Cardano’s ADA token trading volume exploded, with the average daily figures in February at about $720 million, while the average in March exceeded $1.4 billion.
This rise was sparked by a social media post by U.S. President Donald Trump, who called the ADA one of the tokens in the country’s strategic crypto protection zone.
Although Cardano enjoys the mainstream attention moment, this layer of blockchain has been quietly becoming a crypto stamp since it went online in late 2017.
Adoption indicators
The ADA token has a market capitalization of $25.6 billion, but it is more notable to the rock band. From Google It shows that Cardino Blockchain has over 5 million unique wallets and 1.3 million representatives, creating thousands of new wallets every day.
The total value of the blockchain is locked at $329 million (TVL), although Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard believes the Crypto community has overemphasized the metric system.
Instead, he pointed out the “non-value transactions” (although non-financial) activities related to people who are doing real-world situations: minting a decentralized ID, tracking metadata, recording documents, etc. Cardano, he said, is a hotbed of such activities.
“I’m working to make sure 50% of the activity is a non-value deal,” Gregaard told Coindesk.
An example is Cardano and bleedThis has led the Cardano community to donate over 1 million ADA tokens, planting 1 million mangroves in Kenya, and each donation is verified and tracked on the blockchain.
Last week, the Cardano Foundation also announced a deal with Brazil’s largest state-owned IT company Serpro to accelerate blockchain adoption in South America. Serpro processes 33 billion transactions per year, accounting for 90% of the Brazilian federal government. In addition, 8,000 employees will also receive blockchain training.
Cardano’s perspective differs from Solana and like Layer 2 networks (such as the foundation) that take pride in total value lock-in (TVL) and hype-driven actions such as Memecoins and Notible Able-Fimible Diskens (NFTS) (NFTS).
Solana’s TVL grew from $2.2 billion in 2024 to over $10 billion, while Cardano fell from $445 million in the same period to $537 million.
defi on Cardano
Although Cardano Foundation’s CEO says his focus is on real-world use cases, blockchain still has a bustling Defi ecosystem beneath the surface.
Minswap is Cardano’s local decentralized exchange (DEX). Its cumulative trading volume hit $3.4 billion this month, and it received nearly $271 million in Defilama data in December alone show.
There are also many loan agreements, including Liqwid, Lenfi and Optim Finance, with TVL spreading over Cardano’s loan division for more than $116 million.
However, he insists that the critical portion of Gregord’s mission must not exceed 50% of financial transactions. He believes this is in line with the Cardano Foundation’s nonprofit spirit, even if it limits the potential exponential growth of hype movements like Memecoins.
Cardano Foundation vs Hoskinson vs Emurgo
Realizing the spirit has its own challenges, mainly because blockchain runs by three main entities: the Cardano Foundation, Charles Hoskinson’s IOG and Emurgo. The latter two are commercial enterprises, which may cause friction between them and the foundation.
“The purpose of having a nonprofit is that you can optimize your decisions over 10 years, which is different from what you will do tomorrow,” Gregaard added.
In December, an anonymous Cardano community member highlighted some of the frictions, writing an email on the way forward and detailing the entities running Cardano at Loggerheads.
“The recent outbreak of CF activity is part of a bigger strategic game – trying to undermine the governance roadmap for Charles, IOG, Intersect and the broader governance roadmap,” the email read.
“It’s a long and difficult road, but I do agree with some of the whistleblower’s point of view,” Hoskinson wrote. Response on X.
But Gregaard is more diplomatic about any potential rift.
“We don’t have currency exchanges, but we do work very closely,” he said.
“Sometimes we go to (conferences), we share a stall. So we are together, we sponsor stalls together, which is the closest you are to any branch, which is very different from the Ethereum Foundation or the Tezos Foundation, which basically controls the Treasury and controls the loans compared to the Ethereum Foundation or the Tezos Foundation.”
“On the other hand, we (Cardano Foundation) are the responsibility protection umbrella for the community and blockchain, which means we are the people who interact with the SEC, CSDC and FMA, and I negotiated with the European Parliament MICA.”
