Cardano Sees 50x Increase in Large Transactions in 2022

IntoTheBlock – a blockchain intelligence firm – has reported a surge in interest for Cardano among institutional buyers. It cites a parabolic 50x increase in the cryptocurrency’s on-chain transactions worth over $100,000 in 2022 alone.

• As tweeted by the firm yesterday, over 69 billion ADA were moved as part of such large transactions just yesterday. They represented over 99% of the total on-chain volume for Cardano.
• That’s compared to just 1.35 billion ADA in trading volume on January 1st, representing a 51-fold increase since. This is one of the highest volume levels ADA has seen since mid-2018.
• The cryptocurrency’s volume is still reportedly around $1.4 billion according to exchange data, providing more evidence that these transactions are happening OTC.
• ADA’s price has also benefited strongly following the recent crypto market surge, up 20.7% versus Bitcoin’s 11%.
• Furthermore, total addresses on Cardano have expanded from 3.5 million to 5 million since the start of the year. Meanwhile, other coins like Shiba Inu are seeing a decline in addresses holding a balance.
• That said, other metrics like average transaction size remain stagnant, alongside Cardano’s popularity in DeFi. While the $300 million locked in its DeFi protocols is up massively since the start of the year, it’s still dwarfed by Ethereum’s current $126 billion.
• Charles Hoskinson – co-founder of Cardano – says that many more DeFi protocols will come to the network after a hard fork this year. On Monday, he spoke about the importance of maintaining coordination and decentralization in crypto during Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai.
• “There are two paths before us,” he said, citing one path of “integrity” and “decentralization,” as opposed to another of high centralization and “custodians”.