ADA, the native coin for the Cardano network is on the cusp of closing its fifth week in a row on a bearish note, annihilating gains made in the last half of March.
As of writing, ADA is down over 75% from its all-time high to trade at $0.75, with the daily RSI plunging into the oversold territory. The last time price dropped this low was in February 2021. Largely, macroeconomic shakeouts caused by factors such as the Fed’s aggressive interest rate policy as well as the ongoing warfare between Russia and Ukraine which has caused a global supply chain deadlock, have been blamed for the crypto market’s woes.
Retail Interest Jumps
Despite the unanticipated price turmoil, retail interest in ADA surprisingly seems to be growing with every dip, as more traders view it as a rare and most probably the only opportunity to buy ADA at these discounted prices.
According to IntoTheBlock, Cardano retail interest has been increasing rapidly. Last week, the AI-based crypto data analytics firm tweeted that;
“The balance held by traders – addresses holding for less than 30 days, has increased by 186% in just 30 days.”
 
 
Interestingly these addresses now cumulatively hold 33.7 Billion ADA which is about 36.144% of the total ADA coins in circulation.
Whales Scoop Up Over 200M ADA
As reported by ZyCrypto, whales have also been scooping huge ADA stashes, with over 200M worth of ADA being bought in the last six days by whale addresses with a balance of 1M to 10M ADA. This is despite this lot dumping their holdings over a 7-month period that saw ADA plunge by over 60%.
According to a report by CryptoCompare, the total number of addresses holding ADA has also increased by 2.99% in the past 30 days to 5.2 million despite the activity on the blockchain taking a hit in April.
Cardano’s growing popularity and adoption can be attributed to the efforts going into building the layer 1 network. Cardano network is undoubtedly one of the most interoperable networks out there, boasting a range of Decentralized Exchanges, applications, DeFi protocols, and robust NFT marketplaces.
This week, DJed a decentralized algorithmic stablecoin developed by COTI public testnet went live on the Cardano network, a development that is expected to give a bullish boost for ADA, which it so desperately needs.