It\u2019s been a great year for Cardano as the coin finished up 2021 with a 940 per cent increase than how it started.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The coin, currently ranked at number seven on the cryptocurrency leaderboard, was trading at a piddling US$0.18 when the year began.<\/p>\n
Now, almost 12 months later, Cardano \u2014 also known as ADA on trading platforms \u2014 is worth US$1.34.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a whopping 940 per cent rise. <\/p>\n
In the past day alone, the crypto has jumped by an impressive five per cent while other cryptocurrencies including bitcoin languished. <\/p>\n
This year, Cardano also hit its highest of US$3.10 on September 2.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019d invested in the blockchain when it first came out in 2017, you\u2019d be staring down the barrel of a 6122 per cent return on investment. <\/p>\n
What is Cardano?<\/b><\/p>\n
One of the original founders behind Ethereum, the second most valuable cryptocurrency, is also behind Cardano. <\/p>\n
Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson created Cardano in 2015 and launched it in 2017.<\/p>\n
The coin is known as ADA on the crypto market, which is an homage to Augusta \u201cAda\u201d King, or Ada Lovelace, a 19th-century British countess largely regarded as the first computer programmer.<\/p>\n
She was also the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron.<\/p>\n
Accordingly, Cardano has had a number of updates to its system which are all named after 19th century writers from the Romanticism movement including Byron, Shelley, Goguen, Basho and Voltaire.<\/p>\n
Cardano is a proof-of-stake platform that runs on the Ouroboros consensus protocol.<\/p>\n
The platform has tried to position itself as an alternative to Ethereum, according to Investopedia.<\/p>\n
Despite the incredible year cardano has had, 2022 might not be as phenomenal for the coin.<\/p>\n
From January 1, 2022, Cardano ADA will no longer be listed on eToro for customers in the US.<\/p>\n
Wallets will effectively be in withdraw-mode only in the first quarter of 2022.<\/p>\n
eToro said it delisted Cardano ADA because of regulatory concerns about the crypto which came as a surprise given the currency has not typically on regulators\u2018 radars.<\/p>\n
Months earlier, Cardano\u2018s founder Hoskinson announced the company was working with blockchain analytics provider Confirm to ensure the currency complied with financial laws, such as anti-money laundering regulations.<\/p>\n
What other cryptocurrencies have performed well?<\/b><\/p>\n
Cardano might have gone up by 940 per cent so far this year, but some other cryptocurrencies have had even bigger annual gains. <\/p>\n
Shiba Inu has increased in value by a whopping 50,000 per cent since it started out the year. <\/p>\n
Gala is up by more than 41,000 per cent, Ceek is up by 27,000 per cent, Axiom has had a 16,000 percentage increase and Solana is at around 15,000 per cent more than it started out in 2021.<\/p>\n
However, an expert has warned that those gains won\u2019t be repeated into the new year. <\/p>\n
Greg Rubin, head of trading at Aussie firm Global Prime, previously told news.com.au<\/a> \u201cPeople are looking for the next Shiba but it\u2019s actually something you should stay away from.<\/p>\n \u201cThey only hear about it [its gains] afterwards, unfortunately by then the move has already happened, unlikely to be replicated.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Rubin thinks cryptocurrency has one more bull run left before it hits low levels and will remain that way for years until the next wave of hype. <\/p>\n \u201cLooking at the scale of probabilities, it seems the most likely end to the bull run that kicked off in 2020 will be next year,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n He thinks it could be as soon as the first quarter of 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we usually see is a blow off top and then the markets tend to drop quite quickly, and then the markets tend to go sideways for a number of months or years,\u201d Mr Rubin warned.<\/p>\n Like the 2017 crypto crash, he predicts that most of the coins won\u2019t survive and will never reach the same levels again once the price drops drastically.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the altcoins are going to go crazy before the end is nigh,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n