
“On flip side, we [Cardano Foundation] is the area of responsibility for society and blockchain, which means we are the one who interacts with SEC and CSDC and FMA, and I negotiated Mica with the Europe Parliament. “
