Cardano Monthly Analysis – February 2022

Not long ago, Cardano was considered the next best Ethereum alternative. It had set a distance between itself and other ecosystems trying to improve on Ethereum. The market rankings were Bitcoin, followed by Ethereum, Cardano, and the rest. In recent days though, the Hoskinson-led project has fallen off.

Despite achieving several milestones and setting records in the first two months of the year, it has experienced a difficult time upsetting those ahead of it. Its native token ADA has equally struggled in the market. A closer look at the Cardano ecosystem, however, shows that it is fairing okay, at least, so far this year. Here is a breakdown of its performance in February:

Market Metrics

Market Capital

Cardano's ADA started the year with a circulating market capital of $41.6 billion. This figure grew to hit a 30-day peak of $53.56 billion on 18^th January as ADA price rallied and cut above $1.60 – the highest price recorded this year. Following a price decline, the market capital pared down, reaching $35.33 billion by the start of February.

ADA Circulating Market Capital and Price chart. Source: Messari

The token has a market cap of $28.84 billion on the last day of the month, reflecting the bearish market mood in recent weeks. Markedly, the network's market cap hardly crossed the $40 billion point in February, only doing so on 08^th February, when it reached $40.26 billion.

Supply

The circulating supply of ADA at the start of the year was 33,825,366,480, representing 75.17% of Cardano's total minted supply.

ADA Supply charts

The supply has been steadily rising since and reached 33,916,666,988 at the start of February, translating to 75.37% of the total supply. The circulations and minted figures stood at 33.959,304,955 and 75.47%, respectively, on 27^th February.

Blockchain and Network metrics

Daily Transactions

On 01st January, the number of daily transactions on the Cardano network was 84,743, which was also the lowest this metric had been over the whole month. The number of transactions rose in fluctuating nature, eventually peaking at 197,218 on 20^th January.

ADA Transaction charts

In February, the monthly peak and nadir in the number of transactions recorded were realized in the space of one week. The daily transactions figure reached a summit of 162,351 on 21^st February, and on the 24^th, it clocked a monthly low of 103,655 following the market's reaction to news of the Russian invasion into Ukraine.

Total Transactions

The total number of transactions completed on Cardano at the start of the year was 25,033,366 and grew to 29,385,028 by the end of January. This represented a 4,351,662 increase. The total transactions grew by 10.6% throughout February compared to January's 17.4% spike.

There were 32,753,886 total on-chain transactions on 27^th February compared to the start of February when this number was 29,511,109 – over 3.2 million more transactions.

24-Hour Active Address

The number of 24-hour active addresses was lowest at the start of the year, 124,378. The figure rose over the month to reach a peak of 286,390 on 21^st January. This is, at the time of writing, also the highest it has been since all year.

In February, the number of active addresses peaked and hit the lowest on 21^st and 24^th, with 230,015 and 124,015 on the respective dates. As one would expect, this corresponds to the dates when the number of daily transactions peaked and bottomed.

Average Transaction Fees (USD)

The average transaction fees charged on the Cardano network in January reached a peak of $0.49 on the 18^th. Not long after, on 22^nd and 23^rd, the fee reached a bottom of $0.3.

ADA Fees charts

For February, the monthly high of $0.46 was seen on 8^th but rolled to hit a bottom of $0.31 on the 21^st. While the average transaction fees remained fairly level across January, the February transaction fees chart portrayed a consistent decline.

ADA Wallets

Total wallets

From 2,666,372 at the start of the year, the total number of Cardano wallets grew to 2,992,417 wallets on 1^st February. At the time of writing, there are slightly over 3,114,000 wallets, which translates to a 16.788% growth since the start of the year.

ADA Wallet charts

New wallets per day

In the first month of the year, the number of new ADA wallets per day hit a peak of 24,778 on the 20^th. The figure represented a more than five-fold increase from the January low of 4,924 wallets. The daily spike in new wallets has been significantly lower in February than in January.

The highest number of new wallets per day this month 9,903 was recorded on 20^th February. The least increase in daily wallets was seen on the 23^rd, with only 2,606 additional ADA wallets.

Volume

The total volume traded in February climaxed on the 22^nd – 14.81 billion on the back of a consistent rally from the monthly bottom of 2.18 billion recorded on 09^th January. At peak total volume, the adjusted volume was 9.29 billion and 1.71 billion at the point of least total volume.

ADA Volume charts

The highest total spot trading volume by all exchanges in February was $35.14 billion – recorded on 15^th February. The equivalent adjusted volume at the time was $33.74 billion. The least daily total volume of $5.67 billion, with an adjusted volume of $4.82 billion, was seen on the first day of the month.

DeFi Performance

Total Value Locked

Having only launched smart contract functionality on the network last September, the Cardano DeFi niche is still an embryonic but developing part of its ecosystem. The blockchain is ranked 33^rd in total value locked (TVL), a measure of the total value of crypto assets locked in a specific DeFi protocol at any time, among all DeFi-capable chains.

Cardano TVL chart

Cardano's TVL at the turn of the year was $822,261 and reached a monthly peak of $87.79 million on 22^nd January following the launch of Sundaeswap. Though this figure fell to $74.89 million at the beginning of this month, it surged again, peaking at $129.72 million on 17^th February. At the time of writing, its TVL sits at $122.16 million, an almost 60% growth on the month

SundaeSwap Dominance

Launched on the mainnet on 20^th January after a series of pilot tests, the decentralized exchange protocol quickly ballooned to become a critical component of Cardano's DeFi ecosystem, gaining $84.91 million in TVL over just the first two days.

SundaeSwap dominance

On 20^th February, SundaeSwap's TVL reached its highest figure since launch, clocking $126.89 million. Currently, the protocol has a TVL of $120.03 million – up 71.66% over the last month. This figure accounts for 98.26% of Cardano’s cumulatively TVL.

To learn more about Cardano, visit our Investing in Cardano guide.