Cardano caught in a tough spot after failing to take advantage of the uptrend posted by its peers – Cardano Weekly

Many of the top altcoins rallied alongside the flagship cryptocurrency during last week’s broader crypto market uptrend.

Cardano’s native token ADA, however, barely saw any action and stood out, alongside Solana, among the coins that failed to capitalize on the upward movement. ADA is now struggling to stay afloat as a result. The token surrendered its spot to Binance Coin and now ranks fourth as per data on coinmarketcap.

Is Cardano losing the ‘Ethereum killer’ title?

With the hype around the smart contract capability almost phased out, Cardano is at the risk of plunging even further. Binance Coin, which has reclaimed third place after Cardano seemingly gave in on the push towards $3, has benefitted from several bullish events. On Sunday, the network confirmed via a tweet it had attained a significant milestone of reaching 100 million unique addresses.

Cardano made a couple of massive announcements during the Summit event last month, but its performance in the market hasn’t reflected the same. Concerns are still growing, especially now that neither the Alonzo upgrade nor strong fundamentals showing increasing adoption of the blockchain among DeFi projects have influenced the token’s price as many expected. There are now shouts of Binance Smart Chain (BSC) being the actual Ethereum killer within the crypto community.

Last week, the Binance Smart Chain joined the cross-chain (ETH & SOL token bridge) bridges bandwagon following an announcement it was officially supported on the Wormhole network. The development essentially means users can bridge assets like tokens, including non-fungibles across BSC, Solana and Ethereum. This is a boost for Binance Coin as it represents advancement and growth in its broad ecosystem.

Market dominance of the top cryptocurrencies. Source: TradingView

The BNB token has a market capital of $81 billion which means ADA, currently holding a market capital of $69.3 billion, needs to swell more than 15% just to catch up. Cardano’s dominance has been crippled over the last few days and at 2.71% behind Binance Coin and Ethereum at 3.18% and 17.88%, respectively.

ADA average transaction fees have exponentially increased

The average transaction fees on the Cardano network are now up by 88% since March and nearly 1,500% since the start of the year, according to blockchain analytics platform Messari. The fees averaged at $0.03 at the beginning of the year before hitting $0.25 in March. A brief peak in May saw the figure surge to $0.48 before dropping in the subsequent month. The fee started increasing again in August before setting a year-to-date high of $0.68.

Cardano's average transaction fee chart

The increase in average transaction fee value has mirrored the pattern of the token price. There were worries that the network would not be economically scalable if ADA prices continued increasing. The concerns were allayed when Cardano’s founder Charles Hoskinson revealed that token holders would discuss proposals to manage transaction fees when the current proposal is deemed obsolete.

Cardano market performance

The increasing price of Cardano’s native token ADA between March and September appears to have drained the momentum in ADA/USD. The pair has traded significantly lower in October, compounded by the failure to take advantage of the gains leading cryptocurrencies posted last week.

Cardano's 7-day trading chart

ADA is, as of writing, trading at $2.13 – up 0.74% over the last seven days. Its market activity in the past few days point to a bearish outlook which will be all but confirmed if ADA weakens. The token will likely see a pullback to $1.80 if it fails to stay above the support zone of $2.05. ADA/USD faces a challenging path upwards, and chances of an uptrend are growing slimmer. It is also worth noting the strong resistance up at the $2.80 mark, which has previously been a stumbling block in the token’s path towards $3.00.