Cardano blockchain Archives

7th February 2024

Cardano Activity Sees New Life That Could Send ADA Price Soaring, Here Are The Targets

Cardano (ADA) has been stuck in a price rut recently, but behind the scenes, activity on the Cardano blockchain is exploding. Transaction volumes and wallet addresses are all growing, showing that interest and adoption of the network are growing rapidly. All this activity has prompted analysis of how far the crypto can spike in the near future.

Cardano On-Chain Activity Points To Future Price Growth

Cardano’s growth in development activity in recent months has rivaled other cryptocurrencies, putting it on the map among developers. Metrics show that there are currently 1,322 projects under development. Similarly, Plutus V2 scripts recently reached 18,821, and Plutus V1 scripts also stand at 6,536 to make a total of 25,357, indicating the growth of smart contracts.

These scripts are essential for deploying smart contracts on the Cardano chain and have seen a 76% growth from 14,379 scripts recorded on January 1.

At the same time, Cardano’s transaction count in the past two months has been something to boast about. The Cardano ADA network recently successfully completed 255,000 payments in 24 hours. Particularly, December and January saw Cardano process over 4 million transactions each month, showing the increasing network usage.

Active daily addresses have steadied above 30,000 since the beginning of the year, recently reaching 57,304 active addresses on February 4th. The total transaction count is now at 83.58 million. These metrics reflect the network’s ability to process a high number of transactions and its appeal to developers looking to build innovative crypto projects.

Cardano network

Price Targets Suggest ADA Could Reach $4 To $6 Long Term

Despite the gloomy price action in the past month, these metrics point to Cardano price sentiment changing to a more favorable one. As a result, analysts predict a bullish turnaround, with one even putting a $4 to $6 price target by 2026. This represents a 730% and 1140% growth from the current price level.

In a similar vein, crypto analyst Ali Martinez predicted a more bullish surge to $8 by January 2025, representing a 1558% surge from the current price level. Nevertheless, ADA has a lot of room to grow if Cardano can continue to attract developer and investor interest.

At the time of writing, Cardano is trading at $0.4825, with 44% of addresses still making a profit and 51% of addresses currently at a loss. While short-term volatility is likely and the road ahead still has obstacles, the long-term price outlook for ADA looks bright, and Cardano appears well positioned for future success in a wider crypto market bull run.

Cardano price chart from Tradingview.com (ADA crypto analyst)

28th January 2024

How To Buy, Sell, And Trade Crypto Tokens On The Cardano (ADA) Network

[toc]

The Cardano Network is a decentralized proof-of-stake blockchain platform with smart contract support and uses its own native token ADA, just like the Ethereum blockchain. Cardano is often described as the Ethereum killer. However, Cardano also considers itself the updated version of Ethereum, which is currently the king of all altcoins, including ADA.

Cardano (ADA) The Supposed Ethereum Killer

It has been said that Cardano has anointed itself as a third-generation crypto platform which it regards to Ethereum as the second generation. Cardano has deemed itself fit to be a threat or competitor to Ethereum as they are both similar in so many ways, including the fact that Cardano (ADA) was created by one of the co-founders of Ethereum, Charles Hoskinson.

As Ethereum is having a hard time with high gas fees issues and slow transaction times, Cardano is all set up to take their share and make a name for themselves in the NFT, DeFI, and Stablecoin market. Cardano aims to be scalable and low-cost for users compared to Ethereum, its major competitor.

It enables owners of their native token ADA to help operate the network and vote on changes to the software roles. A lot of developers now use the Cardano Blockchain for Smart contracts and building decentralized applications (dApps).

Cardano Continues To Evolve: Hard Forked From Byron To Shelley

Cardano has been releasing its blockchain in stages with the aim of releasing better, cleaner, and more secure codes. They continued to evolve as the Cardano blockchain hard forked from Byron, a federated and static model, to Shelley, a more dynamic and decentralized model

A hard fork means or is described as a radical change in the blockchain, but in the case of Cardano, The blockchain hard fork was unique because instead of the blockchain radical change, it ensured a smooth transition from the old protocol to a new protocol while saving the history of the previous blocks. This means the Cardano blockchain contains the Byron blocks and after a certain transaction period, it adds the Shelley blocks.

Shelley was upgraded, and the Shelley protocol upgrade added a new feature that enabled different kinds of Smart contract use cases, which included the creation and transactions with multi-asset tokens. It also established support for the Voltaire voting mechanism. The Shelley protocol hard fork upgrade of March 2021 called “Mary” introduced native token and multi-asset support on the Cardano Blockchain.

Mary allows users to create their own tokens that run on the Cardano network natively, just like Cardano’s native token ADA. Similar to the ERC20 tokens that can be created and transacted on the Ethereum network, Native tokens will open up this same functionality to Cardano.

How Does Cardano (ADA) Work?

The Cardano (ADA) Blockchain is made up of two main components, which are the Cardano Computational Layer (CCL) and the Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL).

The Cardano Computational Layer (CCL):

The Cardano Computational Layer (CCL) consist of the Ouroboros consensus protocol and Proof of stake, which are the backbone of the Cardano blockchain. They help to run smart contracts, it also ensures compliance and security. Lastly, allow other key advanced features and functionalities such as identity recognition and blacklisting.

The Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL):

The Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL) serves as the accounting layer of the Cardano blockchain where its native token holders can send and receive their ADA immediately with minimal transaction fees.

Blockchain Industry Issues Cardano Aims To Solve

To create a secure voting mechanism for token holders.
To Separate accounting and computation layers.
To create an infinitely scalable consensus mechanism.
To use mathematics to provide a provably secure blockchain that is less susceptible to attacks.

Benefits And Advantages of Cardano (ADA) Blockchain

Decentralization: The Cardano network is designed to promote decentralization, and the founder of ADA Charles Hoskinson, is confident that the network would be 50 to 100 times more decentralized than Bitcoin.

High scalability: The recent Cardano Blockchain Vasil hard fork solves scalability issues as it introduced critical updates that streamline transaction processing, ultimately increasing the transactions per second (tps) Cardano’s blockchain can handle to significantly boost transaction processing speeds, unlike Ethereum.

Multilayer security measures: Cardano has a multilayer architecture that separates the computation layer from the accounting layer and also the Ouroboros proof of stake algorithm reduces the surface attack and ensures good security without falling short on decentralization.

Low gas fees: Unlike Ethereum, Cardano has low transaction or gas fees which makes it more appealing to users and developers.

Environmentally friendly ecosystem: Cardano is designed to be accessible to all persons, no matter their level of skill, from novices to advanced users.

Strong Community: A project is as strong as its community and Cardano has a strong community of active users, developers, researchers, and founders all work together to make the project a very good one.

How To Buy, Sell, And Trade Crypto Tokens On The Cardano (ADA) Network

To see a full picture of the Cardano ecosystem, go to CardanoCube. CardanoCude has information on the applications on the Cardano Blockchain, ranging from DEXes to Liquidity to Wallets, Marketplaces, DeFI, Infrastructure, and Launchpads, in case you want to launch a project on the Cardano Blockchain. There are also Metaverse platforms, Gaming platforms, AI tools, Community & DAO, Developer Tools, Meme Coin, and so many more.

Cardano

To buy and sell tokens on the Cardano (ADA) network, you need to get a wallet. The official wallet created by the Cardano developer IOG is called DAEDALUS. DAEDALUS is a desktop or PC secure wallet for the ADA cryptocurrency that downloads a full copy of the Cardano Blockchain, and it independently validates every transaction in its history, ensuring maximum security.

How To Install, Set Up, and Use DAEDALUS Wallet

Make sure you download the installation file from the DAEDALUS official website daedaluswallet.io. Once the website is open, click on “Download” and then choose your operating system: either macOS, Linux, or Windows. Start the downloading process by clicking on “Download DAEDALUS.”

Daedalus wallet

Install it, and once DAEDALUS is launched, you will need to configure the general settings and click on “Continue.” Read, and accept the terms and conditions.

Download Daedalus

Please note that the blockchain must be completely synced before you can use your wallet.

Syncing crypto

To create a new wallet, click on the “Create” button, give your wallet a “Name,” and Create your “Spending password”. You will need your spending password later to make transactions. It will also Encrypt your wallet file in the dataless directory.

Cardano crypto wallet

After the setup, the “Recovery phase” page will pop up, and you will be given the 24-word secret phrase that you can use to recover your account in case your laptop is stolen or broken.

Recovery phrase

Ensure to write down your secret phrase and keep it in a safe place, after verifying your secret phrase your wallet is all set up.

Cardano Daedalus

Click on “Send” to send coins and Click on “Receive” to receive coins, select one of the automatic recipient addresses to receive your coins for other exchanges.

setup crypto

How To Use The Wallet Function On Minswap Instead Of Daedalus

Minswap is a multi-pool decentralized exchange (DEX) on Cardano (ADA) where you can swap tokens with minimal time, cost, and maximum ease.

Minswap

The Minswap website is user-friendly and easy to trade on. Go to the website, click on “Trade,” then click on “Connect wallet.”

Connect wallet

You might not see the DAEDALUS wallet there, so just create a “MinWallet” by clicking on it, then click on “New Wallet.” Copy your 24-word secret phrase down, write it down in a safe place, verify your secret phrase, create your MinWallet password, Now your MinWallet is ready to be used.

Minswap Cardano wallet

How To Buy ADA On Centralized Exchanges And Send To Your MinWallet

You need some ADA tokens in your wallet to make your transactions. You can buy your ADA from centralized exchanges (CEX) like ByBit, Binance, OKX, and MEXC, etc. In this case, we will use Binance.

Once the ADA is purchased, copy your MinWallet address, go to Binance, buy your ADA, and then go to “Withdraw.” Paste the MinWallet address you copied in the box to input your address, and Cardano will be automatically filled as your transfer network. Input the amount of ADA you want to transfer, then click on the “Withdraw” button.

fund wallet

How To Trade Crypto Tokens On MinSwap

To buy tokens, go to Coingecko and search for the token on the Cardano Blockchain Network you want to buy. Alternatively, you can go to the social media pages of the token you want to make sure you have the correct coin. Go back to MinSwap, click on the denominator token button, input the name of the token you want to buy, and select it.

Crypto wallet Cardano

Input the amount of ADA you want to swap for that token and swap it. If you want to sell, just switch their positions and swap.

Checking Prices Of Cardano-Based Tokens

Knowing how to check the price action of tokens when trading on blockchains such as Cardano is important for investors to make the best decisions. For the Cardano network, data trackers such as TapTools is the one-stop-shop for all things Cardano charts.

Just go to TapTools, click the Search bar, and input the name of the token you want to check. In this case, we’re using SUNDAE.

TapTools

Choose the correct token and click on it, and TapTools will show you the price chart for that token. By using TapTools, you will be able to keep track of the price and follow how your token is doing, as shown below:

TapTools Sundae

Interestingly, TapTools also has its own inbuilt decentralized exchange (DEX) for those who want to do everything in the same place. All you have to do is connect your wallet similarly to connecting to MinSwap as illustrated above, pick the token you want to swap to, enter the amount of ADA you want to swap, and click “Swap”. The DEX is visible on the right-hand side when you open the chart of a token.

Swap crypto Cardano

TapTools Swap

Conclusion

Trading on the Cardano (ADA) network is quick and seamless due to its fast transaction speeds and low fees. However, like with any crypto trading, it does carry its own risk, which could be a partial or total loss of capital.

28th January 2024

How To Buy, Sell, And Trade Crypto Tokens On The Cardano (ADA) Network

[toc]

Cardano (ADA) The Supposed Ethereum Killer

Cardano Continues To Evolve: Hard Forked From Byron To Shelley

How Does Cardano (ADA) Work?

The Cardano (ADA) Blockchain is made up of two main components, which are the Cardano Computational Layer (CCL) and the Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL).

The Cardano Computational Layer (CCL):

The Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL):

The Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL) serves as the accounting layer of the Cardano blockchain where its native token holders can send and receive their ADA immediately with minimal transaction fees.

Blockchain Industry Issues Cardano Aims To Solve

To create a secure voting mechanism for token holders.
To Separate accounting and computation layers.
To create an infinitely scalable consensus mechanism.
To use mathematics to provide a provably secure blockchain that is less susceptible to attacks.

Benefits And Advantages of Cardano (ADA) Blockchain

Low gas fees: Unlike Ethereum, Cardano has low transaction or gas fees which makes it more appealing to users and developers.

Environmentally friendly ecosystem: Cardano is designed to be accessible to all persons, no matter their level of skill, from novices to advanced users.

How To Buy, Sell, And Trade Crypto Tokens On The Cardano (ADA) Network

Cardano

How To Install, Set Up, and Use DAEDALUS Wallet

Daedalus wallet

Install it, and once DAEDALUS is launched, you will need to configure the general settings and click on “Continue.” Read, and accept the terms and conditions.

Download Daedalus

Please note that the blockchain must be completely synced before you can use your wallet.

Syncing crypto

Cardano crypto wallet

After the setup, the “Recovery phase” page will pop up, and you will be given the 24-word secret phrase that you can use to recover your account in case your laptop is stolen or broken.

Recovery phrase

Ensure to write down your secret phrase and keep it in a safe place, after verifying your secret phrase your wallet is all set up.

Cardano Daedalus

Click on “Send” to send coins and Click on “Receive” to receive coins, select one of the automatic recipient addresses to receive your coins for other exchanges.

setup crypto

How To Use The Wallet Function On Minswap Instead Of Daedalus

Minswap is a multi-pool decentralized exchange (DEX) on Cardano (ADA) where you can swap tokens with minimal time, cost, and maximum ease.

Minswap

The Minswap website is user-friendly and easy to trade on. Go to the website, click on “Trade,” then click on “Connect wallet.”

Connect wallet

Minswap Cardano wallet

How To Buy ADA On Centralized Exchanges And Send To Your MinWallet

You need some ADA tokens in your wallet to make your transactions. You can buy your ADA from centralized exchanges (CEX) like ByBit, Binance, OKX, and MEXC, etc. In this case, we will use Binance.

fund wallet

How To Trade Crypto Tokens On MinSwap

Crypto wallet Cardano

Input the amount of ADA you want to swap for that token and swap it. If you want to sell, just switch their positions and swap.

Checking Prices Of Cardano-Based Tokens

Just go to TapTools, click the Search bar, and input the name of the token you want to check. In this case, we’re using SUNDAE.

TapTools

TapTools Sundae

Swap crypto Cardano

TapTools Swap

Conclusion

25th January 2024

Cardano Defies Bear Market As Smart Contracts Count Sees 10,000 Explosion

The Cardano network continues to defy expectations and prove its doubters wrong. This time, the network has hit a new milestone, which suggests that users are indeed taking advantage of its smart contract functionality.

Cardano Sees Significant Increase In Smart Contract Usage

Data from Cardano Blockchain Insights has revealed an increase in the usage of Cardano’s Plutus V1 and V2 scripts. As of January 22, 24,050 smart contracts had been executed using these Plutus scripts. This is impressive, considering that this figure stood at 14,379 at the beginning of this year.

This recent increase can be traced back to January 9, when smart contract usage on the network really began to pick up. Specifically, the number of smart contracts executed on Cardano using the Plutus V2 scripts rose from 8,270 to 12,890 on that day. Since then, that figure has skyrocketed to 17,718.

As expected, the Plutus v2 script is more widely used than its V1 counterpart, considering that the former is a newer generation of Cardano’s smart contract scripting language. Cardano introduced Plutus V2 to reduce user costs and enhance script throughput effectively. Meanwhile, this development no doubt further proves naysayers wrong.

A recent report by crypto research firm K33 boldly asserted that there was no “proof of Cardano being used for anything.” K33 further suggested that a “group of bagholders” were the ones simply fabricating a majority of transactions on the network, and nothing meaningful was going on Cardano.

ADA price chart from Tradingview.com (Cardano smart contracts)

Cardano’s Utility Good For ADA’s Price

Dan Gambardello, the founder of Crypto Capital Venture, once highlighted how the Cardano network had improved since the last bull run. The network’s smart contract functionality was among the features he alluded to as undergoing a significant upgrade since then. Notably, these improvements form part of why he believes that ADA could rise to $11 in the next bull run.

These improvements have indeed contributed to the ecosystem’s resurgence. Last year, the network saw a significant rise in its DeFi activity, and although there has been a decline recently, things are expected to pick back up soon enough. The network’s development activity also looks to be paying off, as Gambardello recently revealed that there is now Social Finance (SocialFI) on Cardano.

Members of the Cardano community will hope that a fiat-backed stablecoin can finally be introduced on the network. The introduction of a stablecoin is believed to be another factor that could help increase Cardano’s utility. This could also cause an inflow of new money into the ecosystem, something which could positively impact ADA’s price.

9th May 2023

Only 6% Left Until Cardano Hits Max Capacity, What This Means For ADA

Recently, the Cardano blockchain ecosystem and decentralized platform have experienced an unprecedentedly high percentage of load pressure, which has led to raised questions and concerns from the blockchain community.

At the same time, its native token ADA’s price has struggled for months and has yet to record any significant gains and upside movements in the cryptocurrency markets.

Yesterday, a report analysis made by the cofounder of dcSpark and contributor to the Cardano blockchain clearly reflected where the blockchain platform is in terms of transaction load and what it means for users.

Cardano Is Currently At 94% Load, Only 6% Left-What To Expect

Sebastien Guillemot, the co-founder of dcSpark and Cardano contributor, recently highlighted a concern about the ADA blockchain network ecosystem.

In a tweet yesterday, Guillemot stated that the Cardano blockchain network is currently at a 94% load, with only 6% left until it reaches max capacity.

Cardano is currently at 94% load!

Only 6% left until Cardano is at max capacity

What does that mean, and how can you be prepared pic.twitter.com/1TZsIUg10N

— Sebastien Guillemot (@SebastienGllmt) May 8, 2023

According to Guillemot, if the load reaches max capacity at 100%, transactions initiated by each user on the blockchain will be queued up alongside other users’ transactions.

No “Cardano node implements transaction prioritization,” he said, and as such, each user’s transactions will be processed on a first-come, first-served model.

Guillemot further stated that this could mean longer wait times for transactions to show up on-chain, and in extreme cases, user transactions may never make it to the blockchain. The result of this, he said, is caused by light wallet Mempools hitting maximum capacity than it can hold.

Another thing users can expect when Cardano hits 100% max capacity is the likelihood of staking pools selling priority access to decentralized applications (dApps) and even to some users.

Guillemot urged that when staking pools start selling priority access to select DEXs and dApps, it would be a good time for users to pay attention to how this move impacts one DEX to another and in choosing which DEX is suitable to leverage at any given time.

Way Forward To Scalability

While Cardano nears max capacity, the dcSpark co-founder has suggested how to scale and reduce load pressure on the blockchain, having touched on what users can expect if it happens.

Guillemot had listed several ways to scale the blockchain, including increasing block sizes and migrating more decentralized applications (dApps) to Plutus V2.

He also suggested using sidechains and layer 2 blockchains to shoulder traffic off layer 1 and developing a data availability layer to transfer more data off layer 1 so that there is ample room for more blocks.

At press time, ADA trades at $0.363, a 0.91% increase from its daily low.

Cardano

23rd November 2021

Cardano Increases Block Size By 12.5%, What This Means

Cardano has been making important changes to its blockchain since the launch of smart contracts capability. This had brought with it an increased usage and thus needed to be more scalable to accommodate this increase. Since the launch in September, there have been a number of improvements to the network and the latest is the increase in the block size.

Increased Block Size In Cardano

Cardano, in a recent blog post, announced that they were increasing block size by 12.5% to make room for the increased traffic that is expected on the network. The 8KB increase will see the total block size now at 72KB and will allow more transactions to be fitted in a single block. This will allow more transactions to be processed per second, greater data throughput, in turn providing greater capacity for its users.

Related Reading | Cardano Founder Says Metaverse Is Important For Crypto

Keep in mind that a year ago, Cardano only averaged 10,000 transactions per day. Now, a year later, this number has risen significantly to more than 200,000 and climbing. A 12.5% increase in block size may not seem large by the average margin but is important to accommodate for this increased usage.

ADA drops to $1.77 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

Another factor that warrants the increase in block size is the anticipation of DApps that are expected to launch on the blockchain soon. Since Cardano already has smart contracts capability, it is only a matter of time until developers begin deploying their apps. This anticipated rise in traffic has made increasing block size important for the network.

Plutus Script Memory Gets A Boost

Block size was not the only thing that got a boost. Cardano also increased Plutus script memory units by transaction. In another 12.5% expansion, the Plutus script memory units per transaction is now 11.25 million.

In the blog post, John Woods, Director of Cardano Architecture, explained that this change was brought about due to growing demand from developers. It will help developers in their journey as they test and deploy their DApps on Cardano.

“An increase in Plutus memory limits means that they can develop more sophisticated Plutus scripts, or that existing scripts will be able to process more data items, increase concurrency, or otherwise expand their capabilities.”

Woods notes that this is only a first in a series of changes that will take place to expand the real-world capabilities of Plutus scripts.

Related Reading | Cardano Founder Reiterates Long-Term Purpose Amid Sell-Off Panic

The changes in block size and Plutus script memory units by transactions will be implemented slowly. Cardano has adopted a ‘slow and steady’ mechanism going forward with the changes. Although this may look to be moving too slow for some, a 12.5% increase shows that the developer is not rushing to make changes that would adversely affect the network.

“It’s not just about creating more complex scripts. It’s also about putting more data through,” the blog post read.

Featured image from The Cryptonomist, chart from TradingView.com

11th November 2021

What Went On In The Secret Meetings Between Cardano Developer IOHK And Zanzibar Officials?

The Cardano Africa tour had been in full gear for a couple of weeks now, ending when Hoskinson had returned back to the States. Founder Charles Hoskinson had announced the tour after the successful launch of smart contracts capability on the blockchain and last month, the tour had kicked off.

Hoskinson and the Cardano Foundation plan to meet and liaise with developers of Cardano-based projects and officials of various countries to discuss the acceleration of blockchain adoption on the continent.

Related Reading | Shiba Inu Beats Out Cardano, Dogecoin On Top 10 Watch-Listed Tokens

Judging by Hoskinson’s Twitter feed, the tour has been going as planned as he has met with a number of project leads and officials in various countries so far. One thing that remains a mystery is the secret meetings. Cardano developer IOHK has met with Zanzibar Officials but these meetings have been kept private from the general public. Here’s what we know.

Mapping The Future For Zanzibar

Finding ways to grow interconnectedness around the continent had been one of the goals of the Cardano Africa tour. The foundation had gone into this full-swing once Hoskinson had touched down in Zanzibar. Talks of technological advancement in the region have dominated this leg of the tour.

ADA price trading at $2.126 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

Charles Hoskinson himself had personally inspected solar battery modules and telecom station installations in the country. This was in an effort to bolster social advancement and help businesses succeed.

IOHK and Zanzibarian officials had discussed how to bring to fruition a more connected future for the citizens in a meeting hosted by World Mobile Team. The meeting which was held on November 8 saw both the Zanzibarian government and IOHK align values for the future, pointing out that empowerment efforts being carried out by officials to give fishermen their own boats was the kind of work the developer was interested in.

Cardano Pushing Growth In Africa

The Cardano Africa tour is only another in the series of steps that the developer has taken to help promote innovation on the continent. Crypto enthusiasts have always looked to Africa as being a hotbed for blockchain adoption and Cardano has made sure to help foster the growth in the region. Particularly the growth of Cardano-based projects.

This is why millions of dollars have been spent by the foundation to fund African projects. While there, Hoskinson had made strides for Cardano to lead blockchain development in African countries and one of the ways had been education.

Related Reading | Cardano Flips Solana, Tether To Reclaim Spot At 4th Place

Cardano Foundation provides financial and educational support when needed for startups in Africa. Furthermore, a deal had been struck with the Ethiopian government to launch digital IDs that would help track the academic performance of students in the region on the Cardano blockchain. The idea is that if students’ performances can be tracked, then the quality of education can be improved based on the needs of the students.

Hoskinson has lauded the potential which the African continent holds for blockchain development and plans to expand the operations of Cardano on the continent in the coming years.

Featured image from CryptoNinjas, chart from TradingView.com

30th October 2021

Volume Of ADA Staked On Cardano Network Reaches Record High

Cardano holds bragging rights for the network with the highest proportion of its circulating supply staked and it has not let go of this title. Cardano’s community is home to investors who are investing for the long term rather than trying to take short-term profits from the market. This means that most investors have their coins staked on the platform to serve as validators on its proof of stake mechanism.

The blockchain has grown in popularity since it announced smart contracts capability in September. Since then, various partnerships and initiatives focused on increasing usability on the network have been announced. This move seems to have paid off as Cardano saw a record number of total circulating supply hit an all-time high this week.

Total ADA Staked Hits 73% Of Supply

Cardano saw the total ADA staked on its network hit a high of 73.15% on Thursday, an impressive number compared to the number of coins staked on its direct competitors. At this point, the network had a total of 23.9 billion ADA staked across 921,323 delegators. The total circulating supply of ADA is only 33.26 billion coins, meaning that only less than 10 billion are not staked.

Related Reading | New Ethereum-to-Cardano Bridge Will Provide NFT Creators Eco-friendly Options

This represents the growing confidence in the future of the project, which some in the space have claimed to be the blockchain of the future. An interesting fact behind Cardano’s staking network is that the coins are not locked in place. Unlike Ethereum, ADA holders are still able to transfer out their staked coins if they wish to sell. However, a large proportion of its community has chosen to stake, speaking volumes to the faith of its holders in the project.

Cardano Performance In The Market

Despite its impressive new partnerships and projects, Cardano has not fared too well in the crypto market. The altcoin has not followed the rising trend of bitcoin in the past weeks, which has left ADA struggling to maintain its value above the $2 level. Short-term forecasts for ADA are also generally bearish given the lagging momentum of the digital asset.

ADA price struggles to hold $2.02 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

ADA has greatly fluctuated in recent times and Wednesday saw the altcoin crash below $2 for the first time in over a month. The price of the digital asset had promptly recovered after the crash. However, the damage had already been done. ADA’s loss of steam over the past few weeks became even more evident as the price struggled to hold above $2.01.

Related Reading | Cardano, Solana Lead Altcoins As Market Sees Record Inflows

Forecasts remain bleak for the asset, especially now. Since it has so far not rallied with the rest of the market alongside bitcoin, Cardano’s price could very well see a retest of $1.7 before this cycle is over.

At the time of writing, the price of the digital asset is trading at $2.02 after posting a small recovery from its dip below $2. Cardano sits at 5th place on the crypto top 10 with a market of $67 billion.

Featured image from Bitcoin News, chart from TradingView.com

26th October 2021

New Ethereum-to-Cardano Bridge Will Provide NFT Creators Eco-friendly Options

Bondly has announced a new functionality on the Cardano blockchain that is aimed at creators. Energy consumption has been a major problem on the Ethereum network, especially given the increased usage of the blockchain over the past couple of months. Developers behind the project have been working towards moving the network to proof of stake but that is still another year away.

In the meantime, Ethereum blockchain still uses a proof of work mechanism which requires a large amount of energy for transactions to be confirmed on the network. Thus, Bondly has introduced a new solution for NFT creators who may be looking for more sustainable and eco-friendly options for their creations. But at the same time, do not want to lose the NFTs they have already minted on the Ethereum blockchain.

Cardano Set To Enter The Babbage Era After Alonzo HFC Milestone

Cardano successfully deployed the Alonzo Hard Fork Combinator over a month ago, which has no doubt been one of the most important upgrades to happen on the network Alonzo HFC brought with it smart contracts capability on the network and with this came decentralized finance (DeFi) services to the ecosystem. Developers could now develop and deploy decentralized applications (DApps) on the Cardano blockchain.

This provided a boost for the network and Cardano continues to work with developers to get their DApps deployed on the blockchain. After this milestone, a question on the minds of supporters has been, ‘What’s next?’ With the Alonzo HFC operating as intended, the developers behind the blockchain can now move to the next phase. This phase is referred to as the Babbage era.

Related Reading | Cardano Loses 3rd Spot On Crypto Top 10, Why It May Drop Even More

The Next Big Step

Kevin Hammond, software engineer at Input Output gave an update on what the developer was working on next. Hammond revealed that IOHK was moving into what they referred to as the Babbage era. This phase which is named after Charles Babbage, the mathematician credited as “the father of the computer”, is meant to smooth out any wrinkles that may be leftover after Alonzo.

ADA price at $2.32 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

IOHK will roll out various performance improvements on the blockchain in this phase. These, Hammond said, are improvements which the developer had been working on for some time but had not yet launched.

The developer intends to improve the sinking speed, and in addition, will address performance issues that operators have pointed out since the Alonzo HFC has been in operation. This part is important in ensuring that users of the network have a smooth experience when carrying out activities on Cardano.

Realizing The Best Of Cardano

The Plutus Language on the Cardano network is also getting an upgrade. Hammond revealed that the developer was planning on improving the language by introducing a new Plutus Language version on the blockchain. The Plutus script-specific aspects of the network will be improved to allow for a faster and increased volume of transactions in each block.

This new Plutus version will feature additional features which were created due to demand from the user base. Since the network has seen increased activity from the developer-side, it has also come with various requests on the things that they would like to see the network do.

Related Reading | ADALend Makes It On “The Essential Cardano List” By IOHK

On the decentralization side, Hammond talks about the network’s plans to further decentralize the blockchain. The software engineer didn’t give many details on this, but this will likely be a situation where Cardano puts the community more in control of what happens on the network. The revelations from Hammond are evidence of the fact that IOHK is continuing its work to make the blockchain the best it can be.

Featured image from Bitcoin News, chart from TradingView.com

19th October 2021

Cardano Loses 3rd Spot On Crypto Top 10, Why It May Drop Even More

Cardano has now lost its spot at the 3rd place on the crypto top 10 as its price had refused to move in accordance with the broader crypto market. While other altcoins had rallied alongside bitcoin, ADA had remained mostly stagnant.

Despite the hype created around the project when smart contracts capability was launched last month, support has dwindled for the asset. Its race above $3 had seen it overtake Binance native token BNB to clench the top 3 spot. But ADA has once again surrendered this position as it dropped to 4th place while BNB surged past, beating ADA by $9 billion in market cap.

ADA May Still Suffer Losses

The Cardano project has not had any market-moving news in recent times. There has been news regarding the project investing in smaller Cardano-focused startups. However, nothing has created hype around the project.

Related Reading | Cardano Investors In Japan Come Under Fire For $6 Million In Underreported Taxes

Its foray into the decentralized finance (DeFi) space has been delayed because although the blockchain is now capable of supporting smart contracts, building the protocols required to provide decentralized finance services to users takes time to build. Developers have been working hard on deploying their decentralized applications (DApps) on the network and the Cardano Foundation has provided support to these projects, but it will take a while before there are enough working DeFi protocols on the blockchain to draw in users to carry out DeFi activities on the network.

ADA price trading at $2.13 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

If the digital asset does not see any significant improvement in support and momentum, then ADA may run the risk of falling below $2. Its community boasts some of the strongest hold sentiment with over 70% of its total supply currently staked. However, without significant amounts of money coming into the asset, it is likely to continue a downtrend that may see the price retest the $1.7 range.

Cardano Founder Begins Africa Tour

Bitcoinist reported last week that Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson was getting ready to begin a tour through Africa. Hoskinson confirmed that the tour had kicked off on October 15th when he posted a tweet that showed him appearing on a panel in South Africa, where the tour was scheduled to begin.

Related Reading | SpaceBudZ Marks First NFT Sale Above $1 Million On Cardano Network

Hoskinson, in conjunction with the Cardano Foundation, plans to visit various startups on the continent that are building on the blockchain. They will provide funding and education, as needed, to this project and help to guide them through deploying on the Cardano network.

This has although not been the kind of needle-moving news that the digital asset needed because, despite the kick-off of the tour, ADA’s price has not recorded much upward movement. Momentum remains down as the price continues to struggle around the $2.1 price range.

Featured image from Euronews, chart from TradingView.com

14th October 2021

SpaceBudZ Marks First NFT Sale Above $1 Million On Cardano Network

NFTs have been live on the Cardano network for a while. Before smart contracts capability had debuted on the network, users were able to mint and sell NFTs without needing a smart contract address. This has been one of the pulls towards the network and users have taken full advantage of this capability to trade their NFTs on the blockchain.

However, compared to leading NFTs blockchain Ethereum, Cardano NFT sales have been minute. Where the Ethereum network has seen NFTs sold for as high as $69.3 million in the case of Beeple, Cardano had yet to see its first million-dollar sale. This is mostly due to the network rolling out NFT capability later than Ethereum and having less interest from buyers.

Related Reading | Cardano Investors In Japan Come Under Fire For $6 Million In Underreported Taxes

SpaceBudz Sells First Million-Dollar NFT

The NFT market on Cardano has boomed ever since smart contracts capability was introduced on the blockchain. Although these smart contracts are not required for minting NFTs, they brought more users to the network, which, in turn, brought more interest into NFTs minted on the platform. Various artists have released and sold their NFTs on the blockchain, and now, SpaceBudz has successfully recorded the first Cardano NFT sale above $1 million.

ADA price trading at $2.11 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

SpaceBudz is an NFT platform that is built on the Cardano blockchain. The SpaceBudz consists of 10,000 unique NFTs which users can personally own after they purchase it. The project broadcasts its sale on Twitter via a bot that reports every listing and sale of a SpaceBudz NFT.

On Tuesday, the SpaceBudzBot account reported that SpaceBud #9936 had been sold for 510,000 ADA. Going by ADA’s current price of $2.11 at the time of this writing, the NFT sold for $1,076,100. A record sale on the Cardano network.

SOLD – SpaceBud #9936 was bought for 510000 $ADA https://t.co/E3605AnMs0 #spacebudzsold pic.twitter.com/W6Jml5mbHt

— SpaceBudzBot (@spacebudzbot) October 12, 2021

Cardano Celebrates Ada Lovelace

Cardano’s native token ADA is named after one of the earliest programmers on record. Ada Lovelace is one of the women who pioneered software programming after the first computers were used in the 1940s. Members of the community refer to themselves as Lovelaces, an ode to the mathematician.

IOHK joined the scientific community in celebrating Ada Lovelace Day, which commemorates the contributions and achievements of women in STEM fields.

Today is Ada Lovelace Day – celebrating one of the earliest tech pioneers & programmers!

It is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering & math, to increase the profile of women in STEM #Cardano https://t.co/bp1X6rC79z pic.twitter.com/tCgcvaoZHZ

— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) October 12, 2021

Related Reading | FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried Reveals Reason Behind Billions Of Dollars Tether Purchase

Cardano Foundation has been making marked contributions to innovation and growth in the science and technology sector, and founder Charles Hoskinson is set to tour the continent of Africa as the foundation invests in startups building on the blockchain in the region. The Africa tour is scheduled to start in South Africa but a departure time has not been announced yet.

Featured image from The Cryptonomist, chart from TradingView.com

6th October 2021

Grayscale Report Shows The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of The Cardano Network

Cardano featured in the latest release of the Grayscale Building Blocks, a monthly publication from one of the leading crypto funds in the world. The report focused solely on the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. An exposé of sorts. The report went through various aspects of Cardano, including its creation, leadership, community, and so forth.

Cardano is the third-largest holding of Grayscale in its GDLC Fund (Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund). This is why the asset manager has taken a vested interest in the asset and is educating its investors on one of its largest crypto holdings. In the report, the pros and cons of the network are outlined. Along with the upgrades which are being carried out on the network to put it in a favorable position to compete with other large cryptocurrencies in the market.

Competing With The Market

As time went on, the way the Cardano network was structured had unveiled a flaw in its design. Once decentralized finance gained popularity, it became obvious that the blockchain would not be able to compete on the same level as Ethereum due to its lack of smart contracts capability. Developers had then begun to work on launching smart contracts capability on the network, which became a reality on September 12th, 2021. But it came years behind other leading smart contracts networks.

Related Reading | Charles Hoskinson To Launch Three-Time Grammy Nominee Paul Oakenfold’s Album On Cardano

With smart contracts capability present in the Cardano ecosystem, the question becomes if users will adopt it. There already exist blockchains with booming decentralized finance markets. So they would need a compelling reason to move over to Cardano.

“The trade-off of Cardano’s approach has also resulted in its biggest weaknesses, which include: a historical lack of smart contract capabilities, an unproven track-record for how well dApps will function, a still maturing third-party developer ecosystem, lack of widespread mainnet dApps, ad lower transaction fee revenue.”

ADA price maintains position above $2 | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

Since the network is yet to be tested, there is still skepticism in the community as to how well decentralized applications will work on the blockchain. Developers obviously have their work cut out for them.

Cardano Competitive Advantages

The Grayscale report also outlines the advantages of the blockchain over others. Its leadership remains one of the strongest components of the project. The Cardano community has always remained loyal to founder Charles Hoskinson, who has continued to share his vision for the project with the community at every turn. As such, inspires continued support for the asset no matter how the price may be doing.

Decentralization is also an important feature of the Cardano blockchain. A fully open-source project, the Shelly upgrade had spread the core network consensus amongst thousands of participants. Its native token, ADA, is held by millions of people around the world and can easily be bought and sold on exchanges both big and small.

Related Reading | FinTech Behind Cardano’s First Stablecoin Launches Bank Accounts And Visa Debit Cards

Last but not least, the blockchain has strong funding sources. Its treasury balances currently sit at $1.6 billion, giving the network a competitive advantage when it comes to growing and upgrading its ecosystem as technology in the crypto space changes.

Featured image from CryptoPotato, chart from TradingView.com

28th September 2021

Cardano Summit Sees Launch Of Exciting New Partnerships

The Cardano Summit has now officially come to an end. Saturday and Sunday saw live and virtual events from around the world, while notable figures in the crypto space spoke at the event, including the founder of Cardano Charles Hoskinson. The event brought a lot of excitement to the space and allowed community members to interact with one another from around the world. But most notable has been the announcements of new partnerships made at the event.

Related Reading | Billionaire Mike Novogratz Says He’s “Not Nervous” About Crypto Sell-Off

In the weeks leading up to the event, the founder, developers, and individuals involved in the Cardano project had teased a lot of exciting new partnerships coming to the blockchain. Some of these announcements had been anticipated by the community. Mostly ones related to decentralized finance projects debuting on the network. But a couple of others were completely new to the space.

Cardano Partners With Veritree To Fight Climate Change

Climate change and crypto’s contribution to the problem is one that no doubt has to be addressed. In response to this, Cardano announced at the summit that it is taking proactive steps to fight this growing problem. Veritreeis a subsidiary of Tentree, a company that makes sustainable apparel by planting 10 trees for each clothing item sold. Using Veritree, the company aims to track its tree-planting efforts around the world.

Veritree which has planted 68 million trees in the past ten years has had a hard time keeping track of the trees it has planted. And using Cardano’s blockchain technology, Veritree can provide “immutable, transparent and audible blockchain-based report on all of Veritree’s afforestation and reforestation efforts — using a fraction of the carbon footprint of other blockchains.”

DeFi, NFTs, Staking, And More

Given the fact that smart contracts were deployed on the Cardano network not too long ago, announcements were expected on this front and the project did not fail. Developers behind the project announced various partnerships to this end, ranging from NFTs to staking.

NFT marketplace Rival joins the long list of new partners of the network to enable the creation and distribution of NFTs. As well as allowing NFTs to be redeemed in exchange for physical goods and distributing marketplace-based royalties. This will help improve the experience of users when minting and using NFTs on the Cardano ecosystem.

Related Reading | Why Cardano Bull Trend Isn’t Over And 91% Increase Is Imminent, deVere CEO Nigel Green

Another partnership with UBX, a UnionBank fintech venture studio, brings public stake pools to the public. This will allow users to earn rewards for staking their ADA tokens to help maintain and secure the blockchain. Furthermore, a partnership with AID:tech brings decentralized finance identity solutions to the blockchain. Using AID:tech, users can easily verify ownership, allowing a large number of transactions to be processed in a short time.

Other partnerships include a deal with cable provider and Fortune 500 company Dish Network/Boost Mobile to integrate its telecom services with the Cardano blockchain. And another partnership with Chainlink will give developers who are building on the blockchain to develop smart contracts and other solutions on the network.

Speaking on these recent partnerships, the founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, explained, “We have to do a lot of science, a lot of innovation, and a lot of engineering.”

Featured image from Medium, chart from TradingView.com