The Cardano blockchain has seen significant growth over the past year, an aspect that is evident with the number of wallets for the network’s native token ADA.
Within a year, the number of wallets has grown over 1,200% from last Christmas’ figure of 190,000 to 2.5 million wallets as of December 24 2021, data by Cardano Foundation indicates.
Drivers for Cardano wallet growth
The milestone that has been achieved as the network is experiencing growth powered by several upgrades with ADA rising to become the 6th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
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Overall, the upgrades have acted as a catalyst for ADA’s rally which has translated to more interest from investors. Over the past year, ADA has rallied by about 870%.
Furthermore, the growth comes after the foundation earlier in the year dedicated 2021 to building the Cardano community. Naturally, the number of new wallets brings with it an increase in the actual number of users on the network.
The significant surge in wallets potentially indicates that a majority of current ADA holders are retail investors who are holding small amounts of the native token as the blockchain moves towards full decentralization.
Additionally, the launch of the DEXs on the Cardano blockchain has also acted as a driver to the spike of ADA wallets. Notably, Cardano has attracted a user base from Ethereum due to the network’s high fees. In 2021, Cardano has been viewed as an alternative to Ethereum after the developers embarked on offering better products than the second-ranked cryptocurrency.
Elsewhere, the launch of the smart contract functionality is a key feature that is impacting the Cardano network activity. In this line, there has been an increase in the number of users utilizing the smart contract functionality that is emerging as a success.
According to our previous report, as of December 8th, the number of smart contracts based on Plutus, a Cardano-based smart contracts platform, had hit a milestone of 888.
ADA’s price
The number of wallets potentially points to the prospects of ADA with investors expecting the token to surge in value amid the ongoing network development. In this line, the CoinMarketCap crypto community had projected that ADA might trade around $2.40 by the end of the year. By press time, the token was trading at $1.46, gaining 18% in the last 7 days.
However, the market has recently experienced heightened volatility with ADA emerging as one of the casualties.
