 
 
- Cardano could rise to become the industry leader for NFTs thanks to an array of developments on the network.
- Smart contract functionality and growth metrics over the last six months are indicators for Cardano to become the new NFT capital.
- NFTs transaction volumes have taken a major hit over the last six months but enthusiasts are still hopeful.’
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have found a home in Ethereum and Solana over the last year but one NFT analyst thinks Cardano could edge out the competition in the near future.
Cardano has NFTs in its sights
Goofy Crisp, an NFT enthusiast has expressed faith in the Cardano network to become the cynosure of NFTs in the future. According to him, Cardano’s activity has exploded after just 9 months of enabling smart contract capabilities. Since then, 5.3 million tokens are live on the blockchain while 1017 projects are in development.
A third of the projects in development revolves around NFTs and at the moment, Cardano ranks third in terms of NFT trading volumes. Only Solana and Ethereum have a higher transaction volume than Cardano with user growth on the network’s largest NFT marketplace, JPG Store soaring by 50% within a month.
Pundits are predicting that Ethereum’s Proof-of-Stake transition may be delayed and Solana’s frequent outages might lead to Cardano’s rise to the top. Other factors hinting at growth are the new features in JPG Store such as traits and price filtering, NFT minting, and a “peer-reviewed open-source contract and new backend infrastructure”.
Technically, the Vasil hard fork is touted to bring the network one step closer to becoming an NFT hub. The introduction of diffusion pipelining will improve transaction speeds and inline datums will improve on-chain data storing capability for a better user experience.
 
 
“We may be in the middle of a bear market but the Cardano NFT space doesn’t feel like it. There are many improvements to come both on the blockchain and on the projects,” wrote Goofy Crispy. “I think it’s safe to say the next few months will be very interesting, buckle up.”
NFTs transaction volumes are a stark contrast to the highs of 2022, appearing to be affected by the grim crypto prices plaguing the industry. Cardano’s ADA is trading at $0.48 which is -84.70% from its all-time high of $3.10.
Big names are rooting for Cardano
Celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Champ Medici, and Good Charlotte have entered into partnerships with some of Cardano’s NFT collections like ClayMates while other influencers are pitching their tents in the network.
On the institutional side of things, Grayscale announced their allocation towards Cardano in their Smart Contract Platform Ex-Ethereum Fund to 32.33%. Ledger, a crypto custody provider also revealed the integration of Cardano on their Ledger Live platform.
Cardano can also take advantage of the improvements in the NFT space. Analytical tools have been making significant progress for users to seamlessly browse through listings and view trends. Other developments include improved Discord integrations and automated trading and sniping chrome extensions.
