- The Cardano price has jumped by 28% from its YTD low.
- It has lagged other popular cryptocurrencies like Solana and Ether.
- We explain what ecosystem growth means for ADA.
Cardano price has lagged that of its other cryptocurrency peers. ADA, its native token, is trading at $1.1742, which is about 28% above the lowest level this year. Other coins like Ethereum, Solana, Terra, and NEAR have seen their prices jump by more than 30%.
Cardano ecosystem growth
Cardano is one of the biggest blockchain projects in the world. According to CoinGecko, Cardano has a market capitalization of more than $37 billion, making it the 7th biggest cryptocurrency in the world. The ones bigger than Cardano are the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Binance, and USDC.
However, Cardano has been an embattled blockchain project. Some have referred it as a ghost chain, meaning that it still does not have any major projects. That was partly because for years, Cardano did not have smart contract capabilities.
The situation changed in 2021 when the developers launched the Alonzo hard fork. Since then, the ecosystem has started growing, with developers having launched DeFi, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), and metaverse projects.
Some of the biggest DEXes in Cardano are AdaSwap, DOEX, Cardax, and ADAX. At the same time, there are several DeFi projects currently built using Cardano like Cardano Mixer, Atomic Swap, and Ada Finance. Still, these DeFi projects are still small.
Other parts of the Cardano ecosystem expansion is in the marketplace, where projects include Ardano, Cardahub, and SingularityHub. Cardano also has projects in launchpad, lending, and infrastructure.
Analysts note that it is too early to tell whether Cardano will become a viable alternative to existing projects like Ethereum, Solana, and Polkadot.
The next key catalyst for the Cardano price will be the upcoming consumer inflation data. Analysts expect the data to show that American inflation soared to 7.3% in January while core inflation rose to 5.3%. These numbers are important because of their impact on interest rates.
Cardano price prediction
The four-hour chart shows that the ADA price declined to a low of $0.9235 in January this year. Since then, the coin has made a spectacular recovery and is trading at $1.1765. The recovery has been in line with the overall performance of stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Along the way, the coin’s price has formed an ascending channel that is shown in red. It is now slightly below the upper side of this channel. Also, it is slightly below the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level and is above the 25-day moving average.
Therefore, I suspect that the coin will continue falling as bears target the lower side of the ascending channel at about $1.
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