Latest Cardano News: TVL Soars More than $120M

The latest Cardano news making headlines has primarily focused on developments in its ecosystem.

Unfortunately, while many blockchain enthusiasts continue to lambast Charles Hoskinson, the project's founder, over a lack of strong decentralized applications (DApps) to challenge Ethereum's status as the most powerful decentralized finance (DeFi) network, many outlets have largely ignored the project's growing total value locked.

Latest Cardano news: Value locked in DApps explodes in 2023

Cardano has been one of the most discussed projects in the smart contracts-backed blockchain technology sector for a long time.

Hoskinson's ability to identify the problems associated with using blockchain, such as decentralization, security, and scalability, made it one of the most considered networks for several up-and-coming developers.

After years of trailing Ethereum and later the likes of Internet Computer, Solana, and Algorand, Cardano finally triggered "Alonzo", a network upgrade that had been in development for years and remains an integral part of the expansion of its ecosystem.

In September 2021, Alonzo made the blockchain smart contracts-compatible, and Hoskinson told Business Insider that he considered the move the most significant change in the history of his protocol. This made it possible for DApps to be created on the platform.

According to data from DeFiLlama, Cardano TVL on 1 January was approximately $48.9 million. In fewer than 120 days, about $122 million was added to this statistic due to increased interest in DApps deployed on the network. As of 11:00 UTC on 18 April, the total value locked was around $171 million.

Much of the spike came from DApps such as decentralized exchanges Minswap, WingRiders, MuesliSwap, SundaeSwap, ADAX Pro, MeowSwapFi, and Genius Yield; decentralized lending platforms Meld, FluidTokens, Lending Pond, Aada, Optim Finance, and Liqwid; staking platform VyFinance; decentralized services applications World Mobile Token, Revuto; and collateralized debt positioning (CDP) applications Indigo and Djed Stablecoin.

Since total value locked is one of the major indicators of the success of a blockchain protocol, a rise in the overall value of assets quantified in the US dollar (USD) bodes well for the smart contract protocol that processes thousands of transactions per second.

Many analysts believe a significant rise in the demand for DeFi products will further impact the TVL of Cardano positively. 

Latest Cardano news: Development activity continues to soar

In the blockchain technology and cryptocurrency space, development activity shows a particular protocol's health and growth.

Cardano has always been in the top rankings when development activity is measured. 

As of 18 April, development activity stood at 424.73. This placed Cardano third in the ranks behind Polkadot and Kusama's 601.33. This puts Cardano ahead of other protocols such as Flow (popular technology behind NFT projects such as NBA Top Shot and NFL ALL DAY), Chainlink, Cosmos, Internet Computer, Hedera Hashgraph, Status, Ethereum, Optimism, Solana, and Avalanche. 

Since development activity is correlated with total value locked through decentralized applications, the amount of liquidity locked in the project, coupled with the forging of many partnerships across Africa, could explode further to the $500 million milestone as the latest Cardano news unfolds.

Wrong technology and ambitious roadmap have contributed to slow development 

On 6 April, the protocol's founder discussed the latest Cardano news with an analyst at CoinTelegraph, a popular crypto news portal.

On a podcast dubbed Hashing It Out, Hoskinson touched on many areas, particularly the future of crypto and his vision for the growing sector.

He revealed that the crypto industry had seen impressive gains in the non-fungible token (NFT) sector while acknowledging that an ambitious roadmap and wrong technology have been significant setbacks in Cardano's quest to becoming what many industry experts deem as an Ethereum Killer, the main rival to Vitalik Buterin's blockchain technology.

Despite the negatives, he admitted to seeing many positives in the adoption of crypto in Africa (primarily east and west) and disclosed that he plans on dealing with more individuals and companies rather than governments in the region due to political instability.  

## ADA is up more than 80% year-to-date (YTD) 

ADA is the native asset of Cardano. As one of the most demanded cryptocurrencies, the coin fell sharply in 2022 due to the collapse of TerraUSD (UST) in May and Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX later in November.

Thriving on positive market sentiment that has seen Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) surpass $30,000 and $2,000, respectively, for the first time in months, ADA has also been on an uptrend of its own.

After opening the year on 1 January with a trading price of $0.2464, it reached a then-yearly peak of $0.4192 in February on the back of a partnership with AI-powered technology SingularityNET. It closed the first quarter of the year at $0.3989.

Traders who added ADA to their investment portfolios during the year's opening day saw 60% returns during Q1 2023.

Bitcoin leads the more than 20,000 cryptocurrencies on the market during bullish days and bearish seasons, while Ethereum leads changes in smart contracts-backed digital currencies.

With the two coins seeing above-average daily volumes that have rekindled investor interest in searching for the next golden goose, ADA is back on the radar of many crypto lovers. 

As a result, the crypto asset rose to a new yearly peak price of $0.4606 on 15 April. This took its market capitalization to around $16 billion.

Will ADA retest $1? 

ADA reached an all-time high (ATH) price of $3.0992 on 2 September 2021. Since then, the coin has been on a downward spiral and continues to trade below $1. 

Its growing ecosystem (development activity), increasing daily trading volume, and a spike in total value locked have led to the trending of the question, can ADA retest the $1 mark across several crypto forums? 

Analyst Elena R. at crypto news and forecasting portal CoinPedia believes ADA could cross $1 again in the medium term. 

According to her, the slow process in the implementation and completion of the project's roadmap could see the coin reach the highest maximum price of $1.267 by the close of 2025.