ADA Rallies 6% – Is This the Start of a Major Cardano Bull Run?

The past few weeks have seen a very encouraging move for Cardano (ADA) which has gained 19% in seven days. Currently ADA is trading for USD $0.4512 (AUD $0.6901) as data from CoinMarketCap reveals.

Weak Hands Selling to Strong Hands

Market intelligence platform Santiment reports that the rise shows ADA outperforming the general crypto market, which saw a decline on Wednesday. According to their data, the number of total addresses holding ADA is decreasing, which is generally a positive indicator. This trend suggests that smaller investors are exiting the market, usually selling their holdings to larger investors, many times at a loss. These holdings are then often scooped up by larger, more committed investors (known as “whales” or “strong hands”), who may be more likely to hold onto their investments for the long term.

1st Cardano ecosystem bull run in history?

Dan Gambardello, of Crypto Capital Venture, a YouTube channel with 345k subscribers took to Twitter to muse about a potential ADA bull run. Amid his excitement and optimism for the potential growth of the Cardano ecosystem, he said the top 20 Cardano native tokens have a combined market cap of around USD $850 million (AUD $1.3 billion), which he contrasts with Ethereum’s top 20 tokens totalling about USD $235 billion (AUD $359 billion), even before the next bull market.

Gambardello drew parallels between Cardano in 2023 and Ethereum in 2020, suggesting that Cardano is setting up for a significant surge. He considers it realistic that the top 20 Cardano native tokens could reach a USD $100 billion (AUD $153 billion) market cap in the next bull market. Emphasising his cautious approach to altcoin investment, he still sees a potential for 50-100x growth in this area – however, this won’t happen overnight.

The time horizon on this is 1 – 2 years, and keep in mind, there are many incredible plays that are not even live on Cardano yet.

Dan Gambardello

Gambardello speculates that if the total crypto market cap reaches USD $10 trillion (AUD $15.3 trillion) in the next bull cycle, the top 20 Cardano tokens could account for 1% of this, totalling $100 billion (AUD $153 billion). He views this estimate as both realistic and conservative, citing Cardano’s position as a secure and decentralised platform.

Cardano, often criticised for its slow approach, is certainly a promising blockchain. However, in the time it took to build, the competition didn’t sit idle. Projects like Solana, Avalanche, ChainLink and even much newer ones which are still entering the market show very promising developments. While it remains to be seen if Cardano can perform as Gambardello predicts, the blockchain has solid fundamentals, a long-term horizon and a strong community, with one of the highest staking rates.