Cardano price prediction: eying a 60% surge despite its ecosystem issues

Cardano price held steady on Monday morning as traders focused on the upcoming Consensus event in Toronto, where Charles Hoskinson will be a key speaker. ADA token was trading at $0.8092, up by 57% from its lowest point in April. It is also hovering at the highest point since March. 

Cardano has an ecosystem problem

Cardano is a top player in the blockchain industry, with its token having a market cap of over $28 billion. It aims to be a better competitor to other popular chains like Ethereum, Sui, and Solana. 

Cardano’s top advantages are its quick transaction speeds, low costs, and its decentralization. It is widely seen as the most decentralized blockchain, thanks to its recent constitution vote.

The challenge, however, is that Cardano has an ecosystem problem in that it has not attracted many developers as other chains have. A quick look at DeFi Llama shows that Cardano has 42 DeFi applications with a total value locked of $470 million.

The TVL has jumped recently since it stood at less than $320 million last month. While this increase is notable, it happened because of the rising ADA price as it moved from $0.5072 to $0.80 today. The figure has been on a downward trend in ADA terms as it fell from 770 million ADA in October last year to 562 million today. 

Cardano has a few players in the decentralized exchange industry, with the most notable ones being Minswap, Splash Protocol, and MuesliSwap. These networks are not highly popular as their combined transaction volume in the last 24 hours was just $3.28 million.

In contrast, other DEX networks like Base, Solana, and Ethereum handled billions of dollars in the same period. This performance is primarily because of their meme coins, which are dominating the crypto industry this year.

One metric to look at when analyzing a crypto project is the amount of stablecoins in the ecosystem. Data shows that Cardano has just $30 million in stablecoins, a tiny amount considering that the industry has over $245 billion. 

Read more: Charles Hoskinson’s Cardano and the $11 billion crypto ghost chain

Consensus event this week

The next important catalyst for the Cardano price will be the coming Consensus event in Toronto, since Charles Hoskinson will be a top speaker. 

Hoskinson will likely focus his talk on the ongoing process of integrating Bitcoin into the Cardano ecosystem, which he believes is a game-changer. 

BitcoinOS has already demoed a transaction moving a Bitcoin transaction through the network, and it now hopes to roll it out on a large scale.

Cardano believes that this integration will be a game-changer as it will enable Bitcoin staking through a zero-knowledge approach. When fully implemented, it will enable BTC holders to lend and stake the coin.

While this is a good progress, the reality is that solutions to stake Bitcoin already exist. For example, Babylon Protocol offers a similar service and has already attracted 49,560 BTC worth over $5.15 billion. 

Lombard Finance offers LBTC, a liquid, yield-bearing coin backed by Bitcoin. It has over 114,000 holders, and it enables users to stake Bitcoin.

Cardano price technical analysis

The daily chart shows that the ADA price has bounced back from a low of $0.5093 to $0.81 today. It has formed an inverse head and shoulders pattern, and moved above the 50-day and 100-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMA). 

Cardano has moved to the highest swing since March 7. It has also rallied above the descending trendline that connects some of the highest swings since December last year. 

Therefore, despite its ecosystem challenges, there is a likelihood that the Cardano price will continue rising as bulls target the 2024 high of $1.3265, up by 63% from its current level. A drop below the descending trendline will invalidate the bullish outlook.