Despite the crypto market being thrust into a brutal sell-off in the last seven or so months, the level of activity on the Cardano network has spiked, with hundreds of projects onboarding the Layer 1 network in preparation for the next bull phase.
As of April 18, over 900 projects were building on Cardano, up from just 500 in March with that number surging every day as revealed by IOHK in a Twitter post. This growth has accelerated, with over 2,783 smart contracts being deployed on the blockchain after the Plutus upgrade.
Last week, Cardano launched Genius X, an accelerator program that has attracted over $105 million worth of ADA to its Initial Stake Pool Offering (ISPO). This pool has been a magnet to underfunded developers, as it helps fund projects of those who stake ADA.
The number of projects being built on Cardano seemed too many to keep up with even with the network’s founder Charles Hoskinson. “I didn’t know about this one. Cardano is getting too big,” he tweeted following the launch of Genius X.
The number of ADA wallets has also skyrocketed with over 100,000 new being created in the past month. An average of 2000 new wallets are being opened daily according to data from Cardano Blockchain Insights. The total figure as of May 23 stands at 3.34M wallets compared to just 3.20M wallets as of April 19.
 
 
The number of transactions per day has also remained strong, returning above 110,000 despite slowing down earlier in the month to the 80,000 range. The number of transactions larger than $100,000 has also surged since the first quarter of 2022 signaling strong institutional demand. Last week, Cardano whale transactions tapped a 4-month high as entities with deep pockets bought the dip at $0.40, ZyCrypto reported.
With the Vasil hard fork beckoning, it can be seen why the Cardano network has been bustling with activity. The hard fork is slated for June 2022 and is expected to boost Cardano’s transaction throughput, which will result in a surge in volume and liquidity.
The upgrade is also expected to throttle Cardano higher in the list of designated “Eth Killers” such as Solana, Avalanche, Tezos, and Polkadot. In a recent video on his YouTube channel, Hoskinson stated that the Vasil upgrade will provide a “massive performance improvement to Cardano” as well as its smart contract capabilities.
As of writing, Cardano is trading at $0.5473, up 2.07% in the last 24 hours. Its trading volume and Market cap are also up 36.19% and 2.03% respectively.