The cryptocurrency market is currently in a strong consolidation phase, and crypto investors and traders are focusing on Cardano (ADA), which could potentially show strong momentum in the near future. On-chain data shows that sharks and whales (wallet addresses holding between 100,000 and 10 million ADA) are accumulating ADA intensively and persistently.
Whales Are Accumulating ADA Intensively
On-chain data indicates that whales and sharks are currently holding the highest amount of ADA in the past year through their purchases. Data provider Santiment reported that the number of wallet addresses holding between 100,000 and 10 million ADA has reached its highest level since September 2022 when the price of Cardano was around $0.29. Additionally, it added that the activity on the Cardano network has been increasing almost every week for the past 6 months.
Crypto research firm Messari published a report stating that the activity on the Cardano Blockchain increased in the second quarter. The report mentioned that the total value locked in the Cardano Blockchain has been moving upwards, and the ratio of transactions to active wallet addresses has been steadily increasing over the past five quarters, indicating that the average user is now more active than before. In the second quarter, the Transaction/Active Wallet Address ratio increased by 6.1% compared to the previous quarter and by 13.2% compared to the same period last year.
Decentralized Applications and DeFi Activity on Cardano
Decentralized crypto exchange Minswap, based on Cardano, has made significant growth and contributed to the increase in activity on the Cardano Blockchain. The report published by Messari also mentioned that other new decentralized applications (dApps) have contributed to this rise. The load on the Blockchain, which measures the data contained in blocks for a certain period, increased from below 40% to 50% in the last three months, reaching its highest point at 81% in May.
Data from DefiLlama shows that there is $175 million worth of locked tokens on Cardano as of August 7th, which corresponds to the highest level this year but is about 50% lower than the peak of $340 million reached in May 2022.
The increase in activity on the Cardano Blockchain has followed significant updates made on Cardano since the beginning of the year. In June, Cardano developers implemented a significant change to reduce “epoch” transitions and improve the performance of the Blockchain for users. In Cardano, epochs are time periods lasting 432,000 slots, with each slot being equivalent to one second.
All this positive data flow has led market observers to expect a price rally in ADA in the near future.
