The Cardano blockchain has recently experienced an explosion in activity. Only the Bitcoin network exceeded it in terms of transaction volume on February 20. Notably realizing the feat of overtaking Ethereum.
Cardano driven by the launch of SundaeSwap
According to data analytics company Messari, Cardano (ADA) saw $17.04 billion in 24-hour trading volume (February 20). With Bitcoin (BTC) at $18.85 billion and Ethereum (ETH) at $5.25 billion, Cardano therefore ranks second in the category.
One might think of a temporary effect, taking advantage of large movements over a day, but it is not. Indeed, throughout February Cardano saw tremendous activity. On February 14, the 24-hour trading volume exceeded $35 billion. On February 19, it hit $31 billion.
However, we are still far from the historical record of $138 billion reached by the network on September 3 last year.
The spike in trading volume on Cardano in recent weeks is largely due to the launch of SundaeSwap. As a reminder, the decentralized exchange (DEX) was launched on January 20, 2022. The hype surrounding the platform caused several days of congestion on the blockchain due to the huge influx of transactions.
The conditions were right for the rise of Cardano. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum having seen a drop in their network activity lately:
- Bitcoin’s 24-hour volume is down 84% from the peak of $116 billion reached on November 25
- Ethereum volume has been declining since December 4, when it hit a three-month high of $21.29 billion. It fell 82% to a three-month low of $3.99 billion on February 19.
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Ethereum remains the prince of crypto in many areas
Cardano has been listed by Morgan Stanley’s Global Wealth Management Investment Office as one of four blockchains” ethereum killer“. These chains could challenge the superiority of Ethereum smart contracts, due to their lower costs and transaction speeds. The other blockchains cited in the report are Solana, Polkadot and Tezos.
Even so, analysis of other data shows that Ethereum still dominates Cardano in many key network usage metrics. Ethereum has 76 million addressesvs 3.4 million for Cardano, for example. Two rooms, two atmospheres. Bitcoin peaks at around 200 million addresses.
Another interesting metric to compare Ethereum and Cardano: the value locked in smart-contracts (TVL). This indicates in particular the use of the chain in the context of decentralized finance (DeFi). And this time again, no match:
- 115.62 billion dollars locked on Ethereum.
- 118.64 million dollars locked on Cardano.
Despite this positive news, the price of ADA fell 13% on its all-time high day. It was trading at $0.833, down 73% from its all-time high. This one was $3.09? reached on September 2, 2021. Waiting for the expansion of DeFi on the network to send it to new heights?
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