Cardano Monthly Analysis – March 2022

March has been a relatively good month for the general cryptocurrency sector. Majority of the cryptocurrencies have bounced back and erased a chunk of the losses incurred this year.

Cardano has been one of the standout altcoin ecosystems that has made significant progress. Its native token ADA has recovered from a downtrend that saw it trade below $1.00 for the first three weeks of March. Here’s how Cardano has fared in March:

Market Metrics

Market Capital

Cardano (ADA) token’s market capital carved a downtrend in the first half of the month from $29.92 billion on March 01, sliding to a monthly low of $25.31 billion on March 14.

Cardano (ADA) market capital chart

The renewed bullish sentiment in the market pushed ADA price up towards the end of the third week, with the network recording a consistent hike in market cap to $37.6 billion on March 24. The altcoin’s circulating value stands at $40.7 billion, having only crossed the $40 billion mark on March 28 for the first time since early February. Notably, January 18 retains this year’s market cap peak of $51.5 billion.

Supply

Circulating supply and minted supply

Cardano’s circulating supply rose sharply on the first two days of the month from 33,963,151,021 ADA to 33,982,142,070 ADA – the largest day-over-day change of this metric recorded so far year.

Cardano (ADA) supply in March

The rise has since been consistent. There were 34,034.640,276.31 ADA tokens in circulation as of March 30, Cardano Blockchain Insights shows. The minted percentage expectedly moved in sync with the changes in circulating supply, starting with a figure of 75.47% on March 01 to 75.63% on March 30.

Blockchain and Network Metrics

Daily transactions

The count of daily transactions see-sawed, for the most part, frequently flipping in consecutive days, but intensely in some instances more than others. The figures recorded in March were, on a broad scale, part of a larger declining pattern seen this year, starting around January 20. This date retains this year’s peak at 197,218 transactions.

Cardano recorded 98,483 transactions on March 1, which dropped to a monthly bottom of 82,732 on March 11. A four-day surge pushed the number of transactions to the monthly apex of 136,253 on March 15. February and March figures show a degree of contrast. The former posted a higher summit (162,351 transactions on the 21^st) and a higher trough (103,655 transactions on the 24th) than March.

Cardano (ADA) transactions in March

Total transactions

The total number of transactions chart shows a consistent pattern across the month, as has been the case in the past. The total transactions on Cardano aggregated to 32,976,111 on the first day of the month, rising steadily to 36,135,580 by March 30, translating to a 9.58% increase. On a broader scale, the total number of transactions has grown by around 44% since the start of the year.

24-hour active addresses

The number of daily active addresses dipped in March compared to February. While the 24 hours active addresses mostly settled above 150,000 on most days of February, the figures largely hugged below this line for most of March.

In February, the peak and bottom figures were 230,015 and 124,015 addresses logged on February 21 and 24. This month, Cardano saw the most activity when the addresses peaked at 177,201 on March 15 – jumping from the monthly bottom of 91,580 recorded four days earlier.

Markedly, this was the first time the 24 hours active addresses count fell below 100,000 since last October (98,791 addresses), which also means it is the lowest network activity there has been since the start of the year. 2022’s peak figure is still the 286,390 addresses recorded on January 21.

Average transaction fee (USD)

The peak figure for this metric was observed at the start of this week, when the average transaction fee sat at $0.50. For context, the average transaction fee on Cardano at the start of the month was $0.42. Though this figure fell for the first three weeks, it has seen an increase towards the end of the month – coinciding with ADA’s price action. In contrast to February where the average figure declined by 5.7%, the pattern in March shows an average spike in fees by 19.05%.

ADA Wallets

Total wallets

The aggregate wallets on Cardano grew from 3,119,493 on March 1 to 3,190,427 on March 30 printing a consistent uptrend. The change represents a 2.27% growth across the month and a 19.54% increase relative to the start of the year.

Cardano wallets in March

New wallets per day

The number of additional wallets created daily across March was largely level, barring two dips – the first lasting from March 2 to 5 and the other from March 14 to 16. Notably, the number of additional daily wallets on Cardano has been slumping, with each month recording lower figures compared to the preceding month.

Volume

Total volume and adjusted volume

The total reported spot volume displayed a rising trend across March, growing almost four-fold. Starting at $22.43 billion on the first day, the spot volume was last observed at $78 billion on March 30 – a drop from the month’s summit of $86.634 billion on March 29.

The adjusted volume predictably charted a pattern bearing a clear resemblance to the total volume, with an apex of $86.35 billion on March 29. The spike in total volume above $80 billion was the first of the measure since September 4 last year, when the network recorded $138.12 billion. For adjusted volume, the peak seen in March is the highest in history.

DeFi performance

Total Value Locked

DeFi Llama data shows Cardano’s TVL posted some of the highest surges across the month.

From a monthly low of $134.27 million on March 1, the TVL grew to reach a summit of $326 million on March 24. The growth, which had been consistent in the first three weeks, tapered off towards the end of the month. As of this writing, the TVL on the chain stands at $260.95 million – a steep plunge from $323.18 million at the start of the week.

Cardano DeFi chart

Compared to February where the cumulative TVL increase was $39.01 million, March has seen an increase of $126.68 million across – a 94% month-over-month swell.

While Cardano has historically not been a competing ecosystem in the DeFi niche, the chain has taken a big leap this month. For context, it took over six months for the TVL to break the $200 million barrier (March 16), but the next $100 million addition only needed a week.

Currently, the chain has seven protocols, two of which have no TVL outside of the staked governance tokens. The bulk of the recent growth has been attributed to the rise of Minswap into dominance.

Minswap Traction

SundaeSwap, which launched in January, was the most growth-optimistic Cardano protocol for the first two months. However, since its TVL peaked on February 20 at $126.89 million, it has lost momentum. DeFi Llama data as of March 30 showed it was 17.6% off the peak.

It ranks second behind Minswap – a multipool community-centered decentralized exchange protocol that arrived on the mainnet on March 9. Following its launch, the automated market maker dex saw robust growth and quickly flipped SundaeSwap for dominance in the Cardano ecosystem. By March 18, Minswap’s TVL had surged to $112.7 million – the point at which SundaeSwap ceded the top spot, having a TVL of $111.56 million.

Currently, Minswap captains Cardano protocols with a dominance of 62.42%, recording a growth of 904 % month over month. Its rise has been critical to the upsurge in TVL that Cardano has experienced across March.

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