ADA, the token underpinning the Cardano blockchain, has jumped over 12% in the past 24 hours amid a recovering cryptocurrency market. ADA has widely outperformed its contemporaries in the last week due to a mix of bullish fundamental and technical factors.
ADA Making Waves
Cryptocurrencies were largely in the green Monday, giving investors hopes of a much-needed recovery after the nauseating correction in May. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap reclaimed the $31,400 level, more than a 5.74% gain on the day. Ethereum (ETH) went up 5.79% over the same timeframe.
Cardano’s ADA meanwhile is leading gains among the top ten largest cryptocurrencies. ADA soared as much as 12.04% on the last day to trade at $0.6224. The crypto asset is now the sixth most-valued cryptocurrency with a market cap of $21 billion.
There has also been a dramatic increase in ADA’s trading volume across leading cryptocurrency exchanges. Its trading volume stands at around $1.2 billion in the last 24 hours, 162.56% up from the previous day.
What’s Fueling Cardano’s Pump?
The primary fundamental catalysts behind today’s bullish price action are the increased DeFi activity and the upcoming Vasil hard fork.
Cardano implemented the Alonzo fork in August 2021, ushering in smart contract functionality. ADA gained over 100% in the span of a month after the coin entered the decentralized application space with Alonzo. Approximately 93 decentralized applications have now been built atop Cardano since this hard fork, and many of these apps are registering heightened activity.
The Layer 1 proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain also recently revealed its Djed stablecoin and released an array of Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIPs) that aim to make transactions faster and cheaper. Furthermore, there has been a spike in the issuance of native assets on Cardano — data shows more than five million assets have now been minted on the blockchain.
Additionally, Cardano has gained the attention of institutional investors who are even converting their bitcoin and ethereum assets into ADA because they believe in its high potential in the future. This increased interest in ADA by whales has played a role in the coin’s recent uptrend.
Despite today’s bullish action, ADA is still trading almost 80% below its September 2021 peak of $3.09.