Cardano<\/strong> (CCC:ADA-USD<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/span>) has been a sea of red for the past three months. ADA has been falling over that whole period. But now there is hope that the bottom may have occurred.<\/p>\n Source: Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n After peaking just below $3 on Sept. 3, 2021, Cardano has been steadily tumbling. From that peak, it fell to $1.38 by the end of 2021. That was a drop of more than 53.5% from the peak.<\/p>\n However, the declines in ADA kept coming ever since the beginning of 2022. By Sunday, Feb. 6, Cardano was down to $1.14 per token. That gives it a year-to-date (YTD) loss of almost 17.2% on top of the 53.5% drop from its peak. That means Cardano is now down 61.5% since Sept. 3, just over five months ago.<\/p>\n However, now there is some room to believe the worst is over for Cardano.<\/p>\n On Feb. 4, CryptoPotato<\/em> reported<\/a> there was evidence Cardano is starting to gain popularity. According to the magazine, the number of unique ADA wallets has hit a new high:<\/p>\n \u201cIn a tweet today, the Proof-of-Stake blockchain announced that it had hit 3 million ADA wallets less than two months after it recorded a total number of 2.5 million addresses.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This means the number of new accounts (wallets) holding Cardano assets rose dramatically. In the space of just two months, it rose 20%. That works out to an annualized rate of at least 120%, depending on whether the data is set to compound monthly or not.<\/p>\n This is clearly a sign that people both like the digital cryptocurrency and consider it cheap enough to buy more.<\/p>\n There is an easy way to keep track of this, and it works for other cryptocurrencies as well. All you have to do is google the following phrase: \u201cGoogle Data Studio Cardano.\u201d<\/p>\n Source: Cardano Blockchain Insights – as revised by Mark R. Hake, CFA<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This site<\/a> will show you a series of charts in the \u201cOverview\u201d section, one of which shows the number of Cardano wallets is 3.015 million as of Feb. 6. (Another way to obtain this info is to type in the search bar: \u201cCardano Blockchain Insights.\u201d)<\/p>\n It also shows that as of Jan. 8, less than a month ago, there were 2.738 million wallets. This implies the monthly growth rate is more than 10%, putting it on track for an increase of more than 120% in the coming year.<\/p>\n Moreover, another chart shows 70.5% of the total supply of ADA tokens has been staked in smart contracts. Since Cardano developed the ability to allow smart contracts and decentralized finance (DeFi) apps to be built on its blockchain, its popularity has risen dramatically.<\/p>\n This occurred when Cardano implemented its Alonzo upgrade in September 2021. That upgrade enabled developers to build smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) on the network for the first time.<\/p>\n As it stands now, Cardano is the sixth-largest cryptocurrency according to CoinMarketCap<\/em><\/a>. It has a market capitalization of $38.5 billion as of Feb. 6, below USD Coin\u2019s<\/strong> (CCC:USDC-USD<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/span>) market cap of $51 billion.<\/p>\n All of this implies Cardano could now be set for another leg up. It clearly means ADA could be near a low point, if it hasn\u2019t already passed it.<\/p>\n As it now stands, it might be a good time for interested investors to either take a toe-hold stake in ADA or average down in the digital asset.<\/p>\n This is typical of what value investors will do when they see a discrepancy between the purported value of a financial asset and its price. In this case, we cannot exactly add up the underlying value of Cardano. But the fact that it now has more buyers and investors in related apps could help the crypto rise in value over the next year.<\/p>\n On the date of publication, Mark Hake did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the\u00a0InvestorPlace.com<\/a>\u00a0Publishing Guidelines<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Mark Hake writes about personal finance at<\/em>\u00a0mrhake.medium.com<\/u><\/strong><\/em><\/a> and\u00a0Newsbreak.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and runs the\u00a0<\/em>Total Yield Value Guide<\/u><\/strong><\/em><\/a>\u00a0which you can review\u00a0<\/em>here<\/u><\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/investorplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/ada-2-300x169.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNew Data Show Wallet Growth<\/h3>\n
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![\"2-6-22](\"https:\/\/investorplace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/2-6-22-ada-crypto-number-of-wallets-300x231.png\")
Click to Enlarge<\/a><\/p>\nSmart Contracts Spur Growth<\/h3>\n
What to Do With Cardano<\/h3>\n